A Bit Disgruntled

This morning, I went to Sunday service in hopes of recieving, in the homily, a message that would prepare me for the Lent Season. Instead, we had a guest speaker who ended up preaching a political agenda. This, of course, disgruntled me and I'm posting this in hopes to become "gruntled" once again.

The title of the sermon was "Power in the Desert," and the text for the sermon was based upon Luke 4:1-13; Jesus' wilderness temptations. As the sermon began, the guest minster was following the text quite nicely (for about 10 minutes), and then suddenly took a turn into left field. In this turn, we heard about several experiences in foriegn countries (one of which was Iraq), where this minister had spent a certain amount of time. Most of these experiences involved abused children who either had to beg for food, or were injured by land mines, wars, etc. These things were communicated in such a way that the audience was "encouraged" to be a part of the solution to bring hope. This was actually the last thirty or forty minutes of the sermon. While no organizations were mentioned in the sermon, it was quite obvious that many groups were refered to without being named and many organizations were meant to come to mind in the description of several actual events.

Granted I think it is a tragedy that these things occur in the world, and the Christian community should certainly participate in the solution of such things, but what does all this have to do with Jesus being tempted in the wilderness? What does all this have to do with Luke 4:1-13? I was very put off by this sermon, and to be frank, let down. While this may be selfish on my part, I went to this Sunday service in hopes of preparing my mind and heart for the Lent season and instead I was informed of an agenda that I, as a Christian, should participate in. I left the service angry and complained most of the way home. In some ways, I suppose this is perhaps a confession since I should have just let it go and not been angry, but on the other hand I think I was justified in my anger. While these things have a place in our Christian lives and churches, I do not think that a Sunday morning Lent service is the pace to push a political agenda. Am I wrong in thinking this? What do you think?

Worship: Have We Lost Our Theological Identity?

In the last few years of church searching, too often I experienced worship services that seem to communicate a two-fold idea. First, several services we attended demonstrated that worship benefits us by giving us something. Perhaps the thinking in this type of service believed that worship puts God into motion to act on our behalf. Or maybe in this framework of worship was performed to make us feel closer to God, help us be encouraged for the upcoming week. Whatever the case may be, whenever we experienced this type of worship service it bothered me to the core. This is in fact is not worship at all, unless one is attempting to worship an idea or perhaps self – a type of unintentional narcissism. Whatever the case may be, too often we experienced this type of service.

The second idea of this two fold idea in church worship services is what I like to call the self-help worship. This is where the service is geared toward making those in the church and especially those unchurched more comfortable about themselves. In these worship services sermons were geared to communicate to the listener that we are not bad people. Sin is absent in their homilies. Rather we are to learn how we can live through adversity, or how we can improve our financial status, etc. The attention is on self and not God. In fact, there is actually no semblance of worshipping God in these services at all. These are the services that were so bad I would get up and leave in the middle of them.

Now, in writing these above things, I am not intentionally trying to be a pessimist, I simply believe these churches have lost touch with true worship and have turn, perhaps, to the world to set the tone for their church services. I say this because most, if not all, of these churches have campaigns to bring the unchurched into their services. In my humble opinion, this was never the intent of the church or the intent of worship. Therefore, when these things are performed, there is a loss of meaningful ecclesiological theology, the shape of liturgy is distorted, and the focus of the worship is not God. How can we possibly call this worship? Moreover, if the above things are becoming the norm, how do we redirect the landscape of the church back to a more sound theological worshipping community?

I think this at least begins with an ecclesiology that is grounded in good theology and a better understanding of what it means to be a worshipping community. This is, as Church History shows us, the underlying ordo of worship. Simon Chan confirms this in his work when he declares, “. . . a coherent theology of the church that pays particular attention to the liturgical practices that have constituted Christian worship throughout the centuries” is what is needed in churches today. Therefore, this will be the focus of the last few posts I present here on the issue of worship.

The Church: A Simple Beginning (Part Two)

The church is the body of Christ. As Simon Chan has pointed out in his work Liturgical Theology, “The church is the divine-humanity by virtue of its being the body of Christ.” Moreover, “body of Christ” is more than a mere metaphor. The church is the reality of Christ here now, post resurrection. Therefore, it can be said that those who witness the body of Christ, witness Christ, the Head. However, Christ is not the body nor is the body Christ, Christ is the Head, but Christ is demonstrated through the body, thus it can be said that Christ is seen in and through the body (i.e. the church). Moreover, Christ is presented to the church post-resurrection through Word and sacrament.

The church should never be confused with a single place or structure. Often we use the terms church building, church home, or place of worship, to indicate “the church.” These things are not the church as body of Christ. The church is not a building per se it is not a denomination either. The church as body is made up of individual Christians collectively gathered and united across the world in one body with Christ as its Head. The unity that we as the body of Christ have is demonstrated in the sacraments. This is especially seen in the Eucharist, where we collectively participate in the body and blood of Christ. This is ecclesial communion.

The church as body of Christ is more than merely a collected group of baptized people who are obedient to the Word of God, a very Western view of church. Rather, as Tillard points out in Flesh of the Church, the church is “communion united by the Eucharistic body.” Chan confirms this by declaring, “When the church is understood as essentially communion in and of the body of Christ, the primary focus of the ecclesial life is not church hierarchy but koinonia characterized by agape.” This ecclesial life is collectively demonstrated not only in our worship as we gather together, but extends to our lives as we live in the world demonstrating the love of Christ.

The Church: A Simple Beginning (Part One)

The kick off this series on worship I thought it was necessary to simplify matters. The basis of any complete understanding of worship begins with ecclesiology; better yet, the ontology of the Church. Rather than diving into deep theological waters I would like to focus on the basic ontology of the church; in other words, the basic identity of the church, not in terms of what it does, but what it is (and/or what it is not). By doing so, I think we can gain a better grasp of worship within the context of ecclesiology, which, in my estimation is the basis of understanding worship.

First, let’s look at what the church is. The church is a culture, as David Yeago has described it in his essay “Messiah’s People.” Without going into too much detail, simply put, this idea delineates that the church precedes creation rather than it coming from creation; as Simon Chan has declared, “The church does not exist in order to fix a broken creation; rather creation exists to realize the church.” (p. 23). Paul declares in Ephesians 1:4, the church was chosen in Christ before the creation of the world. Robert Jenson describes the world as a raw material from which God will use to perfect His church in Christ. Therefore, as a culture, the church is a divine-humanity, as a body, and with Christ as its Head.

Moreover, the church is “the people of God.” Simon Chan describes the church as the people of God in this way, “To call the church the people of God is to recognize that it exists in continuity with the ancient covenant people of God, the people of Israel.” (p. 24). I will be your God and you shall be my people is an oft repeated phrase from both the Old and New Testaments. The people of God in connection with the people of Israel within the identity of the church are described by Paul in Romans where we as gentiles are grafted into this body. We should never let this simple fact escape us, the church was established by a Jew (the Messiah), through a Jewish people, and we as Gentiles are included only by being engrafted. Therefore, the church was never intended to replace Israel. [To be continued]