More Than Sunday Morning
A Reflection on Paul, People, and the Peculiar Power of the Church
Last week, I wrote about what the Church was for—that the Church is not merely a religious vendor of spiritual goods and services, not simply a social club with hymns, nor a nonprofit draped in stained glass. The Church exists to proclaim and embody the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the middle of the world as it actually is.
This week, I’ve been thinking about how strange—and beautiful—that reality would have sounded to the Apostle Paul.
Because when Paul wrote letters to churches, he was not writing to massive institutions with campuses, parking lot size limitations, livestreams, HVAC replacement budgets, and parish hall refrigerators suspiciously full of half-used condiment bottles. He was writing to tiny little Christian communities crammed into homes and borrowed spaces. Most of Paul’s churches would have fit comfortably into the Barn at Christ Church with room left over for a potluck table and two people arguing about whether the coffee is too weak, too strong, or better in the pot from last week.
And yet Paul speaks about these tiny communities with astonishing grandeur.
He calls the Church a body (1 Corinthians 12:12–27).
A household (Ephesians 2:19).
A temple where the Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16).
A field where God gives growth (1 Corinthians 3:6–9).
And a holy assembly—the ekklesia—people called out into a new way of life (Philippians 3:20).
Paul never talks about the Church as a product to consume or a service to attend. He talks about it as something alive—something knit together by God’s Spirit itself.
That matters deeply in an age like ours.
Too often, modern life forms us to think of ourselves primarily as isolated individuals. We are consumers, brand loyalists, demographic voting blocs, curated social media identities, and increasingly lonely people trying to assemble meaning from algorithms and Amazon deliveries.
And into that fragmentation comes Paul saying something utterly radical:
You belong to one another.
Not metaphorically in the Hallmark-card sense. Literally spiritually bound together in Christ.
Paul says the Church is like a body where every part matters. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). The strong cannot dismiss the weak. The vulnerable are not inconveniences to manage but members worthy of special honor.
Frankly, that vision feels almost offensive to modern culture.
We live in a world that rewards visibility, influence, and power. Paul says the Kingdom of God pays special attention to the parts of the body the world overlooks.
We live in a world obsessed with self-expression. Paul speaks more often about mutual obligation.
We live in a world constantly sorting people into tribes and enemies. Paul imagines Jew and Greek, slave and free, rich and poor, gathered at one table as one body in Christ (Galatians 3:28).
That is not natural. That is resurrection.
And honestly? You can see glimpses of it here at Christ Church all the time.
You see it when children run through these halls with all their childhood energy (and volume!) and are not treated as interruptions to “real church,” but as members of the Body of Christ right now.
You see it when parishioners quietly cook meals for people in recovery at The Extension, or stock shelves for MUST Ministries, or pray in the St. Michael Chapel at odd hours of the night.
You see it when someone who arrived lonely or grieving suddenly realizes they are known by name here. They are safe here. They are loved and embraced here.
You see it when a handbell choir, a Bible study, an usher team, a JoyMass storyteller, an acolyte, a livestream volunteer, and a retired parishioner praying quietly in the pew are all somehow participating in the same holy work, joining in common prayer, as Anglicans do.
Paul would surely recognize that church.
Not because we are perfect. Lord knows the Corinthians weren’t either. Paul’s churches were messy, argumentative, immature, and occasionally chaotic. Reading Corinthians sometimes feels less like reading theology and more like reading the minutes from a disastrous vestry meeting at war with itself and its leader.
But Paul believed the Spirit of God was still at work among imperfect people.
That may be the most hopeful thing of all.
The Church is not holy because Christians are always good at being Christians. The Church is holy because God stubbornly refuses to abandon us to ourselves.
And so perhaps the invitation this week is simple:
Do not think of yourself merely as someone who “goes to church.”
See yourself as part of a living body.
A household of faith.
A field still growing.
A temple where God’s Spirit dwells.
“A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9).
A peculiar little outpost of resurrection in a weary world.
That is what Paul saw when he looked at the Church.
And by the grace of God, it is still what the Church can become in every generation.
Pax et Bonum!
Fr. Ben
