Grace and Garbage...

Part of who I am is "congregation." I think being "Christian" means being actively involved in a faith community. I believe that baptism into the body of Christ means we are inescapably part of the body…as crazy and flawed as that body is, we are part of it and it is part of us.

So, I am particularly sensitive to how this body gets defined--because it defines me. The irony is who I am and who my particular congregation is doesn't often define the body. Two examples bump up against each other today.

First, NPR told a story of a musician who self-defined as a "person of faith who had struggles with 'THE CHURCH'." Of course the interviewer dug deeper to discover what terrible thing "the church" had done. Turns out a woman had died of cancer and "the church" had deemed that death a result of a lack of faith.

That is NOT "the church." That is "a church." And that attitude is stupid and hurtful and not in line with the witness of the biblical text as a whole. You certainly can find a verse or two. You can find a verse or two to support just about anything. But the media does love to report the brokenness. And people do love to generalize that from "a church" to "the church."

The other story that irritated me was the story of help for High Point citizens who will struggle because they are food insecure. When power was out for three to five days, many families lost the contents of their refrigerators and freezers. As reported this morning, Food Lion donated $5,000 in gift cards for these families. That is probably true. But what wasn't reported is the additional $30,000 raised by churches and other worshipping communities in High Point. With less than a week's notice, the generosity overflowed. Good news about "the church" is apparently not a story.

Really, I'm not even sure that "the church" is appropriate unless it is followed by "of Jesus Christ." That includes every Christian church…and we do, in fact, have to put up with the "less desirable" parts of the body. They are part of us, and we should stand up and speak out against the hurtful, stupid things they do. But many remarkably small parts of the body cripple the body if they do not work or are absent. Opposable thumbs come to mind.

I know truly remarkable words and actions of grace that come from "the church of Jesus Christ." That, I believe, is how God defines "church." It is those moments and those congregations that have the power to overcome all the stupidity that we may enact intentionally or unintentionally. But we want to get the word out…insist on reporting the grace as well as the garbage.

Lent is a season of recognizing that each of us is a mixture of grace and garbage. Knowing that will prepare us for the miraculous reality of Easter, that God's power means grace will win over garbage, life will win over death.

My only point today, is that grace might win sooner if we insist on making it at least as public as the garbage.