Therefore, Jesus also suffered
outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own
blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he
endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the
city that is to come. - Hebrews 13:12-14
I am learning that I
should never underestimate the power of desperate prayer.
God truly does draw near to those who are humbled and broken, and
coming to the end of my rope has done wonders for my willingness to
rely more fully on the Lord's guidance. In the midst of this
soul-searching, I have been amazed at how clearly the Spirit has
responded to my prayers. I have asked for direction, and God is
providing it.
For years now, one member of Capitol
Hill Friends has always been asking, "Who are we called to
serve?" Virtually every time we have met together, John has
raised this question, to the point that it has become almost a joke
among us.
To be quite honest, the question has
often annoyed me. I never felt I had a good answer for it, except to
say that Capitol Hill Friends is a community for anyone who wants to
go deeper in their walk with Christ. I do not not like the idea of
picking out a specific market demographic and "selling" God
to them. Would we try to be a hipster church for urban
twenty-somethings? A family church for couples with small children? A
white, middle class church? A multi-racial, inter-class church? To
me, "Who are we called to serve?" sounded a lot like, "What
is our market niche?"
I am not very interested in viewing the
church from a marketing perspective. I do not believe that faith
communities are a commodity to be bought and sold. While I understand
the need to present the gospel in a way that is culturally
appropriate to the place we live, I do not want to pre-determine what
demographic our fellowship is aimed at. This commodification cheapens
the very idea of the Church. Instead of aspiring to be the body of
Christ, our fellowships risk being transformed into little more than
social clubs where people of similar class, race and subculture can
talk about Jesus.
And yet, the question has nagged at me.
Who are we called to serve? What is our particular mission
here in the city? There are thousands of local congregations spread
out across our region; what use does God have for one more? These
questions are not ones of sales pitches and market analysis. These
are basic issues of call and spiritual gifts. What is are the
specific ways that God wants to use our particular fellowship to
reflect the love of Jesus?
As I have prayed about the future of
Capitol Hill Friends, God has shown me that there is indeed a
particular people that we are called to serve. This people is not a
demographic group in any traditional sense. It is not a group bounded
by class, ethnicity, sub-culture or political persuasion. Rather, our
common experience at Capitol Hill Friends is that we do not match the
expectations that the wider culture has of us. In some profound way,
we do not quite fit in. We are looking for the city that is to come,
not this present one where we reside as sojourners.
Capitol Hill Friends stands in
solidarity with those who do not fit into this world's conceptions of
wisdom and power and wealth. We are called to serve those who stand
outside the gate of the city, rejected by polite society. Rather than
playing dress-up and pretending to be successful, God calls us to
stand with the misfits. Because the truth is, we are misfits, too.
2 comments:
Amen
I believe that it is a rule of organizations that the original spirit and action arising from it morphs into structure and gestures. Maggie H. nicely reflects this in her articulate and thought provoking essay, you're/we're not Quakers.
The challenge: nourish and express a new spirit and actions that arises from it. Perhaps that new spirit is in connecting (again) with Jesus Christ. But what Jesus? The Jesus of stories that, Biblical scholarship identifies as reflecting theological ends in the context of history. Remember, there was no recording in transcripts or in video or audio of what Jesus definitely said. And there are events, like the trial of Jesus, to which no one was present who might provide a faithful account concerning Jesus.
Remember also that this was in a pre-scientific time. So we must look to astronomical science for an understanding of the origin, age. size and organization of the universe; to physics for the laws that govern light, energy and matter in the universe, and to biology for the origin and evolution of life on earth. In this world, where is and what is God?
And how do we know that what we say is God is real and not our human, fallible conception of the deity?
And how does Jesus relate to God within the context of the findings of science about the universe and life on our earth? In these answers may lie a well grounded spirit and basis for action for the first part of the 21st century that can gain rightful acceptance.
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