The Prevailing Church

The Garden of Eden had a tree known as the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  (Genesis 2:17)  The Zoar Church had its tree which looking back I would call the fellowship tree.  It was a towering old Oak tree just outside the front door of the country church.  It grew out of a churchyard swept clean again and again through the decades to the point that nothing but sandy dirt was beneath it.  Where trunk met dirt were exposed roots big enough for children to play and men to use as sitting places when the pews inside were filled. 

 

But, mostly it was a place where the men gathered to talk, and in that day, light up a cigarette.  It was a place of fellowship as surely as some churches have their fellowship halls.   Out here in this part of the country a favorite gathering place is around the scuppernong  vine.   The scuppernongs are now ripening and full of flavor.  The only thing better than eating them is to be a part of a group standing up and down the vine, eating, spitting, and talking.  Whenever I go to the scuppernong vine alone, I enjoy the fruit, but miss the fellowship.

While I have not gone back to a church service since they were put on hold a few months ago, I know in some places folks are back in their familiar gathering place.  I wonder about the fellowship part of it.  Sitting apart from others, never touching, talking through face masks, and also wondering if there is some virus germ floating around in the air certainly seems like something which would hinder the sense of fellowship.  Fortunately, the church is a resilient spiritual community.  It may come out on the other side of the these difficult days looking different, but it will come out.  It will prevail.  It will prevail because it is a spiritual community put into our lives because of the unending love of God, the sacrifice of the Son, and the power of the Spirit.  Against such nothing can permanently prevail.