Don Friesen
The season of Easter, which lasts for seven weeks, is in many ways the season of the Church. The Resurrection transformed a barely coherent, barely cohesive group of discouraged disciples into bold witnesses of the Gospel. The Risen Lord replaced their old nature — a weary, tired and timid nature — with a new nature. He replaced their mistrust, doubt, and discouragement with faith, love, and hope. The witness of the disciples-formerly-known-as-wimps-and-now-known-as-the-Church proved irrepressible! And much of the New Testament is taken up describing the Church, instructing the Church, challenging and inspiring the Church.
Biblical Images of the Church
I find it interesting that there appears to be no consensus in the New Testament regarding the nature of the Church. Perhaps the mystery at the heart of our life together rules out clear definitions of the Church, but whatever the reason, the first generation of Christians used a profusion of images to describe the Church. Biblical scholars have listed as many as a hundred images! The Church is a kingdom. No, the Church is a people. No, it's a pilgrim people. No, no! It's a building! It's a house. It's a family! It's a bride. No, it's a army! An army!? Are you crazy?
And so it goes. I don't know that the descriptions of the Church in the New Testament were intended as conflicting or competing images, but there are lots of them. The Church is pictured in the Bible as a flock, then a vine, then a field, then a city. Another New Testament term for Church is ekklesia, a Greek political term used to denote an assembly of people called together for a particular purpose, and which the New Testament writers use to picture those who are called out by God for a particular purpose. Yet another New Testament term is koinonia, a word signifying "sharers in a gift," and it was certainly the conviction of the first generation of Christians that the gift of God's Holy Spirit was a powerful gift — a gift empowering them to break through barriers — barriers of language, culture, race, gender and wealth! They pictured the Church as a group in which "walls of hostility" that divide human communities are overcome! "In Christ," they said, "there is no longer Jew or Greek, ...slave or free, ...male and female; for all of (us) are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
1 Peter 2 — A Cornucopia of Metaphors
Our reading from 1 Peter supplies us with even more images of the Church. This metaphor-rich passage tells us that we are "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5), which God uses to construct a spiritual edifice. We are a "a holy priesthood," says 1 Peter. (2:5) We are described as those "who believe". (2:7) We are a "chosen race," a "royal priesthood," a "holy nation". (2:9) We are described as "God's own people". (2:90) We are those who emerged from the darkness, called by God into His marvellous light". (2:9) To paraphrase 1 Peter, we are also those formerly-known-as-not-a-people, "but now (we) are God's people". (2:10) We are those formerly-known-as-those-without-mercy, "but now (we) have received mercy." (2:10)
Our reading from 1 Peter is filled with heady descriptions of the Church. On the one hand they are traditional descriptions, for a number of them are steeped in Old Testament tradition — descriptions of the people of Israel. On the other hand, Peter freely applies them in new ways. They are applied here, surprisingly, to describe what were mainly Gentile Christians. The "chosen race" designation, for example, is an allusion to Israel's election (Isaiah 43:20), but Peter applies it to a Gentile Christian community! And these are descriptions; they are not appeals to try and be a chosen race; Peter writes "You are...a chosen race, (you are) a royal priesthood, (you are) a holy nation...." (1 Peter 2:9)
New Images: The Church as a Hospital? A Gas Station?
Peter's freedom to play with the images of the Church has encouraged others to experiment with such images. For example, some modern Christians picture the Church as a gas station, where you fill up each Sunday in order to motor around for the rest of the week. It may be a helpful image, but it's been around for a while. It needs to be updated, for while demands on the Church have increased in the last several decades, gas stations have switched to a self-serve model. The one constant is that as the automobile industry has switched to cars that don't need to be gassed up as often, church members' need for re-filling has also become more infrequent.
Some Christians picture the Church as a hospital, or an emergency room, an image suggesting that some crucial services are rendered by the Church. In our day, when one's stay in a hospital is as short as possible and drive-by surgery is not uncommon, people also don't like to stay in church any longer than necessary. The image of the Church as a hospital, however, suggests that one only frequents the Church when one is sick or dying. Does the Church not have something to say to us when we feel well and comfortable and serene?
New Images: The Church as Campaign Headquarters?
This week we received the latest issue of The Marketplace, a publication of Mennonite Economic Development Associates. It contains an article suggesting that a more appropriate modern image of the Church might be a campaign headquarters. If we think about the church "functioning as a campaign headquarters functions," says the author, "it might clarify both the purpose of the church as a place of preparation and reflection and the vocation of the members of the church at work in the world." (Greg Pierce, "A model proposal for the church," The Marketplace, March/April, 2005, pages 8)
Just like people of different backgrounds and interests come together around a common political cause — a candidate, an issue, an idea — and come to the campaign headquarters to receive support and encouragement, to meet their fellow workers, to receive training — like when to accept sponsorship deals and when not to — so members of the Church come together for similar reasons. Just like people return to campaign headquarters to celebrate their victories, to lick their wounds, to regroup, and to devise better strategies, so we return to the Church — to each other — to re-group and continue waging the campaign to establish the peaceable and just kingdom of God.
The church as campaign headquarters is an interesting image. One could come up with many images of the Church, but each image has its weakness. I once saw an article about the "Church as Body" entitled, rather cynically, "Bacteria in the Body". Even the beautiful biblical image of the Church as a human body can set some people down a negative track. I saw another article entitled, "The Quality Church," inferring, of course, that many of our churches lack quality or that they are of inferior quality.
New Images: A Bevy of Believers? A Herd of Heretics?
There is a children's book entitled A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns (Ruth Heller, 1987) which features pictures of groups of things — a "school of fish," a "swarm of bees," a "gaggle of geese," and other such collectivities. It's not uncommon to talk about "flocks of sheep" and "herds of cows". Other animals can be grouped in a similar fashion, like a "bevy of quail," a "covey of partridges," a "gam of whales," or a "litter of pigs". We go to the grocery store to buy a "cluster of grapes," a "batch of bread" and a "string of sausages," hoping that on the way home we won't be attacked by a "pack of wolves".
Our language does not lack for collective nouns; we have multitudes, throngs, hordes, assemblies, clumps, and many, many more, and perhaps they hold potential for describing the Church. What might it mean to be a bevy of believers? Or a brood of believers? What might it mean to be a drove of disciples? A covey of converts? A litter of liberals? Or, in line with our own history, a herd of heretics?
It's fun to play with images of the Church, but no one image is adequate to describe who we are. Each image has flaws. When I look at the images in 1 Peter the description of the Church as a "royal priesthood" sounds appealing, until one remembers that royalty is no longer necessarily a good thing. We might want to let that description lie fallow for a few generations.
The description of the Church as a "holy nation" is not particularly appealing to those of us who value the separation of church and state. And the image of the Church as a "chosen race" sounds uplifting, except that in these democratic times it has a tinge of elitism attached to it. It may lead to an attitude of superiority, or smugness. It may lead to the temptation to strut our stuff, and that's just not Mennonite! Or Canadian!
I like Peter's image of "living stones," though I admit it sounds like an oxymoron! It sounds like something that would frustrate church bureaucrats, who try as they might, would have difficulty assembling "living stones" into some semblance of order. It's like trying to get three people from Saskatchewan to walk in single file!
A Cluster of Clinkers Transformed into an Edifice of Living Stones
"Come...like living stones," says Peter, and "let yourselves be built into a spiritual house...." (1 Peter 2:4-5) It's an arresting image, bringing to mind a huge construction project something like the construction of the Temple in the Old Testament, which tells us that Solomon conscripted eighty thousand stonecutters for this project, with another 3,600 to oversee their work. (2 Chronicles 2:2) It was a huge project, and gives us an idea of the scale of the spiritual edifice Peter may have envisioned — an intangible, but gargantuan project!
Recently I came across a modern twist to this image that may be helpful in thinking about this image. Dorothy taught me about clinkers, those bits of coal not entirely destroyed by fire that are left in a furnace, but until this week I had never heard of clinker bricks. Clinker bricks are bricks that didn't quite make the grade. They are a little misshapen, their colour distorted. Bricklayers may pick up a brick, hit it with a hammer, and then discard it because clinker bricks are heavier than other bricks and they make a different sound when you tap them. They make a clinking sound.
Clinker bricks were thought to be useless, and decades ago brickyards had piles of them, but then they became collectors' items because no two clinker bricks are the same. People discovered that clinker bricks have a beauty and strength all their own. They are seen as unique, and are in demand. They are considered valuable antiques and are used to give gardens, walk-ways, and fireplaces a unique appearance.
I like the idea of a clinker brick church, a community made up of people with flaws, people with distorted views of things — warped, wayward people who somehow fit together and become more than the sum of their parts. The idea fits our passage from 1 Peter, for Peter begins by telling the Christians, "Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander." (1 Peter 2:1) Sounds to me like these bricks are a little warped, a little twisted.
Peter should know. Peter was a clinker brick if ever there was one. He often sounded a wrong note. He often misunderstood Jesus. Sometimes he defied Jesus. And in the end, when his support was crucial, he denied Jesus. It makes me wonder if Jesus had his tongue in his cheek when he called Peter "The Rock," but Jesus had a place for Peter. Peter could have ended up on the discard heap, but one day the Great Brick Mason walked by, picked him up and said, in effect, "I have a place for you in the building I am putting together."
We heard the story of Stephen in our reading from the Book of Acts. He was the clinker brick in his community. He was hated. He was rejected. He was killed! Yet in God's spiritual house Stephen has an important place.
Like Stephen, we may be unpopular and mistreated. Like Peter, we are imperfect. We are flawed — but we're in good company, implies Peter. If Peter had known about clinker bricks, he might well have said, "Come to Jesus, the greatest clinker brick of them all, the one everyone else rejected and thought of no use at all!" (paraphrase, Bass Mitchell) Peter also refers to Jesus as a "living stone" (1 Peter 2:4), but one who was rejected by his contemporaries. And then, quoting the Old Testament psalms, Peter writes, "The stone which the builders rejected, has become the ...cornerstone...." (1 Peter 2:7, NEB) Or, as another translation renders it, "The stone which the builders ...(regarded as) worthless turned out to be the most important of all." (TEV)
There is a Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York constructed of clinker bricks. Its exterior walls as well as the walls of the sanctuary are comprised of bricks "normally rejected by masons because they were imperfect or defective." The bricks symbolize the idea "that God, as well as the church, accepts and loves us with all our imperfections." (www.gatespres.org/The Church/the_church.htm)
I'm happy that when we expanded our facilities, both in 1985 and in 2003, we were able to match the colour of the exterior bricks so well. If we had discovered that we could get clinker bricks for less money than ordinary bricks, no doubt we would have done so, but while the exterior bricks of our church are uniform in colour and quality, inside we are no less clinkerish than any other church. Like the bricks that come out of the kiln deformed and misshapen — factory seconds — we come together with our wounds, broken-ness, and chipped corners, but with the sure knowledge that we are precious in God's sight, and that through God's grace we can be fashioned into a magnificent spiritual building, the Church — a community of faith created to serve God and continue the work of Christ in the world. We may be but earthen vessels, but God has chosen to put the treasure of His love and grace within and among us.
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.