"The Church is a whore...

... but she's my mother." - St. Augustine

I heard these words today while watching a video documentary called "Lord, Save us From Your Followers" by Dan Merchant and it challenged me to take some time and reflect. This blog has not been written in for over 2 years and as a result, I doubt anyone will actually be reading thing. But this is for me right now. And in the off chance that someone actually sees this, feel free to comment.

When I heard this quote I was blown away by the gravity of the accusation, but the ownership of the identification. The Church (not just my church, but your church and the church universal) is described in the Bible as being the Bride of Christ. This is a beautiful painting of what we are meant to be. Think about it for a second:

A bride, traditionally speaking, is the paragon of purity and faithfulness. Now, I've never been a bride, but I've been a groom beholding my bride's resplendence after years of waiting. I can tell you that on June 7th, 2008 (that's right, 6/7/08), the last thing that would have crossed my mind would have been Baily walking into that church on the arms of other doting men. That would have been game over and I probably wouldn't be here writing this today!

Yet, as the church, we are an adulteress, unfaithful bride. We flirt with comfort, hold hands with hatred, make out with money, and hop in the sack with trends and cultural opinion. We're more Hollywood than holy. Our focus is not on our awaiting groom, but what is pleasing in the moment with no concern for our commitment to a bride-groom who gave Himself up for us.

Calling anyone a whore is a serious accusation. We throw around words like that with flippancy. This isn't the description of someone who is in and out of relationships or even someone who is promiscuous. Calling someone a whore is implying that not only is there promiscuity, but it promiscuity to achieve personal (and often monetary) gain. Starting to make sense?

How many churches preach a gospel of greed and see multiplication in the tens of thousands as a result? How many churches sacrifice the message because it doesn't fit our preferred method? How often to we bow at the alter of self when making decisions? How often do we protect an institution and it's numbers, rather than cutting off "the hand that causes you to sin"?

"The church is a whore, but she's my mother..."

We've all heard someone in infantile retort call someone's mother a whore... and it's never a pleasant experience. There is something that wells up in anyone who has a mother or mother-figure that they love that will emphatically (and some times violently) oppose that type of remark.

The church, in all her misgivings and misguidedness, is still something that I love dearly. Even in my cynicism, even in my disenchantment, I, deep down in the core of my being, love the church that God created. The church - the body or collective of followers of Jesus Christ - is a beautiful thing. This is why I absolutely love the book of Acts. You see lives that have been impacted by Jesus that are transformed and giving purpose doing something about the needs of the people around them. There is even a chapter in there that talks about a ministry of waiting on tables! Seriously, they served food, they hung out together, they did life together - and it attracted the multitudes to this organic movement of God that exploded when His people got together to pray.

There is something very maternal about the church. The church has been instrumental in making me the man I am today. She has nurtured me, cared for me, cleaned my blood knees, and helped me walk when I could not walk on my own.

I think Augustine pegged strange a dichotemy in the church: She isn't right. She has issues. She needs help. As much as we try to solve the problem by detatching ourselves from her, the solution is a cleansing from the inside out, not the outside in. She is our mom and sometimes a mom's kids have to confront her and be the ones to help her walk when she's not strong enough.

The solution is not disassociation, it's ownership. Ownership of the good and the bad. Ownership of the problems and the solutions. It's the humility to be the one to confess not only our own sins, but the sins of the mother whom we identify with through the empowering of Christ.

Just as He has turned us from enemies to friends, He wants to transform the whore into the bride.