While running on the treadmill at our gym today the video clip by U2 and Greenday came on: The Saints are coming. You know I am a big U2 fan -- or I should say a Bono fan. I love how he speaks his mind about God's care for the poor and His concern for justice.
This video is the ultimate 'beat swords into plowshares' music clip you have ever seen! It intermingles video of a combined U2/Greenday concert with scenes from New Orleans under water after Katrina hit. Suddenly a whole fleet of Apache helicopters appear over the city. As scary as that sight is, suddenly they start dropping something. At first my thought was: "no, not bombs!" but then the camera moved in closer: they were Red Cross Relief packets. Next the fighterjets appear, followed by B2 bombers -- all carrying relief packets and rescuing people. Best scene in the video-clip: large Red Cross relief packets pushed into B2 bombers.
ARE THE SAINTS COMING?
More than anything else the question I have been thinking about the last few months is this: "why does the church exist?"
Does it exist to meet on Sunday morning? Does it exist to care for each other? Well, yeah, certainly those are good things. Does it exist to teach its members how to better follow Jesus? Certainly that is part of it. Is it a holding-tank for followers of Jesus waiting for his return? Well, even that is not such a bad answer.
But I don't think those answers really answer the question at its core. Here is my answer: I think the church exists to carry on the mission of Jesus. We exist to do what he was doing. What Jesus did for Israel, we are called to do for the world.
Which begs the question: what is the mission of Jesus? That question can perhaps be answered in lots of different ways as well . Yet I think Jesus' answer in Luke 4 is probably the best:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Let me cut to the chase. I think the church exists for the good of the world. If Jesus came to heal the sick, preach good news to the poor, proclaim justice, and give sight for the blind -- we should be doing the same.
"But Jesus had super-powers!" I hear you say. "We don't have his miraculous ability! Our ability to do miracles are limited at best." Well, yes, that is true (though we might have more if we tried a little harder?). But what if we started with what we had?
Brian McLaren puts it like this (and I really can't say it any better): the church exists for the good of the world. Which begs the question: where on earth are the saints?
I think God is renewing the church. We have been entrenched in the modern world, allowing ourselves to be lured into a state-of-belief which emphasized intellectual assent to certain truths, while rendering us useless in the world. Some Christians bemoan the fact that Christians have so little influence: I rather think it is amazing (and probably a sign of God's grace) that we still have any at all! The way the Church (The Saints) has allowed itself to retreat behind four walls is really shocking to me.
Yet God is renewing the church. Through people like Bono, Brian McLaren, NT Wright, and many others (prophetic types I would call them) the church is waking up to his renewal.
I think the Saints are coming...!
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