Day 92: Keep, O Lord, Your Household the Church

DAY 92

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK FOURTEEN: SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2020

Keep, O Lord, Your Household the Church

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer for the Sunday closest to June 15th

He was a priest assigned by the Vatican to guide tourist groups, tourists who became his ‘revolving parish,’ into the catacombs where the earliest Christians met in secret to worship, well beneath the street level of bustling Rome above. As he spoke of the intersection of early pagan Rome and the new religion of Jesus followers, he would ask us questions and engage in discussion with us. The more he did so, the more he recognized that we were a group committed to Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in the church today, as was he. Finally in the deepest most interior place, with niches carved into the dirt walls containing the bones of the dead, he felt free to be fully himself in his faith with our particular tourist group, and suggested we sing the worship chorus, “He is Lord.” So standing there in what became a palpably holy place, we quietly filled the space with “He is Lord, He is Lord, He has risen from the dead and He is Lord; every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord.” We felt one with those earliest Christians who had worshipped in the same space almost 2,000 years ago, aware that God has been ‘keeping his church, the household of faith’ intact from that day to this.

During this pandemic, in the absence of being in a building architecturally perceived as ‘a church,’ we are given an opportunity to reflect on what the church as God’s household really looks like. How would we perceive it if we were living in China and attending an illegal, ‘underground’ church? How would we perceive it if as a Christian we were part of a small secretive Bible study in Saudi Arabia where not a single church building is allowed or exists? A clue can be found in considering how those earliest Christians perceived what it meant to be the church, God’s household, in a day when ‘church’ buildings had not yet even begun to be built, the saints in Rome worshipping in the only safe place they could find, underground burial sites. Pray the prayer at the top of the page and ask the Holy Spirit to ‘unpack’ it within you.

Reflective question: What does God’s ‘household the church’ mean to you apart from buildings?

Reflective Scripture: 1 Peter 2:5 – “… you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, …”

Reflective hymn:

“I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord” – Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)

I love Thy kingdom, Lord, the house of Thine abode,

The Church our blest Redeemer saved with His own precious blood.