The Out-of-Step-Church
“You are the salt of the earth.... You are the light of the world.... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Sep 19, 1982
What in the world is the church? Or perhaps better stated: just what is the church to do in the world? Those are the questions to be dealt with in what follows.
Pictures come floating from the library of my memory of being a child in church. I am about nine years old. It is 11 o'clock worship. I am sitting on the polished, uncushioned pew with my grandparents. My grandmother permitted me to have gum in my mouth. But that was to be distinguished from chewing it. The deal was that I could have gum in my mouth during church if I did not chew it. Have you ever tried to hold gum in your mouth for an hour without chewing it? It disintegrates into tiny little pieces that will gag you. I think it was about this time that I began my deep appreciation for prayer: it was during the prayers that I could chew without my grandmother elbowing me in the ribs.
In that service were familiar people. There was old Judge Brown who would get up and leave promptly at 12 whether the sermon was finished or not. Nothing the preacher could say after 12 was important enough to let the Baptists get ahead of him at the cafeteria. There was the lady with the warbly alto voice in the choir who would always keep her purse on her arm even when she sang her annual obligatory solo. It was her husband who used the sermon time to get his fingernail clippers out and cut his nails click--click--click. The counter-point of the quiet but echoey clicks to the sermon (and the sermons were somewhat louder in those days) was good music for nine year olds to doze by.
"Blessed are you when men...utter all kinds of evil against you on my account.. is great.... You are the salt of the earth....You are the light of the world...." What have those words of Jesus to do with the motions we go through so often as the church?
These verses come from the 5th chapter of Matthew. The 5, 6, and 7th chapters of Matthew contain what has been called and loved as the Sermon on the Mount. Bible scholars suggest that Jesus may not have delivered all these teachings in a one sermon just this way, that this was the pulling together by the Matthean editor of the essence of Jesus' teachings shared on many occasions in his life. We have an additional clue right at the beginning of Chapter 5, that is, the beginning of the sermon. As Jesus saw all the crowds who sought him, he with his disciples withdrew up the mountain. There on the mountain alone with his disciples, he taught them what they needed to be and do for those crowds, for the world. In other words, the sermon on the mount was addressed to Jesus' disciples, really to his church, the church for which Matthew fashioned his gospel in the first century, and by extension, the church you and I are a part of now. These words are not for those who admire Jesus from a distance or who may occasionally call on him in a pinch. They are marching orders for not admirers but followers, for disciples, on a way through life that often produces crosses.
What in the world is the church? What is the church in the world to do? Hard questions. In seminary I encountered the classic work of the theologian H. Richard Niebuhr Christ and Culture. In stirring scholarly prose, Dr. Niebuhr sketched 5 basic ways Christians have understood what the church is in the world to do. With no offense meant to Dr. Niebuhr, who I hope won't roll over in his grave, I would like to offer a most unclassy, semi-humorous but also serious version of the ways the church does its "thing" in the world. For the sake of presentation, we are going to pretend that these are churches on some corner somewhere. In truth, they represent churches or parts of churches everywhere.
First, there is First Church of the Wet Blanket. The motto of these Christians is, "If it feels good, it must be wrong. Another version of this is, "If you are enjoying yourself then you should feel guilty. These are the kinds of religious people who someone said live in the mortal fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time. They are like the lady who said, "I guess I am going to heaven because I don't drink, gamble, and run around on my husband like other people." To this, someone answered, "No, you don't do those things, but you sure gossip about everyone you know who does."
Second, there is the Church of the Holy Warriors. Their favorite symbol is not the cross but the pointed finger. They like to attack anyone who does not think, look, act, or agree with them. Somehow you get the idea that they would not even like Jesus if he came to their church. After all who wants some bearded, besandaled weirdo around. They may not be in the majority but they sure like to make people think they are.
Third, how about the Church of the Sacred Sanction of the Status Quo? They worship the God of our side wrapped up with the flag, motherhood, and generous portions of apple pie. They will call you subversive if you remind them that the God of Jesus is no respecter of national borders, that his love transcends political and national rivalries. The writer Herman Hesse once remarked about his surprise at receiving a letter during World War I in Germany, where he lived. The stationery had printed across the top: "God, Punish England." How strange he thought, people in England no doubt thought God was on their side, too.
Our fourth church may hit a little closer to home for you and me. It's the Church of Saint Linus. Its sacred symbols are the warm blanket and the thumb. It is the church where I can withdraw from the world and all of its problems. It is a haven where only happy reassuring thoughts are spoken. And maybe at this point we should say that some of these churches are not all wrong, just not all right, even though each in their own way may have a point. Certainly, each of us needs and deserves some comfort along the way from our faith.
Almost at the end of the list is our fifth church type: The Church of the Bleeding Heart. No Archie Bunkers would be caught dead here. In the Bleeding Heart Church are the social reformers, ready to feed the masses, do away with prejudice, and throw all the bombs in the sea. All that is needed is just the right social program. All you have to do is remind people that the other guy is brother, and they will change. Well, without apology, this is the church where a lot of me is. We are to be about feeding and peacemaking. But the problem is the reduction of the gospel to a social program. Why? One, you tend to equate the gospel's success or failure with the success or failure of the latest cause. Two, bleeding hearts tend to be pretty naive about the ways of the world. People do not change just because they know they should. If we put our faith in social programs instead of the God who can work in spite of our failed social programs, then disillusionment will follow.
Let me spend our remaining time discussing the church I think Jesus was talking about with the words about salt and light. I'm calling it the Church of the Out-Of-Step. The Church of the Out-Of-Step is not out of this world but in it, not out of its mind but tough minded and not out of touch but very involved in the adventures and hurts of life. It is a people in the name of God in the world who operate by a different standard in their personal and community lives. If they are successful they are able to throw a heavenly monkey wrench into the world's machinery which grinds up people.
The idea behind my Church of the Out of Step comes from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas who teaches at Notre Dame. In his book A Community of Character, he says: "...the church must always be herself...not rejecting the world, nor in withdrawal from it; rather the church must serve the world on her own terms. We must be faithful in our own way even if the world sees such faithfulness as disloyalty... the first task of the church is not to supply theories of government legitimacy or even suggest strategies for social betterment. The first task of the church is to exhibit in our common life the kind of community (we might supply 'kind of world') possible when trust and not fear rules our lives. The church for Hauerwas is to be a "contrast model". Church people should live in a way that challenges and takes the wind out of the sails of worldly ways that tear down instead of build up people. And that is hard because the world is a tough place and even we Christians are part of the problem. Maybe we can take some solace that Jesus' first disciples were not perfect material either.
Hauerwas notes quickly two teachings in the Sermon on the Mount as examples of the way of the Christian as opposed to the way of the world. Both are Jesus' taking of one of the 10 commandments and intensifying it. The Commandments say do not commit adultery; Jesus says, don't even think about it. The Commandments say do not kill; Jesus says love your enemy, pray for him.
Do not commit adultery sounds a bit like the church of the wet blanket. But the teaching about adultery is based on a deep valuing of people. In a world where people are means to ends. In a world where everyone is expendable, replaceable. In a world where if you don't do what I want you to do, I'll find someone else, God's people try to be faithful to each other as God is faithful to us even when we aren't worth being faithful to.
This doesn't mean that Christians will never have marital problems. There are times even when divorce is just the best that can be done in tragic circumstances. This doesn't mean that Christian husbands and wives will never fight. In a way, Christian marriages may be marked by good fights, where the people really hash out their problems with each other and even solve them. When I know that you are not going to leave me, and you know that I am going to stick with you, that frees both of us to really go to it in hammering out our relationship. You may have heard of the guy who said, "When my wife and I married, we decided to never go to bed angry with each other. Someone asked how it worked. He yawned and answered, "Oh, fine, I just haven't been to bed since August.”
Christian marriage is both an expression and also an example of the faithfulness people in God's way should have in all areas of life. So don't be misled when I speak of marriage because I am talking about all intimate relationships. Do not commit adultery with your body or heart means that I will be faithful to you on the days I don't feel like being faithful to you, when you are not much fun, and when it even appears I may have a better offer. It means in a world where people stick knives in each other's back you and I can count on each other. Adultery is tricky. It also applies to affairs that we have with things as well as lovers at the expense of people who count on us. I have heard wives complain that they wish they had another woman with whom to compete for their husbands because then they would know what to do. They just do not know what to do to compete when the mistress is a sports car, or golf club or job.
Christian faithfulness is not just a personal matter that makes life better. It is personal but not private. It is a living witness every day to the business, government, and public community that people are of infinite worth because they are creations of God not just statistics in reports and computer software.
The other matter is Jesus' teaching to the salty-light people of the church about love of enemies. His teaching here really does rub salt in the wounds of the world's ways. Let me give you a true recent example of the Church of the Out of Step in action. In England, a big shindig worship service was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in thanksgiving for the end of the Falklands Island Crisis. The main speaker was Dr. Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England. Prime Minister Thatcher and high government leaders were in attendance. Mrs. Thatcher in the words of her own husband was "spitting blood" in anger after the service. One leader said Archbishop Runcie had insulted the 255 British soldiers who lost their lives in the mini-war. Why? Because the leaders had come to a worship service expecting to hear how God had given England a great victory, and God's man had said: "War is a sign of human failure and everything we say and do in this service must be in that context.” In a world where we love to choose up sides, play the game of love the uses and hate the them's, it always is irritating for some obnoxious Christian to say that God is concerned about what unites us not what divides us.
How the world needs the Church of the Out of Step around reminding that God never gives us a mandate to destroy ourselves or each other in the name of a political system that will come and go like the waves on the seashore. In his book on the nuclear arms race, Robert Gardner has written, "How foolish and tragic it will have been if nations, in the spirit of a new holy war, destroy each other, together with all the values they are presuming to defend, for the sake of differences which a century from now will be of little concern to anyone except historians. We might add if there are any historians or anyone else left.
You see, the teaching of Jesus about loving your enemies is just as tricky as the prohibition against adultery. Both go deep, deep against the grain of business as usual in the world. Nations are willing to junk their poor and push their economies to the brink of collapse in the cause of equipment to destroy enemies. The Church of the Out-of-Step will not go along.
You don't need me to tell you that the other churches I mentioned have a lot more members than the Church of the Out of Step. As in Jesus' day, the crowds grow and the disciples thin out. But maybe, we have some of our questions answered about what in the world the church is to do. Also, maybe we know why Jesus said, "Blessed are you when people say all kinds of evil things to you on my account.”
If you and I are not willing to be God's light in the world, then things are going to get even darker for us all. God, help us get out of step.