“Church: Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral” Ephesians 2: 11-22
So
where does the church fit? Is it animal,
vegetable, or mineral? What category
does it fit in our lives? I go to church
because it does…what?
Three
weeks ago, I stood before the Disaster Case Managers of the Middlesex County
Long Term Recovery Group and laid out for them a grant funded Mental Health
services package in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I referred to what I do as a “Spiritual
Health Professional”.
I
was trying to connect on some level with the ‘mental health professionals’ and
the ‘social services professionals’ who were gathered in the room.
That
got me to thinking. A “Spiritual Health
Professional” makes the church seem like a therapy site. You go to church to get right with God, to
feel good about yourself, to take care of some deeply ingrained voice in your
head says “Go”, you go to make your spirit right.
In
other words, being a “Spiritual health professional” makes church, the place I
work from, the agency for providing spiritual health. And while spiritual health is an important
component of ministry, it is not what defines ministry by any means.
The
idea of “I go to church” puts the church in the same category as “I go to the
store”, or, “I go to school”, or, “I go to work”, or, “I go to the
movies.” Each of these is a choice,
tying a personal need or desire to the place where you can get it done or taken
care of, whether it be a survival need, a professional need, an entertainment
need, whatever. That place fulfills this
need.
Contrast
that to the fact that we don’t say, “I am going to my family.” Well, unless we’re taking about “the family”
in the Godfather movies or on the Sopranos or something. We don’t talk about going to our friends
either.
Instead, “we ARE family”, “we ARE
friends”, that is the descriptive. And I
would suggest that “we ARE church” is much closer to the truth.
You know, you can flip this. The attitude that church is somehow supposed
to satisfy my needs can be the exact reason why some HATE the church. One of the chief complaints I hear leveled
against the church is that “They just want money.” In that statement, the complainer presupposes
that the church is not beholden to his or her own needs, but instead bows to
the needs and desires of someone else, in this case, for the money. A similar complaint is that they don’t go to
church because the church is “just going to try and control them.” Again, this presumes that there is a human
motivation behind what the problems in the church.
How do we answer that?
Consider our Scripture this
morning. In the church in Ephesus, there
are two distinct groups that are vying for domination of the church. Paul is trying to bring them together. These groups are the Yangs and the Coms, the
Jews and the Gentiles, the distinction being made is between those who are
circumcised and those who are not circumcised.
But what is really at stake behind the argument? I mean besides being circumcised in the first
place.
What is in play here is the
understanding of the law of Moses.
Circumcision is commanded under the law of Moses as something that must
be done to be accepted by God. Jesus, as
a circumcised Jew, is taken by the Jews of this church as the proof for their
argument. Jesus, as “one of their own”, shows
that they are obedient unto the law of Moses, therefore, by definition,
superior to THOSE PEOPLE who don’t circumcise. If the Gentiles want on board,
they better get on board with the law of Moses.
On the other hand, there are the
Gentiles. They are not circumcised, not
subject to the law of Moses, not of the people of Jesus-the Jews-but that is their very strength. Because Jesus freed them from the
restrictions of the law of Moses. Jesus
freed them from a lifestyle dependent on living by all the rules. They live instead under the promise of grace
and love as preached, taught, and lived by Jesus. Jesus is one of their own because of the
gospel of freedom that he shared. And if
Jews want to get on board, they better get on board with the liberation of
Jesus.
What does this passage have to do
with the concern that the church is a vendor of religious services? How does it address what the church should be
instead of being something that provides what I am going to pick and choose?
What it does give us, I believe,
is true insight into the real nature of Christ and the Church.
Consider the following
verses. Verse 13: In Christ Jesus you
who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Or verse 16, He might reconcile us, both
circumcised and uncircumcised, to God in one body through the cross. And verses 20-21, Christ Jesus himself, being
the cornerstone in whom the whole structure (of the church is) being joined
together, grows into a Holy Temple of the Lord.”
And the takeaway verse is
22. In him you also are being built
together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
What the circumcision party and
the uncircumcision party have in common with people today is that each is
seeking to impose what we believe on what the church should be. Even when there are people who don’t like the
church, their reasons again are what they assume the church is doing badly.
And when we do that, we have
missed entirely the reason for our church, our faith, and everything. What we’ve done is get church backwards. Because church is not about what God can do
for us, or what we think God can do for us, or what we believe the church is
not doing in God’s service.
Rather, the church is the conduit
of God’s desire for us to be reunited with him from a life of sin and
death. Sin separated us from the love of
God and what God wants for us is to be brought back into communion with the one
who created us.
See the message repeated in
Ephesians, by Christ’s blood we are brought near to God once more, by the cross
we are reconciled, Christ is the cornerstone of the Holy Temple that we,
together, are being built into-not by our hands, but by God.
Paul has the best line in this
passage. He says that Jesus is our peace
by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.”
Golly, what does that mean?
It means that any set of
ordinances, any set of rules, any set of desires, any set that we humans create
that will limit or pigeonhole or direct God into our own direction is abolished
in Christ. And all these things are
abolished so that Jesus might be our peace.
What are some practical examples
of these ordinances that God has abolished in Jesus. They might go along with questions like “How am
I supposed to dress? How am I supposed
to behave? How are other people supposed
to treat me? What is supposed to happen
in worship, or PW, or Youth Group, or Sunday School, or whatever? Or, my favorite, Why are we changing this?
(the real statement implied is But we’ve always done it this way.)
Verse 22. In Jesus you also are being built together
into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Perhaps I can paraphrase John F.
Kennedy, “Ask not what your God can do for you, ask instead what you can do for
your God.”
The church is not animal,
vegetable, or mineral. It is not
something we can put into human categories.
It is not the place where we can come and impose our ideals about what
God is supposed to be and supposed to do.
It is not the place where we come to feel good about something we want
to feel good about.
Rather, it is the place where the
broken people of the world can come to repair their relationship with God. God is building us into His dwelling
place. That building starts when we
realize that we are lost and alone and cry out to Jesus for help. That help was given to us in the Resurrection
of Jesus. Everything we have suffered
went to the grave with Jesus and rose again to newness with Jesus.
We say “we are going to church”
when God’s reality is that “we are church”.
And the church is the dwelling place of God in our midst. When we say “we are church”, we are saying
“we are God’s”. And when we are God’s,
there is nothing that can separate us from Him.
Church is not about what we want from it. It is about what God wants from it. And what God wants is for all his children to
be safe in his arms.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment