Means of Grace V: The Pure Church

17 February 2019

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 6:17-26

"We have become so doctrinally indifferent that ... pastoral care is reduced to therapy, mission to sociopolitical action, evangelism to church growth, academic theology to amateur philosophy, administration to quality control."  William Abraham

Each of these illuminate the difference between holiness and humanism.

As we continue our series on the means of grace, it occurs to me that the genuine means of grace (prayer, fasting, worship, tithing, the Sacraments, Scripture study, fellowship) are of limited scope outside and independent of the context of the Church – the Church as the congregation, not the institution.

Yet even within a church that is not interested in growing in discipleship, the means of grace can be robbed of their genuine power to transform our lives.  For instance, praying with an agenda rather than praying as Jesus taught us to pray.  And if our own lives are not transformed, we have no chance of, and no hope for, the “transformation of the world”.

This is not to say prayer and devotionals, fasting, or study of the Scriptures cannot be done alone (they must be our regular, daily practices); it is rather to say the Body of Christ – which should define the Church – is weakened when we decide to go it alone.  Consequently if the Body itself is weakened, the individual parts are weakened further. 

The spiritual well-being of the Church is perhaps most important of all during this anxious time for the United Methodist Church.  We are in a good position to split and further weaken our witness and credibility, or we can purposefully choose to grow stronger through adversity to be the Body and the Presence we are called to be. 

We must resist the false choice to be a “liberal” church or a “conservative” church since we were not created as liberal or conservative.  These are cultural, man-made labels created to divide us.  Rather, we must choose simply to be The Church – not as a political or even social organization - but as The Presence of Christ.  Choosing anything less, especially according to the social issue du jour, puts us in danger of degenerating into a mere social movement and, worse, a political institution.  Our children need and deserve better.

Many have become convinced this battle within the United Methodist Church is confined to a single issue.  It is, but I have said before, “that issue” is only a symptom of a greater and more lethal spiritual illness.  I submit to you that THE issue at stake goes even deeper than this.  I have come to believe we must choose between holiness and humanism.

To be “holy” is to be sanctified; dedicated and consecrated to The Lord for His purpose rather than our own.  We serve The Lord through the Word which is intentionally “set apart” from the world; it is this very Word which distinguishes The Lord’s people from the rest of the world.  It is the “holiness code” written in Leviticus (17-26) and affirmed by Jesus.  The Lord commanded His people they must never assimilate, and Jesus teaches us how to resist it.

Over the years the Church has perhaps overplayed its hand with an “overemphasis on justification to the exclusion of the sanctifying work of the Spirit” (First Things, “Evangelical Apocalypse”, Dale M. Coulter, 14 Feb 2019).  As a result, we have allowed the humanist culture to determine the gravity of sin or whether a particular action or state of being can be classified as sin at all – especially if the broader culture has accepted it.  To this end, the Church has long fallen victim to the notion that the gravity of sin is directly proportionate to its destructive force.  That is, if no one is being hurt, how bad can it really be?

As opposed to holiness which is dedicated to the service of The Lord and His Word, humanism is much more insidious in its dedication to the service of self.  Regardless of whether we call ourselves Christian, if “me” comes first, we are humanist.  Humanism rejects the Objective Truth of the Eternal Word (calling it “legalism” when it interferes with our choices) and reduces sin to subjective cultural relativity – which only confuses our children AND us - and renders the means of grace as optional.  That is, the humanist culture decides what is right and what is wrong. 

Because the moral authority of the Church has been compromised over the years precisely because of its political engagement and involvement, we have decided that what is popular is much more important than what is truly righteous.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer maintained in the mid-20^th century during the reign of the Third Reich, cheap grace has displaced discipleship.  However, the Holocaust itself did not cause this displacement.  Rather, the Holocaust was the result when the Church – the whole congregation – went along, even if blindly and fearfully.

Jesus’ discourse in the Sermon on the Mount is entirely about righteousness, not popularity.  It is the expression of the Pure Church, the Holy Church when those who mourn are comforted, when those who hunger are filled, when those who are lost are found.  But it is also the mark of the Pure Church when we are hated and reviled and persecuted not simply for being generic Christians but because of our faithfulness to the Word in our devotion to holiness.  It is a hard life we have largely rejected in our “overemphasis on justification to the exclusion of the sanctifying work of the Spirit”.

We must not allow whatever will happen in the coming weeks to determine what we will choose to be or which direction we must go.  Like it or not, true holiness is not determined by majority vote.  It is the Word of The Lord for the People of The Lord embraced and lived where the Pure Church is found.  Let that be our choice for now and for all time.  Amen.