“This ‘insider world’ is not our home….Let’s take our place outside with Jesus” (Hebrews 13:13,14, Peterson).
I have recently stumbled upon a provocative quotation from Howard Hewlett Clark (1903-1983), Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada until his retirement in 1970. Pr. Clark wonders at the “strange music” characteristic of many churches throughout the western world. And he doesn’t mean rock and roll.
“Must we then have strange music…unlike the world’s music, and a special language with an imagery that illuminates the minds only of the religious?,” Pr. Clark inquires. He pictures music – and spoken language and visual imagery – that is aimed at insiders rather than the world. It is strange because it is churchy. It is written by church people, spoken and performed by church people, with church people principally in view. From the perspective of the world, however, it is often and largely unintelligible.
Pr. Clark points out: “With Jesus all life was sacred and nothing was profane until sin entered in.” Jesus laid in a common stable filled with common straw in Bethlehem. He chose a career in common carpentry. Jesus selected common men and women for the mission of winning the world. He shared and sanctified common bread and ordinary wine. He died on a common cross and was buried in a common tomb. There was nothing very churchy about Jesus’ life and ministry.
“And so it was that the word ‘common,’ which used to mean profane and unclean, became the New Testament word for the Communion of Saints and for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” Pr. Clark observes. He is referring to the Greek root, “koin-.” This is the root behind “koinonia,” a New Testament usage often translated “fellowship.” But the root has a previous history. It meant, among other things, something ordinary, something plain, something of little obvious value. The verb form could mean “to make common,” or even “to profane.”
This was the flavor of Jesus’ life and ministry. It was not “strange”; it was gritty – twenty centuries of gilded hymnbooks and silver-plated altars notwithstanding.
Howard Hewlett Clark is right about this, I am afraid. Much of what we do and say is pretty “strange” – and not in a good way. It “fits,” somehow, on Sunday morning. But it doesn’t make much sense outside of the church. Even worse, many of us, I am sure, are quite happy with the arrangement. We are content to leave our faith there in church on Sunday. We’ll put on our religious language, say our religious things, file in and file out and be done with it for another week. It is easier that way.
Members of the “koinonia” community, however, will not be content to leave their faith in church. They are a fellowship of sanctified commoners. They will not be content with a “strange” and special faith; they make their faith a part of their common, everyday lives.
It is here at the intersection between faith and common living where we may participate in the mission of God. It doesn’t happen in the strange atmosphere of gilded altars. It happens on the street.