The Head of the Church

In his book, Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch starts off by talking about the unfortunate way churches operated in the deep South after slavery ended. Specifically, one white church in Alabama. I say white church, but in reality it was multi-racial, at least until the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves and owners would attend church together, but after slavery was ended this system no longer worked.

So on one Sunday, not too long after Lincoln signed his infamous proclamation, a white preacher marched over seven hundred black congregants a couple of miles away and proclaimed that this would be the place they now would worship. To be fair, there was not any complaining by the black Christians. They were glad to have their own place where they could have some space from those who’d previously been over them.

But that’s just where the story gets started

Because racial divide is only one among many in our society. And while everyone in the new church was black, they were not all the same. It became evident after a while, that there were two very different groups in this church. There were black people who had done alright for themselves in the previous world order (often mulatto’s), and those who’d been on the bottom. And those distinctions carried over, despite the fact that almost everyone shared the same socio-economic condition of poverty.

And so after a while the church split again. Sure, Branch points out, they wouldn’t call it a split. It was a disagreement over architecture that led to them deciding on different “missions” and thus worshipping in different locations. But for all intents and purposes it was a split. And because I know our tribe,  I assume there may be some people who are reading this have been a part of these types of “Church Plants.”

And so these African-American men and women picked up and started a new church just a few blocks away in Downtown Montgomery, Alabama. And the church’s name:

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

Which just happens to be the same church that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came out of.

Ever since I read this fascinating little story in Taylor Branch’s book, I couldn’t stop thinking about what God did there. Imagine if you are Dr. King, you have to learn the history of the church that you are working at. What kind of impact did the Dexter legacy have on him? Maybe it’s why Dr. King fought so hard for the dismantling of labels in his day. Why he saw that the “enemy” was not any particular group of people, but inside all of us. But here’s the big one for me.

God redeemed all of it.

The racism and bigotry of those post civil war years, the inability of similar people with different backgrounds to get along, the socio-economic divide, all of that somehow lead up to Dr. King having a dream.

There’s a time in one of Paul’s letters where he refers to Jesus as the head of the church. It’s one of those times where he steps back to give us a bigger perspective on what God is up to. He’s trying to give us a picture of our identity in God’s purposes.  And in those purposes Jesus is the head of the church.

Now if I’m Jesus that’s not always a good thing. I don’t think I’d like all the credit for all the things that have been done by the church throughout the centuries.  There’s got to be times where it’s been like being the captain of the Titanic, or the CEO of Enron. But here’s why Paul’s metaphor should be so encouraging.

Because Jesus is steering this thing, and he’s going to end up where he wants to. The sovereignty of Jesus doesn’t mean He is giving a blank endorsement for everything that has happened through the generations. But that he is capable of drawing all things toward his purposes. I hear people often lamenting about church being too political, or materialistic, or institutional, or a host of other complaints, but don’t forget Jesus loves her, and she’s His means of working in the world.

Augustine once said that the church is a whore, but she’s also my mother. And maybe this is what he’s talking about. Even though there are all types of flaws in her (as with any institution that involves people) there is a theology of hindsight that we should develop, because God is not just at work in spite of our junk, sometimes he’s at work through it.

Because, the moral arc of the church is long, but it bends toward justice. And Jesus is the one who tells it to.