Must the church be destroyed to save the ekklesia?

Here is a curious fact for Greek geeks. Our English word "Church" is
usually used to translate the Greek word "εκκλησια" [ekklesia,
pronounced "ek-klee-si-a"]. Some version of this word occurs about 110
times in the New Testament. Just over 100 instances of this word are
found in the ancient Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures.

This word literally means "those who are called out" because
"εκ" [ek] means "out of" and the root "κλησ" [klees] means
calling, or something that is called. Now, having said that, root
derivations do not carry much weight. After all, in English, a
butterfly has little to do with anything we might spread on toast or
rolls.

But, in this case, the root meaning does bear some resemblance to how
this word was actually used in both "secular" and "biblical" Greek.
When translating the Hebrew Scriptures, it refers to a gathering or
assembly of people (such as Israelites gathered to worship or hear
instruction). In the Christian Scriptures, the word carries forth this
meaning, but takes on more profound significance.

This εκκλησια becomes the very Body of Christ, the corporate
organism of which Christ is the head and source (cf. 1Co 12). In Acts
this εκκλησια becomes a new adoptive family, an alternate
subversive community that challenges the ways of the world. Across the
Christian Scriptures, it becomes a special community, a holy
community, a called-out community who live as the continuation of
Christ's Incarnation, his hands and feet performing healing throughout
the world.

Like Christ, this εκκλησια seems to have no place to call home.
It, or rather She, gathers in synagogues, or private homes, or rented
out lecture halls, or even in public marketplaces, throughout Jesus'
ministry and the book of Acts and the letters afterward. Like Christ's
band of wandering disciples, they seem to hold property in common, and
give whatever they have to serve the felt needs of the communities
they live in.

And it is clear that this εκκλησια has a structure of
authority, with people like John and Paul and Peter and Timothy and
Titus (not to mention Junia and Phoebe and Euodia and Synteche and
Priscilla) serving as spiritual parents to those who are their
"children in the Lord". Yet, the εκκλησια does not seem to have
any property that She can call her own. She has no "institutional
structure" on which to hang her hat, other than a loose family
structure and handed down traditions and letters.

This is not to say that individual members of the εκκλησια did
not have private property. They did. And they sold it, as they saw
need, to provide for the needs of the εκκλησια. In fact, in the
story of Ananias and Sapphira [cf. Acts 5], it is not holding private
property that is sinful, but it is lying about it to other members of
the εκκλησια. Yet, the εκκλησια as a family, as a Body,
as a community, never seems to own property. It is never identified
with "stuff" that can be owned, bought, and sold. Like the disciples
sent out by Jesus [cf. Mat 10], the εκκλησια never carries
extra money with Her, but lives on the gifts of individual members [in
fact: for a non-monetary interpretation of living on the gifts of Her
members, see 1Co 12-14].

So, this is the new community which Christ called into existence in
the New Testament: The εκκλησια. She is a called-out community,
which infects society with the "good infection" of the Kingdom of God.
She has a familial structure of authority and discipleship, but not an
organizational schema or an institutional blueprint. She serves as a
conduit for gifts both spiritual and monetary which heal and build up
the community around her, but She herself never owns property, and can
never be identified with "stuff", property, or real estate. She is
organic, living, and vibrant, with the Holy Spirit of God as her
dynamic lifeblood, and Her head is the Risen Jesus Christ, and He
alone constitutes Her unity.

Now, there is another word in the Christian Scriptures, which means
"belonging to the Lord". It is used only twice. It is
"κυριακός" [kuriakos, pronounced "koo-ree-ak-os"]. In
1Corinthians 11:20, it is used to refer to the "Supper of the
Lord" (i.e. Holy Communion, the Eucharist, or the Mass). In Revelation
1:10 it is used to refer to "The Day of the Lord" (i.e. the Day he
defeated death and rose again, Sunday). It is not used AT ALL in the
Greek Septuagint for anything.

So, it turns out that κυριακός is a property word. It refers to
someone's stuff. It does not refer to a living human, or a community
of people. It refers to a legal entity: The thing that belongs to the
Lord. It is a word of legal status, of buying and selling, and of
consumption. And when it refers to sacraments (such as the Communion
meal) and sacramental practices (such as keeping the Lord's Day holy
for worship), it is well and good. But, can this title for ownership
rightly refer to the Body which does the owning? Can we use the same
word to refer to the Christ's Body, and also to the tools which
Christ's Body uses to share God's grace?

Although quite dated, Liddell and Scott's "Intermediate Greek-English
lexicon, Seventh edition" sums up a curious fact about κυριακός
quite nicely:

κυριακός: a κύριος of or for a lord or master: esp.
belonging to the Lord (Christ); κυριακόν δεῖπνον the
Lord's Supper, ἡ κυριακὴ ἡμέρα the LORD'S day, dies
Dominica, NTest. (Assumed to be original of the Teutonic kirk, kirche,
church; but how this Greek name came to be adopted by the Northern
nations, rather than the Roman name ecclesia, has not been
satisfactorily explained.)

Did you notice that? Did you notice where the English word "Church"
comes from? It doesn't come from εκκλησια. It comes, via the
Germanic languages, from κυριακός.

No big deal, right?

Or is it?

I do not know. Perhaps κυριακός was easier for the ancient
Teutonic barbarian to pronounce as "kirche", rather than
εκκλησια. Perhaps when missionaries came through and
evangelized them back in the first 500 years of Christian history, it
was just easier.

But somewhere, somehow, a subtle shift happened in the very way we
conceive of what it means to function as God's people, as Christ's
Body. Perhaps it is associated with the fact we chose κυριακός
rather than εκκλησια to describe our common life together in
Christ. Perhaps this is just a historical coincidence that has nothing
to do with the conceptual shift that happened. But, either way, I am
going to use κυριακός and εκκλησια to represent two
divergent ways of viewing what it means to live as God's People.

What I mean is this: When we use the word "Church", what do we think
of automatically? A building. A place. A piece of property. We think
of "stuff" which is in the ownership of our Church.

Why do we constantly talk about "going TO Church", rather than "being
Church" or "living AS Church"? Let's say that you go to your local
place of worship and try to open the door, but it is locked. What do
you automatically say? Most of us would say "The Church is locked!"
"The Church is not open yet."

As the old Sunday school song says: "Here is the Church / Here is the
steeple / Open the door / And see all the people."

As a pastor, I have railed against this line of thinking for years. I
have taught dozens of lessons, preached dozens of sermons, that remind
people that we do not "go to" Church, we "are" Church. I have warned
people about the danger of thinking that the building, instead of the
people, is the Church. And yet, I STILL use the phrase (almost every
Sunday morning!): "Honey, I am going to Church."

I can't even shake the idea that the Church is a thing rather than
people... And I have been teaching about it for 15 years.

But what if I am wrong? What if the Church IS property? What if,
implicit in the concept, ingrained in the word Church / kirche /
κυριακός, is the concept of "stuff" that is owned by the Lord?
What if we cannot escape the "property idea" of Church because we are
using the wrong idea, the wrong concept, the wrong word to refer to
our common life in Christ?

What if, in fact, the word Church / kirche / κυριακός actually
refers to a concept almost diametrically opposed to the dynamic
communal life of the organism of Christ's Body?

What if- ever since 313 AD when we were officially allowed to own
property by the Roman Empire, when we fell in love with owning
property and maintaining power "for the glory of the Lord"- what if we
altered the basic DNA of the community of God, and slowly began to
turn Her into stuff, into property, into real estate, into monuments,
into structures, into codes of law to protect those structures. What
if the distinction between κυριακός and εκκλησια
actually amounts to the difference between a beautifully decorated
corpse sitting in an elaborate coffin, and a homeless woman who is
vibrant and alive and helping others?

Now, most people will take this as an attack on authority and
structure. That is not what this is. It is clear from Jesus'
authority, and the authority he gave His disciples, and the authority
his disciples gave people like Titus and Timothy and Junias and
Priscilla, that the Church has always had a familial structure of
authority. I would even go as far as saying that that structure looks
a great deal like bishops, priests, and deacons- or overseers, elders,
and ministers- or grandparents, parents, and elder siblings. That
structure existed in the earliest Christian community, and seems to be
how we are supposed to function now.

So, I am not attacking authority.

I am attacking Legalistic Institutionality, with all of its soul-
crushing, cover-your-ass, laws and requirements, all of which suck the
life out of God's people. And this Institutionality exists, in turn,
because we fell in love with our stuff. We have fallen in love with
property and power and we create legal structures to protect that
property and that power. We do exactly what Jesus warned His disciples
not to do. Because, as Jesus noted multiple times with the legalistic
Pharisees, property-based institutionality cannot help but treat
property like people, and treat people like property [cf. Mat 23].

When property and power is injected into the core identity of God's
People [by calling them Church / kirche / κυριακός!], then
people begin to be used as means to protect, maintain, and gain more
property.

We need more people to join OUR church! Why? So we can pay the bills
and build the new addition!

We need to attract more visitors to OUR church! Why? Because numbers
equal power and success and tithing!

We need to build better children's ministry to serve OUR church! Why?
Because young families who join will tithe and give us more money!

Notice. It is "OUR" Church. Not the Lord's. In the end, the subtle use
of κυριακός even deprives The Lord of what "belongs to the
Lord". In the end, the "Church" concept not only reduces people as a
means to the end of property and power, but even reduces the Lord
Christ Himself to a means to our own ends. We tell people about Jesus-
we SELL Jesus to unwitting converts- so they will join OUR Church and
tithe and build OUR Kingdom.

The "Church" in the Western world may deeply lament consumerism, and
how everything is bought and sold and turned into a commodity: But
perhaps we are the deep-rooted cause of it all. Perhaps, in the
distant past, when we chose "Church" as our core identity rather than
"Community", we subtly wove into the DNA of Western society the idea
that the ultimate meaning of life is wrapped up in how much stuff we
have, and not in the people we are in love with.

But, honestly: I don't know exactly what to do about it all.

This article is a critique. It is critical, not constructive. It is
about what is wrong, not what is right. It is a rant. But it has far
to go before it is a creative vision of what could be.

Here are a few things I think we shouldn't do:

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. God has given us
the gift of holy places and holy spaces. Sometimes you enter a Church
building, or a Cathedral, or some other Christian monument, and you
can feel the presence of God there. As bad as we are with our "stuff",
and as much as we use institutional power to protect our property, it
is also true that God uses our "stuff" too: He communicates Godself
with us in holy places. He gives us sacraments. We would be spitting
in His face if we simply threw that all away.

We shouldn't kick our spiritual parents out of the house. Like I have
noted, God has given us spiritual parents. God has given us pastors.
God has given us good men and women who care deeply for the state of
our souls, and who labor hard to teach us how to have healthy,
holistic communion with God and each other in Christ. The familial
structure of God's Family is God given, and in an anti-authoritarian
frenzy, we cannot simply commit ekklesial fratricide and matricide. We
need spiritual parents, mentors, and guides for our Journey with Christ.

We shouldn't identify members of any "Church" as outside the ekklesia.
It would be easy, with this critique in hand, to look at those who
maintain membership in an institutional, property owning Church of any
type, and say "They must not be truly following Jesus! They must be
outside the ekklesia!" But that is to presuppose that the ekklesia can
somehow exist outside of existing institutions.

That is as absurd as thinking that God could be truly Incarnate in
Jesus Christ, but that the Incarnate Christ could somehow exist
without living in any particular culture or religion. The truth is,
Jesus Christ existed in a particular culture, and within a particular
corrupt version of religion, which had wrong ideas about God. Jesus
did not somehow try to exist outside of these institutions, but rather
He lived to reform these institutions from the inside out. He knew
that it is only as the Kingdom of God infects our little kingdoms from
within, that the society may be healed and changed.

In the same way, the ekklesia has never ceased to exist in the Church.
Always, in the midst of institutional corruption, the ekklesia has
existed in the the lay people, the mystics, the monks and nuns, the
priests, the pastors, the bishops, and even the Popes, who lived to
"infect" the Church with the true life of the ekklesia. The ekklesia
exists within all human institutions, cultures, and societies- and
especially within the Church- as the subversive life-giving force that
deconstructs and heals from within. Just like Jesus.

But, if all of this is even remotely true, what should we do?

First of all, we cannot leave our particular expressions of Church to
found a new religion disembodied from any previous expression of
Christian faith, which will be the "true ekklesia". To do that would
be to create just another version of Church that is as corrupt as any
other version. No. We need to stay put. Subvert, deconstruct, and heal
from the inside. Just like Jesus. To do anything else is surely peril.

Second, we need to recognize those who are ekklesia from other
Churches, and meet with them regularly, pray with them, and work with
them. The only way to change the Church is to recognize (and
practice!) the fact that ekklesia transcends any particular version of
Church, while working within every version of Church.

Third, we need to change the way we refer to our common life in
Christ, Maybe we should drop "Church" altogether. Maybe we should
start referring to life in God's Family, or working together as
Christ's Body, or worshipping together as a Community of the Spirit.
Maybe we should stop using "stuff" words to refer to our common life,
and start using personal words, community ideas, and organic concepts.

Fourth, as we are in leadership positions within our various
expressions of Church, perhaps we need to start openly questioning our
love of property and power (and the institutional legalism which has
grown up to protect our "stuff"). Maybe we need to start selling stuff
off. Maybe we should encourage use of our buildings by organizations
that are outside of our control. Maybe we need to hold God's gifts
lightly in our hands, knowing that the Lord may need to take it from
us and give it to someone else to use. And perhaps we should encourage
expressions of worship and religion which do not require massive
amounts of money, property, and power to enact. I know this kind of
talk will probably get us crucified. Just like Jesus.

Fifth, we need to pray for leaders- spiritual parents and mentors and
guides- who will be both wise enough and bold enough to stand for
these ideas without also being schismatic and leaving their Church.
Perhaps we need to pray that we ourselves can be such people. This is
almost impossible, I know. But we follow a God who is into doing the
impossible. Just like Jesus.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

The Backdoor Between Lawyers & Clergy

I don't know how many folks notice this: There is a huge backdoor
between the legal profession and the clerical profession.

I know of tons of folks, from several Christian traditions, who leave
the legal profession to become a pastor, priest, or minister.

I also know a bunch of folks (not quite as many), who leave the
clerical profession to become a lawyer.

Why is this the case?

I think there is a skill set issue, and an issue of meaning.

In terms of skill set, I think the two "professions" share a bunch of
overlapping skills:

Both professions require listening carefully and caringly to
"clients", and prescribing a course of action to deal with issues
presented.

Both professions are based on the interpretation and application of
"sacred texts" which give the boundaries for practice (lawyers treat
law codes and court decisions as holy writ, while clergy treat
scripture and tradition as holy writ).

Both professions require skillfull and persuasive presentation of the
issues and implications required by the text (clergy do this through
sermons and lessons, whereas lawyers do it in the courtroom and the
judge's chamber).

And both professions have a myriad of "schools" and "sects" which
interpret and apply the "sacred texts" to contemporary life and culture.

This would lend one to think that both professions are interchangeable.

And Christian history would lend credence to this, because several
Lawyers have become Theologians, and several Theologians have helped
shape the Western tradition of Jurisprudence. On the whole, I think
the legal profession has benefitted from this, as Christian theology
tends to humanize law systems and make them more merciful.

As a sidebar:

I think theology has been ransacked by legalism, and in the words of
Sting their "logic ties me up and rapes me". The harsh legal
categories, concepts of legal guilt and retribution, and rigid black-
or-white concepts do violence to the organic, relational nature of our
relationship with God, through Christ, by the power of the Spirit.

I have only to mention Mediaeval Scholaticism, Calvin, Zwingli,
Protestant Scholasticism, and Charles Finney to show how legalism can
infect, distort, and deconstruct the relational, organic nature of the
Christian Life.

Enough sidebar.

The other reason that I think there is such a huge backdoor between
the Legal and Clerical "professions" is that people are either looking
for, or have given up on, meaning and purpose.

Happy, fulfilled clergy have meaning in life. They believe they are
involved in Christ's mission of healing the world. They believe they
know God and are making God known... They are loving God, and taking
God's Love to the world.

Likewise, happy, fulfilled lawyers (and judges) have meaning in life.
They believe they are advancing justice and truth in the world. They
may even see themselves as instruments of God's justice, helping
setting the world to rights with God.

But, sadly, I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

Often the case is that those in the legal profession are jaded. They
see the legal profession as an exercise in "spin", in manipulating and
packaging the truth, so that money and damages are transferred from
one party to the other. Truth is not served. Justice is not served. It
devolves into a process of the unwilling transfer of resources from
the winners to the loosers. Truth becomes a mere exercise of power.

So, in a flight from meaninglessness to meaning, lawyers think that
becoming clergy will "fix" their problems with meaning, and utilize
the skills they already have. Many of those who make this flight are
disillusioned...

Because being clergy often is much like being a mid-level bureaucrat,
a used-car salesman, or a franchise owner. There are tons of
administrative tasks, most of which are aimed at "covering your ass"
from legal liability (thanks legal profession!). There is a never-
ending cycle of trying to please people who complain, and never
getting their approval no matter what you do or do not do. Most people
in the pews are apathetic to Jesus' message of healing and world-
transformation. They just want words of comfort that validate their
prejudices and social mores. Often, the entire gig feels like an
extended sales call where you are trying to "sell" Jesus to a jaded
and skeptical audience of consumers who's big question is "what do I
get out of this deal?"

So, realizing that most (if not all) of the clerical profession is an
exercise in selling spiritual goods and services, and growing the
consumer base, while keeping the current customers happy, clergy leave
the profession to use their skill set in the legal profession (which
on the whole is a little more honest about the fact that money and
power are the REAL bottom line).

It would be my prayer that both the clerical profession and the legal
profession would come to realize their true meaning and purpose in
God's mission for the world. One is God's agent of healing for a
damaged and dismal world, and the other is God's agent to structure a
just society where less people get damaged.

But, until we make the changes necessary to return to our Purpose in
Christ, I guess there will continue to be folks like me who are jaded
for Jesus...

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

Clergy and The Way Starbucks Sees It #296

Today, as I paid my tithe to the consumer coffee goddess in the form
of a $2.00 Grande Drip of the Day [room for cream, two cups, no
sleeve], I read "The Way I See It #296". It reads like this:

"By the time executives get married, take on a mortgage, raise kids,
cope with the crabgrass, climb the corporate ladder, do their best to
manage career pressures, build their net worth and get into their 40s.
they've lost touch with what they believe in and care about most
deeply."

My thought was this: The same is true for clergy, especially in Church
bodies where there is a "career path" (and let's be honest, almost all
of them have such a path, whether it is explicit in terms of a
hierarchy, or implicit in terms of moving up the ladder from smaller
churches to more prestigious churches).

What has happened to the Church? We were founded by our Master to
continue His work of healing the world. We were anointed and appointed
by His Resurrection Spirit to make individuals, families, and
communities healthy and whole in body, spirit, and soul.

And we have become what?

A corporate ladder that mimics every other corporate ladder, begging
the dominant consumer culture to validate our self worth, by attaining
higher and higher levels in the corporate system, with more
"product" [i.e. self-help-jesus-ism] to sell to more "consumers" [i.e.
the crowd on sunday morning we are desperately trying to entertain, be
relevant for, and hold on to].

Put a person in that system in their 20's, and they will be jaded and
numb by their 40's.

Guaranteed.

We need a new Jesus revolution.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

Marrying Mother Church

i am getting ordained.

soon.

i am doing it because i love serving jesus. i love helping/pastoring/
teaching people to love jesus too.

because, really, jesus is the center, source, and goal of life.

but the church. we fall short. we.

i do not exempt myself from that reality. i am church too.

but getting ordained is a bit... no it is exactly like getting married
to the church. the church is the bride of christ.

the church is the mother of all who come to christ. because she is one
who knows christ and makes him known.

but, i feel like hosea marrying the whore.

because mother church, let's face it...

mother church is a faithless whore.

it doesn't make her any less our mother. or any less the body of
christ. but, let's be honest about her track record...

when she sold out to imperial roman power in the 300's...

when she used christ to wage war in the crusades...

when she sold salvation in the middle ages...

when she ripped apart europe and killed other christians in the
reformation...

when she helped export western colonialialism in the last three
centuries...

when she became adept at making jesus a consumer product in our
country...

when she chained herself to bureaucracy and property across the world...

she's whored herself out so often to so many, it is hard to embrace
her as mother.

and now i am going to marry her. i am going to serve her. i am going
to become part of the leadership that makes her what she is. that
guides her life.

that makes me nervous.

i believe... i know... i am called. called to marry a faithless whore.
called to be hosea version 123,011,093.1

and i am called to do it without any superhero fantasies that i can
"fix" her. i may be able to influence my part. my portion. my ghetto
in the church.

but the whole church?

hmmmm.

i am called to realize that, in fact, the wheat and weeds will grow
together in the church until jesus returns [see matthew 13].

i am called to realize that, in fact, the one holy catholic apostolic
church is made of warring factions of schismatic syncretistic
exclusionary heretical churches.

i am called to remember that, perhaps, the only way to save "the"
church is to preside over the destruction of the churches. and that
makes me sad. stressed. wary.

and yet hopeful.

because i believe in jesus.

and i believe he will have the last word.

that he IS the last word… and the first...

and i believe he has called me to this.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

On "Gay" Agendas and "Christian" Agendas

Recently, a friend emailed me a propaganda email from the "American
Family Association" which was urging Christians to fight the "Gay
Agenda".

It said that a newspaper in Denver was doing an online poll about
whether people thought homosexual orientation could be changed.

So far, 75% say no.

And the email urged all faithful Christians to take the poll, so that
we could show the world that homosexuality CAN be changed.

Really?

Yes, but does fighting untruth with untruth bring glory to Jesus?

Doesn't polling simply miss the point entirely?

It is not about whether people think homosexual orientation can[not]
be changed. It is about whether, in fact, it can be changed regardless
of what people think.

It is about whether people who encounter the power of Jesus are
actually changed.

And what if- I know this might be hard to believe- but what if a
homosexual met Jesus and was transformed into Christ-likeness, and
began really embodying the fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5.22-23]?
What if such a person was filled with Christ's love, joy, peace,
patience, goodness, kindness, faith, humility, self-control, wisdom
and hope?

And what if all of that happened, but they were still homosexual? And
what if they still insisted that people who follow Jesus treat other
homosexuals with Christ's love, joy, peace, patience, goodness,
kindness, faith, humility, self-control, wisdom and hope (regardless
of whether they "converted" to heterosexuality)?

What would we do then? What would we say?

Wouldn't that royally screw up our pro-Jesus political-power rally?

And people will not encounter the power of Jesus through polls. People
will not encounter the power of Jesus through political power, or
legislative coercion.

If that was the case, Jesus would have come in political power to
destroy his enemies, and he would have set up a political kingdom
which destroyed Rome.

But he didn't.

He empowered a powerless group of people to love and heal through the
power of the Holy Spirit.

The whole right-wing semi-christian political movement acts counter to
this. They, in fact, deny the Kingdom of God by seeking to establish a
christless kingdom in Christ's Name.

If you want to prove that Jesus heals homosexuality [or anything else]
should you not rely on the strategy of Jesus himself, who says in the
Gospel of John "believe me on the evidence of the miracles themselves".

Jesus did not poll. Jesus did not curry popular opinion nor political
power.

Jesus just healed.

Maybe followers of Jesus should do that too.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com