76 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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A GAGGLE OF GEESE AND THE BODY OF CHRIST
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OR
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REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT
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By Calvin Culver
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. As I was walked to work recently I heard above me a sound which,
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for the past several months, has been absent from our skies - the
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honking of geese flying overhead. I stopped to watch as their
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formation flew by over me when it occurred to me that we could take a
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lesson from these birds on the nature of discipleship. What, one may
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ask, does a flock of birds have to do with the Body of Christ? Let me
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start by asking this: why do geese fly in a V-formation? Well, as
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most people probably know, such a formation helps tremendously to
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decrease drag due to air resistance. This, especially on long
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migratory flights, enables the geese to travel long distances before
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tiring. Apart and by himself, a lone goose could probably never fly
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the long route from summer home to winter haven and back again.
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Together, however, a flock of geese can accomplish what is impossible
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for one alone.
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. At the head of the formation is, of course, the leader. Though I
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know not the ways of geese, how they select their leaders, I would
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speculate that the chosen is one who is strong enough to take the
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brunt of the headwind while his fellows ride his draft, and in
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addition is perhaps one who has traveled the road before. He rides at
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the head while his flock follows, and guides them along the long and
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difficult journey.
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. Such then is the nature of our journeys in Christ; we seek not to
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follow Christ alone, irrespective of our brothers and our leaders, for
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then what would we have but a horde of geese all jostling and shoving,
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trying to assume the position immediately behind the leader. Instead,
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Paul wrote, "Follow me as I follow Christ."
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. We may also see something of the nature of the Church here. For,
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as I looked at the geese flying overhead I saw, not thirty-five or so
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geese in the sky, but a diamond formation, moving in unison. To be
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sure, there were individual geese in the formation but what I saw was,
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above all, a flock. This, I believe, illustrates a facet of the
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nature of the Church. We - modern, Western man - see the society
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around us through our individualistic metaphysic; that is, the nature
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of society is that it is nothing more, nor less, than a collection of
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individuals. Concepts of such things as societal consciousness or
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one's responsibility to society are next to unknown, having been
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replaced by concepts of the sovereignty of the individual.
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. Yet this was not always so. Medieval thought, for example,
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tended to elevate society above individual, and it was almost
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axiomatically held that an individual could not be fully realized
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without acceptance and fulfillment of that niche to which society had
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assigned him. This could be called an extreme form of societal, as
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opposed to individualistic, metaphysic.
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. The nature of the Church, I believe, lies somewhere in between
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these extremes - in a sort of communal nature. It is certainly more
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than a mere collection of individual Christians, yet neither do the
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individualities of its members get subsumed in its whole. Still,
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there is something of a communal nature to the Church that we, with
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our Western individualism, have failed to recognize. Thus, for
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example, it seems to me that, as the Roman Catholic church has
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declared, there is no salvation outside the Church. Not, indeed, in a
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narrow sense which would define the Catholic - or any other - church
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as the one true Church, but in that God mediates his salvation through
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the body of Christ. Hence, the logical order of events at one's
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conversion is that he is first joined to the Church and then bestowed
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with salvation. No one is truly saved who is not a member of the
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Church.
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. Again, it is in this sense that Scripture declares that we are
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the temple of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Body of Christ is the
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temple in which the Spirit of Christ has chosen to dwell. And again,
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when declaring that "the kingdom of God is within (among) you",
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Scripture announces that it is within the Body that God has
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established his rule. It is our responsibility, as members of that
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Body, to demonstrate to the world what is the nature of that kingdom.
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And it is within this framework, as members of the true Flock, that we
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are called to follow one another, as each of us seeks to follow
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Christ.
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Computers for Christ - Chicago
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