THE CHURCH AS HOME: WHY THE CHURCH MUST GO ON THE ROAD

Gathering space outside Route 196. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Caisip.

It is possible to say that all roads lead home. The church, in a real sense, is home. Yet, like the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, we bring home with us. It is challenging to imagine this in our current paradigm, where we expect people to “go to church.” In a changing world, however, this sense of gathering takes on new forms. In my view, these draw the church closer to the mission which God intended for it.

“The mission of the Church is to reconcile all people to God and to one another in Christ” (US BCP, p. 855; Philippine Book of Common Prayer, p. 735). The church’s role is to be where reconciliation is needed. One image of the church that has emerged in recent years is that of a pilgrim people; we are on a pilgrimage of reconciliation.

This essay attempts to articulate how the church might work to reconcile the world to Christ, to build a home in ways it did not expect. It takes up a story familiar yet unfamiliar in our time: the closing of a music venue. I will argue that in the relief of grief and making possible the acceptance of change, the church carries out its mission of reconciliation. I will also suggest some avenues by which the church might begin this work. 

Calling people home

“Thank you for calling us your home.” These were among the last words written on social media by those who ran a music venue in a suburb of Manila, Philippines. Route 196 existed for fifteen years. It provided a space for musicians, so-called “productions” or music event organizers, and audiences to gather and appreciate music of different kinds. Since Route 196 announced its closing in late August 2020, it has become clear that this place had become home for many people. The sense of loss at its closing has manifested itself in various forms of grieving. Social media posts often featured people in performance or scenes from the patio outside, giving a visual face to the memories people experienced in the place. When the venue sponsored an online closing show last September 12, hundreds watched. Some commented on how deeply they would miss the place. It was more than a venue. It had fostered a community.

Being Invited

“I loved being [at Route 196] and would always invite people to go there,” Nicole, who runs a music event production outfit, says, “I wanted people to be part of our home.”

The phenomenon of being invited is paradigmatic of how the church engages with the world. The church is at once part of this world and not part of it. This tension means that, more often than not, the church fails to heed invitations to come into places unfamiliar to it. This tension inclines the church to choose comfort rather than risk because choosing the former preserves a certain perceived purity. Yet invitations are increasingly rare in a world where the church is marginal for various reasons, including its tendency to be exclusive and dogmatic. I hope church members become aware of their ministry of reconciliation and accept this invitation knowing that God sends them to the world. As a result, they open themselves to the possibility that someone will challenge their beliefs, presuppositions, and prejudices.

These possibilities of challenge and unfamiliarity are no different from what Jesus himself faced. People criticized him for being where they thought a man of his stature should not be. Yet that was where God led him to go.

However, there is very little enthusiasm for the church even to seek to be invited or try knocking at the door. For instance, I have heard a church official imply that music events are occasions of iniquity, where illicit substances are routinely consumed. That kind of sweeping statement results from a need to maintain “purity and propriety.” At the same time, I am not aware of relationships between people in the music community and those in the Episcopal Church that would form connections that enable encounters between church and this part of the world.

Joys and Sorrows

I asked Anton, a regular at Route 196, what made Route a home for him. He said, “[Route 196 will] always be a home to me because of those times when you go outside to the tables, grab a drink, and spend time with the other gig-goers. It was a place [where] I formed some of the most important bonds I have with my friends, whom I consider my family, up [until] now.”

The call to go into places where the church will risk rejection resounds when one encounters very human emotions. Anton’s experience of building friendships entails these joys and anxieties. Most of all, especially when places like Route close, these may turn into grief and reminiscence. Therefore, the church’s call is to be present to people who are grieving and letting the Spirit work through them to enable transformation and change.

The Roman Catholic document Gaudium et Spes begins with the proclamation that the joys and sorrows of people in the present are those of Christ’s followers (1). While this may be built upon a naïve optimism seen in hindsight, the truth behind it remains. The church shares what people in the world feel. However, the church’s work goes one step further.

“Jesus wept,” says John’s Gospel (11:35). In feeling and ministering to the very human emotion of grief, the church follows Jesus in working to bring about life from death. In the Eucharist, remembering God’s saving acts is followed by the calling down of the Holy Spirit for transformation. Likewise, the church calls upon the Spirit to work through it so that people may find healing and relief, bringing them closer to one another amid their remembering and grieving. The church does so in the context of being with people and sympathizing with their grief. This being and sympathizing is a real, Spirit-filled encounter that enables God’s healing and reconciliation in mysterious yet tangible ways.

For instance, one could imagine a situation where someone who has been a regular visitor to the place and active in a church could offer to listen to people. Such a person could prepare oneself for such a ministry through prayer and seek support from others engaged in similar work. This situation, sadly, does not exist at present.

Simultaneously, the church’s ministry of reconciliation and healing can enable people to accept the possibility that transformation and change will happen. God will make all things new in the process of relieving grief and destroying death (Rev. 21:3-5a). The church’s presence enables people to see the possibilities offered by God in the future. This enabling is not by dogmatic imposition but through spiritual discernment that engages the whole of oneself and the social structures in which one finds themselves. One can imagine how a particular kind of chaplaincy, which at present does not exist in the Episcopal Church, would work with willing people in the music community to undertake such discernment, following Elizabeth Liebert’s model in The Soul of Discernment.  

This ministry of presence that brings forth reconciliation will generate unease to those who feel that the church (as an institution) should be the city on the hill to which people go. It will make people wary that we are too involved with the world that we forget our call not to be conformed to it (Romans 12:2). However, the call to holiness impels us in this age to reconsider our patterns of gathering and sending. Evangelism demands no less than our willingness to abandon comfort, familiarity, and the nostalgic yearning for what the church was.

Making all things new

The way the local church could respond to a situation like the closing of Route 196, a place which people call home, is a test case for what it can achieve when people need to make sense of the changing world. To close these reflections, one must ask: what does it require of the church now?

The church needs to understand that its diversity in the context in which it operates ought to be its greatest strength. It must work to leave behind the imperial past’s relics, including its tendency to build hegemonies within its bounds. To do so requires death to the past and the resurrection that takes one into God’s future. This future is where the Holy Spirit finally overcomes how power aims to divide and oppress people based on who they are and what they believe. Above all else, that is how we realize the mission of reconciliation to God and with each other in Christ. To live with that as a goal makes the church stronger than it is now.

“Behold, I am making all things new,” the voice from the throne said (Rev. 21:5a). May the triune God make it so both now and in the time to come.