Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, July 7, 2019:


First reading and Psalm
2 Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30

Alternate First reading and Psalm
Isaiah 66:10-14
Psalm 66:1-9

Second reading
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16

Gospel
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Whenever I'm part of a church that's trying to figure out how to repair the building, I think of this passage, of this early mission that Jesus gives his followers. He doesn't say, "Go and build a building. Make the sanctuary look like this, and have an education wing with classrooms that your pre-school can use during the week. Make sure to have a kitchen so that you can have pot-luck dinners with ease. Make the bathrooms handicapped accessible, and have one bathroom that's not gender-specified so that transgender people will feel at ease. Have diaper changing stations in both the male and female restrooms. Have this kind of playground equipment."

I've seen many Christians and churches returning to this passage recently, wondering if the early mission of the Church should be our mission. Should we leave our church buildings and go out into our neighborhoods? Perhaps we should abandon our church buildings altogether and meet in bars or coffee shops, all the better to meet the inhabitants of our communities.

Or maybe we should make churches more like the types of Sunday activities that compete with us:  church as brunch!  

Or maybe it's time to stop thinking so much and return to our roots.  We need to deliver the good news that God loves us, that the perfection of creation has begun, the Kingdom is breaking through.  We have many ways to deliver that message. 

I think of this idea each year as I witness Vacation Bible School. I see children who aren't interested in church as grown ups offer it, but who LOVE Vacation Bible School. I know more than one parent who goes from church to church so that the child can repeat the wonderful experience of VBS. I know children who love VBS so much that they bring their closest friends.

What would happen if we felt about our faith the way that children felt about VBS? Would it be easier to go out into our communities to tell people what's going on behind our church walls?

More than once, I've said, why can't we make regular church more like VBS, so that people want to come year round?

Here, too, I see a variety of Christians wrestling with these questions. We will see a variety of answers, as we continue to try to discern how to let our lights shine brightly in the wilderness of the wider world.