Church Membership: Meditations on Ruth 1

I have often opined, that our day and circumstances are more akin to those of the Old Testament period of the Judges, than they are to any other time period in Scripture.  Much like the time of the Judges, everyone seems to do “whatever seems right in his own eyes.”  Like the time of the Judges, there is no king amidst the people of God in our day—and while we may have rid ourselves as Lutherans of a tyrannical pope through the crucible of the Reformation, we’ve ended up fulfilling a dark Roman prophecy that we’d end up with a million individual, little personal popes.  In severing our relationship to the Bishop of Rome as head or king of the western Church, we’ve ended up with a free-for-all in western Christendom, where camps of similar minded folks band together, with greater unity only found under the greatest of persecutions… just like the time of the Judges.  Sadly, in many Lutheran churches, where we once put the Word of God at the head of the Church (ostensibly, so that we might have no other King than Jesus Christ, whose Word the Scriptures are,) the Scriptures are left in a tidy stack, disregarded as relics of a past no longer relevant to our day.  Across the western Christian landscape, everyone does whatever seems right in their own eyes—with sometimes greater, and sometimes lesser agreement with God’s Eternal Word.

This has, I think, given birth to a modern blight upon the western Church, called the “seeker sensitive” movement.  This particular movement attempts to transform the Church into a socially relevant institution that can be sold to the “seekers” out there in the secular culture.  It assumes some very poor theology, not least of which that the world is actually seeking after God, when Holy Scripture is clear that no one is righteous, no one seeks after God on their own.  Together, the whole human race has become unprofitable and accursed, turned its back on God, and run full steam toward perdition.  This new movement, however, desperately attempts to mimic cultural norms, in order to get them in the door, and then hope the Word will stick.  It’s a well documented bait and switch technique that doesn’t work out in the long run—either the church has to remain mostly secular to keep the “seekers” they lured in, or they have to hit these “seekers” with the Cross of Christ that is still just as big a scandal to them as it was before they came in the door.

For the “seeker sensitive” movement, Naomi’s conversation with Ruth is a nightmare scenario.  Not only does Naomi refuse to accommodate the pagan culture of her area, but she tells her daughters in law to stay with their pagan families and their pagan gods, while she goes back to Israel.  She didn’t try to make a sale, or just get the girls to follow along in hope the Word might stick later when they arrived in Israel.  No bait and switch, or bait and bait, as is the case in many modern western churches.  No trying to copy the local pagan music or dancing, no dumbing down the Name of God to a common vocabulary that might accommodate the pagan god language, and certainly no chasing them down with “programs” and “initiatives.”  Far from pursuing her daughters in law, she actually repels them with the hard realities of what following her (and following the One True God) will cost them.  In the end, she watches the one daughter go back to her pagan family, and against all her warnings, receives Ruth to continue with her.

Imagine your next new member or Confirmation class run this way.  First, you tell them about our Triune God, His Law, and His Gospel.  Then you explain the extent of the costs:  death to yourself, all your pagan passions and desires, and a new life in Christ that lives entirely for others, conformed to Jesus’ image.  Then, you invite them to leave… to return to their pagan families and friends, because they would be much happier there, able to live out their meager lives in harmony with the perverted and wicked desires of their hearts.  When they protest, spell out the consequences once again, and in greater detail—tell them that they can’t pick the church’s music, liturgy, or programs; that they can’t shape the church to meet their “felt needs,” or reflect their personal opinions; tell them they would always be beggars at the Throne of Grace, never deserving of anything good from the Lord, and that all their self-important good works mean nothing in the shadow of the Cross.  Then, give them a chance to peaceably leave, and choose with full knowledge their path, be it back into the bosom of their comfortable paganism, or into the arms of the crucified Jesus who hands to them a cross of their own.

Such a pattern of Christian instruction and membership in the local congregation, was actually the norm for hundreds of years after the time of the Apostles.  The persecuted Church did not build programs to pursue the culture, shaping the church into their image, but rather they preached repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ, and called the world to be conformed to Him.  When people came to learn of Jesus, the teachers didn’t pull any punches—they were taught, that discipleship meant death to self, and would likely result in a physical death, devoured by animals, burned at the stake, tortured and chopped up in pieces, boiled in oil, and so forth.  And against all human reason, and all marketing and sales strategy, the Church grew exponentially.  This is because the Church of Christ doesn’t grow based on human efforts, but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit—the work of God Himself.

And there’s the rub we should remember.  We do not grow the Church, anymore than we started it, or sustain it.  We can’t save the Church.  The Church is the very Bride of Christ, created, sustained, and grown by Him and His Word.  It is Jesus who converted Ruth, and it is Jesus who will convert all those who will believe in Him through His Word.  And for those whom He calls, justifies, sanctifies, and gives new life, there will be no peril on earth that will separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ.  There will be no beast, no fire, no persecution that will take that life away from them.  There will be no issues of “worship format” or “music preference” that will drive them to divide the Body of Christ, or divide themselves from the Vine who is their forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation.

And so my question for the Church today, is what kind of disciples do we think we’re creating with all our compromising human programs and initiatives?  In reality, we don’t create a single disciple.  Only God creates—resurrects—sinners into living disciples of Christ, born from above by Water and the Word, nourished on His Body and Blood, healed by the pronouncement of His Holy Absolution, guided and enlivened by His Law and His Gospel.  If we wonder why the Church seems bloated with half-hearted Christians who are so easily separated from Christ and His Word by all their pagan proclivities, I suggest a new round of comprehensive catechesis.  Let’s let Naomi and the early Church inform our discipleship in the modern Church.  My wager is that the numbers of the visible Church will decline sharply, as some take the honest path of Orpah back to the comforts of their pagan lives, and those with hearts converted by the Holy Spirit in His Word, remain steadfast with Christ as did Ruth.  May we be ready to believe the Word once again, and see the Holy Spirit at work, rather than our filthy rags.  Amen.