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The Bishop's Journal
November 1999
LOVING THE CHURCH IN SPITE OF ITSELF
One of the really wonderful things about serving as a bishop of the church is that you get to see the church at its very best. I get to be a part of a lot of exciting events and meet a wide variety of interesting and committed people. Unfortunately, I also get to see the church when it is functioning at its very worst.
As a human institution the church is comprised of people who often have different opinions about a variety of issues. Sometimes individuals and groups within the church come into significant conflict with one another and when that happens, people serving in positions like mine end up becoming involved in one way or another, whether we like it or not!
The church is not always an easy place to live. It never has been. And it's right and proper that we would want the church to be the best that it can be. It is right for us to want the church to resemble Christ's body in the fullest sense of what that can be. The question before each of us, however, is how do we make that happen. What do we do when the reality of our experience in the church doesn't match up with our vision of what we believe the church is and ought to be?
Theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer had great cause to be angry and frustrated with the church of his day. To Bonhoeffer's great distress, the Christian churches were mostly silent when it came to confronting the evils of Nazi Germany and challenging the scourge of anti-Semitism. This lack of response caused him deep pain and he loudly lamented the extreme moral and theological laxity that he perceived within the church of his day.
And yet, Bonhoeffer was still able to maintain his love for the church. In Life Together, he writes, "Anyone who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The one who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He becomes, first an accuser of his brothers and sisters, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself. What we ought to realize," Bonhoeffer continues, "is that because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Christ Jesus long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that life, not as demanders, but as faithful recipients."
In ancient, nomadic societies one of the most important tasks of the community was that of carrying of the fire. Contrary to the images portrayed to us by Saturday matinees, fire wasn't an easy thing to make. And so, as the tribe moved along in their annual migratory patterns, one of their most important tasks was that of carrying, and caring for, the embers upon which their life was so dependent for warmth, for food and protection.
I think that our work as people of vision, as people who feel called to help the church be the best that it can be, is very similar. As a human institution the church is a family that is prone to the same dysfunction that can be present in any family. At the same time, as a divine institution, the church also carries the power and potential to effect health and restoration. Which side will dominate is a question that each of us plays a significant role in determining. Are we serving to contribute to further dysfunction or are we are contributing to the work of healing and restoration; fanning and coaxing forth the flame of the Spirit's presence in our midst?
The great and significant challenges that the church faces today will not be overcome by those who advocate broad, simplistic, visionary approaches that promise to consume all of the obstacles that lie before us in one mighty blaze of glory. They will be met, however, by those who have the patience and commitment to hunt down the flickering coals of a night fire; the ones who will kneel to blow on the embers and feed the kindling. They will be met by people of vision who love the community of the church more than they love their vision for that community; by people who continue to love the community of God's people, even if that community sometimes disappoints and lets us down.
May we be blessed to be such a people; forever on the lookout for a light in the darkness, always scanning the horizon for the glowing light of God's presence!
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
