I will just say it because I know it is being thought by many at this point. I would have to stop talking long enough for anyone to stop, turn and pause. Hahaha I get this. It isn't like I haven't been told before. But apparently in my wild rambling the other night at bible study I said something that stuck with someone long enough to message me later and say it meant something to them. (Thank you, by the way!) Looking back it was said in the moment to make a point. It wasn't something I had read, wrote down nor worked up to a point in the class to work in. I was really just trying to help the class to understand how I say Jesus' call on our lives. Wait for it...here it is...
"We don't meet Jesus in the church pew, we meet Jesus in the mission field."
Fair enough, I am no John Wesley, John Calvin or Martin Luther. But I really believe this. I believe others before have preached, written about and taught this very lesson. My friend that messaged me knows better and my words confirmed what she felt God was speaking into her life. Yet it amazes me that I still see other people seeing their faith quest as a check list.
Met God - check
Invited Jesus into my heart - check
Learned about the holy spirit, gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine - check.
Phew! Now I can move on to my next life quest.
But have we really come into a relationship with Jesus without hanging out with Him? Matthew 25 teaches us that in the end we will be examined for how we served the "other", the lost, the forgotten. Jesus tells us when we do - we did it for him.
That is where Jesus is! He is hanging out with the lost, the overlooked. Those that need to be found. those that are hiding from his followers and the hurt they have caused. Those that don't even know who he is. So it only makes sense that if we want to hang out with him, meet him, share time doing what he likes to do - we have to go there - to those he is sharing his time with. That is where He will be, not just hanging our in you church building waiting for his followers to make time to show up.
As a pastor, I pray this prayer over the bread and cup in Holy Communion:
"Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ."
So wait Jesus is in the church???
As we hang out in the sanctuary - comfy in our padded pews - Jesus IS right there, right??
Yes he is there with us, in the moment, recreating life within us. Reminding us that his mercies give us life anew as we receive the broken body in the bread and drain the cup of suffering.
Joan Puls in Seek Treasures in Small Fields wrote this, "Draining the cup of suffering is the final test of our sincerity in claiming discipleship. We can expect no right our left hand seat of honor, no prerogatives of power or monopoly on truth, no thrones, no outsiders. But we can have the privilege of holding one another, broken and bruised, in the embrace of our circle, of keeping watch with the dying, or keeping vigil with the condemned, or walking alongside the exiled and weary, of standing at the foot of the cross, not in despair or bitterness, but open to the miracle of pending resurrection. And finally, of waiting hopefully for our own welcome into life. Wholeness at last!"
Now that is profound!
As the church - we are to be moving - going - serving just resting a moment on the pew to be revived, restored and refueled by the body and blood of Christ. The rest of that communion prayer is this:
"that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by His blood."
The WHOLE WORLD, we need to be CHRIST. Instead of being a rock - perched atop of Peter, the one on which Christ's church was built, a fortress awaiting attack we should be a vessel thrown by God, flying through the air crashing into the darkness binging light to those trapped there.
Ready to fly with me?
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