εκκλησία - Ecclesia, Community...

Fran, over at the Parish Blog of St. Edward the Confessor, asks the question, "What is church?" and invites us all to leave our comments.

Missy, in the comments, gave a wonderful reply:

As an exercise, our catechists made "models of church" using gum drops and spaghetti.

Some created a building. Some an altar with just a priest. Some made a bunch of little people.

The most profound statement came from a 14 year old aid. She took a single gum drop and had dozens of bits of spaghetti coming out of it, all different lengths. At first I thought it was a star, but then she explained her model.

"The gum drop," she said, "is God. We're all the little bits of spaghetti. We're all radiating off of God, since He is our source. And we're all different lengths because we're all at different places in our spiritual journey." I gaped at her as she continued. "See this short one? He's not gone very far on his journey, but this long one has. Too bad we don't have any of that cork screw pasta or I would have put a few of them in to represent the people who are going in circles and think they're not going anywhere, but they really are it's just slower going."

She got a standing ovation.

Yeah, out of the mouths of babes...

I'd like to meet that girl, someday! But I was so struck by what Missy had said, as well as by Fran's profound question, that I attempted to leave some of my own ideas. I'm reproducing my comment here, in hopes that it might get someone thinking, if only to disagree! If it does, head on over to Fran's and leave your comment there, so's she'll end up with our answers to her question all in one place, and not scattered vaguely around the blogosphere...

I said:

What a question, Fran!

Of course we've all seen that cartoon with a church-and-steeple-shape made up of little people all holding hands, or standing on each others' shoulders, and it's getting a bit trite now.

But... for me at any rate, the Church (capital 'C') is the gathering of believers, past, present and future: the body of Christ, "...so great a cloud of witnesses..."

The church (little 'c') is its local and temporal expression - these people, gathered here, now; or else it is the organisation that enables it to meet, worship, hear the preaching of the Word, receive the Sacraments, and its existence helps to safeguard doctrine as well as to facilitate those things.

But all this is under the great wing of the Grace of Christ, and it is holy. We must remove our shoes, and tread lightly, in the presence of a Mystery, as Missy's pasta girl did. "Where two or three are gathered..." - when did we lose our sense of awe and worship in the Presence of Christ?

Lord, take the scales from our eyes, and let us see the glory you have placed among us / placed us among!

Phew - got a bit carried away there, Fran... Still - that's my two pennyworth...