The Main Thing

I recently heard a workshop leader say something with which I resonate. She said "Let's not confuse God and the Church." I've been saying something like that for years. What we both mean is that God and the Church or God and religion are not the same things. The Church and religion are human enterprises while God is--well, God. The Church and religion are our inventions and God transcends them both. At their very best, the are designed to help us understand God's nature and to worship God. At their worse, they impede both of those things.

Billy Graham once wrote, "The Church is not a museum for saints; it's a hospital for sinners." What he's pointing to is that the Church is not made up of perfect people; it's made up of people who are flawed to one degree or another. While we all like to believe that we are good people, that doesn’t stop us from either sinning or making bad decisions.  It is people who decide the content of religion, that is, the structure of the liturgy, the statements of the catechism, the policies of the national and local governing bodies, and the like.  And while we always pray God’s Spirit is leading those decisions, the reality may be entirely different.

The bottom line is that the Church and each local parish or congregation is populated by people who continue to stand in the need of spiritual growth. This shouldn't surprise us. Remember St. Paul? Arguably one of the stars of the faith, eventually martyred for his witness, but very flawed. Late in his life after years of traveling and proclaiming the Gospel, he mused: "I do the very things I should not do and leave undone the very thing I should do."

Paul was pointing out his continued need for opening himself to the power and direction of the Spirit. He recognized that left to his own devices, he tended to be selfish, more concerned about his own interests than those of others. I can identify. I can easily get caught up in things of no real consequence and miss what really matters.  This is something I struggle against.  As a secretary of mine once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  Couldn’t be truer.  And in this case, the main thing is to keep our focus on God’s love for us and our response to that love, trying to assure in all we do that we are responding in love.

Peace, Jerry