Church Angst

Yesterday morning, I set foot in my home church in Winston-Salem for the first time in about six months. Yet no matter how long I have been gone, how many things have changed, it still feels like home. And it is. It was in this church that I truly began to grasp on a heart level what I always known intellectually: that is, that the church is more than just a building. Bound together, we are the body of Christ.

A few days ago, I was talking with someone who was expressing a lot of frustration at the Church (capital "c"). Honestly, this is not an uncommon sentiment for many college students. And to be completely honest, it's not a sentiment entirely without justification. There's a lot of sin in the church. The church as an organization and individuals claiming faith have been responsible for some pretty heinous acts and horrible decisions over the past few centuries. If you need more help on that one, check out some of the main protagonists and justifications for the crusades, colonization, ethnic cleansing, slavery, witch trials, the KKK, etc.

But here's the truth: there's a reason that there's a lot of sin in the church.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for us, the church is made up of sinners. Whom, I might add, look remarkably like you and me. And all to often, when we rely on our own judgment and abilities, rather than God's wisdom, we mess up. We sin often. We judge others as flawed or sinful, rejecting them, when we ourselves share the same status. And this is not a new thing; for centuries, people of faith have felt the divide between our redeemed self and the sin and wickedness which remains in our DNA. But the beauty of the gospel, friends, is that God didn't call perfect people. He came to us while we were yet sinners, and called us, as sinners, to follow him. He redeemed us. He made us clean. And it is by His grace, not our own merit, that we are able to stand in His presence. And this does not merely extend to individuals, but must likewise extend to the church body: it is only by grace that we stand.

And here's the part that struck me yesterday morning: not only did He call us, as sinners, to follow Him, but He called us as sinners to follow Him together. This is what is known as the church. It is not a perfect organization; it is a body constantly being perfected, refined and redeemed by the Lord.

Interestingly enough, you can scour Scripture, but you will never find the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus." This is not to say that Christ does not individually redeem each and every one of us. But rather, every time Christ's relationship to us is mentioned, it is with regard to the body, or the church. We, as a bunch of sinners, are bound together as the bride of Christ. And that is not a choice that we get to make. As believers, followers of Christ, we are part of the body, inextricably linked to one another, for better or for worse.

And so, as believers, we have a choice to make: when we see each other's sins, within the body, does that drive us together to repentance, seeking and depending on God's grace? Or are we going to go back to the garden, playing the blame game once again?

"It's not my fault... it's the church's fault."

Friends, as believers, we are the church. Can we, as sinners, stand together, reliant on grace?