“O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are
sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Matthew 23:37 NKJV
There
is a context to this passage that is appropriate to Jesus’ lamentation.
In the past The Lord sent prophets to the people of Judah and to the people of
Israel to call them back into their proper role as people of the
Covenant. Yet the more the prophets preached, the further away the people
moved, determined as they obviously were to have it their own way.
Fast-forward
some 2000 years, and we can easily see Jesus making this same
lamentation. The Church was established to represent Christ in the world,
and it started off wonderfully! The Acts of the Apostles reports
“thousands” who answered the call of the Holy Spirit, “thousands” who responded
to the apostles, to their teachings, and to one another (Acts 2:40-47).
It was all surely as The Lord had intended.
Judging
by Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, it cannot be said he “tickled their ears” with
fanciful words or shallow doctrine, playing to the people by whatever means
necessary just to get folks to show up. Peter preached what he was
directed to preach, and he told the people not what they wanted to hear
but what they needed to be told. And we can probably imagine that
when the people listened to Peter, rather than cheer Peter for “telling it like
it is” to straighten “them” out (whomever “them” is!), they praised The Lord
for caring enough to send these apostles. The Word was not always a
“happy” word, but it was always the “truthful” Word that highlighted the
difference between Life and death.
How
did the Church go from attracting thousands to losing
thousands? There is plenty of blame to go around although church
pastors usually bear the greater burden. For good or bad, true or false,
this is the reality. However, the reading of the Acts of the Apostles
indicates that the apostles themselves planted the seeds, but it was the people
themselves who attracted these “thousands”. Remember in that generation,
though they did bring in help, there were still only twelve apostles whose sole
task was to preach and plant. It was the people of the newborn Church who
responded faithfully and practiced “radical hospitality”, welcoming and
encouraging all by giving completely of themselves to the task of the Church
while the apostles saw to the task of the Holy Spirit and followed
The Spirit wherever they would be led to plant new seeds and new churches.
St.
Paul writes of the many spiritual gifts given for the sake of the Church, and
it is this whole formula that gives life to the Church. There are no
“professional” vocations (though some are due their wages) indicating one is more
responsible than the next, for the Church is made up of believers, disciples
devoted to the task of emulating Jesus and conveying the Gospel in the world
today, each uniquely equipped to see to the whole task of the Church.
Only
when people stop excusing themselves from the duties and responsibilities of
the Church will the Church ever find its footing again. The Spirit (and
the spirit) is willing (“what a wonderful idea! I sure hope it works!”), “but
the flesh is weak”. It is not a matter of finding A way to attract
new people, but rather of getting back to THE Way of glorifying The
Lord. Then we will rediscover – or discover for the first
time – who we really are and what we are called to
do.
Come
soon, Holy Spirit!
Michael
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