Ekklesia: The Church

Assemble around the Crier. 

                Wake up earlier Sunday morning. Go to church. Your desired religious organization’s building. Participate in cathartic worship or stand in reverent silence. Nod your head as the clergy pray and sit and ponder as the pastor preaches. Write some notes or mess around on your smart phone. Be pumped after the sermon because it was such a blessed message, mingle with some friends or very casual church acquaintances, then go home. Now, your week begins. Sabbath ends and you may resume talking in your normal dialect. If you are good, remember to read the bible at some point that week. Be extra holy if you do a devotional. Press into God by spending some alone time praying with him, and feel extra spiritual. If you’re not feeling it, go on a spiritual retreat or conference, change your wardrobe to christianese ordained attire, and ascend the spiritual high mountain. To maintain spirituality without a crash, inject discipleship, mentorship, and/or pick a non-believer to love on (aka do little things for whenever you run into them). Advance to the next level if you decide to join a Small Group, and if you’re bold enough to participate in public prayer, advance one more step. Jump five spaces if you feel called to lead a Small Group or go on a week-long Mission trip, and triple this if you do both (advance more spaces for each week you are in another less privileged country serving others). If any of this wears you out, be sure to listen to Christian worship music or bands that are Christian (but not necessarily “Christian bands”). Also, if you are especially feeling defeated by life, post on an online prayer board, get likes and caring comments, and if you need more, bring it up with other Christians and have them lay hands on you and spend a significantly long time praying over you. Make sure to stretch or joints will lose circulation. Pass go and collect 200 points if your career or full-time hobbies becomes inspired by the Great Commission. This is Christianity. Or should I say the modern, 21st century mass-consumption religion. Play the game right and everybody will love you. Or at least publicly respect you. To be or not to be. That is the question.

I didn’t go to church this Easter. I must be going to hell.

I have no interest in this modern construct, which has very little to do with the original, 1st century revolution, far before the title “Christian” was even hatefully bestowed by their persecutors. I have no interest in these games, and that is why I left “church”. Don’t get me wrong. I played these games too. This isn’t a full-on mockery of these rituals. They have heart. Just a potentially shallow beat. A narrow-minded spirituality, so to say. I do not attend the weekly meetings at a building instituted by a religious organization. This is not church.

                The actual word means something totally different than what we’ve made it. In the ancient Greek, the word “church” is the feminine noun ‘ἐκκλησία’, or ekklésia (pronounced ek-klay-see'-ah). It is derived from two words, ek, meaning "out from and to" and kaléō, meaning "to call". You may then think that this means “the called out,” the people called out from the world, thus becoming the mystical body of Christ. This was how later followers of the Christ movement would have defined it, but it is not the original meaning of the word. The word is not a religious word, but rather a political word. The better translation for the concept of Ekklesia is "an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly.”

                What is this crier?

 In the ancient world, cultures revolved around the concepts of Honor-Shame. Men could ascend an invisible social ladder, or descend by being shamed publicly by his decisions or the actions of those under his care (wife, concubines, children, slaves, workers, etc). Women could not gain honor, thus their choices in life typically revolved around trying to avoid shame. But these concepts of Honor and Shame mostly were applied in the social realm. And some of the greatest ways a person could gain Honor was through public speech in the streets.

A “crier” was an officer who made public announcements or proclaimed orders of a court of justice. They were also the people who would often make public announcements in the streets. This speech was out in the open, for every one of all societal levels to hear. Now, things are different.

Our modern day society differs as it finds this form of public declarations in the media (internet, television, newspaper, radio, etc) rather than in the streets. 

This new and distinctly different definition of “church” raises some controversy.

One, the church was not a building, a temple, or even a house (even though the first followers met in the temple of Jerusalem, and then as the movement expanded across the globe it moved into meeting in homes). The church was people, assembling in the streets, for everyone to see. Nothing was hidden. Everyone was ‘in the trenches’ together. If stones were going to be thrown, it would be at all of them.

Two, the church was not just a religious movement, but it was political. The movement stood against the political systems of the world, such as the imperialistic domain of Rome over the world in the ironic name of “peace” and world “unity”, and even against the legalistic, overly spiritualized nature of Israel.

Three, the church was out in the open, and thus it was available for any and all. That was literally the message of the gospel; that Jesus welcomed all that had been left out of the religion by many of the Israelites. The Gentiles, those that were ‘unworthy’ and ‘sinners’ and ‘dirty’, such as the prostitutes and disabled and outcasts. No one was left out, not even the hypocrites.

Four, the church was an assembly around the concept of justice. Those that stood against the justice raved about by the ancient Jewish prophets would meet retribution. Though the literal application of grace (mercy and forgiveness) was the banner of the movement, if people did not turn away from these crimes against humanity, they would suffer righteous retribution. If in our wealth we stand on and crush others less fortunate, no matter what this wealth is, whether literal or figurative, we shall fall. And this is what the movement stood for. They gathered around in the streets and spoke out against the injustices of this world, and cried out for change.

And Fifth, the church gathered around a “crier”. Clearly, this was Jesus of Nazareth, the so claimed Messiah sent by the God of the Israelites to bring a new world order, of justice and grace upon the old world. This was the killed and so-claimed ascended “Son of God”, the title a direct challenge to the reign of the Roman Emperor and blasphemy against the religious leaders of Israel. Jesus was not physically there anymore, but they gathered together in memory and honor of him. 

(Want to know more? Here are a few great sources: http://www.hisholychurch.net/ekklesia.php http://biblehub.com/greek/1577.htm#)

                This last point I will focus on. Every community gathers around something, whether conceptual or literal. How else could you bring together people? How can we bond together if we do not agree? We all are so unique and different from each other, but it is through finding commonalities that we bond with people. Every group of people must have something that they bond to, or else they will drift apart. For Christian communities and people, who all have such conflicting views and varying denominations of the same core religion, they are brought together and unified by the idea of Jesus. Without the concept of Jesus, Christianity would not continue to exist. This makes logical sense on so many levels. There are other core values that combine with this inner core concept of Jesus as the Christ, but they are bonuses. Without these outer core values and additional religious practices, it would naturally be very hard for any person to remain within the circle of Christian community. Which is sad, and ironic.

I clearly do not participate in these religious practices and spiritual values anymore. Thus, I have begun to wonder, will I drift away? Will I lose my friends?

I think sadly that this will and has already begun to happen. Not to disregard the other conditions of this drifting (such as my proximity to where most of them reside, to no longer attending the same academic establishment as them). I think these have more to do with why these friendships have diminished. This is just the natural way of life. But if I don’t share these common core values with them, I suppose I do not share enough commonality with my friends for it to be as it was. I am not suggesting that these friendships will just disappear into the wind. Friendships are what we make them and how much of ourselves we invest in them. I am talking about the depth of these friendships. I wish this wouldn’t or hasn’t happened, but I mustn’t be naïve. 

If the modern-day Church today was the way it was back then in its beginnings, would I still be amidst the movement? Shall I be honest, or shall I be hopeful? If I were hopeful, I would say yes. I would romantically and passionately be there in the assembly. If I were honest, I would admit that I probably wouldn’t. I gave Christianity nearly 20 years of my life, and I gave it my all for nearly 5 years. As soon as I realized I couldn't commit everything anymore, I walked away. I know the call. It is all or nothing.

Though the ancient movement was exploding in numbers exponentially, this message was offensive to the culture, and most turned away. They joined the crowd, the crowd leaving the assembly. When the message was preached in the streets, everything was out in the open, not so spiritualized, and thus less people followed. But at least then it was a true call. 

The call to action cost those that followed everything, and many of them literally died for this new world order. It was a daily commitment that was probably harder than anything they’d ever done before, and the only way they held in there was because of their new brothers and sisters, a unity in the trenches deeper than blood and borders. I can only assume there were few luke-warm followers. You were in it to win it, so to say, or you packed your bags and went home.

                But we live in the present.

                I’ll be honest. Being in church is easier than not. It is easier to be in community than to not be. It’s easier to be surrounded by crowds of people than all alone. It is easier to listen to all the sermons, to attend all the small groups, to sing along and be swept up by the cathartic power of worship, to participate in the bonding of group prayer, to be alone yet not alone outside praying to an unseen God in the dark local park, to be overly involved in clubs, to go to all the community days, to make tons of new friends, and to be constantly busy with old ones. It is easier to stay busy and to stay surrounded by people, because as long as the talking doesn’t stop and you don’t stop moving, you won’t have to face yourself. You won’t have to drown.

“It’s easier to run, 
replacing this pain with something numb. 
It’s so much easier to go, 
than face all this pain here all alone.” 
–Easier to Run, Linkin Park.

                Eventually, though, everything that goes up must come down.

Whenever I go to “church”, I’m alone in a crowd. I don’t want to lie. My presence was.

It is better to be honest. But honesty comes at a high price. People don’t want to hear the whole truth. The whole truth; the deeper truth behind the truths we tell.

And when these truths are told, when you reveal everything you really are and think, people don’t like what they see. Will I drift away from the center, like dark matter stretching away from the gravity well of the sun?

Either way, I must stand true. And so should you.