More Than a Club

A Reflection on Peace, Purpose, and the Apostle Paul

There is a line in St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians that has been rattling around in my soul lately: God’s purpose is “to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:9–10)

That is a staggeringly high calling.

Paul’s vision of the Church is not small. It is not institutional maintenance. It is not merely keeping the lights on, balancing budgets, surviving another committee meeting, or attaching ourselves to the next great social cause we are convinced will finally save the world (or save the Church).

For Paul, the Church is meant to be a living sign that reconciliation is possible.

In Ephesians, Paul describes the Church as the place where God tears down dividing walls— walls between Jew and Gentile, insider and outsider, stranger and neighbor. Christ, Paul says, has “broken down the dividing wall of hostility” and created “one new humanity” in Himself.

That vision feels especially urgent right now.

We live in an age absolutely addicted to division. Political tribes. Culture wars. Algorithmic outrage. Entire industries now profit from keeping human beings angry, suspicious, isolated, and afraid of one another. Every institution around us is under pressure to become narrower, harsher, and more ideological.

And into that chaos, Paul says something radical: the Church is supposed to look different.

Not perfect. Not conflict-free. Not magically immune from human foolishness. But different.

The Church is meant to be a foretaste of what God intends for the world. A kind of holy laboratory where forgiveness is practiced, peace is pursued, strangers become family, and people who would otherwise never share a table somehow kneel beside one another at the altar rail.

Honestly, I saw a glimpse of that on Pentecost Sunday at the Celebration Barn.

As the parish picnic unfolded after worship, I found myself marveling at the ways people gathered and chatted across racial, ethnic, generational, and cultural lines. Children ran through the gravel and mud while longtime parishioners sat beside brand new visitors. Conversations sprang up between people who had apparently been worshipping beside one another for months(or years!) and had somehow never actually met.

And if I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times while we folded tables and stacked chairs at the end of the afternoon:

“Oh my gosh, Father Ben, I finally met so-and-so!”
“I had no idea they were so thoughtful and interesting.”
“We’ve gone to church together forever and never actually talked.”

It was beautiful.

The Body of Christ was populating and pollinating in real time.

And somehow it felt deeply fitting that this happened on Pentecost, sometimes called the birthday of the Church, the feast day where the Holy Spirit descends not to erase human difference, but to unite people across those differences into one common life in Christ.

That’s why the mission of the Church is not simply to do church things. The mission of the Church is to be the Church.

Paul’s argument in Ephesians is surprisingly practical. He moves from cosmic theology, God reconciling all things in Christ, to very ordinary exhortations like: be patient with one another, forgive one another, tell the truth, bear with one another in love, maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

In other words, Christianity is not simply believing ideas about Jesus. It is learning to become the kind of people who make the reconciling love of Jesus visible. That is actually hard work.

It is easier to win arguments than to love neighbors. Easier to post outrage online than practice gentleness and restraint. Easier to divide the world neatly into saints and villains (sinners!) than to admit we all need an abundance of grace.

But the Church at her best has always stood against that current of conformity and redirected us to a new reality in Christ.

Every Sunday at Christ Church, we participate in something deeply countercultural. We gather people of different ages, political views, incomes, backgrounds, and stories in one room. We confess the same sins. Pray the same prayers. Exchange the same peace. Receive the same Body and Blood.

Paul says the Church is the Body of Christ through which God reveals His love to the world. And if that is true, then the way we treat one another matters enormously. Hospitality matters. Patience matters. Kindness matters. Forgiveness matters. Unity in prayer, if not in belief or conviction, MATTERS!

Otherwise, we are just another club with stained glass.

The good news is that Christ has already done the hardest part. The dividing wall has already been broken down in His death and resurrection. The Church does not create reconciliation by its own brilliance or moral perfection. We simply live into the reconciliation God has already given us.

That means our task is both humble and hopeful: to become, day by day, more fully what God has already declared us to be.

Or as Paul might put it: The mission of the Church is to be the Church.

Pax et Bonum!

Fr. Ben