2 of 2

I wonder, though, if in our search for a "real church," we fail to see the actual church Jesus Christ calls us into. This church he created; it is also the church that, from the beginning, has proven to be a problem — for example, the church of Corinth, with its incest; the church of Galatia, with its legalism; and the church of Laodicea, with its lukewarm faith.

Time has hardly healed all. Through the ages, this church has proven itself incapable of living up to its own ideals. If we face the facts, we have to say that this is the real church in history. And that's a good thing, because this is the church that Jesus is crazy in love with. The one he died for. The one he still — even after the Inquisition and the Crusades and the Salem Witch Trials — puts his name on, like a father who, as he dresses to attend his son's basketball game, proudly dons the school sweatshirt, even though his son has done much to disappoint him as of late.

This should tell us something about the God we serve. And about the type of company he has chosen to keep. And the type of company he wants us to keep, if we want to be with him.

I sometimes wonder if God (the sly one) is up to something, something we can hardly imagine this most days. I wonder if he calls us into the church not because it represents "the people of God" at our best but at our worst. I wonder if he calls those of us frustrated with church, those of us who think the church is not good enough for our godly aspirations, to become embedded in this wretched institution precisely because it is wretched. And calls us to be a part of it not to reform it or save it, but to remind ourselves week in and week out that, truth be told, we're just like these sinners.

I wonder if he calls us to join a particular church precisely because, well, as the body of Christ, it remains a stumbling block and an offense (1 Cor. 1). Are we really following the Crucified One if there is nothing about him that scandalizes us? Perhaps life in a local church, an institution despised by many, can teach us like no other the ways of humility, forbearance, and mercy.

Maybe once we learn those things — and thus begin, finally, to look a little bit like the Crucified One — that's when we will learn to delight in and with the very people we've been tempted to despise.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. This column is cross-posted on his blog. His newest book has just been released: A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God (Baker).

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous SoulWork columns are available on our site.

first page |  2 of 2

share this page

March (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53