Care for the Morrow of the Church

Individual or group, business or church. This week Tomoya looks at what it means to be an organization—buildings, programs, and membership, or individuals, teachings, and spirit? By looking at these things together and separately Tomoya offers ideas about how to go forward with our church. -Editor

A church seems to start with simple motives in its beginning. It starts with people who read the Word and are genuinely affected by it, coming together on their own accord because of their individual longing for the Word. This longing for the Word at an individual level is what I think gives the substance to a gathering and qualifies it as a church. Everything else that might later develop and appear, such as the liturgy, membership, the organized structure, the building for gathering, social functions, evangelization, and various other programs, quantifies the church as an organization by giving it such a form. What differentiates the individual longing for the Word and the form as an organization is in the causality. The former fully defines a gathering as a church, while the latter merely invigorates and further inspires the former but without adding any substance to it on its own. In spiritual affairs, quantity does not justify quality; "more" does not reproduce "better" on its own.

The form of an organization, however, is always outspoken to our senses and tends to dominate the substance of it. We often strive to enhance the membership, the buildings, and various programs for evangelization, thinking that these elements will add more substance to the gathering as a church. When the form as an organization takes over the substance of it, and even becomes an end on its own, the causality is reversed, and the quantity is allowed to justify the quality instead. We would then cease talking about the church from our own individual affections for the Word, but from something apart from it, as in, for example, the future growth and the survival of the church as an organization. We find ourselves no longer content with what we already have and immerse ourselves in the care for the morrow of the church.

This shift in the causality of the individual longing for the Word and the form as an organization is often unnoticeable in our mind because, even while being immersed in the care for the morrow, we can always falsely argue that the care is for the church and the Lord, and that can sound overwhelmingly convincing. Yet, it is in this care for the morrow of the church that we ruin the very thing that we are claiming to care about. The care for the morrow does not come out of the blue; it requires converting our focus from something infinite into something finite. This is a choice that we have made either consciously or subconsciously to confirm an assumption: an assumption that we can discern how a church as an organization should be developing now and into the future. This finite assumption—finite because it is scaled in time—allows us to give ourselves a "goal," which in turn prompts us to think about "strategies" toward that goal. Then we set out to put our effort and resources into these strategies, manage the progress, and judge the results. Depending on the outcome, we declare our work either a success or a failure, based on which another cycle of the care for the morrow begins. We can spend a lot of time and effort on these cycles and attribute to ourselves a false sense of success or failure. These exercises are all based on our choosing to become comfortable making our own assumptions on how a church as an organization should develop within the confines of our history.

The problem of course is in making such an assumption. If we were in the churches prior to the Lord coming on earth, we might have witnessed visible aggravation in artificiality of faith and hypocrisy within the churches year by year. Could we have figured out on our own that this aggravation was actually "progress" which followed the due process before the Lord could be born on earth? What we always see is a snapshot of history, the appearance of which is very often deceiving on its own. The larger (in fact, eternally larger) context which gives the real meaning to our snapshots is only known to the Lord, and it is solely in His care. Therefore, since after the Lord's coming on earth—and perhaps even more so now after His Second Coming—there has not been given to us in the Word a historical road map of goals and strategies for a church as an organization. This is not because we are supposed to make one for ourselves, but because there is no need for it any longer and it would instead distract us from the real "care" we must now attend to instead. The complete set of valid "goals" and "strategies" have already been given in the Word in the form of the Ten Commandments, and they are directed toward us, not as an organization, but as individuals. They are not specific instructions dependent on the flow of time, but are timeless instructions that are eternal in nature. Therefore, our real care is always in this very present moment, and we, as individuals, are designed to be the church in particular, where the only real growth of a church in general occurs. Upon this, a church indeed becomes the most widely available "organization" that is universally and indiscriminately open to anyone, anywhere, at any point in time.

The enthusiasm for having goals and strategies that organized churches often so eagerly embrace for themselves, however, should not be condemned. What is needed is a proper placement of it. The care for the morrow belongs outside of a church, and we can indeed take it into the midst of the world instead. When coupled with a church within our individual lives, such a care for the morrow will transform into a care for "this day" for us, and it will become the solid foundation for a church right in the midst of the world. What it takes is to distinguish in our mind "the roles and the responsibilities" of the church and the world, by demarcating the holy and the sacred of the church clearly apart from the world. We can draw such distinctions perhaps as follows.

Our life is like an oscillating current between two distinct poles: on one end stand the finites, we the created who are countable many, and on the other stands the infinite, the Divine who is uncountable in essence and one in appearance. These two distinct poles naturally give different colours and textures to the time and space we occupy in our daily lives.

There is the "ordinary" time and space where we look to our neighbours at large in our various daily dealings. We interact with others, and the interactions take after the finite attributes of changes and limits; they are obvious, outspoken, and dynamic. We communicate primarily in descriptive language to operate within the visible reality as literally as they appear. When we gather as an organization, such as governments and business entities, we are keenly aware of the flow of time and have a reasonably concrete idea of what future success for the organization is to be like. We plan, manage, and measure the results. We get busy with tangible actions and feel the use and the excitement in our roles within the group that we are a part of. This is perhaps what corresponds to the “external” or the “ultimate” realm of life, where the use finally embodies itself. We are the actors on stage, and the Divine is sitting as the audience, so to speak.

Then, there is the "extraordinary" time and space where we look to the Divine in our prayers and worship. We are essentially alone as individuals with the Divine, and the time and space take after the infinite attributes of constancy and immensity; they are subtle, quiet, and static. We long for the invisible reality that lies beyond and express it in representative languages of music and rituals. When we gather as an organization, such as churches, temples, and various other religious orders, we see in the midst thereof what is represented by an altar. There, the flow of time dissipates, and we find ourselves in what is only best described as the present, where concerns for the future become irrelevant or simply forbidden. Other than what is within our individual selves, there is nothing for us to plan, manage, and judge the result of. This is where the larger purpose of life is dictated and reiterated to us as individuals. This is perhaps what corresponds to the "internal" realm of life, where the end of all that we are to do and to be is reconfirmed. The play on stage is halted while the actors are moved off to the side and the Divine whispers to each of us on how best to play our role, so to speak.

This duality of the ordinary and the extraordinary time and space we have in our daily lives may come in different outlooks in different beliefs, but there are at least three properties that seem to uphold it.

First, the ordinary and the extraordinary are to be together to complement each other in our lives. The ordinary is lifeless without the extraordinary, which justifies its very existence. The extraordinary vanishes without the ordinary, which allows it to manifest itself in. It is not that one should be more valued than the other, but it is that the one is never complete without the other. It may perhaps be like the dual phases of being asleep and awake, the inhale and the exhale of respiration, and listening and speaking in a conversation.

Secondly, all this while, they both need to maintain their distinctiveness from each other. It is in this that the union above is strengthened and is given rise to a subsequently powerful manifestation of it as a whole. We are more awake and alert when we have had a good night sleep. We feel calmer and sharper when we breathe deeply. And we speak a whole lot more sense when we have really listened.

Finally, there is again the causality between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It is always the extraordinary that comes first and dictates the ordinary, and not the other way around. If the ordinary is to rule the extraordinary, it can only bring down the extraordinary into its own kind, thereby dissipating the duality all together. When the extraordinary rules instead, it transfigures the ordinary from what is merely mundane into what is truly alive and honourable. It may be like how our life starts from a state of sleep into a state of being awake, its breathing by inhaling first before exhaling, or its speech by listening for a long while before learning to speak.

These properties in turn point us to certain images that are characteristic of an extraordinary organization, such as a church. A church is different from, if not the opposite of, a business corporation. As being more obvious, outspoken, and dynamic strengthens the use and effectiveness of an ordinary organization, being more subtle, quiet, and static gives a louder voice to a church. A church, however, does not speak on its own apart from the world, but in the world. And this is done through its constituting individuals who go out and live and operate therein. They do not need to proclaim the church in speech; they already proclaim it unassumingly in their actions and their very being. Actions indeed speak louder than words, and all the power is coming, not from the ordinary of the world, but from the extraordinary of the holy and the sacred that we have set aside the time and space for in our lives.

When we acquire a habit of making our own assumptions on how a church as an organization should develop within the confines of our history and even make ourselves busy thinking and trying directly to affect the church in general, we will always find ourselves drawing into the extraordinary of the holy and the sacred, those attributes that govern the ordinary of the world. The demarcation of the holy and the sacred is thus blurred, and as the duality of the ordinary and the extraordinary fades away, the effect of the church in the world also fades away. Having incurred upon ourselves the care for the morrow for the church, we may be too busy to notice that we are now looking to somewhere else than the Divine or the Word, which is where we used to be in the beginning.

Let us keep the roles and responsibilities of the ordinary and the extraordinary clearly distinct. If we are eager to get busy with goals and strategies, let's transfer those activities right into the world instead, where they make inherent sense and have direct application. And in the meantime, let us go back and take care for "this day" of our own church in particular as individuals, for which each of us is only responsible. Let us allow the church as an organization to be free from the care for the morrow of its own, so that we can focus on and treasure the first and simplest affection for the Word we all have come to cherish in our lives, and continue to do our best in truly living out the Word in our own given conditions. A church is a spontaneous gathering for such people, where we can worship together and be encouraged by one another's sincere and humble longing for the Word. This also is what ultimately softens our hearts to be truly forgiving and tolerant to one another and bonds us all with mutual respect and love.

Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. [Mark 9:50]

Let us allow the church to be simple and quiet, so that it may speak loudly in the world.

Tomoya Okubo

Tomoya started reading the Writings when he was studying religion and philosophy in Tokyo. He grew up in Japan and now lives in Canada with his wife and three children. They attend the Olivet New Church in Toronto.