At a recent worship service in my home congregation, we moved through the ordinary rhythms of common worship: singing songs of praise and gratitude for God’s work among and for us, confessing our brokenness and sin and celebrating God’s forgiveness, sharing our joys and sorrows in prayer, reflecting together on God’s Word to us in Jesus and the scriptures, breaking the bread and wine together in memory of Jesus’ death and resurrection, being sent out into the world for service and witness, catching up on each other’s lives over coffee afterwards. Pretty commonplace stuff, as far as things go: not all that different from what happens in congregations of Jesus’ disciples all over the world on a Sunday morning.

Ordinary. Commonplace. And radical. 

The violence and uncertainty of our world, the divisiveness of our politics, the preoccupation with power that marks so many of our leaders can tempt us to despair. Our response to our despair is often to turn to a different political movement or organization, a charismatic leader or an online personality, who will give us the answers and the strategies to change things for the better. But what if part of our response to this frustrating moment in our history – and to other moments, when they inevitably come our way – is to simply be the church? What if the most radical response to the news of the moment is to simply be a community trying – in the power of God’s spirit – to be a redeemed people?   

Take a moment to recognize the radical act of upside-down politics you are engaged in. 

This is not to make light of what is happening in our world and in our communities, to shy away from the world’s suffering, or to call for justice in situations of real oppression and harm. Rather, to try to be a community that witnesses to God’s peace through our lives and worship together is to show the world that it needs to repent, to turn from its obsession with power and its indifference to violence and try something new. As Stanley Hauerwas puts it: “The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that it is broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something that is an alternative to what the world offers.” That something is – or, can be – the church.

So, next time you are gathered for worship or for a weeknight church potluck, take a moment to recognize the radical act of upside-down politics you are engaged in. For me, it’s one way that I can respond to the call of a favourite singer of mine, Jon K Samson, who responds to his own anger at the news by saying: ‘I’m going outside//I’m gonna help organize//something better//something beautiful’.

Photo by Brett Sayles