What is the Church and its mission in the world today? (essay)

In one of the last classes I took in seminary, my classmates and I were required to answer two questions throughout the semester, one of our own choosing and one assigned to us. We wrote short papers answering these questions from various angles, such as historical, biblical, theological, and so forth, and then we each synthesized our answers into two main papers. The following is my comprehensive summary paper responding to the question assigned to us, "What is the Church and its mission in the world today?"

Becoming Wholly Ourselves in Christ: The Church and its Mission in the World Today

When I began considering the question “What is the Church and its mission in the world today?”, I pictured a stone monastery with a cross, outside of which a group of people were moving away from the monastery over the bend of the world, perhaps toward other people.

Living Stones

Just as the people in my image emerge from a stone monastery, the Church comes from a living temple, Jesus Christ. Peter writes that the Church consists of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) which make up a temple. Thus, not only does the Church come from a monastery; it is the monastery. Paul uses the metaphor of the Church as the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27). The Church is a people who emerge from and continue to embody Jesus Christ.

Historically, buildings have been important for the Church. The first Christians pooled together their resources and supported one another, meeting for worship in peoples’ homes. I experienced something like this growing up when, every Sunday, my family would worship together in our home. In college, I began attending a larger local congregation, where most of our activities together took place on the church grounds: we worshiped God and ate together in the sanctuary, and we played basketball with young people on the church basketball court.

Iona Abbey, Scotland

The word monastery comes from the Greek monos, for “alone.” Throughout the Church’s history, many Christians have sought holiness by establishing monastic communities away from cities and crowds of people. In their monastic communities, monks practiced humility and love through worshiping together, fasting, confessing the truth, and other spiritual disciplines. When Christians gather together for worship, they enter a spiritual gymnasium, a training ground or boot camp, a greenhouse which nurtures the seed of Christ so that it bears fruit. 

One of the primarily fertilizers that the Church uses is scripture, which witnesses to God’s work among Israel and the Church. Through the Torah, Israel reminded itself of God’s creating the world, delivering Israel, and guiding Israel how to live in the Promised Land or in exile. Through the prophets, Israel sought to turn itself back to God. Through the Psalms, Israel sang praises and grieved to God together. The Gospel writers told the good news of Jesus to illuminate and encourage. Peter, Paul, and John (as well as others) wrote epistles to guide the early Church amid questions and persecution. 

Through the scriptures, the Church talks to herself. While some scriptures are directed to people outside of Israel or the Church, most of them express internal communication. Through the scriptures, the Church reminds herself of God’s creating, saving, and restoring work in the world; encourages herself to obey the covenant of love for God and neighbor and to worship in truth; expresses to God all of her grief and joy; and works through the business of daily life.

The Church talks to herself regularly, at least once a week, and often on a Sunday morning. In so doing, the Church becomes a sanctuary in time. Many Christians mark time based on the coming, the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, and the ongoing life of Jesus Christ. This Christian calendar comes from the Jewish calendar, which patterns each week after God’s creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh. Christians, too, rest on the Sabbath, though for them the Sabbath is Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead and the first day of the new creation. The Christian calendar is a stained glass window through which people can see God’s healing time itself, guiding it toward the Sabbath rest for all creation.

The prophet Isaiah foretold this coming Sabbath age when he described a banquet in Jerusalem to which God summoned all people (Isaiah 25:6-8); John envisioned it as the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21); and Hildegard of Bingen saw a time when “rivers of living water are to be poured out over the whole world, to ensure that people, like fishes caught in a net, can be restored to wholeness.”[1]  For Diana Butler Bass, this coming day is one of “universal hospitality” in which “the whole world will be made right through the boundless welcome of all to God’s table.”[2] 

In following the Christian calendar, the Church points to these visions of paradise and wholeness. For example, the three central days of the Christian year are Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, which honor the death, rest, and resurrection of Jesus. These days, called the triduum, “forcefully made the point that God was with humanity to transform suffering into a joy-filled feast as the days move from crucifixion to celebration.”[3]  Through reliving Christ’s passion and victory, the Church proclaims that God redeems the suffering of humanity into life. 

During the dark ages, when Europe was plagued with violence, the Church announced a “Truce of God” in which “princes, nobles, and knights swore to desist from all warfare from Saturday to Monday and during the holy seasons of Lent and Advent.”[4]  Holy days were temporal sanctuaries when killing was prohibited. These times became visions of the peaceful coming reign of God. The sanctification of time expresses how the Church, in the words of Irenaeus of Lyon, has been “planted as a paradise in the world.”[5]

Thus, in the monastery, through regular public worship, the Church tells herself the hopeful story of Christ: Christ in the universe, in the world, in Palestine, in history, in wherever and whenever the Church finds herself. She does this because we become the stories we tell and hear, and the Church wants to become like Christ. 

The gospels say that when we lose our lives in Christ, we find them in Christ. In telling the story of Christ, not only does the Church become more Christlike; she becomes more herself, and each of her members becomes more fully themselves. The hymn “Take This Moment” by John Bell prays it this way: “Let my life be yours and yet / Let it still be me.”[6] Becoming whole in Christ is, in essence, the way of holiness.

The Call to Holiness

Although the whole Church is called to be holy, one denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, understands its particular calling to be “to advance God’s kingdom by the preservation and propagation of Christian holiness as set forth in the Scriptures.”[7]  Nazarenes’ understanding of holiness comes from John Wesley’s teaching that God desires and empowers believers to be purified from sin and to live in perfect love for God and neighbor.[8]  This “entire sanctification” is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a grace which follows justification, or the forgiveness of sins.[9] 

The Church of the Nazarene has sought holiness in three main ways: purity, compassionate ministry to the urban poor, and evangelizing the world. While these streams of holiness are distinct among the Church of the Nazarene, they illustrate larger responses within the Church to the call to holiness. 

To be pure means to be clean, set apart from that which is impure. The walls of the monastery are membranes dividing behaviors and attitudes between the culture of Christ and cultures contrary to God’s ways. 

For example, the U.S. has the strongest military in the world, and its movies, songs, and video games promote a violent and “hyper-masculine”[10] culture. The Church, however, reminds us of Jesus’ command to “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52, NRSV). The U.S. is the richest nation in the world, and its commercials call us to worship sleek cars, skin, and technology. The Church, however, teaches that we do not need to worry about what we will eat, drink, and wear, but to “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). Where U.S. and other cultures divide us based on ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender, in the Church “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, NRSV). When U.S. culture demands us to be productive, working long hours seven days a week, the Church reminds us of Jesus’ invitation to “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). The Church cultivates an alternative way which gives life.

Thus, the Church can learn much from the biblical prophets, whom God called to announce messages and visions. While many of the prophets preached to the Israelites, some, such as Jonah, preached to the non-Israelite Ninevites, whose wicked culture God threatened to annihilate. When the Ninevites heard God’s message through Jonah, they repented, resulting in their salvation. Like Jonah, the Church is called to proclaim God’s messages to the world. Here we return to my image of a people who, after having told herself the story of Christ in the monastery, now leaves the monastery to tell that story to the world.

Welcoming the World

The story of Christ is also the good news, or Gospel, of Christ. The mission of the Church in the world is to proclaim the Gospel to the world. The Church does this through her actions and words. Just as the Gospel cultivates wholeness in Christ among the Church, it also cultivates wholeness in Christ among the world. Thus, proclaiming the Gospel is an act of holiness. This brings us to the second and third streams of holiness for the Church of the Nazarene: compassionate ministry to the urban poor and evangelizing the world. 

The Church of the Nazarene named itself after Jesus, who came from the town of Nazareth, of whom it was said “Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46). The first Nazarene congregation agreed that “the field of labor to which we feel especially called is in the neglected quarters of the cities and wherever also may be found waste places and souls seeking pardon and cleansing from sin.”[11] Nazarenes find wholeness through telling good news to and living with the poor.

This calling is not only for Nazarenes, but for the global Church. The U.S. and the rest of the West are, in the words of the Iona Abbey Worship Book, “privileged and tired of being privileged.”[12]  With that privilege the West has directly and indirectly violated the weakest and poorest members of the world, both humans and other members of creation. With those abuses come, and will come, moral injury or shame for what we have done. Ministry to the poor includes speaking truthfully to power on their behalf and seeking justice for them. It involves repenting of the Church’s own turning aside from society’s outcasts and calling the West to repent, praying in the hope that one day “salvation [will] come to this house” (Luke 19:9).

In my image, the monastery is not only a place of refuge for the Church, but for the world. Historically, monasteries were places of hospitality for strangers and travelers, and many monks believed that Christ often disguised himself as a stranger. The Church is called to welcome strangers, foreigners, and hungry people, feeding them with Christ, fellowship, and physical food. In so doing, the Church lives into its vision of the Sabbath banquet.

The Church’s welcoming the world into the banquet prepared by Jesus is the Church’s evangelizing the world. Evangelization means preaching the Gospel, the story of Jesus Christ, whose life and death was a banquet for all who welcomed and welcome him, and whose resurrection proves that the feast continues and awaits us. 

Jesus told a parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet. In the parable, the king tells his slaves, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet” (Matt. 22:9, NRSV). This is evangelism: going to people and inviting them to the feast of Christ, the wedding celebration between Christ and the Church, the redemption of the world.

Good News for All

After reflecting on the question “What is the Church and its mission in the world today?” for several weeks, a new image comes to mind: a globe. Perhaps this suggests that the Church is scattered throughout the world. Or perhaps the whole world is God’s Church, speaking to itself in many dialects, sometimes succeeding and often failing at embodying Christ and the Gospel. 

Such a vision contradicts my inclination to separate Christianity from other religions, the holy from the profane, the Church from the world. It also seems arrogant to impose the title “Church” on all people, many of whom tell their own stories of God or the nature of existence and would likely not appreciate my calling the world the bride and body of Christ.  

However, the story of Christ is supposed to be good news for all of creation. If not, then how can it be good news for any of it? When I perform music, usually the songs through which I connect best with the audience are the songs which are the most meaningful to me. I believe the same is true of the Gospel. What is good news for me is good news for others; what is good news for one is good news for all. 

If the gospels are correct in saying that when we lose our lives in Christ, we find them in Christ, then perhaps the story of Christ is good news for the world because, if the world accepts Christ, the world will become as God intends it to be: fully herself, and all of her inhabitants fully themselves. The Church understands Christ to be the incarnation of the Word “through whom all things came into being,” and the life who is “the light of all people” (John 1:3-4). Thus, this Word is present in all things, including the world. It may express itself differently, but we should be able to recognize it based on Jesus Christ.

The Church, then, is potentially all of us: just as the Word took on flesh in Jesus, Christ desires to live through us all, and our mission is to teach people to listen to that Word, to dwell in the light of Christ, and so live. The more faithfully we respond to Christ, the more we become the Church, the more we become like Christ, and the more we become wholly ourselves.

~

[1] Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), 291.           

[2] Ibid., 302.

[3] Ibid. 52-53.

[4] Ibid., 133.

 

[5] Ibid., 52-53.

[6] John L. Bell, "Take This Moment." Copyright © 2014, WGRG, Iona Community, Glasgow, G2 3DH, Scotland. wgrg@iona.org.uk; www.wgrg.co.uk Reproduced by permission.

[7] Manual/2009-2013 Church of the Nazarene (United States of America: Beacon Hill Press, 2009), 5.

[8] John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

[9] Mark R. Quanstrom, A Century of Holiness Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2004), 96. 

[10] Rita Nakashima Brock, ESR Willson Lectures, 2014. 

 

[11] Floyd Cunningham, Ed. Our Watchword and Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City:  Beacon Hill Press, 2009), 100.

[12] The Iona Community, Iona Abbey Worship Book (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2001), 180.