February 19, 2010

Do we NEED "church"?

A.Knox quoting M.Luther:
In one word, if we only had people who longed to be Christians in earnest, Form and Order would soon shape itself. But I cannot and would not order or arrange such a community or congregation at present.
For Marty, "community" probably meant monasteries, reminding me that even 16th century townspeople interacted only so often. I tend to romanticize how the modern lifestyle has robbed us of life's more communal aspects, but christians can always find ways to avoid one another six days a week - even when their entire world is no bigger than one square mile and some farms down the road.
I have not the requisite persons for it, nor do I see many who are urgent for it. But should it come to pass that I must do it, and that such pressure is put upon me as that I find myself unable with a good conscience to leave it undone, then I will gladly do my part to secure it, and will help it on as best I can.
"Should it come to pass that I must..." Apparently, urgency also failed Luther himself.

In Century One, christians anywhere clung together like aliens in a foreign land. It's oversimplifying to say that persecution makes the church pure again, but isolation has ways of impressing us all with the necessity of one-anothering. I myself long to have many more saints - reservoirs of the Lord - in my life. But the number of people I need, evidently, is far fewer. Still, it would be so nice to find a few of those requisite persons...

What must I do? Who must I be? In order to meet up with such urgent people?

Aye, there's the rub.

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