Thousands of preachers, teachers, pastors, bishops, elders, deacons, and overseers had gathered in the southern highlands for an annual convention. There were souls there from high church and from low church and from no church. For three days there were talks and sermons and panel discussions and seminars about organizational tactics and strategies and church growth and ecclesiastical architecture and fundraising and partnering with government and non-governmental organizations and fundraising and youth programs and fundraising and integrating youth into the broader community and fundraising. The organizers had asked Archie to deliver the closing sermon, hoping that he would bring validation and affirmation to their agenda. He was after all a highly educated man and the most popular preacher in Appalachia among the low church and no church folks. Archie stepped up to the lectern. The audience was hushed; about three thousand people listened:
ekklesia
—Within each of us there is a stirring that is set in motion by a singular call from the heart of God. It comes to all of us, this call, but in most of us the stirring wanes and like embers that have glowed for a moment and then died, the sound of the call fades and the stirring ceases. But again and again the Creator calls; He never stops, and in a few the stirring is augmented and quickened by the content of the call and the delicacies of the feast that these few perceive.
Abraham our forebear heard this call and felt this stirring, and he tasted these delicacies because he broke his bonds and left his home and came to the feast. And like him others in the flow of time have heard the call and felt the stirring and have turned toward the Source and have cried Abba! and they have feasted.
The call endures. He came to us and lived among us and we killed him. But he rose and forgave us, and Abba now reaches out to gather us and to draw us into the great eternal assembly, where we feast and where our souls are safe and protected as we march into eternity.
And Abba says I AM, come to me.
And we say Abba, break these chains!
And Abba says come!
And we say Abba, help us!
And Abba says come!
And we say Abba, save us!
And Abba says come to me!
And we say Abba! Abba!
***
—What if the church, the ekklesia, really proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God? What would the message be? What if the church told the whole truth? What if we spoke to our young people of the deceitfulness of wealth and told them that life does not consist in an abundance of possessions? What if we taught them the joy of simplicity and the satisfaction of enough? What if we spoke of the peace and rest that come from exhaustive service to others? What if the church taught its leaders that their flock is much greater than individual assemblies? What if we prayed again and again that we might see the church as Jesus sees it? What if we opened the eyes of our soul and saw the Paraclete at work?
I taught a class at church several years ago called Christians, Jack Mackerel, and Eternal Life. It was a good class. A few years later I taught it again. It was a good class again. If you teach the truth about Christians, Jack Mackerel, and Eternal Life it will be a good class even again. The truth of simplicity and of enough never changes. Many leaders of the church have forgotten this.
Soon I would like to be in a class called Rice and Beans, Jesus, and the Great Assembly. Will you help me teach it?
And another called Puppy Breath. I love puppy breath. Have you ever smelled puppy breath? A class in the assembly of the saints called Puppy Breath? Yes, we could do it. No, I have not lost my mind. Do you know who created puppy breath?
And another about moonrise. One time I saw the movement of a full moon as it rose on the horizon. I saw the moon moving! But here's the catch: I had to stop and be still and look to see that movement. I need a class on stopping and being still.
And rest. A class on rest. Yes, that would be holy.
Tomorrow. What would we say to our young people if we taught a class about tomorrow?
A class about angels and exquisite experiences in which God draws us to him. A wild owl perched on my finger for close to an hour one time. He had got stuck in my barn and I had rescued him. He was flapping about trying to get out through a glass window. I reached up and held out my finger and he stepped onto it. I walked the hundred yards or so to the house and he stayed there all the way perched on my finger. He could have left me at any time. For an hour or so he and I marveled at each other as we moved about the house and the porch, and finally I stood on the porch and lifted my hand and he flew away. I drew closer to God with that owl on my finger. That happened. Angels.
Experiences of the simple. I remember one such experience when with just a handful of twigs I made a cup of tea in the fireplace in an old farmhouse. The house had no electricity and no running water and I had been living there for several months, cooking my meals in the fireplace or over a fire outside. I filled a metal cup with water, set it on three small rocks, and put the twigs under the cup and lit them. I was doing an experiment in simplicity and frankly I doubted that the tiny handful of twigs, less than half the volume of the water in the cup, would be enough to heat the water to a boil, but it was! I have never forgotten the amazement and the satisfaction that I experienced in that moment of simplicity and enough. Enough.
Back to dogs. A sweet, humble dog came to live with me one day. She showed up at my place with a leaf in her mouth. I had never seen her before. She was a black, short haired, medium size dog, and every single time she approached a human being, without fail, she picked up a leaf and brought it as an offering. I named her Leafer. We loved each other. One day I found her lying dead in a field in front of my house. She had a leaf in her mouth. Her final offering. Angels. One day I hope to learn and to teach about angels. I have a long way to go.
Yes, that stirring is there. It is there, moving. With the ears of our soul, if we listen, we hear that call from the heart of God. The feast is spread. The Paraclete serves delicacies that are unnamable. Abba! Abba!
There was a complete hush in the assembly. Archie looked at his people. He had intended to stop here. Short and sweet! But he had more to say.
I know I'm a strange sort of fellow, but I am a disciple of Jesus and I have committed myself to a life of service and prayer. I pray for the entire church in Appalachia and I have devoted my life and my thinking and my service to this region. My view is that God has given me spiritual responsibilities for this great flock; Appalachia is my flock not because I have been appointed by any earthly ecclesiastical institution, but because I have decided to focus my prayer and spiritual life on this region, as a follower of the teachings of Jesus. The ekklesia passage above is a transcript of a sermon that one of our preachers presented to a high church congregation, at their invitation, and their leaders were offended by it. They were offended! They came to me and asked me to chastise the man, and gave me a printed transcript of his sermon, which I have just shared with you. I told them I am not about to quench the Spirit, and that they would do well to listen to this sermon and learn from it. So they determined to have me dismissed, but they could not do it because nobody hired me to start with; I answer to God. If I'm not hired, I can't be fired. No matter what they do with or to me, they cannot keep me from serving you. I live to serve you. And no earthly institution can take that away from us. That is freedom.
For several years one of my core prayers has been that I might see the church, the ekklesia, as Jesus sees it. As most of you, I come from a deep-rooted church tradition which is fundamentally exclusionary in that we denied affiliation, association, or what many called fellowship, to those who did not share our very precise doctrinal perceptions and behavioral regulations. Any mention of, or even the vaguest allusion to, the Holy Spirit, was likely to get one ostracized, or at the very least asked to consider moving their membership to avoid conflict in the local congregation. The thinking was that it should be clear to anyone who thought about the matter that the activities of the Holy Spirit in human affairs had ceased upon the completion of the biblical canon, whatever and whenever that was, and from that time forward God's Holy Spirit acted only through the biblical message. That is the tradition from which my walk with Christ developed. I am grateful for much of that tradition because it gave me a good foundation in biblical learning and taught me to appreciate the cohesion of local assemblies, both of which remain important tenets of our faith. We refer to our assembly as family, and that is what it is and should be. We take care of each other. We support each other. When we sin — an area in which I have developed extensive personal experience — we reach out our hands and pull each other back. We are family. But I thank God that he has put a hook in my nose and has led me out of this false doctrine of the death of the Holy Spirit. The Comforter, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Helper, whatever we want to call him, is alive and well, and all we have to do to perceive him and his activities is to listen with the ears of our soul and see with the eyes of our heart. Once we do this we have these exquisite encounters and we draw closer to our Lord through them. He teaches us in them, and we rub shoulders with him, and we sense unspeakable glory. Abba teaches us through jack mackerel and rice and beans, and moonrises, and owls perched on our finger and staring at us, and the simplicity of a tiny fire to make a cup of tea, and a dog with a leaf in her mouth as she crosses over into eternity. He does this for us. The feast is there. The Paraclete is our server; and he is not dead. Our God is not dead. This is the truth and this truth sets us free if we accept it. If we are not moved by these encounters we are dead.
I believe that Jesus has answered my prayer about seeing the church the way he sees it, but I cannot fully articulate this. I doubt that anyone can if we are honest with ourselves. He said that the kingdom of God is not something that we can point to and say There it is. He has answered my prayer by helping me refrain from saying There it is. He has helped me understand that the kingdom, and by extension the church, the ekklesia, is within us, or among us. He has helped me to see that I don't need to set up boundaries and parameters and say That defines the church. He has helped me understand that he defines the church; I just follow him. He is the sovereign.
I believe that elders, bishops, overseers, who share these views will see their flock as more than the aggregate of the members in their local assemblies. It is clear that the early church elders saw themselves as shepherds of a broad flock in a designated place. Thus we have references to the 'elders in Ephesus,' the 'elders in Jerusalem,' 'elders in every town,' etc. It is true that Acts 14.23 refers to elders in every church, but to say that this means that elders are limited to local groups, what we usually call congregations, begs the question. It appears to me that 'every church' meant the ekklesia, the broader assembly, in every town. 'Every church' could have sub-assemblies, groups meeting in different homes, or in different public or private places, such as in Jerusalem for example, but 'the church in Jerusalem' certainly meant the aggregate of all these sub-assemblies.
I recognize that this view of the flock is not congruent with much of our general tradition, but it is biblical. Tradition does not trump truth. And for this reason I pray for elders or shepherds who see the flock differently than our general tradition. I pray for elders who see their flock as the church in places, and who will deal with the fallout resulting from this view however they must with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is a spiritual matter, and the Spirit will guide and nurture the shepherds of the flock wherever they are, and no matter what barriers Satan throws up, which he is certain to do.
Blessings upon all of you. Leave here knowing that we are not an institution. Remember, the Master himself said 'You can't point to it and say There it is.' There is nothing complicated about it. Nobody can ever take you away from this family.
Peace. I'm off to eat with some friends at a little place just on the other side of the railroad tracks. They specialize in greens and beans, and a bowl of rice. That's what I'm having. I love'em!
Archie smiled and waved as he left the lectern. The applause and the boos were thunderous.