The State of the Church

Yesterday was the annual meeting. “It's because it happens once a year,” I blathered apologetically to a visitor who stayed after all. I always wander back and forth across the room, trying to keep children from being loud or looking for extra packets for people who need them. And then I get another coffee, thinking that it will fortify and steel my nerves. This time, having had one of those enormous NyQuil pills that get stuck in the throat, I lathered cream cheese on a bagel and devoured it furtively, the other hand on the grapes. I'm pretty sure “devouring furtively” is a cliche by now. Does anyone devour anything with relish any more? Certainly not a carb laden bagel. Then I sat down and muttered under my breath as the meeting wafted over and around the room.

Always think of the Accounting in Cold Comfort Farm during the Annual Meeting. They'll always be Starkaders at Cold Comfort Farm drones on Aunt Ada. We all watch through the television screen in wonder at the strange accounting of people and events. The church must look like that. A motly mess assembled to take stock of where we are. A little bit of money. A whole lot of toil. And what to show for it. Not much that the human eye can see. Yesterday Matt stood up and accounted that for the first time in our life at Good Shepherd, the ledger went down instead of up. The number of people. The number of dollars. The bellwether Average Sunday Attendance. What is God doing? Aren't we supposed to go from strength to strength?

“God is pruning this living vine,” said Matt. “Every branch that bears fruit,” he said, “God prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.” Sounds like another cliche to a worn and weary group. The world might think we're hunkering in and comforting ourselves. It might seem ridiculous. But the pain of this year belies that estimation. Pruning hurts. It's an unpleasant process. Blood and sorrow flow mingled down. Saying goodbye to people going on to good sensible jobs in other places–lots and lots of people as it turns out–produces sharp and then lingering sorrow. Dealing with real ugly sin in the body is a grief laden and deveststing process. In all the relocations followed by a trial of internal church discipline we discovered that the Vine of the Good Shepherd is very much alive. In fact, the pruning cut and exposed our true life. What are we really doing here? Why do we keep gathering week after week? We're not just working. We're not just drinking coffee and chatting amongst ourselves. We are not just keeping the pews dust free.

As always, from the day we first walked in the door, our only task has been to illumine and exegete and proclaim the scriptures so that the person and work of Jesus may be know. It's been our only task. Sure, we've done a lot of other things, but all of those have only been in service of the one thing. Do you want to know God? Open up the bible. Do you want to know yourself? Open up the Bible it. Read It. All the way through. Begin at the beginning and keep going. Have you come to church on a Sunday morning? Reach forward, take the bible from the little holder in front of you. Open it up. Look down at the words. Why? Because they are the word of life. They contain everything necessary for your salvation. Are you perishing? Open it. Read it. God has purposed to save you and restore you and heal you through the words in this book. It is by reading and examining this book that you can see God. You can hear God speaking. You can't do it by wandering around out there, listening to the whispers of your heart and the wind and facebook. It is only through the word of God, which he gave to us in the scriptures, which all point to his own Son, who is the perfect image of God, who is indeed God, that you can be saved.

If ever we have been recommitted and redevoted to this task it has been this year in the midst of being cut open and pruned. In the midst of discouragement and weariness our true love, our true purpose was once again exposed and laid bare. We have been given the words of life. We can't go anywhere or do anything but preach them and teach them and bring others to them. We only have Jesus. We only have his Word. And he is more than enough. So what is the state of the church? As it has always been. Fixed, firmly fixed, on the love and mercy of God who gave us his Son, who we know in the scriptures, who brings us into eternal life, who bears in us fruit in keeping with repentance.