So, as we have been reading the Gospel of Matthew for most of the month of August, one of them has stood out for me.
If any of you have listened to the sermon on the 23rd, you will know that this is the one!, “Who do they say I am?” and better yet who do you say I am?
It may be that I am stretching it some here, but here goes.
I have been reading a lot this summer and one of the books I just finished is Christianity Beyond Belief, Following Jesus for the sake of others by Todd D. Hunter. In it he talks a lot of the Christian community, what does it mean, and what does it mean to us or you?
One of the comparisons he makes is to first responders, how they are trained to run towards a crisis instead of away from it. When we see them in action on the news we might think as Hunter says “Wow, they are really living in their story; they are faithfully acting their part.” They respond for the sake of others; they are models for how the ambassadors of the kingdom of God should respond to the world.
I think God would envision something like that for the church. N. T. Wright said this “God’s covenant purpose was to choose a people in and through whom the world would be healed. That purpose, reaching its climax in the Messiah, is now to be worked out through his people”. So, the question is who are God’ s people?
What exactly is the Church?
The church is not someplace you go; it is a community, a group you participate in. Anyone who has played a sport of any kind understands that the team meets together for “practice. ” That’s what our Sunday meetings are, or the book group, they are for the teams to prepare to play the game. Remember the meetings are not the game. Christianity- following Jesus- is not lived, is not fully expressed, within the walls of the church building but in the daily routines of our lives.
If I asked you to draw on a napkin your vision of the church, I would bet that it would be a square with a pointed roof and a cross on top? Right?
What if instead, you made a bunch of stick people, doing mission work, making meals, or sewing blankets, or better yet figures of different sizes, sexes, colors getting along, working together? What would that look like?
So, what would people say about us? What do people say about us? Better yet what do you say? If Jesus were here, would he be proud of the church we built?
I hope we all can start living our faith in the open community and not just within the walls of the building we are calling Church.
Your servant in and to Christ,
Pastor Kerry