A Different Perspective

I would like for the church to be perfect, but it is not.  While a part of me wants to say that it should be, it never will.  I know this even as I often lament its imperfections in a way that might suggest the flaw could be fixed so that imperfection would become perfection. Some have often said in my presence that the church can never be perfect because it is filled with imperfect people.  I suppose such is true enough, but at a more personal level I know that it can never be perfect because I am a part of it.  I must accept my own flaws, my own imperfections, and my own misguided attempts to bring about a change that cannot happen.  

Part of the problem is Pentecost.  I see Pentecost and see a church overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, centered on Jesus, and engaging in a powerful way a hostile world around it.  What I easily overlook are those folks like Ananias and Sapphira as well as the initial reluctance to reach out into the world of the Gentile community.  Only a season of persecution pushed the Jerusalem centered church out into the world.  From the beginning the church has been imperfect.  Perhaps, a better view of the church then and now is to say that it was and is both. The church is both perfect and imperfect. 

How can anything established upon the blood of Christ be imperfect and how can a church with folks like me be perfect?  Even as Christ does not demand perfection from me, why should I demand perfection from His church?  It is an imperfect and perfect church that Christ used to invite me to the cross and though I may moan in amazement that it sometimes misses the mark, I am still grateful for it.