The Ups and Downs of the Church

“How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.

No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else.” ~ Carlo Carretto

The words from the late Christian writer Carol Caretto quoted above were shared with me and a group of other pastors by my district superintendent, Dr. Jeren Rowell.  I am thankful for this quote and will no doubt be revisiting it many times in years to come, Lord willing.  It so beautifully captures the ups and downs of walking this journey with Christ in the midst of His fellowship called the Church.  It has caused me to remember several things that I believe every Christian – especially those of us who by vocation serve the church as one of its ministers – confronts on a daily basis.  These thoughts guide us when thinking about and participating in the fellowship of believers that meet and work together on a consistent basis all over the world to help bring about God’s Kingdom: God’s ideals for the way the world should be.

1. God knows how flawed we and the people who serve with us are, and He is not afraid of that.  The older I get it seems the better I become at assessing needs and analyzing faults.  These are good skills to have when you are working with a diverse group of people.  However, it can easily lead to a type of closed off judgmentalism that magnifies faults and needs so greatly that very little light and hope can break through.  Turning that reflection and analysis inward from time to time (certainly more often than I do) provides the kind of balance the Carretto brings forth in his beautiful description.  It is true that, like Carretto, we can all say, “The same faults I carry around in me” are the ones I see in God’s Church.  The remedy for this?  The overwhelming love and forgiveness that Jesus provides.  God does not assemble unbroken people to demonstrate His ability to pick talent!  Instead, God assembles broken people in order to demonstrate His ability to bring beauty out of the ashes (Isaiah 61:3) and change the world. 

2. This Church belongs to Jesus, and not to me.  That means I cannot simply make it what I want it to be.  Instead, I am called to let Jesus work through the Church and shape me in a way that I fit into His plans.  When I stop trying to possess the Church and instead start following the Creator of the Church, I find more avenues for hope, for joy, and for redemptive love.

3. I cannot disconnect my relationship with Christ from a relationship with the Church.  My relationship with Christ is indeed personal in one sense. But to remove that personal relationship from the Church is something that is foreign to the Bible.  The Bible assumes Community, because God intentionally creates a community in which His people may unite, grow, share, and serve.  To try and be a Christian without a connection to the Church is like trying to be married without an actual spouse: it is just theory, and it is ultimately just fantasy.  The fact is, as flawed and hurtful as some church people have been and can be, I need the relationships that the Church provides and the resources it offers, or else I am apt to drift like a spiritual orphan. Or, at worst, I am prone to severe forms of idolatry that would pull me away from this God who calls me to eternal life and fellowship with Him.

4. Where else would I go?  Carretto says this at the end of his poetic description and ode to the Church.  He is simply echoing Peter’s words in the New Testament when Jesus, after being forsaken and left by many who thought His teachings were “too difficult” (John 6:66), turned to His disciples and asked, “Do you wish to leave me, too?” (John 6:67)  Peter answers, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”  In other words: “There is no place else for us to go.”  That sweet desperation that comes in the hard times when we feel we cannot face the difficult challenge ahead is what God uses to keep us close to Him and close to His people, the Church.  Sometimes the call of God seems too hard.  At other times, the hard-heartedness of people seems to dark and foreboding.  At those times, when we start looking for the exit sign, we remember the sweet voice of Jesus Himself, who promises not only forgiveness, but also peace.  And we are able to say, “Despite the work that needs to be done in this House, there is a place for me to do this work.”

One of the first presentations I was asked to give was near the beginning of my ministry.  It was to a group of pastors in the Pacific Northwest.  It was entitled, “Why I Still Love the Church.”  I only remember bits and pieces of it.  I remember talking about the “bride of Christ” and how we would do well to avoid insulting or attacking Jesus’ bride (the Church).  I threw in a story about how protective I felt (and still feel) toward my own bride and how for that very reason I would not wish to risk disconnecting from Jesus by insulting or offending His bride.  

Several pastors, including those much more seasoned than I was, spoke well of it and encouraged me.  However, I can look back now and say that at that time, my “defense” of the Church was mostly theory with very little experience with the darker side of ministering to believers who, like me, were quite flawed and imperfect.  I still love the Church today, of course.  It’s just that now, I think my love for the Church is more genuine and intimate.  I began work as a senior pastor a month after I married my lovely wife.  I loved her then, and I could tell you many reasons why.  But now, like my love for the Church, my love for my wife is more intimate, more mature, and more real that it was in those early days. 

This is true for the same reasons.  My wife and I have been through struggles together that we could not have even imagined at the beginning.  We have learned things about each other that we had no way of knowing in those early days.  We have suffered together and rejoiced together – deeply.  And when I say I love her now, I know so much better what I am talking about, and I mean it even more sincerely. 

And so it is with the Church.  I have seen its darkest side and some of its most difficult and challenging people.  But I have seen outpourings of love and grace and joy that I could not have imagined this side of heaven.  And God is still good.  And His Church is still precious.  Where else would I go?