On Christmas Eve 1988 I attended worship in the Anglican Cathedral
in Liverpool, England. I sat somewhere in the middle of the second longest
nave in the world that houses the largest pipe organ in the United
Kingdom. The organ lived up to its reputation while over a thousand voices sang
“O Come All Ye Faithful” and choirs and cantors and canons processed down the
center aisle with considerable pomp and circumstance. At the very end of the
liturgical parade, resplendent in garments of gold and crowned with jeweled
miter while leaning on an ornate shepherd’s crook, the bishop of Liverpool
walked with a small child in his arms. December 24, 1988 is by far my favorite
Christmas Eve ever but I’m guessing the bishop of Liverpool carrying a borrowed
baby is not what Jesus meant by “whoever wants to be first must be last…” I don’t
mean to disparage that experience but the truth is the institutional church has not
only pursued power but on far too many occasions has been consumed by it. I think
the current crisis of declining participation in the life of faith in the
church is due to the lack of faith people have in the life of the church. And
even if we embrace and live into being last our sinful nature will likely turn
it into a strategy for being first. The good news is that resurrection is
always on the other side of death and that even if wonderful spaces like the Cathedral
of Liverpool were to crumble into dust the faithful people who created such
spaces have already been built into living stones. (1 Peter 2:5)
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