Pas­toral Let­ter
April 2013

Dear Christ URC,

Most of us prob­a­bly do not give much thought to the clos­ing words in each of the New Tes­ta­ment epis­tles. They are usu­ally filled with per­sonal greet­ings and a few final exhor­ta­tions. On the sur­face, they do not seem to carry the same weight as the body of the let­ter. If we are hon­est, we prob­a­bly find our­selves at times tempted to read over those words quickly with­out much thought, tak­ing about as much inter­est in them as we would the clos­ing cred­its of a movie. How­ever, if “all Scrip­ture is breathed out by God and prof­itable for teach­ing, for reproof, for cor­rec­tion, and for train­ing in right­eous­ness” (2 Tim 3.16), then the con­clud­ing remarks at the end of the epis­tles are important.

One remark that we find in many of the epis­tles is the com­mand to the mem­bers of a par­tic­u­lar church to greet one another. In his let­ter to the church at Rome, Paul tells the mem­bers to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (Rom 16.16). He says vir­tu­ally the same thing in at least four other let­ters (1 Cor 16.20; 2 Cor 13.12; Phil 4.21; 1 Thes 5.26), as do the writer to the Hebrews (Heb 13.24), Peter (1 Pet 5.14), and John (3 Jn 15). Given the num­ber of times this appears in the New Tes­ta­ment, it is clear that God wants us to greet each other frequently.

God wants us to do this because he has made us mem­bers of his fam­ily. By his grace, we have the same Father in heaven, the same Elder Brother who gave his life for us, and the same Spirit who indwells us. He has not only called us into fel­low­ship with him­self, but with one another. That fel­low­ship, which we call the com­mu­nion of saints, is expe­ri­enced first and fore­most in the local con­gre­ga­tion to which we belong. The local church – not the inter­net, schools, polit­i­cal action groups, para-church orga­ni­za­tions, or our cir­cle of friends – is God’s revealed and ordained com­mu­nity of faith. This is where the gospel is preached, sacra­ments are admin­is­tered, and church dis­ci­pline is exer­cised. It is specif­i­cally in the local church where we are receiv­ing Christ in the means of grace and being con­formed into his image. The gospel cre­ates this new and liv­ing com­mu­nity where peo­ple who are very dif­fer­ent in looks, per­sonal tastes, and back­grounds are being knit together as one. In effect, God says to us, “You grow into the image of my Son only as you grow together” (Eph 4.1–16).

Greet­ing every saint in the local church to which we belong plays an impor­tant role in this. But what does that look like, prac­ti­cally speak­ing? How do we obey this com­mand in our mod­ern day set­ting and cir­cum­stances? And do we actu­ally need to (gulp) kiss each other?

Greet­ing every saint in the local church to which we belong begins by going out of our way to greet vis­i­tors to our con­gre­ga­tion. When we see some­one whom we do not rec­og­nize, we should intro­duce our­selves. It can be easy for us to for­get what it was like when we first vis­ited Christ URC. Why not make the per­son feel wel­come? Remem­ber, we are not fel­low cus­tomers loyal to the same store. God has made us mem­bers of his fam­ily (Eph 2.19). The gospel has made and the New Tes­ta­ment calls us “broth­ers [and sis­ters].” Every week we expe­ri­ence a fam­ily reunion. But it can be awk­ward vis­it­ing a fam­ily reunion if you don’t belong to that fam­ily. Why not make a vis­i­tor and/or out­sider feel wel­come? God may be call­ing that per­son into his spir­i­tual fam­ily as it is man­i­fested at Christ URC. And he might use you in the process!

Greet­ing every saint in the local church also begins by extend­ing the right hand of fel­low­ship when some­one is added to the fam­ily. When a new mem­ber takes vows and places him­self in covenant with Christ’s church, we are to greet that new mem­ber face to face. This is why we get in that long line after a wor­ship ser­vice and wel­come the per­son for­mally. We should not think of this as a super­fi­cial or per­func­tory act; rather, it is a gen­uine expres­sion of our bond in Jesus Christ.

Greet­ing every saint in the local church con­tin­ues long after the hand­shake line. It is part of our life together under the Word. Again, think of a fam­ily reunion. It is com­mon cour­tesy to go out of our way to greet our aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, when we see each other on hol­i­days or other gath­er­ings. Why would it be any dif­fer­ent with our spir­i­tual fam­ily? In fact, our spir­i­tual fam­ily has a deeper bond than blood. We have a real union with each other by the blood of Christ and the truth we con­fess. We share in com­mon some­thing far more vital than the same DNA or last name; we share the same faith and same hope. We should strive to greet and be acquainted with every­one in our spir­i­tual fam­ily. It is not only the pas­tor, elders, and dea­cons who should know all the sheep in the flock. Each of us should seek to know every­one with whom we fellowship.

Of course, as one writer put it, “The higher we value our per­sonal pri­vacy and free­dom from com­mit­ments, the shal­lower our grasp of fel­low­ship will be – reduced to moments of idle chitchat over steam­ing cof­fee before or after a wor­ship ser­vice.” Greet­ing every saint in the local church goes fur­ther than sim­ply smil­ing and say­ing “hello,” though that is impor­tant. It implies receiv­ing each other as those to whom we are obligated.

This does not mean that we are forced to have close friend­ships with every per­son in the con­gre­ga­tion, any more than we must be close friends with every per­son in our bio­log­i­cal fam­ily. It is a mis­con­cep­tion to think that we must have lots of friends at the church to which we belong. But it does mean that we are oblig­ated to one another as fam­ily. We are to love one another with broth­erly affec­tion (Rom 12.10; Heb 13.1), con­tribute to each other’s needs (Acts 2.45; Rom 12.13), show hos­pi­tal­ity (Rom 12.13), rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom 12.15; Luke 6.31), and live in har­mony with one another (Rom 12.16). We do these things with the mem­bers of our bio­log­i­cal fam­ily. Yet, God specif­i­cally com­mands us to do these things with the mem­bers of our spir­i­tual fam­ily in the local church.

Greet­ing one another is part of our fel­low­ship in Christ. To that end, let us resist the temp­ta­tion to keep to our­selves at church or only speak with our friends. We don’t have to greet one another with a holy kiss (as in the Mediter­ranean and near East­ern cus­tom), but we must greet one another. Let us greet every saint in love and sin­cer­ity as we expe­ri­ence life together under the Word and travel together to our heav­enly home.

Yours always in Christ,

Pas­tor Brown