I don’t know if you are a hymn lover or a chorus lover. I am hoping both. Without getting into that debate, there are excellent reasons for employing both in the worship of God. This post is not about that debate, however, it is instead a consideration of one particular hymn that has been meaningful to me and which I recalled during house church last night. Here are the words to “We are God’s People” by Bryan Jeffrey Leech:
We are God’s people, the chosen of the Lord,
Born of His Spirit, established by His Word,
Our cornerstone is Christ alone, and strong in Him we stand,
O let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in hand.
We are God’s loved ones, the Bride of Christ our Lord,
For we have known it, the love of God outpoured,
Now let us learn how to return the gift of love once given
O let us share each joy and care And live with a zeal that pleases heaven.
We are the Body of which the Lord is Head,
Called to obey Him, now risen from the dead.
He wills us be a family Diverse, yet truly one;
O let us give our gifts to God And so shall His work on earth be done.
We are a temple, the Spirit’s dwelling place,
Formed in great weakness, a cup to hold God’s grace,
We die alone, for on its own, each ember loses fire,
Yet joined as one the flame burns on To give warmth and light and to inspire.
Where to begin? This hymn has so many wonderful lines:
O let us live transparently, and walk heart to heart and hand in
hand…
O let us share each joy and care And live with a zeal that pleases
heaven…
He wills us be a family Diverse, yet truly one;
The final verse, though, is what really spoke to me last night in its emphasis on corporateness.
We are a temple, the Spirit’s dwelling place,
Formed in great weakness, a
cup to hold God’s grace,
We die alone, for on its own, each ember loses
fire,
Yet joined as one the flame burns on To give warmth and light and to
inspire.
For many generations in the West, and most acutely in America, we have been incredibly individualistic. This plays itself out in our cultural values and icons and, sadly, even in the church. The ways in which many come to faith, choose their churches, choose their careers, their spouses even is highly individualistic. Not all of that, of course, is inherently bad.
When it comes to the faith, though, we really lose something when we are highly individualistic. In fact, this hymn seems to indicate that our relationship with God is dependant on corporateness. Not convinced? Here is the Apostle Peter on the subject:
As you come to him, the living StoneÐrejected by men but chosen by God and precious to himÐ you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5)
A professor in a seminary class I once took argued that perhaps the central characteristic of the image of God which was created into human beings is not the intellect or even the spirit that worships, but the relational aspects of the Trinity. We are created to be relational with God and with our fellow humans.
If we needed others before the Fall, we surely need them now in our fallness. I need no other proof for this than the witness of my own life. It is when I choose to remove myself from church, from the influence of family, from the influence of godly friends that I am most prone to sin, when I am most prone to pity myself, to excuse myself, and ultimately to loathe myself. It is no coincidence that my hiding in such times reflects Adam and Eve’s hiding from God in the garden.
This past weekend, my roommates and I barbecued a lot of meat. And it was key while getting the coals going and to keep them going that they be close together. When I isolate myself for extended periods of times, either because of committed or impending sin or for other reasons, then I am prone to become an ember that loses its power to burn effectively, to give heat and light.
You may argue that we are saved as individuals and that this coal analogy if carried too far might become heretical. And that may be true. But if God does work in our spirits individually (and clearly there is generally much coporateness involved in the means of most people’s salvation), we are not meant to live our Christian lives alone. Passage after passage of scripture affirms this.
Last night in house church, singing songs together, studying God’s word together, sharing our fears and praying together, I was reminded about this important truth.
