Should "Church" Die? Part 3
Or, "If 'Church' Were Cremated, What Treasures Would We Hold Onto From Its Ashes?"
Dearest Friends,
A week ago, I hopped on a Zoom meeting to watch a panel of doctors, faith leaders, and parents chat about advocating for trans youth in Texas. What can “we” do, they wondered, to advocate for trans folks in the face of looming anti-trans legislation? One of the most powerful points they made was that when we speak of standing beside our trans friends, we are not talking about a social or cultural “issue,” we are talking about a human rights issue.
The same is true when we are talking about how we treat immigrants living on American soil, “legal” or not. At our core, we are all human, and we all deserve basic human rights— the wisdom scriptures mention that even our enemies ought to be given food and water if they are hungry or thirsty (Proverbs 25:21). I wonder whether we could all step out of our political, religious, cultural “boxes” long enough to see that allowing someone access to basic medical care or stepping in when we notice someone working long hours under the blazing sun without access to shelter and water is our human obligation.
This brings me to a statement a rabbi made during the panel about churches and sanctuaries. “Whether we have synagogues or churches,” he said, “they all have these rooms in them called ‘sanctuaries.’ The very notion of ‘sanctuary’ is that it is a safe place, a haven. And that is one thing our faith communities ought to be providing to trans youth in the months and years to come.”
Sanctuary. A haven. A safe space. When was the last time you thought of sanctuary in this way? I don’t know about you, but when I hear sanctuary, I so often think of it as the biggest room in the church, the space where worship takes place. The rabbi’s definition of sanctuary, however, had the same effect on me that hitting that little refresh button has on my browser when it gets a little too sleepy. It reminded me to wake up, to think, to wonder— what’s the use of ‘church’ if it is not doing something in this world that is relevant to what the world needs?
What’s the use of ‘church’?
This is one of my core questions, at any rate. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I’m practical. Why waste time, money, resources, and effort on “things” which aren’t doing any good for the world? I’m pretty sure Jesus was feeling some of this angst when he flipped over those tables in the temple (of course there’s more to it than that… there’s his anger that profiteers had infiltrated a place of worship and were taking advantage of people, too).
I ask the “what’s the use” question, too, because my barometer for “good and evil” at this point in time is: good is that which supports life and evil is that which works against it. Therefore, I’m always asking whether a certain concept of ‘church’ is for life.
When I consider this and then think about the Rabbi’s definition of sanctuary, I smile. Sometimes one way of looking at something has to die before the treasue that is life-in-a-new-way-of-thinking can be found.
Jesus never stepped foot in a church, being that he was Jewish. Even as a Jewish rabbi, he rarely stepped foot in synagogues or the Temple (except for a few quick stops to shock people with his interpretations or to turn over tables). A quick read-through of the gospels shows a Jesus who was pretty much constantly on the move (which is really what most rabbis, who were focused on teaching ordinary people how to live, did; and fyi, there was also a lot of debate among the Jews of Jesus’ day over whether or not the Temple was THE Temple, and whether or not God was actually living there).
If Jesus wasn’t focused on “being in a building” or centralizing himself in one place, what were some things he was focused on?
Flipping tables…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Asking hard questions…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Telling simple stories which, like poetry, were impossible to interpret only one way…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Messing with power dynamics and social norms…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Doing that which was most unexpected…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Conjuring the impossible…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Issuing challenges…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
Hanging out with all kinds of people (no one was too weird or wild for Jesus)…
Telling people about the “Kingdom of God”…
(I’m sure you get the picture and now are yelling at me to stop, already! ;-))
I think sometimes we forget that the church formed after Jesus vanished, after he failed to come back and set up that promised “Kingdom.” All his followers were left behind this vanished Jesus with the heady perfume of his words and actions, wondering what the hell they were supposed to do with this eu de life.
You can imagine them trying to figure out how to preserve it all, still unsure exactly what Jesus had even meant when he said this, did that, and died, damn it! But there was something there they just couldn’t let go of, something worth preserving and trying to sort out, something worth getting together to discuss and then trying to live out. Life. The “Kingdom” (or how about for our modern imaginings, the “Kin-dom”) of God. The early disciples, men and women and nonbinary folks, had smelt it until they were tasting it, that promise of Life in its most poetic sense— beautiful, un-colonizable, impossible.
This all brings up some new ways to conceptualize ‘church,’ doesn’t it?
‘Church’ as a response to the absence of the Jesus-who-brought-life— “The first followers of the Way were expecting on event, an event to end all events, but they got another, which really was a disappointment, a retrenchment, a make do until the arrival of the kingdom, whose arrival has been unexpectedly delayed,” says John Caputo in What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (page 39).
What do you think? Is this a way to think of ‘church’ which puts some other definitions to death (or points out they aren’t bringing life or are already dead)?
‘Church’ as a substitute, a placeholder, until the “Kin-dom of God” arrives. ‘Church’ as sanctuary.
‘Church’ as a response to an absence.
‘Church’ as a guiding, searching, endlessly-seeking question.
Friends, I’m so happy I opened this letter speaking of those beautiful trans friends of mine (and ours), for “trans” is the root of “transform,” and if we don’t continuously do so, we will die.
Peace, friends. May your next weeks be blessed.
Love,
Carissa
P.S. In the next letter, I hope you will join me in imagining what this sorta ‘church’ might look like…
Your writing is always challenging, Carissa! I am already listening to In His Steps on Audible and reading What Would Jesus Deconstruct.....
Thank you!!❤️