Who the Church is
When the goal of a church is to get people into church services and then teach them how to invite people to come to church services, so that they in turn will bring others to more church services—
that’s attendance at church services.
And church is not ultimately about attending large gatherings.
Church is people.
People who live a certain way in the world.
People who have authority in the world, but authority that comes from breaking themselves open and pouring themselves out so that the world will be healed.
The authority that the church has in culture does not come from how right, cool, or loud it is, or how convinced it is of its doctrinal superiority.
As Paul says, “We don’t fight with those weapons” (2 Corinthians 10:4). A church’s authority comes from somewhere else—it comes from how we’ve been broken open and poured out, not from how well we’ve pursued power and lobbied and organized ourselves to triumph. This is why when Christians organize politically and start flexing that muscle, making threats about how they are going to impose their way on others, so many people turn away from Jesus.
Jesus’ followers at that point are claiming to be the voice of God, but they are speaking the language of Caesar and using the methods of Rome, and for millions of us it has the stench of Solomon.
It is not the path of descent,
it’s not weak resonating with weak,
it’s not the Way,
it’s not Eucharist.
What the Eucharist does is particularize the exodus story in time and space. Exodus is the ultimate picture of salvation. People in slavery, rescued by the grace of God and brought to a land flowing with milk and honey. People told to “get up, because this is the night!” People who were led into a new tomorrow, one unlike today. People who were then told to leave the corner of their field, the olives they missed on the first pass, the grapes they didn’t pick on the first round.
Why were they told to do this?
So that the poor in their midst could pick them up. People who were told to do this because “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:9-10, 36). How are they taught to keep the exodus, the grace of God, alive in their lives? By remembering the poor.
When you give unconditionally, you will be reminded of the God who gives unconditionally.
When you extend grace to others in their oppression, you are reminded of the grace extended to you in yours.
The Eucharist is the firstborn, the church leading the way in exodus. Every time we take part in the Eucharist, we’re reminded that we were each slaves and God rescued us. The church must cling to her memory of exodus, because if that memory is forgotten,
the church may forget the poor,
and if the poor are forgotten,
the church may forget what it was like to be enslaved,
and that would be forgetting the grace of God.
And that would be forgetting who we are.
Rob Bell, from Jesus Wants to Save Christians