Are you a member? There are lots of times and places when we might be asked such a question, such as when we try to enter a private golf course, or when we try to purchase something from an organization at a members-only discounted price.
If you are a member of certain clubs and organizations, you are able to enjoy benefits that are not available to non-members. You have access and privileges that non-members do not have.
Now, is that what it means to be a member of a church? A church, as it would be organized according to civil law – with a constitution and officers – does need to have legally-recognized members. But is that what church membership means at the deepest level?
A couple years ago, the Gallup organization released the results of a study regarding membership in religious congregations in America. For the first time in history, the study showed that less than half of the people who live in our country belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque.
Only 47% were members. During the past two years that percentage has no doubt dropped to an even lower figure.
Many people who are not affiliated with an organized religion, do, however, still consider themselves to be personally religious, or “spiritual.” But they want to be able to figure out their own beliefs, based on their own criteria.
They don’t want their religion or their spirituality to be “controlled” by clergy or creeds, or even by the Bible. And so they are not “members.”
The Christian faith as Jesus inaugurated it cannot truly exist, however, without a strong concept of membership. But I am not taking about something bureaucratic or organizational. St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians that
“…the mystery of Christ…was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power.”
“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known…”
Our membership in the Christian church is a spiritual reality. It is a matter of being united to the living, mystical body of Christ. And it involves being under the teaching authority of Christ, by means of the apostles whom Jesus called and sent to bring his Word to us.
Jesus is the light of the world, who makes known to humanity the truth of the salvation from sin and death that God offers to all. But Jesus does this through his Word, which he entrusted to the apostles, and which the apostles by divine inspiration permanently recorded in the New Testament Scriptures.
And, Jesus does this in his church, where we are united to him through the mystical bonds of faith; and, where we are united to each other through the mystical bonds of love. That’s why Paul also writes this to the Ephesians, and to us:
“You have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires; and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
This membership is a spiritual bond: both among us, and between us and Jesus. But this does not mean that there is nothing concrete and tangible about this membership in Christ’s body.
St. Paul writes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”
Baptism is a key focal point for the beginning of our life of faith, and for our incorporation into Christ and his church. As the washing of water with the Word, it is a supernatural work of God’s Spirit, who makes use of a natural element, to bring a saving and forgiving touch of God to someone both physically and spiritually.
But, you can’t baptize yourself, by yourself. You need other people. You need the church, and a minister of the church, through whom you can become united with the church: as this sacrament is administered in the stead and by the command of Christ who instituted it, among his people and by the hand of his called servant.
This makes you to be a “member” of what God is doing in this world, to save this world and those in it. This membership brings with it the personal obligations and the personal benefits that Christians have and enjoy.
And the Lord’s Supper gives us an even more vivid picture of the fact that you cannot know God as he reveals himself in Scripture, and at the same time be spiritually free-floating and religiously disconnected from the community of God’s people. Again, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul asks and answers a couple important rhetorical questions:
“I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”
The sacrament that Jesus instituted on the night in which he was betrayed – the anniversary of which we are marking tonight – is indeed a picture of the unity that exists among those who together are united to Christ. We are physically gathered together at one altar, and we eat and drink what is provided to us from that one altar.
And yet, since the power of Christ to forgive and to heal is operative in the Word and institution of Christ, the Lord’s Supper also brings about and causes that which it pictures. This Supper is not just a symbol of Christ’s presence. It is the very presence of Christ among us, as Jesus is really here to forgive and to heal.
This Supper is likewise not just a symbol of the unity of the church. It unites the church to Christ – who truly comes to us in the blessed bread and wine – and thereby unites the communicants to each other in Christ.
This unity of confession, and this unity of love – which the sacrament renews among us – is then lived out in community: in mutual patience and forbearance, in mutual sympathy and compassion, in mutual admonitions and exhortations, in mutual instruction and encouragement, and in concrete assistance and personal companionship, as we bear one another’s burdens in this life.
None of these things is or can be a part of the privatized and disconnected “spirituality” of those who avoid “membership” in a real church. And in a real church, it is the Lord’s Supper that contributes very significantly toward making these things happen.
It is indeed a sad trend in our society, that people are withdrawing from church membership. They are losing so much more than they realize.
As we have the opportunity, let us speak the words of Christ invitingly to those we know who are disconnected, and let us pray that they would be drawn to all the blessings, both temporal and eternal, that Jesus has for them in his church.
Pray that they can someday join us in hearing the uplifting words that St. Peter addresses to the church:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
And in the meantime, as we wait for the Day when Jesus returns, we wait together. We live out the grace and cleansing of our baptism together.
We are nurtured by the sacred meal of Christ together. We abide in the Word of our Lord together, as we hear that Word in the Epistle to the Hebrews:
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Amen.