LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART IX
Chuck Colson rose to fame when he became Special Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. He fell from grace when he was named one of the Watergate Seven in 1973. He went to prison for that, yet while he was there, he became a Christian. He rose to become one of the most influential Christians of his generation. He founded a ministry called Prison Fellowship, and came to host a radio program called Break Point. He died this past April.
Many years ago, Chuck Colson told a story on his radio program that I’ve never forgotten. It went something like this. Once upon a time, there was a Baptist church that really wanted to grow. The research indicated that in order to grow, they needed a prime location. So they built a great big, brand-new building right next to an exit ramp on an interstate…and they began to grow. The research indicated that in order to grow, they needed a new name because a lot of people had preconceived notions about the Baptist denomination. So they changed their name from The First Baptist Church to The First Community Church…and they grew a little more.
The research indicated that in order to grow, they needed to change some of the words they used. A lot of people were uncomfortable with words like sin and confession, justification and sanctification. So they eliminated those words from the pulpit vernacular, and they grew a little more. In the end, they had a great big church that was filled to the rafters every Sunday morning…and not a single transformed soul. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
This is the ninth in a series of sermons entitled, Living This Side of the Cross. The thesis of the series is pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus, our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.
We talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth. We said that the kingdom is here…but not fully here. Thus, could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? While we live in a throw-away society these days, perhaps there are some things we should not throw away. After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.
We talked about living a worthy life. A worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed in community. Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer. You see, God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us. We see God acting in the world today when we witness the heartfelt convictions of those who serve him.
We encountered what we called Paul’s roadmap through the cosmos. He tells us who we are and where we are going as Christians. We are blessed by God, chosen in Christ, destined for adoption, bestowed grace, lavished forgiveness, made to know the will of God through Christ, and gathered up to God in the end. We are precious children of God – created in the image of God – and destined for eternal life. Do not let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
We noted how Paul refers to us as saints. Paul deliberately chooses a word that identifies us not by what we do for God, but rather, by what God does for us. He is retraining our imaginations to understand ourselves not in terms of how we feel about ourselves, and certainly not in terms of how others feel about us, but rather, he is retraining our imaginations to understand how God feels about us. In God’s eyes, we are saints. In God’s eyes…we are holy.
We discovered that God bestows grace to sinners like us. Yet the grace of God is a lot like water to a swimmer. It seems as though there is no way it could possibly support us. So like the swimmer, we have to lean forward, lift up our legs, and let ourselves go. To coin a phrase, we need to learn to let go…and let God.
We learned that the church is the gift of Christ to the world. Yet there is more to the church than meets the eye. The church is not just bricks and mortar. The church is not just a collection of faithful people. The church is the body of Christ in the world. And it is through the church – and only through the church – that Christ bestows his peace upon us.
Last week we discussed what Jesus Christ came to earth to accomplish. He established the church and gave it a commission. That commission is to make God’s wisdom known to the world. What is God’s wisdom? We see God’s wisdom when we possess inscape. Inscape is the capacity to see the God in everything. Inscape is the ability to put on the eyes of God and see the world as God sees the world.
I talked earlier about a Baptist church that wanted to grow. One of the things they did was to eliminate words from the pulpit vernacular that made people uncomfortable…words like sin and confession, justification and sanctification. And in the end, they had a great big church that was filled to the rafters every Sunday morning…and not a single transformed soul.
Why are people uncomfortable with words like sin, confession, justification and sanctification? Take the time to actually listen to the language we use on a daily basis. Language can be used in a variety of ways: to name things, to describe actions, to provide information, to command specific behaviors, to tell the truth, and to tell lies. Language can be used to curse, and language can be used to bless. Language is incredibly and endlessly versatile. But in our technological, consumer-oriented world, most of the words we say and use have little or no relational depth to them at all. Our language typically deals with a world of things, activities, machines and ideas.
More often than not, the words we use are in the context of the roles we are given to play: students, consumers, employers, workers, competitors…all of whom could just as well be – and often are – nameless. Gradually our instinct for intimacy erodes, and along with it the very capacity for intimacy. As language becomes impersonal, the world becomes depersonalized. And by the time we decide to get married, we hardly even know how to say, “I love you,” so we go out and buy a Hallmark card to do it for us.
Listen to this. I recently heard a comedian talk about buying a Hallmark card for his wife on their 10th wedding anniversary. The card started off quite well: “Roses are red, violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, and so are you.” But he didn’t read the rest of the card. When he gave the card to his wife, she read it…and then she began to laugh. He said to her, “What’s the problem?” She showed him that at the end of the card it read, “I will love you forever; the rest of my life. I am so very glad, you made me your wife.” The lesson here is clear. If you’re going to express yourself by way of a Hallmark card, read the whole card! Or, do what you can to learn the language of intimacy yourself.
Paul is doing his level best to teach the Ephesians the language of intimacy. The way he does so is by praying for them. Yet listen to how Eugene Peterson describes the kind of prayer Paul tries to teach. He writes:
Prayer is not getting in touch with your true self, as is so often said. It is the practice of shifting preoccupation away from yourself toward attentiveness and responsiveness to God. It is a deliberate walking away from a me-centered way of life to a Christ-centered way of life. It is certainly true that in weakness and thirst and desperation we reach out to God, but the larger and more encompassing reality is that God is already reaching out to us. Prayer has its origin in the movement of God toward us.
Let me try to simplify. Imagine you’re stranded in a raft at sea. You come across an island, and with the rope you fortunately have at your disposal, you lasso a large rock on that island. You pull on the rope and quickly find yourself on shore. The question is: Did you use the rope to pull the island toward you, or did you use the rope to pull yourself toward the island? The answer is…you used the rope to pull yourself toward the island.
Prayer is a lot like that. The more we pray, the more we pull ourselves toward God. As someone once said, “Prayer does not change God. Prayer changes us.” And it is through prayer that Paul tries to teach the Ephesians the language of intimacy. Truth be told, we all love to be prayed for. The question is: Do we know how to pray? I think Paul would be comfortable with me telling you that if you want to learn how to pray, read the book of Psalms. The Psalms are the church’s textbook on prayer. Read them…and you will learn how to pray.
Now let me back up for a second here. Paul is not addressing the individual in the book of Ephesians. Paul is addressing the church in the book of Ephesians. He is trying to teach them how to grow up in Christ through the church. For it is only through the church that one can begin to grow up in Christ. And in order to understand church, we must immerse ourselves in the God-revealing vocabulary – and the prayer-saturated language – that Paul gives us.
Paul concludes our passage using these words: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.” “In the church” and “in Christ Jesus” are synonymous. Why? Because the church, Paul says, is the BODY of Christ.
Think about this. How do we refer to Jesus Christ from a theological standpoint? We say that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. We say that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine. We call the church the body of Christ. Can we not thus infer – from a theological standpoint – that the church must also be both human and divine?
When the church fails to embrace the divinity of Christ as its own imputed divinity – that it has God’s forgiveness and justification, love and sanctification – it betrays its core identity as Christ’s body. And when the church fails to embrace the humanity of Christ as its own humanity – personal, local, earthy and humble – it betrays its core identity as the dwelling place of God. In other words, when the divinity of the church is slighted, the “human” fills the vacuum. We get a religion of splendid music, dazzling architecture, and intellectually competent – but prayerless – theology. The movement of God is ignored.
When the humanity of the church is slighted, a fake divinity replaces it and we get a spirituality that is mostly about us…with eternal souls to save and spiritual tasks to perform. We get a church full of Bible studies and programs and dreams and visions. But we also get a church that is curiously void of human relationships and intimacy.
The church is the body of Christ in the world. And like Jesus Christ, Paul is telling us that the church is both human and divine. The church is not where we come to get our needs met, it is where we come to encounter God. And the church is not where we come just to hear about God, it is where we come to build kingdom relationships. That’s what it means to grow up in Christ.
Many years ago, I served a church in Luverne, Minnesota. There I had a mentor – a minister who was quite a bit older than I was – by the name of Gordon Bloomendaal. How’s that for a good Dutch name? He’s the one who taught me the phrase, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much!” Gordon Bloomendaal was the minister in the American Reformed Church just up the street from me.
Gordon’s wife, Barb, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when she was in her mid-fifties. She died at the age of 60. At the calling hours at the funeral home – a time when people generally come to support the bereaved – it was Gordon who ended up propping up the members of his congregation. One man, going through the line, actually said to Gordon, “You know, I think God gave Barb this disease to teach us how to love.”
When Gordon told me that, I found it a bit offensive. Gordon said, “No. He’s right. It did teach the congregation how to love.” In any case, that congregation wrapped its arms around its minister, and wrapped its arms around one another, in a way that was truly both human and divine. In that event, I saw a congregation proclaim the resurrection and proclaim their love for one another. In that event, I saw a congregation that was truly both human and divine…if only for a while.
The question now is, “Why does it take a tragedy for us to grasp who we were meant to be?” Well, the church isn’t perfect. Like I said before, “The kingdom is here, but not fully here.” Perhaps we should do what we can to grasp both the human and the divine elements of the church. Perhaps we should do what we can to heed the word of God and to build relationships with one another. And, perhaps we should try to do so…even when we’re not in the throes of grief. Amen.
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