The Church and its members duties to each other

I Corinthians 1:18

 

“ For the word of the cross to those perishing is foolishness , but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

 

     What is the Church?  This is the place we come to bringing our concerns, our worship, our joys and sorrows.  We would say it is a community of faith where Jesus is the Head.  This is His body, the Church, and we are His followers.  We have laws which we call the moral law or ten commandments which is binding upon us now and for eternity.  Jesus also said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind,  and our neighbor as ourselves.  Why come?  We come because in this community we share the body of Christ together. We are His members.  I have been meditating on that.

 

     I like what one writer on retreats said about community, “ one of the most powerful things community brings to individuals is courage---courage to be and do things we would never think of doing alone.”  Seeking God Alone Together by Linus Mundy.  There is the story of a monk ( church member if you will) who said, “ I’d rather do things with others and have them come out wrong than do them by myself to make sure they come out right.”  Now that shocks me.  This place in which we do things has unseen guests where Jesus is the Head.  The unseen guests are the saints of God, the great cloud of witnesses we are surrounded by ( Hebrews 12:1), those who are here now, those who are watching our every movement and word ---the young, the sick, and those hurting individuals who need our love and concern.

 

    In the community of the church we are sometimes irritated by others and their behaviour.  We are tempted to ask, “ do I have to endure this?”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book, Discipleship, :” Those being spoken to are those called in the beatitudes into the grace of following the crucified one….they are the noblest asset, the highest value the world possesses.”  Yet sometimes we are not the place where we find a hospital for sinners but we shoot our wounded.  This is a place where we listen to God and to each other for the “ preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  As Greg Friedman put it in the book, Faith Note: “ God entrusts the gift of faith to us in the ‘earthen vessel’ of human community.  While we must always apologize for our shortcomings as Church, I believe that our human sin can never block God’s work completely. Somehow, community continues to be the way God communicates, heals, and invites to live more fully.”

 

    I ran across an article about churches and how sometimes they stifle growth. It is worth taking a look at.  Ten barriers that hinder church growth----here are a few:’

 

1. Members will not bring their friends to church.
2. People fear that church growth will ruin the fellowship.
3. Churches are driven by tradition rather than the purposes of God.
4. Churches are structured for control rather than growth.”

 

We can do things without thinking of how they impact others.  Here we serve God in His kingdom of which Jesus is the Head.  I Corinthians 12 aptly reminds us, “  For the body is not one member, but many…God has set the members every one of them in the body, as it has pleased Him…those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble are necessary..and whether one member suffer, all members suffer with it, or one member be honored all the members rejoice with it.”

 

Do you remember how Our Lord was very concerned about His House of worship?  In the Gospel, John 2:13-22, we read of how He cleared the temple of those who were using it for personal gain.  “ He made a small scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple.”  In fact it got so bad that they said of Him that “ the zeal of thine House has eaten ( him) up.”

 

In the community of the Church we fallen sinners acknowledge our shortcomings and our failures yet we still come to sing the praise of our Creator, gratefully listen to the Word which saves us, and we join together in mission to seek His will for the needy people in our midst, not only needy in body but in mind as well.  Here no one is perfect,  no one has yet arrived, for we lean on Jesus and listen to Him for we seek to grow together because that is His will for us as His body, the  Church.

 

In a little book I was looking this week on retreats there was an excellent way to look at how to help ourselves and others , we often find irritants in our path----that is the way we look at others and the way they look at us can irritate us.  We can become all used up ( burn out) when we see so many needs and people that seem to need our care.  We should look at ourselves as a reservoir instead of a channel of God’s love.  What is the difference?  A channel just lets the water pass through it and does not retain the water.  ( love)  A reservoir holds the water and lets it our when needed.  So that is how we should allow God’s love to fill us and let it flow to others.  So many of us are trying to do it all ourselves without letting God fill us first with the reservoir of His love and grace. 

 

As we conclude today let us think about some ways to allow this message of God and the Cross to change and fill us with His presence for ourselves and the needs of those around us.  “ On Making Spiritual Progress”----“ To prefer nothing before the love of Christ. To speak truth from the heart as well as the mouth.  Not to do an injury; but to bear one with patience.  Not to love much talk.  To use frequent prayer. To hate nobody.  Not to be addicted to jealousy.  To avoid ambition.  To venerate the elders.  To love the younger.  To be reconciled with those who have quarreled with us, before the sun go down.  And never to despair of God’s mercy.” ( The Fire and the Cloud , Fleming)

 

Why?  “ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  I Corinthians 1:25