What the Words Messiah and Church Have In Common

Answer #1

Both words show up in the below passage!

Matthew 16
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of death will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Answer #2

Both words have been utterly and tragically misused and abused.

Jesus avoided the term Messiah like the plague. Practically everything that God had in mind for his Messiah was exactly not what the religious leaders and people of Jesus' day had in mind. And the Messiah they were waiting for was pretty much exactly not what God had in mind. Even the twelve disciples were utterly confused in their understanding. This is precisely why, after complimenting Peter for guessing correctly, Jesus proceeded to prohibit him from saying such things publicly.

The Messiah whose coming the Old Testament prophets foresaw was so wonderful that they found themselves literally grasping for words to convey the wonder of what they saw. By the time Jesus arrived, however, the word Messiah had been co-opted into a festering project of hatred and violence.

The Messiah, it was commonly believed, would overthrow the world order and restore Israel to the top of the heap. The Messiah, it was thought, would do some serious bloody and violent housecleaning. The Messiah, it was thought, hated Gentiles.

No wonder Jesus didn't want to be publicly associated with the word.

This, I submit, is the problem we face today with the word church. If Jesus were to conduct a follow-up interview with his disciples today, how might it go?

I imagine the following:

When Jesus came to the region of the Americas, he asked his disciples, "What do people here say the Church is?"

They replied, "Some say it's a place where sexual predators, money-grubbers and power-mongers find easy prey."

"Ouch." Jesus winced. "How do you feel about that?"

They answered, "We grieve that a people called to holiness, simple living and mutual submission should fail so greatly as to make such caricatures not only possible but in many cases well-justified."

"What else do you hear?" Jesus inquired.

They replied, "Others say the is church a minority group of people who want to write laws that will force all of society to live by their own standards of behavior."

"Do you agree?" Jesus asked.

They replied, "We don't think laws change people. It's your job to change hearts and transform lives."

"What else do people here say the Church is?" Jesus asked.

They replied, "Still others say that it is a bunch of people who hide from life and hate gays and other people they consider sinners."

"How do you feel about that?" Jesus asked.

They replied, "You spent most of your time with the people that religious leaders hated the most. We think we should do the same."

"What do people who go to church around here think the Church is?" Jesus asked.

They replied, "Many of them think it is a place where people gather socially on Sundays to listen to a sermon, sing a few inspiring songs, and get a lift that will carry them through the week. If it's a big church, they like to buy coffee at the Starbucks in the foyer."

"But what about you?" Jesus asked. "What do you say the Church is?"

They replied, "We are your people. We expect to suffer because we follow you. We encourage one another to bear up under suffering, support the cause of the orphans and widows, and take unpopular stands for those who cannot speak for themselves. We walk the way of the cross as you did, revealing to the entire world the secrets of God: that life is found in you, and nowhere else."

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, my little ones, for this was not revealed to you by a sermon you heard on TV or in a mega-church. God himself revealed this to you, and I tell you that you are my church. The gates of death will not overcome you. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Yes, despite the way these terms have been dragged through the mud, both the Messiah and his Church will indeed prevail over the kingdom of Satan. But we have to be careful about how we refer to these two partners in victory.

As for Jesus, he was, as Peter said, "the Messiah, the Son of the living God." But because of the baggage that came with these legitimate titles, Jesus had to use code-words to refer to himself, the Son of Man being only one such example.

We face a similar dilemma today. We are indeed Christ's Church, but the original meaning of the word is now hidden beneath numerous layers of muck. For this reason we, like Jesus, must be cautious when using the term in public. In my imaginary dialog between Jesus and his disciples living today, I wonder if he might not have ended it on a similar note....

Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that they were the church.

Labels Should Have a Shelf Life

I still cringe a bit inside when I remember the taunting I endured as a child, and a name I was given. A name I did not want. There are few things worse than being given an ugly name you don't want.

Yesterday I blogged that I no longer consider myself a Protestant, but rather a man who belongs to Christ. The earthquake in Haiti has been occasion for me to quickly move to the next step of discarding yet another label which is no longer a welcome name to wear: Evangelical.

Like food, religious labels tend to go bad with the passage of time. Meaning upon meaning gets heaped onto them, and as the layers get thicker, the whole thing can start to exude telltale fumes. Sometimes people's unsavory words and deeds get layered in too, adding toxic potency to the cocktail.

That's what happened for me today with the word Evangelical. I noted yesterday that a personal friend of mine drew a dotted (or solid) line between the earthquake in Haiti and (dubious history) a purported pact with the devil made some 200 years ago by slaves living there under French rule. Both Pat Robertson and this friend of mine would consider themselves evangelical Christians. This equally dubious dotted (or solid) line which I am hinting at here is not my own invention. Yesterday evening I read these words from a Chicago Tribune article focusing on the spiritual ramifications of the earthquake: "Evangelical Christians blame Voodoo for bringing on this ruin."

Really? If that is what evangelical Christians believe, then I must not be one, because I don't know why God allowed the earthquake to happen. And it sickens me to be lumped in with people who presume they do.

So....

Another birthday! Birthdays everywhere! If the 24th of January was the first day of my post-Protestant life, then January 25th was the first day of my post-Evangelical life.

This is not to say (I must re-iterate) that I have ceased to hold things in common with Protestant Evangelicals. Far from it! But I don't have to be an Evangelical. There's no law that says I do. Given the things people now associate with that name, I don't want to be one anymore. I'd rather explain those beliefs I hold in common with Evangelicals than have to explain why I am one.

But if beyond all these things I must still have a label, I would like it to be this: I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Whatever name he wants to give me I will keep.

Revelation 2:17, 3:12

...I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

...Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.

Neither Protestant Nor Catholic

Today is a birthday of sorts for me! I have committed this day, January 24th, 2010 to memory. (1-2-4 ought to prove easy to remember!)

What's the occasion? It's this: I realized today for the first time that I am neither Catholic nor Protestant. I belong to Christ. The freedom that comes with that realization is nothing short of exhilaration.

Labels bring baggage. Several years ago I realized that I was neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Neither label sat well with me anymore, and letting go of all political associations was greatly freeing. I no longer had to defend the rogues in either party.

Shedding religious labels (save my identification with Christ and his global church) likewise releases me from an awful lot of baggage. Barges of it. I want to be free of labels and baggage alike. Thanks be to God, shedding labels (most of them, anyway) is a God-sanctioned activity.

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, Republican nor Democratic, Catholic nor Protestant for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I have, of course, taken a few liberties with the words of St. Paul. The more modern labels are insertions of my own. But seriously, could those additions do anything to make the verse more radical than it was to begin with? Keeping in mind the world Paul lived in, I'd say the answer to that is an emphatic No!

Leaving aside the books that could be written about the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, and between slave and master, would anyone care to assert that their allegiance to a particular political party or wing of Christendom is stronger than their own sexual identity? Strong as the distinctions between male and female are today, they were even sharper 2000 years ago.

So.... why today? Why is today truly the first day of my post-Protestant life? The answer is this: in church today we had a guest speaker for Sunday School who discussed interactions between Protestants and Catholics. Suffice it to say that by the time this visiting speaker had finished his talk about the differences between Catholics and Protestants, I was in the grips of a new realization that I am neither one.

I belong to Christ. And neither Protestants nor Catholics have a lock on what that looks like.