October 27, 2002 - Twenty Third Sunday after Pentecost
I Thessalonians 2: 1-8
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Matthew 22: 34-46
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“A Publike Church”

For the past several years I’ve been privileged to be one of the teachers for the Congregational Foundation for Theological Studies’ ‘Boston Seminar.’  This seminar is an intensive examination of Congregational history and polity.  My task is to offer the students the history and development of the Congregational idea of what it means to be ‘church’ and the theology that undergirds that idea, the technical term is ‘ecclesiology.’  As a consequence, we spend a goodly amount of time with sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century documents.  The spelling in the earlier materials is, shall we say, non-uniform and often provides humorous situations.  One in particular stands out for me.

One student came across the phrase “a public church,” but the spelling rendered it ‘publike.’  I believe he knew exactly what he was doing when he asked me, “Tell us more about this pub-like church concept, please.”  Well, we all chuckled, but the more I’ve thought about it the more on-target I believe he was.  When the Reformers were at work creating what would become all the branches of Protestantism, their concern was to restore the church to its original state.  They wanted the experience of the church found in the New Testament.  Quite frankly, I think they were out to create a ‘pub-like’ church and here’s my reasoning.

The ‘public house,’ or ‘pub,’ in Ireland and Great Britain is the ‘community living room.’  You’ll find people of all ages and walks of life in the ‘local.’  The pub is a place of warmth and welcome.  It’s where you go to meet your neighbors and friends; it’s where you go to celebrate and to commiserate.  For many of us the fictional Boston pub “Cheers” offered the ideal for the neighborhood ‘watering hole.’  What captivated me was not only the wonderful ensemble work of the actors, but the theme song itself.  It talked about “you want to go where everybody knows your name,” “people are all the same,” and “everyone’s glad you came.”  As I think about that song, isn’t that what the church is supposed to be like?  The church should be a welcoming place, one where people do know your name, where people are all the same, and are glad that you came.  Unfortunately, that is not how most people think of the church.  They assume that ‘churched’ people are self-righteous, judgmental and less than loving.  If perception is reality, we’ve allowed the true perception of our Christian faith to be lost.

Part of the problem has been the fragmentation of the Christian churches, which began almost the minute after the Lord ascended.  The divisions among us, the inability to reach across denominational lines doesn’t help to promote the perception of the church as a loving and nurturing place.  South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu hit the nail right on the head when he said, “The dividedness of the churches makes it difficult for people to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  Jesus didn’t come preaching anything but God’s love and the immediate presence of God’s kingdom.  Somehow over the years we’ve allowed our perceptions, our agendas to get in the way of God’s agenda, which is loving reconciliation.

Jesus certainly reminds us that this is to be the focus when he gives his answer to the Pharisees.  The words of the ‘great commandment’ are powerful: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Cyril of Alexandria commenting on this passage said, “Therefore the first commandment teaches every kind of godliness.  For to love God with the whole heart is the cause of every good.  The second commandment includes the righteous acts we do toward other people.  The first commandment prepares the way for the second and in turn is established by the second.  For the person who is grounded in the love of God clearly also loves his neighbor in all things himself.  The kind of person who fulfills these two commandments experiences all the commandments.” [Fragment 251]   We see the essence of the ‘publike church’ wrapped up in those essential commands to love God and love neighbor.  The church is simply a gathering of people who love God completely, and love their neighbors with the same affection they have for themselves.

When we talk about love in this context we’re not focusing on feeling.  I like what the psychologist M. Scott Peck has written, “Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional.  The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love.  The person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present.”  In other words love is what allows us to reach out to someone again and again in spite of failures or misdeeds and to forgive.  God wills to loves us and because of that love we are, in turn, empowered to love others in the same way.  The ‘publike church’ is a loving place, a place where there are not only people who are glad you came, but they’re all the same.  In this case the sameness is quite acceptable, since what makes them the same is the common experience of God’s love and mercy.

The church, then, is supposed to be a place where people are not only loving, but where we learn how to love.  In one of the periodicals I receive there was an excerpt from Donna Sinclair’s A Woman’s Book of Days that I found quite compelling, and applicable to our exploration of the “publike church.”   She writes:

It’s hard to love unless we have been well-loved enough to consider ourselves lovable.  That’s what is meant by “good-enough” mothers.  Mothers don’t have to be perfect.  They just have to be good enough to let us know that we are lovable.

If we haven’t attained that much self-acceptance, it’s important to find it.  The best place to look is around people who love easily.

Volunteer organizations are logical places for people who are overflowing with love.  Or children, who don’t guard their love and are too young to have decided love must be perfect.

Some churches, if they understand that grace is more important than rules, can be filled with very loving people.  You’ll be able to tell by the way people treat each other whether or not this is the case.

The way to learn to love is to go where we will be loved.

Sinclair offers both a profound observation and a well-deserved whack on the head for the churches.  People need to know that they’re lovable.  God’s love for us doesn’t depend on our earning it, God’s love just is.  For churches, then, what becomes most important is that we reflect the love of God by living out the commandments that Jesus left us: love God, love each other.  People will be able to tell whether or not we’re accomplishing it “by way people treat each other.”

Paul reminds the Thessalonians of how they were to treat each other when he tells them, “But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.  So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”   His words recall the behavior that they saw in Paul, Silvanus and Timothy.  They didn’t have to be gentle, but they were.  Their love was intentional and drew the church in Thessalonica into relationship.

So, what we see is that love is more than emotion and the church is more than a random gathering.  The church, like love itself, is an intentional thing.  It is at this point, the intentionality of the church, that the Congregational reformers provided important perspectives.  Henry Barrow offered a A True Description Out of the Word of God, of the Visible Church that said,

This church, as it is universally understood, containeth in it all the elect of God that have been, are, or shall be.  But being considered more particularly, as it is seen in this present world, it consisteth of a company and fellowship of faithful and holy people gathered together in the name of Christ Jesus, their only king, priest, and prophet, worshipping him aright, being peaceably and quietly governed by his officers and laws, keeping the unity of faith in the bond of peace and love unfeigned.

His point is that while there is a universal church, you can’t really see it.  All you can see is the ‘particular church,’ the local, gathered body of believers.  This recovery of an essential New Testament concept has affected how Christians think about what it means to be church ever since – and this is across all denominational lines because even the Roman Catholic bishops complain about ‘creeping Congregationalism’ in their ranks!

In the Congregational understanding, it’s not enough that you live in a territory or have had a ‘history’ of being Congregational – or anything else for that matter – that makes you ‘belong’ to a church.  You belong because you have intentionally entered into a covenant relationship, which means that you will live-out the “unity of faith in the bond of peace and love unfeigned.”  The framers of the 1648 Cambridge Platform, which is the magna carta of American Congregationalism, demonstrated Barrow’s influence when they defined a Congregational Church as:

. . . by the institution of Christ a part of the Militant-visible-church, consisting of a company of Saints by calling, united into one body, by a holy covenant, for the publick worship of God, and the mutuall edification one of another, in the Fellowship of the Lord Jesus. [chapter 2.6 in Williston-Walker, Creeds and Platforms, p. 205.]

That definition sounds very much like the ‘purpose’ statement of this church, “to bind together followers of Jesus Christ.”  And then we get into how this intentional relationship is expressed in worship, in growth in knowledge and expression of faith, in service, and stewardship. In short, what we see, at least by definition, is a “publike church.”

We see the definitions are in place, we understand that what matters is that we have ‘purposed’ or intentionally entered into relationship, and we know what the church is supposed to be doing.  Now, are we doing it?  Yes, but there’s room to grow.  I see signs, truly, that we’re becoming a “publike church.”  The other day word got to me that one of our elderly members was in difficulty and that folks from this church were stepping in to offer assistance.  I see a growing sense of genuine concern for each other’s well-being and a concerted effort to reach out not only with prayers and kind words, but with concrete physical assistance.  That, dear sisters and brothers, is the mark of a “publike church” – people care, because they have been cared for.  It all begins with opening ourselves to the presence and the love of God which is in our midst.

As to the room to grow, we can always be doing more to reach out to those in need.  There are so many things we could be doing to make a positive impact in our community in terms of additional services for the elderly or even after-school programs for tutoring.  While a large church, we’re still a friendly church, but sometimes we have to overcome our reticence in wondering whether someone is a visitor or not and reach out to someone we don’t know with a word of welcome.  We’re on the right track, but we can always grow and isn’t growth in the “knowledge and expression of our faith” part of what we have covenanted to do together?

“You want to go where people are all the same . . . and they were really glad you came … you want to go where everybody knows your name.”  It may have started with a joke about sixteenth century spelling, but the idea of a “publike church” is compelling.  Why, because God is always the same, is always glad we came, and always knows our names.  The “publike church” is about being welcoming and loving.  The “publike church” is focused on loving God and loving our neighbor and I’m glad to be a part of a faith community that is on its way to becoming one.  Amen.