Church for whom? | LCR | Acts 2 & 13 | July 31, 2023
In the denomination that Annette and I are a part of in Germany, the pastors cooperate each year to put on a national conference2 for volunteers in our churches. One of the sermons at the conference has stuck with me since it was held in May. Alex Kambiambia gave it,3 the president of our partner denomination in Sambia. He looked back on a journey that our Sambian brothers and sisters have been walking in the past few years, which reflects a similar one that our denomination is embarking on in Germany. Some years ago, the so-called Christian Community Churches in Sambia recognized that their engagement of neighbors had come to a relative standstill. Their ministry was increasingly insular. Pastors focused on the people within their congregations and served their flocks faithfully. While doing so, however, they and their churches had less and less to do with non-Christian men, women or children in their wider communities. Alex described a problem that sounded familiar to my own context, “I looked at my church and saw a problem of relevancy and of mission. We existed for ourselves. We no longer knew what it meant to be a missional church––a church for others.”
After saying this, Alex pointed us to Acts 13 and the church of Antioch. This was a text from which he and his Sambian colleagues had drawn inspiration. He encouraged us to do the same. In Acts 13, the Antiochene church is probably fewer than two years old. Nonetheless, they accept a challenging call from God, which he has spoken to them during prayer: “We cannot keep our spiritual leaders for ourselves,” they say.4 “Other people need to receive the message of Jesus, and our leaders, Barnabas and Paul, are the best to pass it on.” Despite its young age, the church sends its best people out on mission. Alex read this impressive story to us at the conference. Then he looked at us with an ironic grin and declared, “Friends, the church is the only institution, which exists for the benefit of its non-members rather than for its own constituents.”5
Remember, Barnabas and Paul have only been in Antioch for one year. All the same, the time has come for them to move into mission, so that God can grow further church communities through them. The timeline Acts 13 describes is so fast-paced and the priority of mission is so evident that Alex was struck with the impression: The church is an institution, which exists radically (in its very roots!) for the benefit of its nonmembers.
That sentence really stuck with me. ... And every time I contemplate it, it pricks me like a needle does a blister. With respect to me, I hear numerous implications behind it, “Chris, the church does not exist for your benefit. She does not exist, so that you will find purpose in some form of service. She does not exist, so that you will discover secure and meaningful community. She does not exist, so that you will realize your gifts. She does not exist, in order to give you a sense of home.” Such extensions of Alex’s thesis sting.
At the same time, though, I sense a kind of relief following after the sting. The sentence bites, but it also frees me of a certain pressure––rather like blood, which has been caught in a blister and is let out by the prick of a needle.6 Why is that? ... With regard to the church, I have frequently experienced disillusionment. There was actually a period in the past, during which I inwardly turned away from God and the Christian faith. I was so disappointed with the church! Many of us can or have once been able to relate. I think that experience primes us to hear a promise behind the sting of Alex’s sentence. “The church does not exist for my benefit,” he said. “The church does not exist to serve me.” It sounds like a rebuff at first. It sounds like a downright denial of our expectations––another letdown, another disappointment. But wait. Maybe it’s actually an opportunity. Maybe the pointed statement offers us a change of perspective, which is full of new possibilities.
Here’s what I mean: All at once, after the sentence has stung us, we might realize, “Oh! The church does not exist in order to make me happy!” We might feel our souls reorienting toward expectations more in line with the real purpose of the church. The church is the only
institution, which exists for the benefit of its non-members, Alex said. If that is true, then you and I are allowed to adopt a new posture toward the church. We do not need to expect that our volunteerism will give us a sense of fulfillment. We need not participate in church with the expectation that she will satisfy our needs and desires. Instead, we are allowed to learn a new way of participating in Christian community. We get to begin asking, “What is God’s goal for church?7” And, “Do my goals for the church correspond to his?” In Alex’s stinging sentence, we might recognize the possibility of liberation. I am allowed to cease my strenuous attempt to align God’s church with my expectations. I get to receive an alternate understanding of church, and therefore I get to discover another notion of her purpose. The church exists for the benefit of its non-members rather than for those its members. The sentence stings, and it could also reform our vision.
Some of us are not ready, however, to accept the sentence at face value. That’s understandable. You may be asking as I did, “Is there a biblical foundation for such a claim?8 Alright,” we think, “the church in Antioch sent its best people out, so that they would share the good news about Jesus in other cities. Check! We see that. But what tells us that this posture (the prioritization of outsiders’ benefits over own)—that this posture is normative and not simply descriptive?9 Furthermore, does that mean that we, those in church, are unimportant to God? Haven’t we experienced that relationship with God has granted us meaning or that community with other Christians (at least on occasion) has brought us joy? In other words, doesn’t church serve our needs too––the needs of Christians?”
Good questions,10black and I don’t have the time to answer them all directly. But I do want to address the most important question, which will help us to think through and answer the others independently.
The most important question, which we must answer when we ask ourselves, “To what end does the church exist?”11 is the more foundational question, “To what end does God fill
us with his Holy Spirit?”12 In one of today’s readings, we returned to the story of Pentecost. Christians traditionally consider Pentecost the birthday of the church because it is the day on which God transformed the hearts13 of those who accepted Jesus as their God and lord. The essential definition of “church” is the community of people, who believe in Jesus and are united with God through his Holy Spirit.14 Belief in Jesus and spiritual union with God. The church comprises people who have both. Prior to God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, some already believed in Jesus, but only after the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost were they inwardly and essentially (viz. in their essence) connected to God and his Spirit. For this reason, the question,15 “To what end does the church exist?” leads us to the question, “To what end does God fill us with his Holy Spirit?” The church emerges through the Spirit’s inspiration; her mission emerges through the same.
So: “To what end or for what purpose does God fill us with his Holy Spirit?”16 The New Testament contains many passages that we could consider. I will try to suggest the larger picture by means of a few. For instance, Paul writes to his fellow Christians in Rome that the Spirit reveals to people that they are daughters and sons of God: “For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children” (Rom 8.16 ESV).17 That is to say, the Holy Spirit forms a new identity within us.18 He imparts the most important truth about you to you. God loves you as his own child, and his Spirit speaks this truth to and over you, so that you may learn to believe and act according to it.
But that’s not all. In another letter, Paul reminds the Corinthians that God grants them their spiritual gifts for the sake of the community’s well-being (συμφέρον, 1 Cor 12.7).19 God’s Spirit imparts people with gifts, which should serve the development of the community and not of individual interests (14.12). The Holy Spirit is, in other words, a community developer.20
Paul names these two characteristics of the Holy Spirit (particularly the first) on a frequent basis within his letters. God gives his Holy Spirit to people, in order to impress on us our value as adopted members of God’s family. He presents us a joint identity and therefore a means of identification with him and one another. All of that sounds like our benefit and like a correction of Alex Kambiambia’s stinging thesis.21 Could it be then that the church exists for the benefit of its members after all? The Holy Spirit establishes our identity and develops our community with one another. Is that not to our gain?
Yes, it is. ... But hold on. ... Let’s get personal. Let’s think back. Where were you, when the Holy Spirit reached into your life for the first time, touched you, filled you, and convicted you?22 Where did your story with God begin? Not everyone in this room will necessarily be able to answer that question yet, but let’s give those who can a moment. ... I’m not asking you to think back to the moment that your parents brought you to church for the first time (if that even applies to you). I want you to return to the moment, when God showed you, “____ , you are child,” or “____ , you are my daughter,” or “_____ , you are my son, and I love you.” Some people use the word conversion to name this experience. Paul simply writes about a point in time, when the love of God was poured into your heart (Rom 5.5).23 If you have already experienced this, what happened in that moment? ... There was a before and an after. Suddenly, there was a back then and a now. It doesn’t matter whether you had been in Christian community before or not. As of that moment, you felt yourself to be part of rather than separate from the family. There was an old and a new life. The moment changed everything. On that day, Pentecost came for you. In an instant, Jesus had become your Jesus. You were “born again” into the church. Like never before, you identified with Jesus and his followers.
What does that all mean?24 What does this biographical retrospective tell us? Christians do not need to deny how beautiful church community can be. We can maintain that the Holy
Spirit continues to reveal to us who we are, to free us from old burdens, and to develop our communal identity. But if identity formation and community development25 are the primary business of the Holy Spirit, with whom must we assume that the Spirit most intends to pursue his work? Who has the greatest need to hear, to understand, and to experience that they are beloved daughters and sons of God? The answer is obvious. Those, who do not know it! Why does God send his Holy Spirit on Pentecost? It is not because he wishes to give the friends of Jesus a warm, invigorating, charismatic experience, although that may have happened. It is not because Jesus wishes to bless his friends with superb community, although that may have become easier as a result. What is the primary reason that God sends his Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit has come in order to transform people. He has come to transform you and me. However, because God’s heart is after the transformation of people, his Spirit and those who follow him are always driven to the next person. Why has God transformed you and me? Out of love, yes, but surely not, so that we would hide the lamp of his love under the bushel of closed, insulaed Christian circles (Mt 5.15). Our transformed lives are like lamps, whose light shines. The light shines in our own house, and yet God has intended the light to ignite further wicks.
Luke reports in Acts that the people in Jerusalem witnessed the transformation of Jesus’s friends on Pentecost. They asked one another, “What does this mean?” (2.2). By means of his transformative power, the Holy Spirit had gained their attention. So Peter stands up, explains the miracle and finally invites them,26
Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call. (2.38-39 NIV)
Peter’s listeners join the newborn church in droves (2.40). In the rest of the book, the church rapidly grows. It will be the largest religious community in the Roman Empire in fewer than 300 years.
How can this be? Because the church was the only institution that existed for the sake of its non-members. We can count some exceptions to that claim today, but back then it was true. Peter and the other friends of Jesus had understood something essential, which we often overlook or ignore in our individualistic age. What was it? When Peter stood up on Pentecost, he recognized that the transformation of God does us good but is not intended for us alone.27 God, who is love, has poured his love out into our hearts. But this gift is one, which keeps on giving. It is because love is self-giving that it multiplies. So yes, God’s love is for us––it forms a new identity in us, which binds us together––and yet it is no present to guard from but rather to share generously with others. “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2.39).
I am hungry for churches,28 which are so full of God’s love that they seek to love others; which are so excited about God’s transformation that they want to share their stories; which are so Spirit-filled that they share him with others according to his will. Often, however, I do not see this self-giving love, transformation, and fulness in me. I see it too little in my church. What about here in LCR? Do we find ourselves thinking that we must first become more loving, transformed, and full of the Spirit? How long must the candle actually burn, until it believes that its fire can ignite the next wick? I am hungry for a Chris Pieper, who is both ignitable and igniting. I am hungry for churches, which have been ignited and who are ignitors.
When was the last time that you asked God to transform your life for the sake of others? When was the last time that you asked God to give you love for your colleagues or neighbors? When was the last time that you recommitted yourself to God’s vision? In place of praying, “God I need or desire this or that” let us begin to pray more often, “God what do you desire? God, use me!”