All these views are valid and good. But we do well to keep them in balance. Stressing one more than another can lead to tensions among Christians, to disagreements, even to very un-Christian thoughts and actions! And of course we tend to find fellowship easier with those who hold the same view as we do. It has been said that some of the happiest and most successful churches are those whose members share a common model, a common vision of what the church is about.
Food for thought indeed, for we at St Ursula's cannot afford ourselves the luxury of going to "the church down the street". We have to rub along together. This may be our weakness, or could be our strength.
Jesus and the apostles have given us several pictures to hang our thoughts on. We are stones in a building (1 Cor 3:10, Eph 2:20), "built upon a rock". We are limbs and parts of a body (1 Cor 12) of which Christ is the head. We are sheep in a flock, led by the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). We are guests at a banquet (Luke 14:15).
These are different images, but they have several things in common. One thing is our reliance on God for direction, help and support. We are not leading our lives alone. The support, the guidance, the help we rely on will never fail and never let us down.
And the second aspect is our need to grow. Even the building Paul describes is one that is growing, being "built up." (And it is good to remember that the word "edify", which we find throughout his epistles, means just this.) Bodies certainly need to grow, just as vines which fail to grow wither and get pruned away!
1 Pet 2:2-5 is probably part of a sermon welcoming the newly-baptized into the church. It takes the analogy even further. We are living stones, and at first for growth we need "spiritual milk". Later we need "solid food" (1 Cor 3:2, Heb 5:14).
The "food" we need consists partly of teaching - the sort that helps us to grow in spiritual maturity. Jesus himself, though, uses the word food in two other, and striking, senses.
Jesus "food" is "to do the will of the one who sent him" (John 4:34). Here he is looking forward to the way he will give himself for us on the Cross. And closely associated with the same thought is his giving of himself as our own food, the food "which endures to eternal life", his own flesh and blood (John 6:27 - read on!!)
No matter what our view of the church, we cannot live without this food. Our life with Christ is a life lived in Christ, a life where Christ lives in us and in our hearts. Lord, give us this food always!
HD