I am parusing an ol’ favorite book, Following Jesus in the “Real World” by Richard Lamb and I reread this one part and I so very much love it! This book actually was the book that led me to Chicago. Some of his thoughts and wisdom I took to heart and put into practice when I was searching for a church home and as I started to invest myself in the Evanston Vineyard.
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Listen to this and tell me what you think.
“In a short book on the nature of the church, The Outward Bound, Vernard Eller uses two contrasting images to describe how the church sees itself. ‘A commissary is an institution which has been commissioned to dispense particular goods, services, or benefits to a select constituency. The commissary church, then, sees itself primarily as a divine institution franchised by God. God has stocked the institution with a supply of heavenly graces (Bible truths, correct theology, the sacraments, etc.) which the clerical proprietors, through proper transaction, can disburse to the customers. The measure of a commissary, it follows, lies in the legality of its franchise, the warranty of its goods, and the authorization of its personnel.
A caravan, on the other hand, is something entirely different. It is a group of people banded together to make a common cause in seeking a common destination…The being of a caravan lies not in any signed and scaled authorization but in the way it functions. Its validity lies not in its apparatus but in the performance of its caravaners—each and every one of them. A caravan is a caravan only as long as it is making progress—or at least striving to make progress. Once the cravaners stop, dig in, or count themselves as having arrived, they no longer constitute a caravan.’”
He also goes on to share some of the story of Saul meeting Jesus on the road.
With [pursuit of the Christians] in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, when at midday along the road…I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.” I asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that (logical connector) they may receive forgiveness of sins AND a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. [Acts 26:12-18]
The author observes something interesting that I would have just passed over in my reading of this passage.
“Jesus tells Saul why he has appeared to him. He is going to send Saul to the Gentiles. Saul’s appointed task is to open people’s eyes and to turn from Satan to God, so that they will receive forgiveness…that’s it, right?
No, receiving forgiveness from sins is not the ultimate destiny of those who respond to Paul’s preaching, as important as that is. Rather, Jesus goes to all the trouble to call Paul in this dramatic way in order to accomplish a further goal: “so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those that are sanctified by faith in me.
For the Gentiles who will respond to Paul’s preaching, and for us today, the process is not complete until people take their place within the body. Taking a place means more than finding a church to attend on Sunday mornings when nothing else is going on. It means more than finding a pew to sit in. It means entering the community of the people of God and taking up your role in God’s plan for his people. It means being a functioning member of the body of Christ.”
I am so glad I have got caught up in the caravan and long to even more deeply and profoundly “take my place” in the body of Jesus.