Scripture: 1 Peter 2:9-10
But you are a chosen people, and a royal priesthood, buy a holy nation, search God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Thought for the Day: Church is the English translation of the Greek word Ekklesia, which means ‘assembly’ or ‘gathering.’ In the Bible, the word ‘church’ never refers to a building, but always to a gathering of people. In fact, throughout Scripture, a group of worshippers is most often called an ‘assembly’.

In the Second Testament, Peter, Paul, Luke, and the other authors often refer to a religious gathering as ‘the people of God,’ to intentionally reference their First Testament roots, and the stories of Jesus and his followers as a new part of that journey.

In these modern times, when we too often exalt and emphasize the divisions and differences between people, I find it helpful to take a look back to the beginning of Christianity—an era when people were trying to unite as one people of God, even though some of them were Jews and some of them were Gentiles. This new community of God’s people that developed in the ancient world—people who would come to be called ‘People of The Way,’ and then eventually, ‘Christians,’ was once a movement for wholeness and peace in a world ruled by the machinery of war.

It’s unfortunate that today, Christians bicker among themselves over points of order, liturgy, music, and even theology, when Jesus’ point was we are all one in God, and when Paul’s (the founder of Christianity) point was no matter our ethnic or religious heritage, no matter our social standing or lack thereof, in God we are more than equals, we are spiritually one entity. I think it was Paul’s hope that by creating an egalitarian worship community, their ideas would bleed into the world at large, and eventually create a more egalitarian world. This is the real purpose of church, of assembling as God’s people: changing the world for the betterment of all, not bickering about whether or not a tambourine is appropriate in worship. I guess before we can really start changing the world, we need to remember why we’re here in the first place—to exalt the glory of the One God of the universe, not to exalt our Cathedrals and disavow everyone elses.

Prayer: My church is wherever I find you, Holy of Holies, and I find you everywhere. Amen.