INCARNATION PEOPLE… AND BUILDINGS… [F, 5-29-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

INCARNATION PEOPLE… AND BUILDINGS…  [F, 5-29-20]

As we drove home, our daughters, ages 12 and 10, were somewhat bemused as they told us what happened at Red Oak Grove Sunday School that day. “We were doing these work sheets,” they said.

I knew what they were talking about—David C. Cook materials. Preachers mainly cringed at the theology in Cook’s Sunday School materials, but Sunday School teachers in little churches loved them, because they were so easy to use.

“One of the questions was: Is the church the building or the people? We said it was the people. Marie looked embarrassed, and the other kids sort of looked down at the table, and she called on one of the other kids, and said, ‘What’s the right answer?’ and all the other kids said, ‘The building,” and we went on to the next question. They were all embarrassed that the preacher’s kids didn’t know something so simple.”

I don’t think that was David C. Cook’s mistake. I suspect had Marie looked at the answer sheet, she would have found that good ol’ DCC said that the church is the people. But she didn’t need to look, for she already knew. It was simple. And she was right. Partially. 

Christians should not have so much trouble with this. We are incarnation people. In this world, nothing is spiritual alone. There is always a physical body that contains… no, “contains” is not the right world… that accompanies, that is intertwined with, the spirit.

There was a time I always said “church building” instead of “church,” if I were talking about the building, especially to my late, great friend, The Rev. Dr. Kim Egolf-Fox, since he would call me on it. “The church is the people,” he always reminded me. “The building is the building.”

He was right, of course, but every spiritual reality—in this world, in this life—has a physical reality, or it is not here. Incarnate means “in the flesh.” It also means in the bricks, the mortar, the roof, the air, the broken bread, the wine, the baptismal water…

John Robert McFarland