we are the church!

one of the coolest things to come from the reformation and martin luther is luther's doctrine of the church, specifically when it comes to who the church is.  at the time of the reformation, the common understanding of the church as very hierarchical.  in this model, the clergy were considered the church.  luther flipped this understanding on its head.  instead of the church being clergy, the church was the people!

the people!!

i don't know if you realize how awesome and crazy that is!  even today we have trouble understanding who the church is.  luther used the german word gemein(d)e which is church as in a community, a group of people, a congregation.  this is more in line with the greek word ekklesia, which means an assembly and is the word used in the new testament to refer to the church.  in the greek, ekklesia refers not just to any assembly, but a democratic assembly.  a place where the gathered people have voice!  in today's (lutheran) church, we have gotten away (to greater or lesser extents) from the idea of church as clergy and very hierarchical, but i don't think we always remember the church is the people.

usually when i talk about church, it's understood that i'm really talking about the chapel or building where worship takes place.  i say i am going to church, not i am the church, or even better: we are the church.  in today's day and age with so much focus on the economy and possession (whether it's those that have not sharing or those that do not demanding it), we have even made church into a possession.  the dynamism of a body of christ is lost in the church as a building concept.

to bring back the understanding of us as church, we not only have to let go of our obsession with possessions, but we also have to let go of our "rugged individualism."  christianity is a communal religion.  we are called into community and understood as a unique community of god in the world.  throughout the epistles, we as the church are identified with christ's body.  we have a plethora of diverse gifts, yet christ's love for us and our loving response unite us.  this means that we are to be radically countercultural as we concern ourselves with the well-being of all of us, not just 1% and not just 99%, but all 100% of us.  we are the church!

this also means that if you or i don't like something the church is doing, there's a really simple solution: do something different!  if we are the church (which we are), then what we do is what the church does and what the church does is what we do. 

a couple weeks ago we celebrated the reformation, a time when people didn't like what the church was doing.  instead of complaining, though they did list their complaints, they changed what they were doing, causing the church to change.  in that case it resulted in a split, but there have been smoother changes in the church as well.  in the elca, we didn't like what the church was doing, so there was a movement to begin ordaining women again (after all, there were plenty of women leaders in the early church) and to recognize and affirm the gifts for ministry of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

change inevitably brings anxiety as we enter into a new unknown, but we are the church and so we must change as the holy spirit continues her amazing work in and through us.  may we rise to the promise: we are the church!