A recent Methodist Conference produced a report on the Church. It was entitled Called to Love and Praise. Is this what the Church is all about, or is it just one facet of our calling as Christians?
Quite certainly we are called to love. "I give you a new commandment," said Jesus. "You are to love one another as I have loved you." And loving one another doesn't just mean getting on with our fellow church members. We are not a holy club for English-speakers. We are called to reach out in love to everyone - even the Osama bin Ladens of this world.
Equally certainly, we are called to praise. Reading the Gospels, we can get bogged down in the message which Jesus brought, and too easily forget the reaction which people had when Jesus touched their lives. For the message is simply a means to an end - to a relationship with God and with our fellow humans. Love and praise seem to be a good description of such a relationship.
But aren't we also called to other things? Called to repentance? Called to preach the Good News to all the ends of the earth? What about our forthcoming study of the Bible - aren't we called to know God's Word? Well, yes. But repentance is a single step on the path to praise. And evangelization is just one of the ways we can express our love for others: by sharing what we have experienced, and helping others to feel what we feel. And Jesus' fresh interpretation of the law and the prophets freed us all and allowed us to place love before legalism.
As members of God's Church, we have two kinds of relationship. One relationship looks sideways to the people around us. The other looks beyond ourselves, to God. And this second relationship is one that we share with other church members, which is why we all meet from time to time and praise God together. (And if I was being philosophical, I'd note that the Greek word koinonia, translated by both fellowship and communion, refers to both kinds of relationship.)
If we think too much in terms of fellowship and communion, though, we risk becoming a holy huddle. We are not a club - we are God's agents in the world. The Church is in the world, and we need to take our place seriously. Of course we need time together, as a church, but we need to look outwards as well. The Church has a lot to give to the world. Think for a moment of love.
It is often terribly easy to get what we want. We can often obtain it through a combination of threats and promises. This is not Christ's way, though, and nor is it God's way (or not, at least, since Jesus radically changed our understanding of the Old Testament!). A life of threats and promises is a life without solid peace or sincere pleasure. Is this not a message which we can transfer into the world of politics? And should we not as a church get together and do something about the situation of the world around us.
Love and worship do not stop at the church gate. If we restrict our religion to "churchy" things - to debating the language we use in our worship, the narrow sectarian issues that divide us, the ordination of women, the marriage of people falling outside the church's sexual ethic, then we risk losing touch with the world outside the gate. And if we only look inwards at ourselves, then people outside the Church will look at what we do - and laugh. May God give us eyes to look outside the gate!
HD