Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe in the Holy catholic Church
October 12, 2008
Ephesians 4:1-16
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. 7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people." 9(When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love. Ephesians 4:1-16
From the time I first announced that I would be preaching this series, members of this congregation have expressed concern over this one line from the creed. And while many of you are struggling with the one word, catholic, I believe that each of the three words provides a challenge to our thinking. So today we will reflect on what it means to believe that the church is Holy, that the church is catholic, and what it means to affirm belief in the church itself.
So when we say we believe in the holy catholic church, we are saying first of all that the church is holy. And while some of you believe the most controversial word in this phrase is "catholic," I maintain that the most controversial word is "holy." The truth is that the church does not appear all that holy much of the time. You need only read the headlines of the last decade or so: the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic church and more than a few evangelists; denominations fighting not only against each other but among themselves; congregations throwing out members for disagreeing with pastors or disrupting services; Fred Phelps and his family and their hate-filled protests at funerals of our military and anyone else where they can find a TV camera turned in their direction. And that is just a sampling of recent events. Open up your Bible to the Book of Acts and you can see the church acting up from the early days. Read Paul's letters and you realize that underlying almost every beautiful statement of faith in Christ is an argument within a local congregation. In fact, our Scripture today begins with Paul begging the Ephesians to be humble, gentle, patient, loving and peaceful! All too often the church appears to be anything but holy.
And if you really want a list of reasons why the church is less than holy talk to those outside the church! They will be more than glad to share with you the reasons why they avoid church like the plague!
In fact, in the US today, we are finding that people are more and more interested in Jesus and less and less interested in the church. Why? Well there are lots of reasons, but they generally boil down to this: the church does not act like Jesus!
So how do we dare to stand and declare the belief that the church is holy when if you spend any amount of time around us, you know just how broken, sinful, and difficult we can be?!
Perhaps part of the problem is our understanding of the word "holy." The word "holy" means essentially to be "set apart." A holy object is an ordinary object set apart for God's extraordinary use. So to say that the church is holy is to say that while there is nothing inherently different about us from any other organization, we-the church--have been set apart for God's use.
Truthfully, because the church is made up of ordinary sinful human beings, we struggle with many of the same things that other groups of ordinary sinful human beings struggle with. We don't always agree. We sometimes abuse our power. We often fail at being the kind of people that God calls us to be. We sin. We hurt one another. We fight and bicker. But what makes us holy is not that we are better than anyone else out there but that God has a special use for us-despite all our brokenness.
And what is that purpose? We are called to be Christ's body here on earth. We are set apart to do the things Jesus did in this world. And we are set apart to be a taste of the Kingdom of God. The church is holy because God has chosen to set us apart for a special role in this world.
This special role is why it is so important that we do strive to be the kind of people and the kind of community that God calls us to be-in Paul's words "to lead a life worthy of our calling"! It is a shame when God's people cause those outside the church to stumble. It is a shame when God's people put barriers between people and the gospel. When we judge, when we bicker amongst ourselves, when we live as if this life and this world don't matter, when we talk the talk but don't walk the walk, we are not just hurting ourselves we are hurting others. And when we fall short of our calling, we are disappointing the one who called us in the first place. To say that the church is not perfect is to recognize the truth about ourselves but it does not in any way mean that we aren't called to grow up into the full maturity of our faith-to try in every way to be the people God has called us and set us apart to be.
Which leads to the second reason that we can say the church is holy. A few weeks ago, we explored what it meant to say that we believe in the Holy Spirit and I shared then that everything else in the creed depended on our belief that God's Holy Spirit is at work in the world today. The church is holy because of the work of the Holy Spirit within it.
Because of the work of the Holy Spirit, the church has continued for 2000 years now despite our brokenness, our sinfulness, our bickering and even despite our disunity. Whenever the church starts getting too complacent, the Holy Spirit revives us. Whenever the church gets too far out of line, the Holy Spirit reforms us. Whenever the church is not up to the task, the Holy Spirit equips us. Whenever the church becomes too fragmented, the Holy Spirit unites us.
So to say that we believe that the church is holy is not to say that the church is always perfect or always right. As the church, we have to learn to speak the truth in love because the truth is that we often fall short of what God is calling us to do. But to say that we believe the church is holy is to say that God has set us apart and equipped us by his Spirit with the very important job of being Christ's body here on earth and a taste of the world to come.
Secondly, the creed maintains that the church is catholic. When we proclaim to believe in the holy catholic church we are NOT saying we believe in the Roman Catholic church. In fact, we are saying just the opposite. We are saying that we believe that church is something bigger than a particular congregation, a particular nation, a particular race, a particular age, and definitely a particular denomination! Rather to say the church is catholic (little c) is to say that the church is defined instead by our one Lord, our one faith, and our one baptism. In other words, the church is defined not by what divides us but by what unites us!
Notice all the uses of the word "one" in our Scripture today: one hope; one body; one Spirit; one Lord; one faith; one baptism; one God and Father of all. The church is one in all these things.
If you remember back to our first sermon in the series on what it means to believe, you may remember me quoting John Wesley (who was quoting someone else) in essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty and in all things charity. These are our essentials: our Lord, our faith, and our baptism.
To say that the church is catholic is to say that the church exists wherever Jesus is worshipped as Lord. As Jesus reminded us, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." Matthew 18:20 (By the way, this reminder also comes in the middle of a discussion on conflict and disagreement in the church!) Whenever we gather and declare Christ Lord-which, as Paul reminds us elsewhere, we can only do because of the Spirit within us-Christ is present and the church exists.
To say that church is catholic is to say we share one faith-our faith in the one Lord. While we tend to think of our faith as things we believe about God, faith is much more than that. After all if we define faith as believing things about God then even Satan has faith! But to say we have faith is to say we place our trust in the one Lord, the one God and Father of all. So we may disagree on how to worship him. We may disagree on whether women can preach. We may disagree on just exactly how Christ is present in our midst. We may disagree on who is saved, when that happens and how. We may disagree on many things related to that faith, but we all agree on the one with whom we have faith.
And to say the church is catholic is to say that we share one baptism. Granted we Christians disagree about all sorts of things related to baptism: how much water is required; is it necessary for salvation; what age should it happen; just exactly what does it do for the baptized person. But the one thing we all do agree on is that baptism initiates a person into the church. That is why in the United Methodist Church we do not re-baptize. Whether you were immersed in a Baptist Church as an adult, sprinkled in the Roman Catholic church as baby, had water poured over you in a Presbyterian Church as a teen, as long as you were baptized in the name of the one God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-we accept your baptism as your entry into Christ's one holy Church. And that means that all Christians everywhere are our brothers and sisters in Christ! And in Christ, there is no male nor female, no Greek nor Jew, no slave nor free-in Christ all the barriers between us are broken down and we are gathered into the one family.
In this passage, as well as others, Paul uses the image of the body for the church and I love that image. I love the image because it reminds me of what it means to say that we are one church while we are still so very different. We'll talk later about the communion of saints and the different roles we all play in the life of the church which are dependent on the different gifts we are given by God. But it also reminds me of the beauty of our many different denominations-each serving a different function for the body. For instance, the Baptist Church reminds us of the importance of evangelizing and the moment of making a decision for Christ. The Methodist Church reminds us of the importance of the life of the personal and social holiness that comes after that moment of decision and of God's grace at work in everyone's lives. The Roman Catholic Church reminds us of the importance of worship-private and corporate-that is rooted in something bigger and older than us. The Bible Churches remind us of the primacy of Scripture. The Quakers remind us of the beauty of waiting on the Lord. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. Each denomination is different, but each allows God to reach people where they are and use them for the building up of the entire body of Christ.
Now here is where I struggle understanding the objection of some to the use of the word catholic in the creed. I truly believe in the catholic-universal-church and that means that I believe that United Methodists, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, fundamentalists, Calvinists, Armenians, Quakers, Greek Orthodox everyone who confesses faith in Christ as Lord are all Christians-all a part of Christ's body the church. I disagree with some of the beliefs and practices of other denominations, but I don't doubt their salvation or their role in the church universal. And unfortunately what lies behind some people's objection to the word "catholic" is an assumption that Roman Catholics are somehow less Christian than us. And what that means in practice is that we are condemning the vast majority of Christians throughout the world and throughout the ages to hell. And I wonder where in that assumption is the humility that Paul begs us to display.
Our worship center this week is covered in crosses to remind us of what is central to our one faith-our one Lord. And to say we believe in the catholic church is to say we believe in a church that shares a faith in Christ expressed in baptism. We believe in a church which has Christ as its head but which exists in many different forms, like the body consists of different parts, all of which serve different but no less important functions in the one church. We believe in a catholic-universal-church which is centered on the person of Jesus Christ who died on a cross and was resurrected for us.
This leads to the final word in our phrase: church. I'm sure you all know the old children's rhyme. "Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door and see all the people." Well, that rhyme is wrong! The church is not a building! The church is not a place! The church is the people and not just any people-but a peculiar people-or as 1 Peter puts it:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. 1 Peter 2:9-10a
The word used for church in the Bible is Ekklesia which means "called out" and here we come full circle because to believe in the church is to believe that the church consists of people of all nations, ages, races, and gender called out by God for a particular purpose. In other words, to believe in the church is to believe that by our faith and baptism in Christ-one Lord, one faith, one baptism (or in other words catholic)-we are God's called out people (in other words church) who are set apart to proclaim Christ's presence in this world until he returns (in other words holy). To believe in the church as taught in Scripture is to believe in the holy catholic church!
Several years ago, I had the privilege of traveling to Thailand with a class of seminary students. As part of that experience, we worshipped with a couple of Thai congregations. On our first Sunday in Thailand, we visited a small church near Chang Mai. The service was entirely in Thai so I couldn't understand a word that was spoken. But I was surprised by what I did understand. I understood when the pastor had us stand and they sang the doxology as thanksgiving to God. I understood when she lifted the bread and broke it and invited us to come forward to eat and to drink. And I also understood when she took a small baby girl in her arms, sprinkled the water on her head, and walked into the midst of the congregation. To believe in the holy catholic church is to believe that the pastor and that little Thai baby with her pink Minnie Mouse socks were both my sisters in Christ despite our difference in language, nationality and denomination-we were a part of the one church because we shared one Lord, one Faith and One Baptism.
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