We are all very upset about the fourteen dead in California, the murders in Colorado Springs and the nine African Americans killed in a Charleston church and on and on. Murders committed by proponents of the sacred, ISIS and an end-times obsessed Christian, and by Dylaan Roof, a young man for whom nothing is sacred. The public rants and sloganeering of an election year inflames and perpetuates the already existing volatility. It is a time in which unredeemed impulsivity rules the day.
But what does it mean to be the church in a time of terror? The 12th chapter of Acts describes what the Spirit filled church in Jerusalem did when an act of terror killed one of her own members. Herod had killed James, one of the Lord’s apostles and arrested a bunch of the disciples, including Peter. What does the church do? Go buy swords? No. Does she evacuate Jerusalem? No.
The Church acts like the Church. She prays together to the Head. The Church in order to find her mind must connect to the mind of Christ. Without contemplative prayer we ride the black horse of death as headless horseman, flailing around, impulsively reacting as a headless Church.
Grief and fear isolate us. The Church exists to gather up the terrified and hold them together in prayer. The Head who suffers with us creates a living community in the Spirit that absorbs our suffering and fear, giving the Church his victory over fear and death in the middle of the world.
The Church in Acts prays a lot and eats the bread and drinks the cup of peace a lot to connect with the head and each other! The Bread and Wine place us inside the Story of the God of creation, the Exodus, the Crucixion- Resurrection-Ascension and the coming New Heaven and New Earth. Within the church we tell each other this cruciform story over and over. The Bread and Wine hold us close to the God who spilled his blood for us in a world where warriors spill others blood for God.
Church’s fight the Kingdom fight. The kingdom of God is not of this world. But it is for the world. So pray it in and eat the peace meal. Prayer is spiritual warfare that becomes an alternative to the violence of the world. Today, maybe more than ever, we need the Lord’s courage. “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”