In one of Charles Schulz’s cartoons, Charlie Brown is sitting down watching television when Lucy enters the room and changes stations. He turns around and asks: “What gives you the right to change the station? I was watching that program!” She holds up her hand and says, “See these fingers. Individually they are not much, but when brought together like this, they become a force that’s mighty to behold.” Charlie Brown says, “That’s reason enough.”
When problems, difficulties, pains, aches, turmoil, demands, and hardships come upon us, they may be too much for us individually to withstand. The power of community helps us withstand these forces. When there is an awareness of each undergirding the other as a part of the fellowship of Christ, we sense the bond of togetherness which has knitted us together as a part of the Body of Christ. As “a building together,” we can withstand the strain or difficulty because we do not attempt to stand there isolated or alone. We share them with a brother or sister, and we find the strength of the community of faith.
The Foundation of Concern
If we are to build the Church, there is also the stone of concern and caring in its foundation. If we are a Christian community, it means that we really care for one another. We cannot be concerned for one’s own selfish ends, but we must learn to reach out and see the needs and demands of others. I am convinced that life teaches us early that caring is a very powerful emotion. We have signs all around us which remind us about the importance of caring. We see the sign when we pass on a two-lane road, “Pass with care.” We used to send “care packages” during the Second World War. We talk sometimes about getting tender loving care and a lotion with that same name. We have, stamped on some of our packages, “Handle with care.” I suppose one of the worst phrases that anybody can ever say to us is, “Well. I couldn’t care less.” But the Church is supposed to be a community that could not care more for one another. The Church is the place where we reach out to touch one another with our concerns and our needs.
As the body of Christ, the Church is like a web. When any one part is touched, the whole feels the vibration. When there is an ache which hurts over in this corner of the Church, another part senses it as well. We are attuned and knit together as a part of the body of Christ, and experience each other’s needs and, then, seek to reach out with arms of love, support, and concern for one another. The authentic Church, then, is a community of caring people. The Church is concerned about the educated and the uneducated, the wealthy and the poor, the young and the old, the singles and the married. The Church addresses all kinds of needs. It reaches out to the sick and to the well, to those whose marriages are sound and to those whose marriages are trembling with discord. The Church reaches out to the ill and well, the lonely and happy, the grieving and the rejoicing, and the strong and weak. It says to all people we care for you. In this community the Church reaches out to express God’s love and grace.
“We are a holy temple,” the Scriptures declare. The word “holy” means to be set apart. We are set apart not for our own glory. We cannot go over into some private corner and say: “Oh, aren’t we wonderful boys and girls and men and women.” We are set apart to serve. To be Christ’s people in the world means that we will be involved in the life of our own community where we care for one another. Where there is lack of caring and concern, we have to question whether that structure is really the Church.
The Foundation of Compulsion
Another foundation stone in the building of the Church is a great sense of compulsion. You and I cannot keep the gospel to ourselves, but we are commissioned to share it with other people. Emil Brunner says that “the Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.” When a fire ceases to burn, it is not fire. When a church ceases to be concerned about other people, and stops sharing the good news of the gospel, it has become only a social club. Without a sense of compulsion to share the good news, the Church is not a part of the body of Christ. In Christ’s name we are willing to go, to be, and to serve. In the Great Commission of Jesus, the statement is expressed in the Greek not as imperatives but as participles. It reads more exactly, “As you are going...” Jesus is assuming that those who have felt and experienced his redeeming grace will be sharing the good news with other people. Not to share the gospel is to leave the blind man in his darkness, the deaf person in her silence, the beggar at the gate, to pass by on the other side of the man hurt on the Samaritan Road, and to leave those who hurt in their pain.
We cannot be content to receive the good news, but we must also be willing to share it. We must not be content to receive salvation but to become agents of reconciliation. We must not be content to receive love but to become lovers in the world so that other people can see the power and grace of Christ through our lives. We must not be satisfied to accept the labor and sacrifices of our ancestors and be unwilling to labor in Christ’s Church ourselves. In 2 Samuel 24: 19-25, we have the story where David approached a stranger, who was not a Hebrew, and asked him if he could buy a certain field and build an altar to God. The man offered to give the field to David, but David declined his offer, and said: “No. I will not offer to the Lord my God that which costs me nothing.” We have to remember that it often can be costly to be a part of the community that worships God, and we do not want to offer God “that which costs us nothing.” It is not “cheap grace,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us.
It will cost you and me time, energy, and possessions as we commit them in Christ’s service. In the Church of Christ there is a sense of compulsion to go and share the good news of Christ with others. We are commissioned to build the Church of Christ. We are knitted together and bonded together as his people. The Church as “living stones” is a living, growing organism. The Church is always a living body because it is a living God who directs its mission.
A painting depicted Satan and Faust engaged in a chess match. Underneath the painting were written these words, “Checkmate.” If you know anything about chess, you know that the word “checkmate” means the game is over. The king can make only limited moves, while the queen is the most versatile player on the board. Other pieces on the board have limited moves. One day a world champion chess player came into the art gallery and studied the painting for a long time, and, then, he exclaimed so that everybody in the gallery could hear him: “It’s a lie. Both the king and the knight can move!”
There are a lot of people who are trying to tell us that the Church is dead; it is checkmated. That is a lie. The Church of Jesus Christ is alive and at work in the world. We are a part of his Church. We are the people of God. Let Christ build us, mold us, and make us into the kind of people that we should be. May God grant that we shall be his living Church in the world.
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The Challenge of Change
Several years ago, a nine-year-old boy died of old age. He was suffering from Progeria, a disease described as rapidly advancing age. At nine years old he had all the symptoms of a person ninety years old. He was bald. His skin was very wrinkled. He suffered from hardening of the arteries and other difficulties of people in advanced age. You may have seen reports within the past few years on television or in the newspapers about several other young people who were suffering from this same illness.
I first read about this illness in Alvin Toffler’s book, Future Shock. He used this boy as an example to describe the rapidity of change in its impact upon the world today. Just as a small nine-year-old boy seems to have lived ninety years within his short nine years, so many of us feel that time has been compressed by the changes which have taken place so quickly. It is difficult to adjust to the rapidity of the changes happening all around us in our world today. It is astounding what has happened so quickly. Look at the areas of medicine, science, and technology over the past few years. The changes that have occurred have been astronomical.
The Rapidity of Change