The work habitually done in obedience to Christ’s commands is the character of the Church, and hence its identity as the Body of Christ, for in this work the Church reiterates the work of Christ. Scripture, creeds, liturgies, and structures are just chalk dust on a board by comparison.
I still remember back in systematic theology when John Deschner lectured on the Trinity. First there was a triangle on the chalk board. Then at each point the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, then a whole series of correspondences of these with other aspects of the Godhead. When the whole thing was finished Schubert Ogden, co-teacher in those days at Perkins, asked, “Why is Father on top? Why not rotate the whole thing, or any of the correspondences?
Indeed. It is always a problem when you try to inscribe God onto a chalkboard. Or for that matter a three dimensional space like a cathedral. The latter is both a tribute and a profound theological statement. And deeply misleading.
There may have been a time in a culture dominated by Aristotelian metaphysics that names like “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” designated persons in static relationship to one another: something that could be inscribed in the space of a cathedral or on a blackboard. But we don’t live in that time. Both our personal experience and our science tell us that nothing is static. There is no “being,” only becoming. However deeply we look into the atom or out into the universe we never find a substance. We only find movement. We find no dancer, only a dance. To say in English (it may have made sense 1700 years ago in Greek) that the Son is “of one substance with the Father” isn’t just meaningless, it’s absurd.
Of course the theological answer to this is the God isn’t bound by our human perceptions of reality. That, after all, is the meaning of transcendence. All we need need is new analogical language - surely exactly the work theologians are paid to do.
Yet when it comes to ecclesiology the problem is more acute. Take the most common designation for the Church, “the Body of Christ.” Here the body is clearly located in the reality we experience, as was God incarnate in Jesus. And we now know that human bodies, or bodies made of humans, are all becoming and no being. They are all relationships and no essence. Or to put it in modern psychological terms, they are all ego, and no id. The word “body” isn’t a thing, it is the designation for a set of infinitely complex movements during the shortest period of time that humans can perceive. Cut that period in half and you still find movement. Half it again a thousand times and you still find movement. You will never find some solid unchanging thing that “is” a body.
Nor do we solve this problem by locating the essence in the Spirit of Christ, for the Spirit above all else is both dynamic and sets the body into motion. It “blows where it will” and is scarcely to be pinned down by mere theologians.
So instead of identifying The Body of Christ with utterly insubstantial substances, we can better identify the Body of Christ by its narrative of engagement with the world; a narrative co-authored by Spirit of Christ and the followers of Christ who embody his Spirit. The Body of Christ has is no essence waiting to be uncovered, only an ever emerging self-in-action being revealed. Such character as the Body of Christ possesses, it possesses in its habitually repeated narratives of encounter with the world.
So, for example, the Eucharist being celebrated is the character of the Body of Christ. The confessing of the faith of the church through obedience to his command is the character of the Body of Christ. The habitual feeding of the poor, healing the sick, giving water to the thirsty, and visiting those in prison gives the Body of Christ its character.
(I note in passing that the United States “Confessing Movement,” whose name echos that of the Bekennende Kirche of Germany during the Third Reich, provides one of the richest ironies of the 21st century. The Bekennende Kirche were identified exactly by their actions in defiance of the Nazi state and thier work on behalf of those worst oppressed. They confessed with their lives and at the cost of their lives. The US “Confessing Movement” is merely the politically charged assertion of static doctrine by privileged people, a defense of soon-to-be chalk dust; notably at neither risk nor cost to themselves.)
More generally the work habitually done in obedience to Christ’s commands is the character of the Church, and hence its identity as the Body of Christ, for in this work the Church reiterates the work of Christ. Scripture, creeds, liturgies, and structures are just chalk dust on a board. They capture, one hopes, the best examples of past engagement as a guide for the future. They are useful in identifying the Church only as accounts of the processes by which it takes on the character of Christ. But when they in themselves become for Christians the character of the Body of Christ they are no better than a tomb in which the body lies awaiting resurrection.
Scripture in particular is holy only as it inspires and motivates Christian mission. If all it inspires is arguments about its meaning it is has become dead letters on crumbling pages. The creeds are holy only when they unify the church for mission. When they become the basis of false unity based on verbal conformity, or worse a bludgeon for heresy hunters they become the whitewash on an ecclesial tomb. And ministers apart from the doing of ministry, engaged only in positioning themselves in static hierarchical relationships may as well lie in those very tombs.
In our world churches are becoming the Body of Christ as they tell in their lives the story of Christ’s encounter with the world. And we see this happening around the world. We only need to see ourselves in this way, identified and unified by stories we are telling together as the Body of Christ rather than by fruitless efforts to find a common essence or ancient urquelle.
Do you see someone feeding the poor, visiting the imprisoned, healing the sick, comforting those who morn? Do you see the faithful administering of the sacraments and the praising of God? There, in that work, the church is becoming the Body of Christ; because Risen Christ is at work through and among the citizens of his Reign.
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