Our congregation is not following the lectionary at the moment. We are instead using Brian McLaren's We Make the Road by Walking for our Sunday readings. Today we heard the opening of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew's gospel, including the Beatitudes and the call to be salt and light for the world.
If the lectionary passage is about Jesus' identity, the one from Matthew is about our identity as the people of God. And I think we often have problems with both identities. Especially in modern America, Jesus and his work has been understood very individualistically, in terms of personal salvation, healing, fulfillment, etc. But Jesus' identity is the one who proclaims God's new community, the Kingdom, and the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount are about what it looks like for the Church to model this community.
Yesterday I was at the (snow shortened) Next Church regional gathering where David Lose was the featured speaker. He talked about how church and worship needed to be places where we practice things that really matter, things that are connected to our lives in the world. We need to move away from church as a concert hall or event center where we go to hear and see uplifting, maybe even inspiring things, but then leave to live lives little connected to that worship. We need to become places where people learn and practice ways of being God's people in the world. To put it in the identity terms from above, church needs to be the place where we learn and practice those ways that mark us as God's alternative community, ways that we take into the world and our lives.
What is church? Clearly it is many things to many people, but what is it at its very core? Why does Jesus/God need the Church? And are our congregations being whatever that is?
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
No comments:
Post a Comment