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Habeas Corpus?

Another number of the denomination's clergy journal recently arrived in the mail. Its front cover looked promising enough; but, just a few minutes between the covers made it pretty clear that there wasn't much substance to back up the promise. As usual, the journal articles shined when it came to discovering the obvious.

What is obvious, as this particular journal pointed out yet again, is that mainline churches, particularly the United Methodist Churches, are frequented mostly by old people, who are dying off altogether too quickly. Most of the authors asserted that the answer to the situation doesn't lie in new programs, but then they offered, as part of their meager prescriptions, new programs of readings in which would-be successful pastors should lose themselves.

The old Rolling Stones tune, "I Can't Get No Satisfaction …" ran through my head as I tossed the journal to the floor on its first leg of a journey to the trash. "I can't get no, no, no, no, no, no!" What is it that I want, particularly in and from the Church?

I believe the answer to that question is: "Jesus, the Christ, is what I want!" Please don't ask me exactly what that means; however, I'll know Him when I see Him both in me and in the church. I'll know Him by the nail prints and the wounded side. I'll know Him by the selflessness and self transcendence that radiates all around wherever He is. I'll know Him by the Resurrection stuff, healing and rebirth that happen wherever He shows up. I'll know Him by lots of things that almost never happen between the walls of church buildings on Sunday mornings because the Risen Jesus really isn't welcome there.

Most people who attend church services on Sunday mornings have little notion of why they are there. For most, the reasons for attending church services are variations on the theme of "it's the right thing to do!" On one level that is sufficient reason. But on the level of intentional faith in Jesus as the Christ, it is just not enough.

The people who were first to believe in Jesus as the Christ came together in the early morning of the first day of the week to celebrate anew the Resurrection of Jesus who they had come to know as Christ. They had struggled through tears, doubts, fears, and unbelief to experience the Risen One themselves. On Sunday mornings, they submerged themselves in the new reality opened by the Resurrection.

Sunday morning was embraced as occasion to remember, to be awed, to celebrate the power of a God so great, the love of a Father for a Son so strong, the compassion of a Creator for all Creation so vast, that the fundamental order of the universe was totally flipped upside-down. Everything has been changed so that death no longer wins in the end. Death isn't "THE END" of everything, rather it's "THE BEGINNING!" of everything.

Through the centuries, Christians in the guise of the institutional church have reduced the miracle once celebrated on Sunday morning into something less than mundane; now it is just totally boring. It's all so predictable: a couple of hymns, a couple of prayers, a sermon and an offering. On Sunday mornings, from pulpit to the pew, the biggest concern tends to be "get everyone in, get everything done, get everyone back out of the building in less than 59 minutes!" Obviously, everyone, including the priests and preachers, have more serious and more important things to do with themselves and their time.

It's little wonder that many church buildings are mostly empty on Sunday mornings. Clearly, nothing important goes on there; nothing that is miraculous, nothing that gives people a new start in life, nothing that changes either people or the world noticeably for the better. Obviously, neither the ones in the pulpit nor the ones in the pew "have given up everything to follow …" Jesus. No one is doing any of the "turning the world upside-down" stuff that early Christians were accused of doing.

The early Church grew in numbers at an astounding rate. And, early Christians were accused of all sorts of outrageous and unseemly things (atheism, lack of patriotism, cannibalism) almost all of which were false. However, they were never accused of being boring.

The early Church was an alive Body of Christ, energized by the Holy Spirit and by faith in the Risen One.

What has happened to the body of Christ?

Habeas Corpus?