In his extended prayer (John 17) Jesus reveals a key concept: just as God was present in the world through Jesus, so also, Jesus will continue to be present in the world through his Church. In John 17:13-17, Jesus says that his Church will be in the world, but not of it.

Jesus doesn’t do church. He upsets the money changer’s tables. Kicks out the merchants with their sacrificial animals. He makes a mess of the 11 o’clock service. Why?

Church is a gathering of people for prayer, study, and worship, who relate to each other and to the world as Christ desires (Reality Check 101)

Jesus is blunt when talking about the temple, “not one stone will be left upon another” (Luke 21:6). One day last week, a church near me received word that its roof might fall in. An engineer was invited up to look at the rafters because the roofer the church had hired was concerned about the funny line of the roof. The engineer said, “Look, there’s only an inch of wood holding that truss in place. I don’t know why the whole thing hasn’t fallen in yet.” That was Wednesday, and within an hour the borough had condemned the building and kicked the community dinner scheduled for that evening to the curb. Like the apocalypse that Jesus warned his disciples about, this occurs as winter is coming and while the pastor was on vacation.

 

Jesus’ words are also timely, when one considers the devastation that has occurred in the Philippines this week. Should we be mindful, when we build our buildings, that a 200 mile per hour wind might come and the roof might fall? 

 

What if Luke had really wanted to only write one long book, instead of the Part 1&2 of Luke-Acts? There were serious publishing restrictions on written works in the first century. A single book the length of Luke-Acts would be too long for standard scrolls and  create problems for copyists. If it were really intended to be one book, then is it possible that it really has one plot, one theme, and a single central element. I want to propose that the focus is Church, with a capital ‘C.’ 

 

The center passage in a combined Luke-Acts is Acts 2:42-47, where we see the ideal first fellowship of Christians. They are gathered into ‘Church,’ in Jerusalem in the days that follow the Pentecost outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Like Adam and Eve in Paradise they live a short paragraph without sin. They do all the things that Church will do everywhere; they study, they pray, they live in community meeting the needs of the weakest among them, they witness by their simplicity and charity towards those outside the faith. Never again will a church be so purely Church.

 

Did you know that the dictionary definition for church doesn’t contain the word love. It goes as follows: “Church is a particular Christian organization, typically one with its own clergy, buildings, and distinctive doctrines.” (Apple dictionary)

 

I don’t like this definition. Not only does it exclude the love that Jesus says will define us, it includes three institutional words: clergy, buildings, and doctrines. The trouble is that this is exactly how most people in the world around us see the church. In fact, it may be the way most church people view the Church. It may also be the reason most people today say they can be religious perfectly fine without the Church, thank you. This past week, less than 18% of Americans went to church.