BIOLOGICAL CHURCH

I mention 'church' numerous times during these recent articles, which seems peculiar when I observe that Jesus mentioned 'church' only twice. Once, he promised that he would build his church. Another time he advised his followers how to deal with the person who was ruining his church either by intent or accident. We spend far more time talking about planting churches, growing churches, administering them, governing them, managing them, renewing them, upgrading their health, enabling them to survive, than Jesus himself did. I believe this is because we have either inherited or opted into church systems that compel us to take so much responsibility to ourselves that Jesus intends to be naturally biotic.

I came to faith through a church, grew to maturity in a church, received what I believe was a directive from God to set my art ambitions aside to train for pastoral ministry. I was habituated to Sunday school and Sunday morning church services with choir, modest congregational hymn singing, pastoral prayer, offering, preached message and a closure consisting of a hymn and a benediction. Church also required Wednesday evening prayer meeting attendance and group gatherings like Christian Service Brigade and then Youth meetings. My pastoral training equipped me to administer church in accordance with this format. I knew nothing else and neither did any of my parishioners. I pastored four churches over a 34-year span of time and served as president of a church denomination for six years.

I was passionate, devoted to my role as a leader of others, often older than myself. I attended conferences and seminars to learn principles and skills to help me more effectively encourage others to do those measurable results that equated with spiritual maturity. I was busy, sometimes so busy that I had no time for neighbours and I neglected my own spiritual nutrition. Small wonder that in three of the four churches I pastored, crises surfaced to bring an end to my service in each location. Something is definitely questionable about this institution we call Christ's church when Jesus' life and behaviour is missing.

Don't tell me it's part of the territory and that I should get used to it. I am so far past that cop-out. Jesus never fails. Jesus' life is pure, righteous, kind, gentle, forgiving, generous, loving. His life in people changes them and they reflect him. This is Jesus' church. Those are the people with whom I want to spend time, with whom I want to celebrate redemption through Christ, with whom I wish to worship our Father, who give me liberty to be me, permission to explore questions, inspire me to be passionate about living like Jesus. I think that some of these people to whom I allude do actually live within the institutional church, and some have left the organized church. I need them. I believe that they need me. We are church. When I sit with my pastor I feel more a part of 'church' than when I sit with the Sunday crowd. When I sit with my non-attending believing friends, I know I am part of the church. When my children and their children come to my house, praise God, I know we are church. Visiting my brothers this summer, whom I have not seen personally in three years, I am easily aware that we are church. Jesus is in our midst. We welcome him. He is our life and our hope and our aspiration and our reason for living.

EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS

What kind of world are we living in? No matter how it may be described, God does have a word for us. It comes in Ecclesiastes, one of the canonical wisdom books. Ecclesiastes is a series of lectures in the Old Testament that speak about life, reality, and values for wise and successful living. Ecclesiastes has sometimes been misunderstood or neglected.  Some have considered it to be the strangest book in the Bible. The author has been accused of scepticism, fatalism, and pessimism. That's not an accurate appraisal. I recommend the following perspective. Approach the book with an open mind. Discard unflattering assumptions. It is possible to understand what the author was communicating to an Old Testament community of faith and to discern robust recommendations and warnings about life and for living in this age.

The descriptor "son of David" identifies the author as a male and although the author's personal name has not been divulged, the options are narrowed. "The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem …" (1:1). From among David's sons, it was Solomon who had a reputation for communicating wisdom and truth. He is called qoheleth meaning teacher as he takes on the role of a sage, a wise man, a scholar, a wise and older tutor of wisdom.  Like other sages of his day, Solomon spoke to the young people of his day. His primary audience was young adults embarking on life and making decisions about their priorities, their values, and their purposes in life.

The author begins the book by describing everything in life as vanity or meaningless. “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. 
Utterly meaningless!
 Everything is meaningless” (1:2). How long would you stay with a counsellor who spoke like that? He must have something more to say. 
He does.

MAKING SENSE OF HUMAN EXISTANCE

Weather, food prices, fossil fuels and instability are all linked. There are droughts in Russia, Ukraine, China and elsewhere, and floods in Australia, Pakistan and other countries that have made prospects look dim for this year’s harvest for a number of agricultural commodities. This has led to stockpiling by unprincipled despotic leaders and companies. Oil prices have gone up and prices for commodities like wheat and grain have spiked. In Sindh province, almost one quarter of children under five are malnourished while 6% are severely underfed.

People in these life-threatening conditions are not in reflective mode but in survival mode. They merely live this hour to survive to the next. If people have enough to eat and enough money to purchase other necessities, they may have the luxury of occasionally thinking about life, being contemplative and they may try to make sense of human existence.