What Makes the Church Fundamentally Unique?
What Makes the Church Fundamentally Unique?
This week, when you go to church, take a moment to reflect that you are being summoned by a loving Father, hands full of gifts he wants to give.
What makes the Church unique? I am asking what makes the Church fundamentally unique among other similar organizations throughout the world. For example, what makes the Church different from service organizations like Rotary, Scouts, Elks, American Legion, or Kiwanis? All those organizations are made up of people who come together around a common mission, rely on volunteers, meet regularly, work together for a common good, and have their own values and traditions. A non-believer, looking from the outside, might not see any significant difference between these groups and the Church.
One answer might be that, unlike service organizations, clubs, or fraternities, what makes the Church unique is that it is spiritual and religious. Rotary doesn’t ask you to believe in anything divine or supernatural. But if that’s what makes the Church unique, then the question can be raised: what makes the Church fundamentally different from any other religion? Most religions adhere to a sacred text, believe in the supernatural, and gather for proclamation, teachings, and worship. Most other religions have counter-cultural morals, seek to do good in the community, offer an exclusive view of reality, and rely on volunteers and donations.
When you stop to think about it, answering the question, “What makes the Church unique?” is actually difficult to answer. So, let me try to offer some assistance and give you some ways that you can know that the Church is unique:
The Church is Chosen
God’s ownership over us should cause us comfort and joy, for it not only means we will never be alone but that we are the focus of his loving and tender care.
1 Peter 2:9 reads, “But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.” Peter calls us priests and chosen people. To be chosen or elected is to be the object of God’s call. To be a priest is to be an intercessor, and in this context, it means that we can go directly to God (like a priest used to do for others who could not). We can approach the throne of grace boldly because of Christ (Heb. 4:16). As chosen people and holy priests, we have access to the God who has called us and made us his own.
Peter reminds us we are also “God’s very own possession.” God’s ownership over us should cause us comfort and joy, for it not only means we will never be alone but that we are the focus of his loving and tender care. God is concerned for you and for the Church, so much so that the gates of hell cannot prevail over it (Matt. 16:18). No other organization, club, or religion can claim God’s chosenness, his possessive, gentle care.
The Church is Summoned
The word in English we translate as “Church” in the original Greek of the New Testament is ekklesia (you get the word “ecclesiastical” from it). It was a rather common word used outside religious circles and means “a gathering of those who have been summoned.” Holding an ekklesia is not that unique. Technically, all those other clubs, organizations, and religions do that, too. But what gives the Church a uniqueness is when you ask yourself, who is doing the summoning? Since God summons his people to gather every Sunday, the Church is unique. No other group on earth has been gathered and collected from every tribe and tongue by God. The Church has a certain and special authority to its meeting because God has initiated it (Heb. 10:24-25, Col 3:16, Acts 20:7).
Because God has summoned the Church, the gathering is holy. To be holy means to be set apart for special use. God sets a space, a place, and a people apart for weekly worship. This means that God’s invitation to the Sunday gathering is a beckoning where we come to give and receive. Church is the place we go to get God’s gifts, to give gifts to each other, and to hear God’s Word.
The Church is gathered around Word & Sacrament
Acts 20:7 reads, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them,” and Acts 2:42 says, “And they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” God summons and gathers his people around Word and sacrament. No other organization can make such a claim.
But what does it mean to gather around Word and sacrament? Most importantly, it means to be called around the proclamation of the Gospel and the distribution of grace. To put it another way, it means God summoning his family around his table to distribute gifts. These gifts are forgiveness of sins, Christ’s righteousness, and each other.
No other organization or religion has the Good News or the shed body and blood of our Lord.
Throughout the week, we sin, we struggle, we are busy and distracted. But out of these various contexts and stories, God pulls us out, reminding us what is really going on. God summons his people to a feast, where he offers nothing less than his body and blood. He calls us to a place where a sinner gets up and proclaims to other sinners the Good News. It is hypocrisy magnified, but it leaves nothing less than God being glorified. And, we hope, it transforms the members of the body in true faith and strength to go and live their lives as good examples and heralds of Good News to others.
No other organization or religion has the Good News or the shed body and blood of our Lord. No other organization can offer you salvation and comfort for your soul. As one teacher has once put it, when you leave church each Sunday, you should be able to say, “You know, you can’t hear that anywhere else.”
These are only three unique features of the Church. There are more: The Church’s holiness, its universality (i.e., its truthfulness), its apostolic nature, its exclusivity to salvation, and the oneness of the body and its members. But these three features offer a window into the extraordinary ordinariness of Sunday morning. This week, when you go to church, take a moment to reflect that you are being summoned by a loving Father, hands full of gifts he wants to give. Reflect on how you are chosen, called, and given to one another. Rejoice in the Good News that is proclaimed for you, and take hold of God’s body and blood (or baptism) and rejoice that you are loved, free, redeemed, given, and shared. And as you are sent out from there with cleaned hearts and consciences, tell others the old, old story. Tell them you have some really good news for them and invite them to church. For it is through you that God will summon them.
