My vicinage council was last Saturday, and it was great! A couple folks from church asked me to post my presentation here since they couldn’t make it. It’s a snapshot of my theology for those interested in how my brain works. Notably absent is any discussion of scripture. It was rightly the first question asked by the council. I’ll type up a summary of my response and add it later.
Classical Christianity recognizes two core mysteries of faith: trinity and incarnation. Since the common foundation of both is love, Christians ought to be above all else loving. Since we experience both through covenant, Christians ought to be a covenant people. Since the hearts of God is triune, Christians ought to be a community. Since God revealed himself through incarnation, Christians ought to be missional. We are a loving covenant community on a mission from God.
We love as Christ loves. Our love is sacrificial; it conquers through suffering. Our love is creative; it refuses to accept things as they are. Our love is subversive; it refuses to “fight fair”. And ultimately, our love is not really our love at all. It is God’s love active in and through us. The more we reflect God’s love, the more truly we are Christians.
If we are true friends, we take care of each other. We seek and offer advice. If need be, we warn each other. We make recommendations. We are involved in each other’s lives, and we drop everything to help in emergencies. It’s what friends do, and it’s what churches do, because that’s the nature of a covenant relationship. This is why the Cambridge Platform defines the marks of a congregational church as: mutual care, consultation, admonition, participation, recommendation, and to minister relief.
A wise man once told me that for love to be real it must be free. Our time together today is a perfect example. We are free to invite you or not. You are free to attend or not. You are free to recommend that I be installed or not. The congregation is free to heed your recommendation or not. But if we consistently choose the not, are we really living in relationship? As we freely accept and live out these covenant bonds, we become tiny images of the trinity.
We are a disciplined community, with boundaries and practices. In the student/teacher relationship, the teacher defines the boundaries and sets the practices that shape the character of the student. The boundary in this case isn’t the kind we’re used to. It’s internal. Christians through out history have spent far too much time trying to define the edges, the limits, of Christianity, when we should be focused on the center. As long as we are gathered around Christ, we are naturally in fellowship with each other.
The local church, in every aspect but especially when gathered in worship, is our greatest opportunity to practice and experience loving community. We need the witness of Scripture to correct and guide us. We need the intelligent and prayerful interpretation of the preacher. We need to experience the power of the sacraments. We need to stand united in prayer and praise, even if it’s only for a few brief moments once a week. Because when we fail to do those things, we lose touch with the root of all life, and we suffer.
But Sunday morning is not enough. How can I say I know someone if I refuse to experience some part of their pain, or their joy? How can I say we live in community, when my involvement in your life ends when you leave the meeting? This is true in our personal relationship with God, in our communal relationships within the church, and our fraternal relationships in our regional and national associations.
We are called from our old lives to new life in Christ, but that is not the end. From that starting point, we are sent into the world. We are each a tiny image of the incarnation, and as a church we are an empathic community that constantly enters into the lives and families and cultures of this present world. This explains mission work, youth work, prison work, hospital work, service projects, and a thousand other things churches do every day without ever really stopping to wonder why.
Free and loving interdependence is the ordering reality of the universe. We are interdependent whether we recognize it or not, and we are free to ignore that reality (at our peril) if we so choose. By acknowledging this reality, our Congregational ancestors shaped a way of doing church that reflects the very heart of God.
Are we really a loving covenant community on a mission from God? Or are we more often a clique on a mission of self-interest, or a club on a mission of self-preservation? Loving communal, missional, and covenantal are all other-centered adjectives. Therefore, opposite of Christianity isn’t paganism, or drunkenness, or homosexuality, or liberals, or rap music, or anything else that televangelists condemn. The opposite of Christianity is self-centeredness. If people find just as much of that at church on Sunday as they do at work on Monday, maybe that’s why so few want to come.
