Tuesday, January 13, 2015

THE IDEAL VERSUS THE REAL

He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial… Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.       Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have experienced some wonderful expressions of Christian community.  A group of us at college found such life and joy together that we gathered every day after classes to pray and study the Bible.  God was so present, so real.  Likewise while I was serving in the Army Barb and I found sweet fellowship among fellow soldiers and their families, but God had even more in store for us.  Just days after moving into base housing, while on our way to buy groceries in a nearby town, we saw the sign, “Jesus People Meet Here”.  We showed up on Sunday and met a group of Jesus People, complete with long hair, a van painted with flowers, and guitars (only organs and pianos were considered proper back then in church).  We just couldn't seem to get enough worship and fellowship on base with our Army friends, or off base with our hippie friends.  Our homes were open, and we gladly shared what we had.  There was not a Saturday that we went to preach in the county jail that someone didn't get saved, even while men at the back of the cell made fun of them.
Those times were a gift from God, and it is right for me to cherish them, but the memory of them has tripped me up in recent years.  I keep looking for that same beautiful feeling of community.  I keep trying to find or create a church experience that will match what we had back then.  Maybe if we were in a small church.  Maybe if we held church in homes.  Maybe if we did away with bulletins and an order of worship, and we just let the Spirit lead us.  Maybe if…  The reality is, though, I never will find what I am looking for, because the ideal that I hold is not real and it never was.  If I am honest with myself I will realize that there were undercurrents and problems back then just as there are now.  There was hidden sin.  There was gossip.  There was competition.  There was all that my (now) more mature/ discerning eyes see in every church and every Christian organization that I am and ever have been a part of.
So, what is wrong with the church?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe church as you and I experience it is truly the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  After all, what is the church?  It is as Dietrich Bonhoeffer states above a spiritual reality.  It is made up of every truly born again man and woman on earth, and local churches are simply communities of these believers.  When we are born again we become as Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:17 a new creation.  But if we stop here, we will have an incomplete picture of the kind of people who make up churches.  We will expect every member to always act like the Jesus of the Bible – after all, are we not born again into His image?  Yes, but that is not all we are.  Along with being a new creation in Christ Jesus, we are also still men and women in the flesh, with an old nature to deal with.  Paul gets very honest about his old nature in Romans 7:21, where he states that, “evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.”  This reminds me of those cartoons, where someone is pictured with an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other.  Keeping this in mind will help us accept the “real” churches we all attend.  Reality is that none of us lives completely out of our new natures. 
So, as we walk into church on Sunday, or meet with friends from church, what should be our attitude and our expectations?  Firstly I think we all need to approach our relationships in church with humility.  I’m still very prone to live out of my old nature, and that means I will need your forgiveness, your patience, and your understanding.  It also means that you will need to be honest with me from time to time, and tell me when you see something un-Christ like in my behavior.  (Please do it gently and in love.)  You see, I need you, and you need me.  God has given us each a piece of what is needed to make church work and be a healthy place.  Together we have what we all need.  Though at times it might seem like it would be easier to just go it on our own, that will not work. The life of my Lord Jesus is in you, and that life flows to me when I am with you.  Wow, I better respect, honor, and value you! 

Real church is always a mixed bag, and if you are in it long, you will be hurt and knocked around a bit - or maybe a lot.  But cheer up, it won’t be long until Jesus comes and finishes in us what He began.  We will leave behind these bodies of flesh, leave behind what remains of our sin nature, and be fully conformed into His image.  Then “real” church will be really great, my ideal and yet SO much more.