Reconciliation (xviii)

FPC, Lowville, NY

This is the eightteenth posting in a series working on what it means to be a church, based on eight criteria the Mars Hill Church uses to define its branch congregations as churches. The series began (here).  We are still on the sixth criterion in the Mars Hill list of criteria for being a church, which is, "The church is a holy people. When they sin, they repent of their sin. If [a professing Christian] should fail to repent, the church and its leaders lovingly enact biblical church discipline in hopes of bringing the sinner to repentance and to a reconciled relationship with God and his people."

The goal of repentance and of church discipline, according to the Mars Hills criteria, is reconciliation. In the 1960s, the then United Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (UPCUSA) wrote a new confession of faith, The Confession of 1967, which restated the Christian faith for a turbulent era in American history.  The theme of the confession is reconciliation, which it describes as both the work of Christ and the particular need of humanity in the 1960s.  The confession goes on to state:

"In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Jesus Christ is God with humankind. He is the eternal Son of the Father, who became human and lived among us to fulfill the work of reconciliation. He is present in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue and complete his mission. This work of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the foundation of all confessional statements about God, humanity and the world. Therefore, the church calls all people to be reconciled to God and to one another." (Confession of 1967, 9.07)

While the confession doesn't define reconciliation as such, in a section entitled "Reconciliation in Society," it describes reconciliation as meaning in the 1960s the overcoming of racism and discrimination, the expansion of international understanding and cooperation, the end of poverty, the end of sexual exploitation, and the renewal of family life.  Reconciliation brings down barriers.  It fosters justice.  It builds a new order, which fulfills God's creative intentions for humanity.  And, as the Mars Hill criteria suggest, it is the experience of individual Christians and congregations in their walk of faith.  It is an important part of what we are all about.  Amen.

Right Preaching (ix)

FPC, Lowville, NY

This is the ninth  posting in a series working on what it means to be a church, based on eight criteria the Mars Hill Church uses to define its branch congregations as churches.  The series began (here).

We are still working on the third criterion used by the Mars Hill Church to define its branch congregations as "churches," which is, "The church regularly gathers to hear God’s Word rightly preached and to respond in worshipful ways."  There's one more thing I'd like to deal with in terms of preaching: the phrase "God's Word rightly preached."

The first has to do with God's "Word," capital "W."  We have to be clear that God's Word is Jesus Christ (John 1:1) and not the Bible, which is "the word of God written," small "w," to quote the Confession of 1967 of the Presbyterian Church (USA), section 9.27.  (I dealt with this in a previous posting, "here").  While we preach from the Bible, what we always preach is Christ.  It is important to remember that Christ constrains and binds scripture, and where the Bible contains things that do not reflect the love of Christ (e.g. the mass murder of non-Hebrews) we must reject the words of the Bible in the name of God's Word, Jesus Christ.  It is for this reason that the PC(USA) ordains women in spite of clear teachings in the Bible forbidding us from doing so (see I Corinthians 14:34-35).  We are constrained to do so by the Word of God, whatever the words of the Bible might say.

Second, we must also be clear about the idea of "right preaching."  It sounds as though there is one kind of preaching that exhibits God's Word "rightly preached" and other kinds that don't.  Actually, that might be the case, but if so not in the way probably intended by the authors of the Mars Hill criteria.  "Right preaching" is best understood to be contextual preaching—that is, where the preacher reads the Bible in light of the congregation that will hear the message and seeks to deliver that message in ways that will be readily understood by the congregation.  Good preaching translates the Bible into the local idiom using local images that reflect local concerns and needs.  In a sense, then, "right preaching" is not biblically based but rather church based, applying the teachings of scripture to the situation of the church in light of the person of Christ.  "Right preaching" does not impose an outside and infallible word on a church but, rather, shares the person of Christ in the local language.  So then, "God's Word rightly preached" is churched-based and Christ-focused.  Or, it is church-focused and Christ-centered.  Or, good preaching arises out of the real needs of the real people of Lowville, NY, bringing God's Word, Jesus Christ, to bear on those needs.  Amen.