We believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints

Opening Activity: Discuss in small groups

Church…. What is it?

Reading 1: Colossians 1. 15-29

We move on to the second part of the creed. The first part is all about God - Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Who God is, what God does... Now we look at what happens when we encounter God... Church, Forgiveness, Resurrection, and Eternal life…These are all outworkings of believing in (and knowing) God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit...

At first glance, “The Church” seems the odd one out in all this. We begin by saying we believe in God, father Son and Holy Spirit. We end by saying we believe in forgiveness, resurrection, eternal life. But in the middle, we believe in this “Church” business … Sunday services, Missionary prayer letters and tea and biscuits.  From the sublime to the ridiculous! 

The word “Church” in our Bibles translates the Greek word ecclesia – assembly. Literally, the group called out. In ancient Greek cities, when an important decision had to be made the town crier would call everyone – at least all the adult free men – to meet. The same thing happened for great festivals and sacrifices in the Old Testament: the people would assemble to worship. That is the word Paul uses in our reading…And he uses the word in the singular: the Church; the assembly; the worldwide body that has Jesus as its head. And Jesus uses the word in the same way when he says “On this rock I will build my church”. (Matthew 16. 18)

So what is the Church?

• Not a place, but people. I shouldn’t have to say that. But I will anyway. (After all we still have a sign outside that calls this building “Church”.) When the King James Version talks about “robbers of churches” (Acts 19. 37) it is actually wrongly translating a totally different word that really means temple-robbers.
• Not just any people, but God’s people. And in fact, God has always had “his People” and has always chosen to relate to and enter into covenant with “his People”. Although it translates the word assembly, our English, Scots and Germanic word “Church” or “Kirk” comes from the Greek word “Kurios” meaning “Lord” and it was invented because Church is the people who belong to the Lord.
• The Church is not just a collective noun for "all the Christians in the world." The, Church, the people of God, is an entity in its own right. It is a “Thing.” The Church is there. Philosophers sometimes talk about “nominalism & realism” in the use of language. "Geography" is the name we give, to the study of what we know about the physical features of places on earth, and how people have developed and used its resources. Geography doesn't exist - it isn't REAL. Mountains,oceans and cities are REAL. Church isn’t just the name we give to the vague idea of a group of Christians. It is real.
• The Church is not an institution or organisation but an organism. It is a living thing. It’s not just for people. It is people. Of course it needs an element of structure, leadership, and so forth. The structure – the leadership, the particular way a group of Christians do something, is not in itself the Church. Any more than some of our family traditions are the same as family. When I was a kid we always had Christmas at home, we always had our tea at 5.30 when Dad came home from work, and we always did what Dad said even if we tried it on with Mum… But that was simply the way we structured our life together. We were family. We belonged together.
• The Church is not merely a natural, human thing but a supernatural and spiritual thing. It is not merely something we do in response to the Gospel, But something God does, as we respond to the Gospel. (1 Cor 12. 13: “In one Spirit we were all baptised into one body”) It is an ongoing, living miracle of unity and reconciliation. What Paul means in verse 20 is that through Jesus we are right with God – and we are are as a consequence all reconciled with one another – Jews and non-jews who used to be considered aReading 1:s outsiders are now insiders to a relationship with God and therefore to the people of god. (Eph 2. 14-17 ¹⁴“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”) The Church is Christ’s body. It is a result of what Jesus has done on the Cross. It exists because of what God has done.
• It looks not inward but outward. The Church has spiritual authority derived from Jesus who is over all things "whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities;" but its authority is not about grabbing but giving; not about self-advancement but self-sacrifice. Not coercive or exploitative but generous. Paul says he completes "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church". That doesn't mean there is more to do to put us right with God. What it does mean is that Jesus continues to suffer as his body, the Church suffers. Before he was a Christian, Paul made the Church – and Jesus – suffer. Now as a missional leader his not afraid to take his share of Jesus' sufferings. The Church's victory in mission is accomplished through sacrifice. When we were in Gloucester there was a Pastor who advertised his healing ministry with the question "Why suffer?" Of course it's a rhetorical question. But the answer is simple. "Because Jesus suffered". The world wide church does triumph, & heal & grow, But it does so through living sacrificially and generously.

When the emperor Constantine became a Christian & tried to “Christianise” the Empire (about 300 years after Christ) it made life a lot easier for the Christians. "No more persecution, guys!" But what resulted was a disaster – because the Church became an institution, it became humanly resourced, and it moved away from the Jesus way, the outward looking way of sacrifice & generosity, and instead began to me coercion & conquest.

So we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints. One Church, that belongs to God (that's what “Holy” means), and exists all over the world (that is what “catholic” actually means – the “hol” in catholic is the same as the “hol” in holistic and hologram and in our world “Whole”). It is the Church across the whole world. The Hcurch is “The communion of saints.” It is the shared lfie of the saints. We may not always be that saintly but we are all “saints. We belevie in one church which is the shared life of all the disciples of Jesus all over the world. We are all apart of it; we all contribute to it; we all benefit from it. And the Church never loses a member by death. The communion of the saints, lasts forever. The church is not only on earth but in heaven. What a privilege to be part of that amazing community/family/body.

But what is the practical, concrete difference that believing in this Church makes to our lives.

Paul – and Jesus – also use the word ecclesia in another way. ways. Paul speaks about the churches, and refers to the church in a city, the church in someone’s home. You will find that in Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Thessalonian.) Jesus talks about sorting disputes between his followers by taking them “to the Church”. That has to be a locally focussed gathering of people. It is in the local Church that we our faith in the holy catholic church, the church all over the world, finds solidness, becomes thick and visible and practical. Anglican Renewal Ministries was a Church organisation that had as its strap line at one time “To be real it’s got to be local...”

If we believe in the church, the holy, catholic church, the Communion of saints, then that affects how we live in the LOCAL CHURCH...

The local Church must be

• people of God not a building.
• A real thing; not just a name for something we do together
• organic not organisation; family not an institution.
• Supernatural not merely physical...As Chris said last week "it is the Holy spirit that makes the difference between a meeting of the Church & any other meeting". The Spirit makes it a community of love and reconciliation; the Spirit makes it a community of practical care; the Spirit makes it a community of healing.
• generous and sacrificial not exploitative or manipulative.

The Church began, with 120 people receiving the Holy Spirit in power, and going out to speak about Jesus; four thousand responded by turning to God and being baptised, and becoming the first ever local church. The life they lived in that local church in Jerusalem was a miniature version , of the one holy catholic church. We hear about their life together in our closing reading.

Reading 1: Acts 2. 42-47

© G Lilly March 2017