What is chuch?

Are the institutions of the church, as they stand, compatable with Christ’s original vision?

The importance of context

Imagine you’d never heard of Martin Luther King Jr or Nelson Mandela. Now you’re given their greatest speeches to read & digest. Undoubtedly you’d find them insightful, inspirational they may even change you as you try to live out thier message. Yet how much more meaningful would the words be if you understood that they were written from under terrible systems of oppression. You knew about apartheid, the massacre at Soweto, and the race riots or had considered the bravery of Rosa Parks? You may well have extracted ‘timeless truths’ without this knowledge. While missing a wealth of timely truth. Truth that’s set in a time & place to real people. At the very least you’d be missing a whole dimension of understanding and the knowledge you gleaned would be patchy and how would you patch those holes? Obviously you can see where I’m going with this. Understanding the context of the scriptures and the words of Jesus is imperative to our fully appreciating and understand them.

What is church?

Before we dive straight into the words of Christ let us take a deep breath and take in some context first. It will come as no surprise to many that the english word church comes from the greek word ekklisia – meaning an assembly. However it may surprise you to know that this word in the 1rst century was not overtly ‘religious’. Perhaps its earliest use, from which it spread along with Greek conquest & culture is found in the city state of Athens.

The Assembly ( E)KKLHSI/A ) was the regular gathering of male Athenian citizens (women also enjoyed the status of “citizen,” but without political rights) to listen to, discuss, and vote on decrees that affected every aspect of Athenian life, both public and private, from financial matters to religious ones, from public festivals to war, from treaties with foreign powers to regulations governing ferry boats. When Aristotle describes how government was restored after Sparta defeated Athens in 404 BCE he says that this restoration happened when “the People became sovereign over affairs” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 41.1)[1]. Now let us fast forward a little to the birth of Jesus.
Emperor Augustus rules the known world. An inscprition was set up on the island of Phila high up the Nile at the first waterfall: ‘The emperor, ruler of oceans and continents, the divine father among men, who bears the same name as his heavenly father – Liberator, the marvellous star of the greek world, shining with the brilliance of the great heavenly Saviour’. Later an Alexandrian Jew called him, ‘he who not merely loosened but burst the chains which bound and oppresssed the dwellers of the earth. It was he who led all the cities of the earth to freedom’. He was remembered at every prayer at table. So called divine, a kind of god-man he was little different in his asperations to that of the line of Caesars. In A.D. 69, the year of the four emperors, we find the the coins of Emperor Galba. Whom the spanish sibyl calls the divinely promised lord of the world. His coin bear the inscription SALUS GENERIS HUMANI – the Salvation of the Human Race. (E. Stauffer) [2].Galba believed that was what he was achieving (or at least that’s what he wanted everbody else to believe). I hope I am not labouring the point. In the world in which Jesus was born there was one Kingdom, Saviour, Lord of Lords, King of kings, Giver of Grace, there already was a proclaimed Son of God and his name was Caesar. The Ecclesia all belonged to and operated under his dominion. He dicated the form of these assemblies, who could and could not be a citizen, and therefore shaped the society they represented. Now that we have breathed deeply of the context let us turn to the words of Christ.

Mat: 16:13 – 18

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Ceaseria Philipi was not the regular haunt of good jewish boys. The hint is in the name. Philip Herod built the city naming it Caesarea Philippi to honour the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus. It became a centre of Greek-Roman culture, known for its pagan worship. Particularly that of the god Pan whose worship consisted of sexual acts of surprising deviancy that often ended up in the panic of worshipers. Its status as Herod Philip’s capital city, with its significant Gentile population, reflects the city’s status as the power centre of Philip’s territory. If Jesus were standing with His disciples in front of this sheer cliff, it would explain His use of the metaphor "rock" used in His conversation with Peter. The word He used was petra, a term that would be used to describe a bluff. This seems likely as it was Jesus’ practice to teach in metaphors and parables that related to the physical context in which He was ministering, e.g. "fishers of men" spoken on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Let us consider ‘on this rock I will build my ecclesia’. For the first time Jesus makes this historic announcement and the choice of the setting is visual poetry. It was here in 198 B.C. a battle was fought between the Ptolemy’s (tolerant of the Jews) and the Seleucids’ that decided that fate of the Jewish people for the next 300 years. The Seleucids prevailed and were hostile to the Jews outlawing Judaism and forcing Greek culture and religion upon them. Here in the centre of Roman Imperial power in the region. Here where a temple built by Herod the Great to honour the god-man Augustus stands. Here under the shadow of Pan – the god of shepherds & flocks the Great Shepherd makes his proclamation. (R. Vander Lann)[3]. It is His intention to create an ecclesia. Can you begin to see the ramifications? He’s announcing the inauguration of a new society on the stronghold of the old. Proclaiming himself messiah (king) not only over Israel but also over the world. His ecclesia; his assembly of citizens as a Christocentric society representative of him. He is subverting the empire by unpicking its very seams. In Caesar the slaves serve the citizens in the ecclesia. In Christ male and female, slave and free are citizens and part of the ecclesia.

Please take the time to think about the next statement before going on.

The inaugaration of Jesus Christ's ecclisia had obvious political, social, economic & spiritual ramifications to every facit of a believers life.

Now let us consider ‘and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.’ At the base of this 100-foot cliff an underground river flowed from a deep cave called the Grotto of Pan. It was also known as the “gates of Hades (Hell)”. It was believed that gods used this cave to travel to and from the underworld. As you have already seen any talk about the separation of religion and politics in the society that Christ lived in beggars’ belief. Underlying that understanding is the awareness that the powers that be are not separate from the spiritual realms. Christ’s proclamation in this darkest of places is that he is going to build his new society not only in the shadow of hostile imperial might, false religion & perverse pagan culture but from it – out of it, on it. Let us elaborate further.

Mat 5:13-15.
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house."

During the first century the people of Galilee mixed salt with dried dung (a common fuel) to make it burn hotter. Over time however the salt lost the qualities that made it effective. So when it was no longer fit for being mixed with manure the “saltless” salt was thrown out. This is a good metaphor for the life of believers. As followers of Christ we should be mixed up in all that stinks about our world. Where there is darkness and dung we should be found. Part of it, but distinct from it, retaining our purpose and character. Note the city on a hill metaphor cannot be about individual believers but a people, an assembly, an ecclesia. The city on a hill can be seen as pointing to a society within a society, distinct yet emerging from within it. It is the green shoot of Pax Christi springing from Pax Romana.

Lastly let us consider: ‘ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ The keys refer to the authority Christ was giving to his ecclesia. In 1st century Palestine to forbid and permit reinterpreting the scripture and the practises that naturally flow from this action was termed binding & loosing. (Anchor Bible Dictionary)[4]. For example Josephus[5] mentions how the Pharisees claimed the power of binding & loosing. Their community called upon them to interpret scriptural commands. The Bible forbids working on the Sabbath, for instance, but it does not define what constitutes work. As a result, the Pharisees were required to rule on which activities were permitted on the Sabbath. They ‘bound’ or prohibited certain activities, and ‘loosed’ or allowed, others. So now this authority lies with the church. The right to rethink, discuss, debate, wrestle & pray through our interpretations of the scripture. Because maybe we missed this or that before and now we think we know more of what something means. Jesus says when we do that heaven will be involved: ‘and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’. We wont be alone in our enterprise for God will be with us. Exercising this power of course will dictate the shape, practice, humour and future of the church. It is this that I hope even now we are engaged upon.

To conclude the church was conceived as Christ’s new society emerging from within the old. Usurping, unpicking the very stitching and seams of the old. Eroding political, religious, cultural & economic divides in its new order. As such new believers in the 1st century were faced with certain knowledge of the radical changes that would affect their lives. Such vibrancy casts into stark relief the thought of the faithful being those who turn up to church on Sunday. They were given the privilege, the necessary right to review and reinterpret scripture not only in the light of the announcement of the inauguration of His ecclesia. It was that they might become just that. Emerging from their temple bound system with its religious & cultural divides. So they may come to the day when it is to be announced.

Rev 11:15
"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."

What then will we do with this knowledge? How does it affect our theology and the practice that comes out of it? Are the institutions of the church, as they stand, computable with Christ’s original vision?

A particularly thought provoking article I found in blogspace questioning the nature of church can be found on the link below. Its entitled what if church were invisible?

http://www.mendingshift.com/2008/03/03/what-if-we-were-invisible/

[1] Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 20, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1952.

[2] Christ and the Caesars. Etherlbert Stauffer. SCM Press LTD. London.

[3] Faith Lessons on the early church. Zondervan.Grand Rapids. Michigan.

[4] Anchor Bible Dictionary 1.743-45. (New York: Doubleday, 1992)

[5] Josephus War of the Jews, 1.5.2. The complete works of Josephus. Michigan., 1960.