I know in Catholic thought this likely means extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, that "there is no salvation outside the church." Salvation is mediated only through the sacraments of the church.
But in my despairing about the church, my thoughts wandered in a different direction.
Generally, we expect the church to be a moral witness. That is, we expect Christians should be "better" than non-Christians. And when Christians are not any better than most people, we despair and chuck the whole business. Our metric of success is wholly moral.
But let me simply observe, as a regular church goer, that the people gathered on a typical Sunday morning are just normal people. Church people have the same sorts of problems as everyone else. And they are sinners just like everyone else.
We know this about ourselves, that we are sinners, yet we keep getting disappointed. What should be expected--our moral failures--keeps surprising us. Over and over. Why? I think it's our stubborn moral framing of the church, that church people should be "better."
But if we're not any better than other folks what then is church all about?
The church, to borrow that line from the Catholics, is "a sacrament of salvation." Yet I mean this differently than extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. What I mean by "a sacrament of salvation" is that the gathered church makes salvation visible.
The gathered church isn't a moral witness--How could it be?--but a sacramental witness. We gather to make visible the salvation of God in our midst. This is how a depraved, broken, and lost people can gather together on a Sunday and be called "the church." These gathered sinners simply point to the reality of grace. Our moral portfolio is abysmal, but in our worship, prayers, liturgies, and testimonies we make visible the love of God, in our lives and in the midst of the world. "Grace exists," our presence declares. And we make this declaration not only for ourselves, but for the world as well.
If this is so, "the church" simply is this sacramental witness. Which means "the church" doesn't point to the moral performance of human beings. Rather, the "the church" is a gathered group of sinners who come together to point toward the grace of God. We sinners gather to bear witness to grace, and it's toward grace where we must direct our gaze.
