‘I want to be where the people are’ – Ariel the Little Mermaid
‘I may not know much about God. But I have to say we built a pretty nice cage for him’ – Homer Simpson
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idolatry of buildings. My wife and I have been binge watching shows on Netflix like Tiny House Nation and Cabins in the Wild. One of the things about Netflix is that when you watch something, you automatically get a slew of recommendations about what to watch next. It comes out under a ‘because you watched,’ heading. Because you watched Tiny House Nation, you might be interested in these shows. ‘These shows’ however, rarely have anything to do with downsizing, or spending time in the great outdoors. I’ve noticed that most of them are about grand designs. Building huge and amazing dwellings in which to live and pamper yourself. Just perusing the titles of these recommended shows gives one the impression that the greatest thing you could ever do is build a grand monument, a place to pour all your money into, a place to make the very essence of your life.
In other words, a god.
This is of course bad enough. But then I get to thinking about church. As a pastor, I live and work in the shadow of a large church building, as many pastors do. There’s nothing really wrong with having a church building, I suppose, but every once in a while I think about how much money it costs to run one. I also think about the reactions I and other pastors get whenever we talk about changing one, or maybe leaving one behind. I mean, I get the whole idea of sentimental attachment to a place, but sometimes it seems as if the most important thing about church is the building. There is some evidence to support that. Studies have shown, over and again, that most faith communities spend far more money on their facilities than they do on mission.
And that doesn’t seem right, does it?
Oh, I know what some of you are thinking. ‘But we have to have a building! How else can we have a church?’ That’s the rationalization we offer to justify ourselves. Trouble is, such thinking runs counter to the whole idea of what church is, or at least what Jesus envisioned church to be.
Jesus experienced church differently. I am currently reading James Martin’s wonderful book Jesus, in which he recounts his visit to the Holy Land. There is much to wonder at in his story. But one thing really hit me. In recounting his visit to Nazareth, the town where Jesus spent the vast majority of his first 30 years (other than the time he spent as a refugee in Egypt), Martin notes that the synagogue building in Nazareth dates to the 4th century. No one has ever found one that dates back to the time of Jesus. In fact, it is unlikely that there was one in the time of Jesus, because towns as small as Nazareth did not generally have synagogue buildings.
And yet we know that Jesus taught in the synagogue in Nazareth. It’s right there in Luke 4 (go ahead, look it up). So it must be the case that archeologists just haven’t discovered it yet. Someday it will turn up.
Such is the power of a preconceived notion. We have been conditioned to picture a building when we think of a church or synagogue. And so, when Jesus preached at the synagogue, we conclude that he must have been standing in one.
But for Jesus, and other first century Jews, synagogue was not a building. It was an assembly of people who gathered to worship God. You didn’t need a building to have a synagogue, all you needed was God plus people.
The synagogue in Nazareth was in all likelihood just that, a gathering of God plus people. A gathering that met, perhaps, in the town square – or better still on a hillside. Nazareth was (and is) a city on a hill, so it is easy to imagine Jesus and his fellow worshipers sitting on the hillside on the Sabbath, listening to the scriptures, praying with one another, listening to the Rabbi’s teaching, even discussing the message and asking questions (interactive learning was big in first century synagogue life). The people would have felt the breezes on their faces and the sun on their backs as they united in their worship of Yahweh.
That’s most likely how we should envision Jesus experiencing church, at least for the first 30 years of his life. Other than the occasional pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus worshipped and gathered with God’s people, not in a building, but in the great outdoors. He didn’t need a building. He just needed God and his community.
Jesus didn’t stay in Nazareth however, and once his itinerant ministry began in earnest, he visited many towns and preached in many synagogues. Many of these did have buildings no doubt (although perhaps some did not). That he preached in buildings indicates that there is nothing inherently wrong about having one. But the fact that Jesus did not preach exclusively in buildings should tell us something. In fact, most of Jesus’ teaching took place outside of buildings: on hillsides, on a boat, at the seashore, along the road, in gardens, around dinner tables, and in people’s homes. Even when Jesus taught at the Temple in Jerusalem, he did so in the porticoes and on the Temple steps, the places where people gathered for informal discussions and learning. Jesus didn’t care too much about the place of worship. He just wanted to be where the people were. One place was as good as another for church. All anyone needed to have church was Jesus plus people.
This is not just how Jesus experienced church. It was his vision for the Church. When the Gospel writers wrote of Jesus ‘building his church’ the word they used for church was Ekklesia. Ekklesia does not refer to a building or network of buildings. It means assembly, or gathering. It is the same concept as the synagogue –a gathering of people who worship God through the study of scripture, prayer, learning and discussion. You don’t need a building to have Ekklesia, any more than you needed one for a synagogue. In the early days of the church, followers of Jesus understood this. If you flip through the pages of Acts, you will find Jesus’ followers worshipping in homes, lecture halls, porticoes, steps, ships and riversides. The early followers of Jesus were flexible, and understood that as a result of Jesus’ saving work, you didn’t need a Temple. Everywhere was a holy place. All you needed was Jesus plus people.
I wonder how the followers of Jesus ever lost their way on that one. I suppose that’s a long tale that weaves its way through history. But the bottom line is that today, so many have lost their way. The word church is synonymous with a building. Church has therefore become an inflexible, stationary sort of enterprise. We pour our money, not into reaching people for Jesus, but in upgrading our facilities. We no longer go where the people are. We wait for them to come to us.
It truly is amazing. Jesus began his church experiences out in the open, with people all around him, visible for all to see, under the canopy of God’s blue sky. But we no longer do things like that. We don’t enjoy God’s creation when we worship. We no longer go where the people are to pray and read and discuss. We hide ourselves behind walls. Walls! And then we wonder why people don’t come inside of them.
Maybe it’s time we got back to Jesus, to his experience and vision. Maybe it’s time to move out of our buildings. Into the community. Onto the hillsides. Maybe it’s time to worship God outdoors, with the sun and wind in our faces. Or under the stars on clear nights, where we can take in the wonder of creation. Or in the coffee shops, libraries, diners, town squares, front porches, riversides, and other out in the open places. Maybe it’s time to act on the Biblical truth that church isn’t a building you maintain. It’s a gathering. It’s a lifestyle. And it is most effective when it is practiced outside the cages we have built for God. It is most effective when it is practiced where the people are.
All you need for church is Jesus plus people. Most of the time, the building just gets in the way.
Maybe it’s time we remembered that.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent