Imagine if you will that in this room are scattered 72 pieces of Lego of varying type and size.
Scattered and hidden out of sight as they are, they are of little use to anybody and, in fact, the people who use the room might not even know they are there.
Now imagine that somebody decides to do a thorough clean of the room in fine detail and, in the process, finds the 72 pieces of Lego. And here they all are gathered together on the table in the centre of the room.
Woohoo! Celebrate! We have 72 pieces of Lego. Now we can make something. Imagination, good management and a plan could turn these pieces into something surely. But first, we hit social networking internet sites to post a picture of our collection and let everybody know what we’ve achieved. We get lots of ‘hits’ and ‘likes’ and our images are shared around the world. And this encourages others to post their images of collections of Lego pieces – some larger, some smaller, some just two or three pieces.
The enthusiasm takes on a life of its own and collecting Lego pieces – by fair means and foul – becomes the main game. Some go to the trouble of joining some of the pieces together to form an object of some sort – some identifiable, others not so much. Some even manage to use all the pieces to build an object that looks a bit like something I should be able to identify but can’t quite get it. Some of the pieces clearly are being used for something quite different from what it appears they were made for, but that doesn’t matter – after all, all the pieces are being used and something new and creative has come into existence.
Suddenly, ‘Lego builders’ have become a new kind of guru and their creations become show-pieces for leadership and creativity. Workshops and seminars and conferences are held to ‘catch the fire’ of this new wave of Lego collecting and building. The thought that the collected pieces of Lego might be pieces of an unknown or unseen plan are dismissed as delusion and the Lego collecting and building craze takes off to who knows where.
And here I am, sitting in my living room, with an empty Lego box and a booklet of pictures of
assembled Lego toys: a helicopter; an aeroplane; a hovercraft.
(Note that this Lego pack is called 'CREATOR')
Clearly it matters little to the collectors and builders that the original box and ‘creator’ plans are readily available since they either make no attempt to acknowledge their existence or insist that their ‘creations’ are pictured in the ‘creator’ plan book. Some can even quote plan references and page numbers to enhance their apparent credibility.
It’s not going to be much use my turning up at one of the workshops, seminars or conferences because that would make them fairly redundant and show up some of the self-styled gurus as a bit pompous and silly. The word that comes to mind to describe the collectors’ and builders’ attitude is ‘hubris’: over-bearing, arrogant pride and presumption.
Now there are some lessons we can learn from this parable:
- Scattered does not equal lost: hidden, unseen, even ‘hidden in plain sight’; but not lost.
- Gathered does not equal assembled: clustered, even built; but not assembled.
- Assembled assumes all parts present and accounted for and put together by servants working to a master-engineer’s plan and program.
Every helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft and hovercraft is engineered and assembled meticulously according to a specific plan and program; none is ever built randomly according to the wishes of a ‘man with the plan’.
And, of course, the parable relates directly to the abuse by people – driven as much by hubris as by vision – of the words of Hebrews 10:25 in the New Testament.
Tens of thousands of “churches” are little more than collections of discovered, unearthed pieces of Lego gathered together at the same plane and time. Their presence in a collection of pieces is satisfactory to collectors and builders; and from this ‘gathering’ the collectors and builders derive the authority and permission to denigrate those who don’t turn up to the designated place at the designated time.
The key Greek word in Hebrews 10:25 is ἐπισυναγωγὴν, a compound word consisting of a root word plus two prefixes. The root word refers to a struggle or battle or contest; and by extension, the place where that contest takes place. Going to watch a football match or the Olympic games are good examples. If you went with your mates to the footy, that’s collecting; if you met up with another bunch of mates at the footy and sat together, that’s gathering; if you went with your mates, met up with another bunch of mates, and then together hatched a plan to hijack the game and turn it into a baseball match, that’s assembling.
When the police press charges of “unlawful assembly”, they do so because there is more than just a random collection of people with similar interests; there is a purpose, a plan and a strategy in play. And in the word used here in Hebrews 10:25, these extensions of the root word are carried in the two prefixes: ἐπι and συν. The συν means together; joined; con-joined. And the ἐπι here in its context means there is an outworking, a consequence, an effect. Consequently, ἐπισυναγωγὴν means a ‘gathering’ is assembled into something according to a plan and with a clear purpose intended.
What the writer to the Hebrews was saying, I believe, is that new covenant followers of Jesus, living in and as the new covenant kingdom of God post Jesus, ought to be careful to not neglect gathering so as to be assembled into a creation with a purpose.
If we link this with apostle Peter’s words in 1 Peter 2:5, a clearer picture begins to emerge: “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Then combine this with apostle Paul’s idea of body parts and ‘members’ being built into one body, the body of Christ, and our objective in ‘gathering’ becomes not just clear, but a glorious image and vision.
It is also, I believe, what we have all failed miserably and repeatedly to do for hundreds of years. Perhaps not since the first century AD have we seen much of ἐπισυναγωγὴν. I think we’ve seen lots of the religious equivalent of going to the footy as a family, or even with a bunch of mates or families. We may even grab a pie and a Coke and eat together. But I am far from convinced that “church” in whatever form we like to think of it is anywhere near ἐπισυναγωγὴν.
And the evidence for my belief is that the ‘outworking’, the ‘consequence’, the ‘effect’ of our gathering has led not to the building of the kingdom of God in Christ in our time and space but to the erection of buildings, programs, institutions – and a certain collective insanity that allows us to imagine that ‘church’ is New Testament ekklesia.
It’s rather like saying that this (below) is a motorbike because it is made up of pieces of a motorbike.
Expressed another way, we have built a creature that today violates and abuses human beings for pleasure and with impunity, and has the temerity to call itself “the Body of Christ”. Do you honestly think that Jesus today so terribly abuses people and then hides it, excuses it and does deals to keep it quiet? That is insane! And our only defence is “well, I didn’t do any of those things.” If our church gatherings are the Body of Christ, then you did – and so did I, until I abandoned this collective insanity.
I can find lots of collecting, gathering and building but struggle to find any real assembling.
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