David also commanded all the leaders of Israel to help his son Solomon, saying, “Is not the Lord your God with you? And has He not given you rest on every side? For He has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the Lord and before His people. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; arise, therefore, and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God into the house that is to be built for the name of the Lord.
In the Old Testament the sanctuary of the Lord was a building; in the New Testament it becomes human hearts. That a holy God would inhabit a fallen man with a will of his own as opposed to a neutral stack of bricks and mortar is a radical concept isn’t it? Holy God living in fallen man? Do we truly grasp this scandalous concept?
On Sunday mornings most devout people head out to their various places of worship. Church begins when the liturgy commences. Many of us entering these buildings were taught since infancy, with hands clasped, “Here’s the church”, with index fingers pointed skyward, “Here’s the steeple,” with clasped hands turned upside down revealing 10 wiggly digits, “Ta da! Here’s all the people!” And, as we grew, regularly entering the building, we were taught another ditty:
Up there’s the pastor
Beneath him, his staff,
Lower yet, the pews
Where the people are counted
I know. It doesn’t rhyme. But it doesn’t have to for it to do its job. It becomes established by tradition. Our indoctrination into religion continues with the next verse:
With Pastor is Bible
Taught him by masters
Mama has chewed her food
Now shares it with her chicks
This poem not only doesn’t rhyme; it makes no sense if the New Testament is our plumb line.
Churches have their doctrinal statements and their bylaws but far, far more powerful than those documents are the traditions of men branded over time into our hearts and minds, hallowed (and thus unchallengeable) by practice. All our unspoken practices form the rigid wineskin of our religious sub-culture. Here we inordinately place our trust in things that never entered the minds of the apostles, prophets, and teachers of the powerful early church.
While our childhood rhyme is cute, it turns out that it is by no means innocent. Neither are the extra-biblical ideas it spawned in our institutions where unfathomable amounts of resources have been devoted to maintaining the bricks and mortar, while the mystery of Christ in us (the temples of God) has gone unattended.
I propose that we inaugurate a new church tradition. We can call it Biblical Church Day where we devote our honor to the New Testament church. On BC Day, we will not patronize the buildings the early church never had. We won’t participate in a single program of which they never would have conceived. We will simply gather in small groups and perhaps read the scriptures. We can share a meal together. Perhaps we could call it communion. In our gatherings, we will not only remember Jesus and the blood he shed, but also the church for which it was so effectually shed—the New Testament church, the last (and coming) wineskin strong enough to serve as God’s habitation.
As I am sure you have perceived, I am proposing that our good vision of church is at cross-purposes with a great vision, the kingdom-driven one that Jesus inaugurated. In this coming kingdom, we shall not only see good delivered through the institutional mechanism, but the greatness (or glory if you will) of abundant Life, expressed through a living body of saints – people whose identities have been upgraded from attenders to kingdom citizens, friends, and offspring.
As the army breaks camp, leaving behind its dependencies on the old wineskin and its administration, and transfers them to Christ, the actual head of the Church, it will rediscover the more broadly distributed gifts of pastor, prophet, and, perhaps, even apostles, operating in ways that reinforce the fact that in Christ, we have always had everything we need. While my comments cannot be reconciled with our traditions and will likely anger some, I pray that the stones (for hurling) might be put back on the ground and some might instead pick up the pen and tell me where I have departed from biblical orthodoxy—or perhaps refer me to the Council of This or That which gave our current traditional practices the holy stamp of approval.
Father, may you inaugurate the culture of your kingdom and eclipse our traditions with the simplistic, powerful radically good news of your Son. May we burst with wonder and joy as we discover that He has been dwelling in us all along waiting to be re-birthed into a world starving for the inevitable freedom of the sons of God. Yes Lord, truly you are with us. In you, we have rest. In us, you have your home. Through us, you shall subdue your enemies. We shall set our hearts and our souls to seek you. We shall arise and acknowledge, with awe and wonder, that we ourselves are the flesh-and-blood spirit sanctuaries in which you now dwell. How absolutely astonishing. Thank you.