The Teaching Church

This week we are thinking about the Teaching Church, and the Bible Readings are:

Numbers 21 vs 8
And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 12 vs 32
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

All readings are from the NRSV and copyright © 1989 National Council of Churches, USA

Firstly, sorry that this is so late. Secondly, sorry that this is coming so close to the Blog entry for week 6.

I have to confess that I think that of all the areas that we fall down as a church overall, it is in our teaching that we can fall down most seriously. I get very seriously concerned about how many Christians commit themselves to Christ, and yet that is as far as it goes. In spiritual terms, I am concerned as to whether they have ever left kindergarten. The notion that their faith commitment is the entry of a lifetime’s work of wrestling with scripture, and applying the teachings of Jesus Christ to each new situation and discovery, is something that we can often fail to mention. I could, of course, simply blame Paul and his doctrine of justification by faith, since this is often taken to mean that simply having faith is enough, but Paul himself is quick to point out in his letter to the Galatians

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. 17 But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 2 vs 15 ff)

Even stronger than this is James’s comments in chapter 2 of his first letter:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2 vs 14 ff – this continues for the rest of the chapter).

So, if we take this on board, then we need to take seriously both our study as Christians, and our thoughts about how we put our faith into practice. Likewise, when issues arise, answers of “well we have always done this” are simply not acceptable, as they point to a lack of re-evaluation and testing that needs to be a constant part of our life as a church. Circumstances change, and the world around us changes as well, this means that we should be constantly re-evaluating our practices against scripture and the latest understandings of the contexts that surrounded the scriptural texts being written. But in order to do this, we need to be educated in the ways of our faith, so that we don’t just know what scripture says, but so that we can take it, and use it, in a way that is relevant and consistent with what it originally meant, not least by getting beyond the fact that we work with it in English!

Let me give you a simple example. The Internet. What does the Bible say about the Internet? Well you could argue that it says nothing, and that therefore as a church we should not make use of this, because we have survived 2000 years without it – you could, but I would argue that you would be wrong. In fact, scripture talks a great deal about the ways that we communicate the Gospel and the importance of communicating the good news in any way that we can. It also gives us examples of the early church communicating in the equivalent new ways of their times. Paul, in his sermon delivered in the Areopagus, doesn’t quote scripture, but instead he quotes two Pagan poets – Epimenides – Greek philosopher who argued against the Stoics (600 BC) and Aratus, a Cicilian poet of about 300BC. Why? Because he was communicating in a place where he needed to use the people’s own terms of reference in his argument – rather than quoting things that they would have not understood, such as the Jewish scriptures. We need to speak to our society in the same way – using terms of reference that are common currency to them, and communicating via modern media such as this Blog. Likewise, we need to be a church that is constantly seeking new input to challenge us, and to lead us into ever deeper faith in Christ, as we discover that his words, spoken 2000 years ago, are still as relevant to us today, as they were back then, and that they speak to the Internet generation, in the same way that they spoke to those coming to terms with the industrial revolution, and so on.

In our groups on Tuesday and Wednesday there were five questions to stimulate the discussion, based on the bible readings quoted at the start – these have been re-produced by permission of the publisher:

1. What sign or symbol dominates your worship space, or is it a jumble of confused visual images? What symbol would you like to predominate? How should it be incorporated into the space?
2. What impression of your community and its worship is given by the arrangement of the principal pieces of liturgical furniture? E.g. is your altar table accessible or distant, on the floor or up steps, open or fenced? Make a similar assessment of lectern/pulpit and font.
3. Is there duplication in the liturgical furniture? Is there more than one altar or font in your worship space, or more than one place for the reading and preaching of the word? If so, what should be done about it?
4. What impression of your community and its worship is given by the seating plan? Does the seating plan suggest active participation or passive observance? How do the seats for leaders and specialists (e.g. singers) relate to those for the rest of the assembly?
5. Is the font like a “spring of water welling up to eternal life” or a dried up well stuck in a corner? How might water be made use of, at the point of entry into the liturgical space as a sign of God’s life-giving generosity and of our baptism?

Taken from “Re-pitching the tent – Third Edition, by Richard Giles ©2004 Canterbury Press, an imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd. Used by permission.