die Kirche

A final (indirect) reference to Nolan’s adaptation of the Odyssey:

HT: @JosiahHawthorne

This playful meme, which I recently stumbled upon, raises at least two questions: What is the church? And, more importantly, what is the church’s purpose?

The Episcopal Catechism defines the Church as “the community of the New Covenant” (BCP 854). And it defines the New Covenant as “the new relationship with God given by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to the apostles; and, through them, to all who believe in him” (BCP 850).

What this “new relationship” is, the Catechism doesn’t explicitly say.

However, if we take a step back and consider the Catechism’s definitions of the Old Covenant, the Ten Commandments, and the Sacraments—and, more importantly, if we turn to Holy Scripture for elucidation—its contours begin to emerge, with two aspects in particular brought to the fore. To be in this “new relationship with God given by Jesus Christ” is to understand and experience the reality that:

1. We are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).

2. Our true identity is not our profession (doctor, CEO, janitor) or ethnicity or gender or social class, but that we are beloved children of God (John 1:12).

Both theologically and historically, it is Christ who makes this understanding and experience possible.

Much, much more could be said about this, but the TLDR takeaway is: the Church is the community of those who, by following Christ, are learning that they no longer have to prove their worth—through their professional or personal achievements, through overly meticulous [read “legalistic”] attention to the “rules” (moral, liturgical, social) of life—to God, to others, or themselves. They are beloved children of their Father in heaven, from whose love nothing—neither sin nor death nor hell—can separate them.

Regarding the purpose of the Church, the Catechism is much clearer: “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP 855). This means that the Church is:

• not a social club (although it provides the foundation for the most significant and life-giving friendships that human beings can experience).

• not a professional networking hub for making new business contacts (although “there is no one who has left house or [family] or fields for [Jesus’] sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions” [Mark 10:29–30]).

• not a small pond in which we can become someone “important” and receive the recognition that we long for by making some kind of praiseworthy contribution (although it is the community in which one may hear the only approval that matters: “Well done, good and faithful servant”).

• not a non-profit, NGO, or charity organization (although its members are called to be peacemakers and to remember the poor).

But rather, the Church is the community of those who gather together:

• to seek (that they might find) their Maker

• to be delivered from ego and unruly appetite

• to receive strength to be—like Christ (and as the body of Christ)—healers in a broken world.

And we fulfill our purpose not as individuals, but in community because God is community (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and it is only in true, authentic community that divine love abides.