I wonder what you think of when I say the word “church”. When I was at theological college training for ordination one of my tutors used to insist that if we were talking about a church building, or referring to a church building in placement reports or essays that we wrote for him that we always used the full phrase, “church building.” To be honest it was a bit annoying at times, but it emphasises something that I know when I think about it, but sometimes forget.
This building that we are sat in now is not a church. It is a building that part of the church happens to meet in.
When we say the creed – when we say, “I believe in the holy, catholic church.” we are not saying that we believe in a holy catholic building.
We are saying that we believe in a holy, catholic ….. what exactly?
Hold that question, we’ll come back to it.
First let’s deal with the words that come before. Holy and catholic.
We use the word “holy” a lot but what does it mean? It has a whole range of meanings, doesn’t it. Pure, clean, good, set aside, special.
We believe that the church, whatever that is, is these things, just as we, as individuals, are all holy. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel very holy. I know I’m not pure, I pick up dust and mud, I get distracted. My holiness does not depend on me. It has been given to me by God. Because of Jesus I have been forgiven and declared holy. Each one of us has. That doesn’t mean we do what we like and don’t worry about living lives obedient to God’s commands. But we do this not to earn our holiness but because we have already been given it. We pursue holiness because we are grateful for the holiness we have been given.
This is as true for the church as it is for each of us as individuals. This is really important, because at times in church history that this has been misunderstood. The misunderstanding goes like this. The church is holy – special, pure so it’s really important the church doesn’t get polluted, so we’d better keep all those impure, unholy people out. No. That is not what being a holy church means.
Being a holy church means recognising our own, natural unholiness, learning to receive and live our the holiness we have been given, and having arms open wide to welcome in all who want to taste that holiness.
So that’s holy. What about catholic? This is simple. Catholic means widespread – even worldwide. From Jesus’ command to the disciples – go to Jerusalem, Samaria, the ends of the earth – the church has been spreading to every nation, tongue, corner of the globe. It is not just a local religion – it is global. It’s not just here, in this building – it’s out there.
While we’re doing brief definitions, shall we do the next line of the creed as well?
“the communion of saints.”
What’s that all about? Firstly, what are saints? That’s actually pretty simple. All those who follow Jesus, have been declared holy by him, are saints. Again and again in Paul’s letters he writes to “all the saints in such and such a place.” Saints are everyday, regular, Christians – you and me. We are saints. So is every person who ever has or ever will follow Jesus. And this is where the “communion” bit comes in.
This might be confused with the “Communion” meal that we share – bread and wine – in some of our services. And there is some overlap – our meal together is an expression of our communion with each other, that’s why it’s called “Communion”. But this is wider than that. Somehow, as followers of Jesus, as Saints, we are all in communion – in fellowship, with every Christian ever. Some of those have died. But Jesus has defeated death, they live, so our communion with them continues. As we read in Hebrews – they are our witnesses, cheering us on. We build on the foundations they laid, we harvest the fields they tilled, we continue the work they began. And so we will also pass on a legacy to those who follow us.
So, we know that the church is holy, catholic, made up of everyone who has ever followed Jesus, past present and future. But what is it? What is the church.
One of the best pictures we have of the church is that found in the reading we had from Paul’s letter to the Christians living in the city of Corinth. This is such a familiar reading. One body – unity. Many parts – diversity. Each needing the other – community. All focussed on Jesus – the head.
This is the church we believe in. An organic unity, formed by God, led by Jesus, a community of disciple making disciples. Following Jesus and helping each other follow Jesus.
As I’ve said each week that I’ve preached on the creed, it is not “we believe that…” We don’t say that we believe that there is a church. We say that we believe in the church.
Now, when I made that distinction in previous weeks I was talking about believing in, trusting in the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Obviously we don’t trust in the church in the same way – we don’t look to the church for our salvation, for our forgiveness, our restoration. So what does in mean to believe in the church? Maybe this from evangelist J John might help us with that.
Are we a bit embarrassed by the church? By our brothers and sisters in Christ? This can get a bit tricky – there has been stuff that those who claimed to be part of the church have done that was deeply harmful and wrong, and we should be more than embarrassed about those things, we should be heartbroken.
However. None of that changes the fact that the church is the body of Christ, that the church is God’s idea, the church is the primary means by which God carries out his mission. And when we get that right, it changes the world. It takes ground for the Kingdom, and brings people to faith.
On a more local scale, we love to celebrate what we are able to do in the community here in Wellington. That’s one of the reasons I was so grateful to Lydia for pulling together this leaflet earlier in the year to help us to celebrate what we, together, as the church are doing. We weren’t able to capture everything in here, but it provides a snapshot of the kingdom work that we are doing, with God’s help.
We’ve already explored that fact that this building isn’t the church – it’s a place that part of the church meets sometimes.
I’d like to build on that and also suggest that this service isn’t the church – it’s a meeting of some of the church to worship, pray, learn, encourage each other.
We have other congregations in our wider church family – Explore, Toddler Praise, Evening congregations, mid week communion. That’s all church. We have small groups where we have the opportunity to explore faith together in a different way, to do life together. That’s church.
On Thursday evening I went to a meeting at Telford Minster where we heard about a national initiative called Myriad which has been set up to encourage and support people to develop expressions of church, disciple making communities, where they are. This is a really good example of what it means to believe in a catholic church – a widespread church.
If that was sparked something for you – come and talk to me or to Nick. We’d love to see what other expressions of church God is going to grow through us.
The church is the body – the people, joined together by the Holy Spirit. Where ever we are, what ever we’re doing, we are the church. We don’t actually get a choice about that. As followers of Jesus we are joined together as a community, as a body. It is an organic unity – a reality that God has declared. We are one body. That is what we believe in.
No Comments