Presbyterian & Reformed

So this should be the “Hey, I’m rocking it with the holinezz” part of the week.

It’s not.

The thing that keeps leaping out at me over and over and over in this week’s sermon is the idea that we are a nation, a priesthood. We belong to something. We are knit together in ways that go beyond just accidental collections of people like those, say, at a movie theater. We’ve elected (if you’ll pardon the pun) to be identified as part of the post-Cross Israel. We’ve taken the awl and pierced our ear on the doorpost of Christ.

A nation allows room for differences. Color. Race. Creed. None of these things defines a nation; a state is greater than the sum of its parts. If we are a nation, surely we are also to allow for a certain degree of freedom. The bible is not a text book with a nifty index and a bunch of things to do, or not do. It contains, gasp, things that allow for differences between neighbors.

So I don’t get this sudden predilection to self-exile, willingly excommunicate oneself to find perfection of doctrine, total unity in all things. You wind up sailing very close to the wind of cult. Even in the best of circumstances, differences that would take one out of a ‘Big R’ Reformed church, consistently preaching the gospel faithfully, with biblical standards for officers, leadership and discipline – and yet understanding of the Grace we have in Christ to allow for restoration – cutting oneself away from that must be a serious matter indeed.

I think of the recent campaign for recruitment for the Armed Forces in the USA. The army has one that makes a point of saying “I am an army of one.” I think we run the risk of seeing this as a valuable and viable part of our faith. “I am a church of one.” Psalm 133 reminds us that it is good when brothers dwell together in unity. I don’t recall anywhere reading that it’s good to dwell apart but at least in utter conformity.

And this has got me in a funk. Yes, no-one is setting my clothes on fire. Yes, people are not beating me with rattan canes. But that is not my reality. My reality is trying to hold together a fracturing faith in a fracturing culture. We are a nation, a chosen nation, a nation of priests. I don’t get the desire to renounce citizenship. I’ve failed the call to be upbeat in spite of that.

And yet, God is sovereign. He is working out His will and His purposes will not be thwarted. That I can, must and always seek to cling to like a drowning man to a life preserver in a rough sea, knowing that it will bear me up until I come to calm waters and safe harbor once more.

You know, I’m half post-mil by inclination, but I’m with the amils in the call for my Lord to come back.

Soon.