What is a church for?

[AI translation] The twenty congregations of our Inner Budapest Diocese are today, by common agreement, coming to the aid of the twenty-first, the parish of Angyalföld. What happened there was that the ground under the beautiful church in Frangepán Street dried up and sank due to the unusually low water level of the Danube, the whole building cracked and even tilted and, according to the experts, its use became life-threatening. The entire rear wall had to be demolished, the foundations re-dug and the demolished part rebuilt. The congregation gathered for worship in a church without a back wall for most of the winter. The congregation made a huge sacrifice to rebuild their dilapidated church, but even so, they could not afford the huge cost alone. So now, the extended family of congregations is turning to the troubled planter with a helping hand of love and sacrifice, and each congregation is donating all of today's Sunday collection to the cost of church repairs in Angyalföld. It is also a good opportunity for us to face this question ourselves: what does the church mean to us? That is why I read Psalm 84, where the psalmist describes his longing for the holy tabernacle. In the light of this Word, let us see what it means for a church to have a church.The church is a special place. It is just as much a building, made of stone, brick, wood and iron, as any other house. It is perhaps simpler and more unadorned than many private homes. Sometimes even smaller than that. Especially the tabernacle of which the psalmist wrote was but a tent of very humble design, and yet he praises this rickety structure as if it were the most glorious palace in the world. Such is the rapture of his soul when he thinks, "How lovely are your hairs, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, even pines, for the porches of the Lord; my heart and my body rejoice in the living God." (Psalm 84.2-3) He is right, for the temple, however humble a building, is quite different from any other building. The Hungarian man expresses his reverence for the temple when he says this of it: "The house of God! The king's palace may be more beautiful, my own home more intimate, the country house more grand, but the temple is different: it is the house of God! Not, of course, in the sense that the living God dwells there. We know that the mighty God cannot dwell in the whole universe, how could I then dwell in a temple made with hands; nor is it the dwelling-place of God in the sense that only there can I meet him. It is not God, therefore, who needs this house, but man. What we need is a sacred place and time where and when we can withdraw from everything else in this world and devote all our thoughts and feelings to meeting the living God here! This building serves no other purpose than that man may meet with God regularly and solemnly. The church is a place dedicated to this encounter and that is why it has such a great role in our lives. Those who love to meet with God usually love the church. Whoever longs to be close to God usually longs to be in church. Again I stress: it is not as if this is the only place to meet our Lord! But usually, the experience is that when someone doesn't go to church and excuses himself by saying, "I pray at home" - it turns out in the course of the conversation that he doesn't meet God at home either!
Our encounter with God in church is different from our encounter with God at home, or in the beauty of nature, because this is a church encounter. The church is not a house of private encounter, but of communal encounter. We can meet Him privately in other places. The silence of solitude can be a very appropriate moment to cultivate a personal communion with God. But in the church we do not meet Him in private, but in congregation. And that makes a big difference. A meeting in church is more solemn, more moving, more joyful, more unforgettable. It has special promises from God. His blessings are multiplied where more people claim and expect them together. And He does not tie these more blessings to numbers, He says, "Where two or three are together in my name, I am there among them."
The gathering of the church is in itself an open confession of faith, by being together it is as if we were saying, "Lord, we are your people, we are members of your family, we belong together, here we are, we are the ones who believe in you, who, however handicapped, love you!" It is here in the church that something of the mystery of what the Bible expresses as the church being the body of Christ becomes visible! It is here, in the church gathering, that the heartbeat of the congregation becomes visible and audible, palpable. It is here that the heart of the congregation beats to pump fresh blood into the members of the body, the power of the sin-removing, renewing, redeeming divine blood into the spiritual vascular system of the whole congregation. Here we experience the condensed form of what God created us to do, to be in communion with Him and with one another.
Somehow this is how the psalmist saw it, and therefore it is no poetic exaggeration when he uses words like these. My soul longs, even pines, for the porches of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God." (verse 2-3) Do we know this longing for the porches of the Lord? Is it such a loving refuge for us? Do we prepare to meet on Sunday morning with such exultant joy? Can we rejoice to see each other again? Is it really so good for us to be here, singing together, praising our Lord together? Is it not a sign that our souls are not digesting and rejoicing in the Lord on a Sunday when we are already much fewer in number? And even if we are many, are we together as a congregation? Do we care about each other's worries and joys, do we know what is troubling and eating away at the person sitting next to us, where he came from and where he is going from here? Is not this heart that beats here very sick? Has not the significance of the church grown grey for us? I often get the feeling that we have too much to do: we take it too much for granted that we have a church to go to when we feel like it, when we have nothing better to do at the time!
David, when he wrote this psalm, was in a position where he could not have gone to the temple of God even if he had wanted to. Perhaps this is why he was so clearly aware of the true value of the temple, and why he writes: "The sparrow shall find a house, and the swallow a nest, where she may lay her young, in thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God" (4. How good it is for the sparrow, the swallow, to have his nest, his home, from there he can fly out into the world, when he is tired he can return there to rest, there he can raise his young, there he can teach them to sing, to fly, there - at the altars of the Lord. Oh, how her soul longs for such a spiritual nest! Happy is the man whose strength is in thee, and thy paths are in his heart." (verses 5-6) Now that he is separated from it, he now sees how happy are those who can go there as if they were going home, as having a spiritual home, a large family community; who have somewhere to carry their sorrows, somewhere to flee from temptations, somewhere to be renewed, to draw new strength for the further burdens of life. But it would be good - but it cannot, it must hide, its soul is only digested from afar towards the beloved abode! Oh, that he could get there once more, that he might better appreciate the precious opportunity! Perhaps we, too, would feel something of this consuming longing, if we were once forced to do without. I am always touched by the longing of our elderly sister, who has been unable to come here for more than half a year because of illness. She, then, truly knows the feeling that David describes: 'My soul longs, even yearns, for the porches of the Lord; my heart and my body rejoice in the living God.' (verse 3)
Wouldn't we get more if we came to this holy place of encounter with God and with our brothers and sisters with less criticism or covetousness or rhetorical demand and more spiritual longing! Because the church is not only a place for spiritual pleasure, for spiritual enjoyment, but something has to happen here. If we meet the living God here, however feebly, then this encounter cannot pass without a trace. We must be seen to have met. And that is that we are changed. Thus says David: from strength we shall gain strength! We will have more of the divine and less of the human. Our old man is being destroyed, our new man is being built. Invisible partitions are being torn down between us, and an invisible golden bridge is being built between us, heart to heart. Hard hearts are broken, the broken are built. For it is the Word who speaks to us here, the Word who became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, who lived our human lives, suffered our deaths, opened our tombs, through whom the Father recreates the universe. This is the Word spoken through the words of Scripture. God reaches into hearts, and therefore comes out of them and meets us!
A wealthy banker once listened to a sermon by the great preacher Spurgeon. Someone asked him the next day what the sermon was about. The banker replied, "I don't know, but I picked up all the counterfeit notes and threw them in the river. This man was different because he had heard the Word, he had met! This is how worship flows into everyday life. It is said that the waters of the Amazon, where they flow into the sea, turn the sea blond seven kilometres away. This is how the impact of an encounter with God flows into the events of our lives, into our daily lives, how it transforms, colours and sanctifies them. This is how prayer becomes service, devotion becomes goodness, the psalm becomes action, faith becomes obedience, worship becomes life.
Does our worship spill into the world, and how many miles does it colour our lives? Is the body of Christ, the church, the Christian life, being built here in this church of stone? A church is nothing if it does not build this spiritual body. The church is only like the shell of the shell that encloses and protects the body of the shell. The church is an invisible temple, built of living stones, which holds the pearl: the spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and temperance (Gal 5:22).
This is why this church is here. And that's why it's a great privilege for us to help rebuild the Church of the Brethren in the Angel Land!
Let us sing:
Let us all give thanks
To the Lord God the Father,
And let us give praise
To our Creator God,
Who has now gathered us all together,
To dedicate a feast,
And live His holy Word.
(Hymn 378, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 28 March 1954.