What would the ideal church be like? A friendly place, but not too friendly, where the bills always got paid without having to harangue people for money, where the music was uplifting and the preacher inspiring and the liturgy perfect and the space transcendent? I’ve always wanted to go to a church with an espresso machine, but maybe that’s a secret desire to sit in a coffee shop sipping a latte and reading a newspaper on Sunday morning.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles (probably Luke) had a clear idea of what church should be like. It should fit his description of the early Christian community: signs and wonders, equal sharing of possessions, a joy-filled community highly regarded by everyone – a kind of Pentecostal Communism. People flocked to be part of this church.
Luke’s rose-colored glasses must have had a strong tint. We know from the Apostle Paul, who wrote earlier than Luke, that early churches had factions and bickering and carousers and liturgical police. In fact, they sound a lot like a modern congregation. Instead of disagreements over whether we should eat meat offered to idols, we now argue over the setting of the thermostat. Well, perhaps that’s overstated; I haven’t yet met anyone whose salvation depended on the temperature setting. (I have seen people who almost met their Maker after the junior warden caught them tampering with a thermostat.)
Curiously, we have taken Luke’s optimistic language into our baptismal covenant. “Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” Luke wrote. We still promise to continue to do the same, “with God’s help.”
We know what the ideal should be. It is just as obvious that we fall short of it. We don’t always help those in need. Our possessions often possess us. We forget to praise God. And more and more, being “Christian” is associated with being judgmental rather than accepting, so that Christian communities no longer are highly regarded by everyone. Sometimes churches are just a muddled mess.
Maybe that’s why a latte sounds so appealing some Sunday mornings. No need to deal with the muddle. But it’s also why church is important. Reading the newspaper doesn’t challenge me; people do. I cannot grow without challenge. I cannot know God without seeing God in others, and others seeing God in me. I cannot know Jesus without the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
So I show up every Sunday morning, hoping that the bills have been paid, and do my part to make the preaching inspiring and the liturgy perfect. Am I always successful? No. But at least I have tried my best, with God’s help. And that, after all, is what God asks us to do.
[Fourth Sunday of Easter: Acts 2:42-47. Yes, I know it is Good Shepherd Sunday, but did you really want to hear about sheep?]
Friday, May 13, 2011
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4 comments:
Your mention of an espresso machine reminds me that the Chaplaincy where I serve had a fancy espresso cart for some years, and I think it was put to good use. After a while, though, it sat forlornly in a corner, and got sold to a church in Des Moines. I don't know whether it's being used now.
Church thermostats: A church I used to serve had a dummy thermostat in the nave. From the organ gallery in the back, it was a regular source of amusement to watch people fiddling with it.
The real thermostat was well-hidden, and under lock and key.
I wonder about the part where we're to give all our possessions to the church, divide them among the community, and live a shared life. That's always been of much greater concern to me than the temperature of the building. What would life be like if we really did that?
Is it hopelessly idyllic and simple-minded? Or could it work? Does it always have to wind up like David Koresh or others like him through the ages? What would we need to change in us as humans to be able to live that sort of life in common with others, sharing not just our worldly goods but the overarching purpose of praising God?
From what I understand, churches in countries where poverty is common come closest to the Lukan ideal. When people have few possessions, they seem to be more willing to share the little they have with those who have even less.
Was the flowering of intentional communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries an outcome of reading Acts? Given that many were religiously based, probably so. But I am not enough of a religious historian to say for sure. (My dad could have told me!)
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