“Christianity is a world to explore, not an heirloom to
preserve; it is something we enter into and discover therein expansion and
newness.”
-Bishop Seraphim Sigrist (A Life Together: Wisdom of Community from the Christian East)*
We have turned the Church (and church with a little “c”)
into a museum and trapped Christianity within. And I’m not talking about one of those cool museums where
you learn about space or natural history (Dinosaurs! Yeah!) or anything like
that. No, I’m thinking of
something more along the lines of one of those roadside museums with the random
assortment of two-headed farm animals, a cool rock somebody found that may or
may not be a meteorite, and everything in the museum seems to have been
generously donated by folks in the area.
Slap a few placards on random crap around the church and we
have our very own roadside museum: the
pews, the stained glass windows, everything in the chancel area (i.e. lectern,
pulpit, cross, prayer railing, altar table, etc.), the Bibles and hymnals, the
token pictures of Jesus, some old offering plates I found hidden away
(awkward!), and even the ice maker in the kitchen (even more awkward!). Don’t get me wrong, that ice machine is
great, but a memorial ice machine?
Seriously?
Sadly, this is not an unusual occurrence in a majority of
churches. The church is more a
building and all the stuff contained within than it is a people when we so
ardently attach ourselves to the material world. We seek preservation of what once was, rather than the
unbound potential of what is and what may be. We preserve it, memorialize it, thinking back to the good ole
days, and we fend off anything that remotely threatens the curation of our
museum.
This is precisely why Bishop Sigrist’s words are so
important…and dangerous.
Christianity is a world to explore. Combined with Wesley’s concept of the Path to Christian
Perfection, we begin to understand that Christianity is, indeed, bound within
history, but it is an active and living salvation history. It is a history filled with the
beautifully unpredictable movement of the Holy Spirit, with a Creator that
loves us enough to allow us free will but surrounds us with a creation so
breathtaking that it is difficult not to see God, and with Jesus Christ, who
stopped at nothing to be in relationship with us and to reconcile us with God.
To be sure, this is not a stale and static story. This is not a history meant to be
locked up behind the fortifications of the museum church. But this is precisely what we do. We equate “the Church” with that worship location we attend on
Sundays and call it church.
The Church is a people called Christian that are exploring,
living, loving, and communing together in the name of Christ. And I guarantee you that you can’t slap
a memorial placard on that.
*Sigrist, Bishop Seraphim. A Life Together:
Wisdom of Community from the Christian East. Brewster: Paraclete Press, 2011.
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