For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Ephesians 1:15-23)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
It's been said that the only things in this world that never change are the things that are already dead. Which makes me wonder sometimes why the church is so resistant to change. Ongoing change is a sign of life. When we're willing to do things in new ways and try new things and take some chances we also show that we're alive. Which we should be. We're the body of Christ – and we believe that Christ Himself is alive and well. There's a lot of talk going on in the church of the modern world about what the future holds for the church. To a lot of people, it doesn't look very bright. We worry about attendance, we worry about membership, we worry about finances. When we start to feel overwhelmed by the problems we face, we're tempted to “circle the wagons” so to speak, and simply hang on for dear life in the face of the challenges that confront us. And when we do that, it's so easy for us to lose sight of what we're about; of what's important; of what really matters; of what makes us the church. And we end up all too often not looking like the church. We become a religious club, that talks a lot but believes very little. Or we become a fund-raising organization whose goal is simply to find the money to hang on for a little while longer. Either way, we drain the life of the gospel out of ourselves. But it's something the church has always struggled with.
Did you know that today is Reformation Sunday? Protestants mark this day (the last Sunday in October) to honour the reformers of the church of long ago – people such as Martin Luther, who saw a church that was becoming a shadow of itself – rife with internal corruption and squabbling; consumed with money and power; quickly losing sight of the gospel and of the example of Christ – and decided that something had to be done. Luther probably didn't expect or want his ideas to actually split the church. If Luther had had his way, we'd probably all be celebrating Mass today in a reformed Roman Catholic Church. But whether things turned out the way he wanted them to or not, he did identify the problem – a lack of focus by the church on Christ and gospel, with the things of the world – money and power – substituting for them. Almost 500 years after Luther's death – what would he think of those of us who stand at least partially within his legacy? Would he be pleased, or would he immediately set out on another project of reformation? I wonder.
In Ephesians we read that “he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” You see, for all the challenges we face and as much as it sometimes feels as if we're living in a constant, never-ending whirlpool of change in the society around us, one of the great ironies is that they key to reformation for the church is the One about whom Scripture declared “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
How can the one who never changes be the engine for change in the church? The reformers of the church all understood that unless their reforms were founded on the unchanging Jesus Christ, nothing they did would work. Even the opponents of Jesus knew that. As the chief priests and rabbis watched the movement around Jesus begin to grow and they debated how to stop it, the best advice they received was from a rabbi named Gamaliel, who said basically, “leave it alone. If it's of God it can't be stopped. If it's not of God it won't go anywhere.” He was a wise man. The key to reformation in the church is to follow the unchanging Jesus Christ – simply because He cannot be stopped. We get so consumed by our fights and our arguments and our disagreements and our debates and our doctrinal differences. But why? Whatever the issue is that gets us upset - if it's of God it can't be stopped, and if it's not of God it won't succeed. So why don't we just be the church.
The church in whatever form it exists at whatever point in time and in whatever place might be stopped. It might decline. It might even die. But from death always comes resurrection, and if we are the body of Christ, as Ephesians declares, then we have nothing to fear about the future. I get so distressed sometimes when I hear the laments about the future of the church – because those laments are so un-gospel, even anti-gospel. They're based on hopelessness. They're based on the feeling that nothing can ever get better. They're based on the idea that the church is on a one-way death spiral with no way to get out of it. But what is that? That's hopelessness. And why should we be hopeless? Why should we as a church (and I'm not talking just about us – I'm talking about the entire church) be so afraid of what the future holds. We follow Jesus, who died and was resurrected! What is there to fear? Why should there be fear? When you follow a living Lord who never changes, why should there be anything other than hope?
Sometimes I get asked by people, “what's the biggest challenge facing the church today?” And people expect me to respond with something like, “declining attendance,” or “aging membership,” or “increasing deficits.” None of which are the stuff that the church is really about; none of which come even close to defining what the biggest challenge facing the church is. Those are worldly concerns; worldly measures of success or failure, of health or sickness. But the church's well-being can't be judged in worldly terms. No way. It just can't be. Now if I say this at a meeting, I'll be immediately told that “we have to run the church like a business.” Excuse me? No – we don't. That's not what the church is. A simple look at the cross reminds us that it's not about profit and loss, surplus or deficit. The church's well-being is judged on whether or not we're faithfully fulfilling our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ. Are we growing into Christ-likeness. Are we doing his ministry. Are we not concerned about what the results seem to be right now, but are we simply doing what God calls us to do – which is not looking out for our own survival, but which is faithfully giving of ourselves and even sacrificing ourselves completely if that's what we're called to. Because that's what Jesus did! Jesus gave himself completely to the point of crucifixion and death; the church too often fights to save itself and stay alive for a few more years. Where's the proclamation of the gospel in that, I wonder? The biggest challenge facing the church today is hopelessness. It's a lack of trust in the gospel. It's the inability to believe that there's nothing to fear, simply because there is Christ, and that no matter what happens to us, we will overcome – simply because Christ overcame.
The great reformers of the church, from Martin Luther onward, knew that for the church to truly be the church it would constantly have to risk itself rather than try to save itself, if only because “whoever tries to save their life will lose it, but whoever gives their life for Christ's sake will gain it.” And they knew that they followed a living Lord who constantly challenged society, who constantly pushed the people of God out of their comfort zones, who confidently faced those who opposed Him and stood firm in His determination to do the will of God at whatever cost. They followed a Lord who stood out in the crowd, and they were willing to stand up and be counted too!
If we want the church to be constantly reforming – which we have to be if we want to remain at all relevant to the fast-changing society around us – then the key for us is to do what Jesus did. Stand out in the crowd and stand up for God. Stand with those who so desperately need to know the love of God. Why did Jesus attract so much negative attention? Why was He crucified? Why did He die? He was a friend to tax collectors and Romans and prostitutes and children and women – all the people who stood at the bottom of society's pile. And He loved them – no matter what society thought. He simply loved them. He didn't care what it cost Him to do that. He just loved them. He only cared what He gave to others by doing that. And then there's the church. The body of Christ – but so often filled not with love but with judgment.
“Jesus Led Me All The Way” was what we heard sung earlier in our service. The question for me is not whether Jesus leads. It's whether we're actually willing to pay the price involved in following, or whether we're just interested in getting by for as long as we can. As a reformed and still reforming church – that's the key to our own reformation and to our own future!
No comments:
Post a Comment