Ecclesiology, Identity, and Unity
Preached at St. David's Episcopal Church; Nashville, TN on July 30, 2006 by your blogging Spidey-friend, Thunder Jones
Texts:
Ephesians 4:1-7,11-16
I, Paul, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until 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. We 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. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from 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.
Mark 6:45-52
Immediately after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
---------------
Today’s epistle offers an interesting window into the ecclesiology of St. Paul. Ecclesiology is theology concerning the Church. It is also, in my view, one of the most important fields of theological knowledge. I understand it to be important because it is the grounding of our life together. Ecclesiology is a theological articulation of our identity as the unique community known as the Church. Ecclesiology lets us know who we are. We cannot understand the world apart from this grounding. Unless we understand ourselves as part of Christ’s Church, we will be blown about by the mores and whims of our own time, as St. Paul warns in today’s reading.
By grounding ourselves in a robust understanding of Church, we begin to understand our life together and our mission. When I speak of Church, it is important to know that I am not just talking about those of us who call St. David’s our church, but the larger Church catholic; the universal church to which we all belong. As the universal Church, we are a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God to the world. Our witness to the world is dependant upon our ability to articulate and live out the idea of Church individually, locally, nationally, and globally. This is why all the voices of schism, within the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and Christianity as a whole are so distressing.
In Ephesians, St. Paul writes, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
The problem of Protestantism is not one of theological reform. Indeed, the idea of theological reform is crucial to the maintenance of a vibrant and engaged Christian faith. The problem of Protestantism, and really of all Christian schisms dating back to the Great Schism between Rome and the Orthodox East in the 11th century, is that we have the misguided notion that we can somehow disconnect from each other. We seem to believe that by holding right belief, contrasted with the wrong belief of the other, that we can distance ourselves from “them.”
St. Paul refuses to split or divide the faith; such splintering of the Body of Christ would seem contradictory to him. He doesn’t offer us a two-tier system of communion or the idea of a true church and other ecclesial bodies that are somewhat valid. He offers us one hope and one calling. We are called to be Christians. This is our primary vocation, it is the source of our identity, and it is the motive behind our lives.
We are told by St. Paul in the second chapter of Ephesians that we are “citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” This citizenship must never be understood to be “fire insurance” or a free pass into the Kingdom of God, rather it is a charge to those of us who take on the name Christian and share in the Eucharistic life of the Church to be formed by the unique practices of the Church. In today’s reading we hear St. Paul beg us to live a life worthy of the calling that we have in Christ Jesus. In next week’s epistle, St. Paul will encourage us to put away the falsehood of our former life. He does this, not to threaten us, but to remind us that we are the forgiven of God and ought to live as imitators of Christ.
While I could certainly say many different things about what is entailed in the notion of the imitation of Christ, this is a topic for another day and another sermon. My point in discussing the larger context of Ephesians is to point towards the holistic understanding of what it means to be Church. Not only does St. Paul tell us that we are members of the household of God, he also encourages us to imitate Christ. The only method available for us to fulfill such a cumbersome charge is to locate ourselves in the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” that that we find described in this week’s epistle reading.
St. Paul wrote “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from 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.” This charge to build up the body in charitable love must be our task if we are to fulfill the calling that God has given us. We cannot hope to fulfill God’s call alone as individuals, but must do so as a single body made up of diverse gifts.
Sadly, in the midst of our current ecclesial turmoil, we find ourselves doubting that we can find the unity necessary to complete this holy charge. We doubt that we can be the Church that St. Paul writes of in today’s epistle reading. In fact, we wonder if St. Paul had any idea of what Church was like when he was writing this epistle.
I can tell you that St. Paul was very much so aware of the strife we find as we attempt to make life together as the Body of Christ. We see it very clearly in his epistles to the Corinthians. If there ever was a church that was dysfunctional, it was the church of Corinth. But how do we find this life and unity? How can we hope to fulfill the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” that St. Paul describes?
I would point us back to our Gospel reading for today. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they were terrified. They thought that a ghost had come to do them some type of harm. In the midst of chaos and fear, Jesus tells his disciples to take heart. Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples and the wind ceases. The disciples are astounded, but the reading ends by telling us that their hearts were hardened. They could not understand what this encounter with Jesus meant for them and we have a hard time understanding what it means for us.
We must be diligent not to let our hearts become hardened. We must welcome the risen Jesus into his Church and allow him to be our Head. If we are to be saved from the wind of dissonance and schism that is currently blowing throughout Christianity, we can only do so by embracing Jesus, who is the Sacrament of God to us.
The Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx teaches us that the Church serves as the “visible realization” of the salvific work of Christ to the world. The Church exists as a community that fulfills the work of God on Earth. In the Church, the “grace of redemption becomes visible” and known in the institutions of the Church and in the gifts of the Church. We show the world what the peace of Christ, the peace of our salvation, looks like through our life together.
The sacramental life of the Church is presided over by Christ, who is the High Priest of the Church. The sacraments are central to Christian life and must be understood to be more than figurative extensions of our faith; they are the mysterious method by which the Lord relates to His Church. The Church cannot visibly see Christ, but through the sacraments, Christ is present in His Church. Likewise, in our sacramental practices, we show the risen Christ to the watching world.
As we share our sacramental life together, as we prepare ourselves for Holy Eucharist, we ought to look for the miracle-working presence of the risen Lord. It is in these practices that we see the peculiar vocation of Christian life at its most vibrant point. If we are to find unity together and fulfill St. Paul’s vision of the Church, it will be done through our sacramental life as we allow ourselves to be shaped by these rites.
We must also remember that our practices are not only limited to our sacramental rites, but also seen in acts of mercy and charity. The weakest among us often suffer the most in our church debates as funding and volunteers disappear for the work that cares for the sick, the poor, and the orphans. Sacramental practices build up the body of Christ, but the work of Christ is done in these acts that imitate our risen Lord.
While vigorous accounts of theological differences are certainly helpful in times of confusion such as these, this kind of discussion cannot replace our Christian practices. We must not harden our hearts towards each other and our divine life together, but must embrace one another and recognize that no matter how much we might desire from time to time, we cannot be separated from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is our hope and the only way forward. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we must lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have been given.
AMEN
Texts:
Ephesians 4:1-7,11-16
I, Paul, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until 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. We 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. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from 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.
Mark 6:45-52
Immediately after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
---------------
Today’s epistle offers an interesting window into the ecclesiology of St. Paul. Ecclesiology is theology concerning the Church. It is also, in my view, one of the most important fields of theological knowledge. I understand it to be important because it is the grounding of our life together. Ecclesiology is a theological articulation of our identity as the unique community known as the Church. Ecclesiology lets us know who we are. We cannot understand the world apart from this grounding. Unless we understand ourselves as part of Christ’s Church, we will be blown about by the mores and whims of our own time, as St. Paul warns in today’s reading.
By grounding ourselves in a robust understanding of Church, we begin to understand our life together and our mission. When I speak of Church, it is important to know that I am not just talking about those of us who call St. David’s our church, but the larger Church catholic; the universal church to which we all belong. As the universal Church, we are a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God to the world. Our witness to the world is dependant upon our ability to articulate and live out the idea of Church individually, locally, nationally, and globally. This is why all the voices of schism, within the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and Christianity as a whole are so distressing.
In Ephesians, St. Paul writes, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”
The problem of Protestantism is not one of theological reform. Indeed, the idea of theological reform is crucial to the maintenance of a vibrant and engaged Christian faith. The problem of Protestantism, and really of all Christian schisms dating back to the Great Schism between Rome and the Orthodox East in the 11th century, is that we have the misguided notion that we can somehow disconnect from each other. We seem to believe that by holding right belief, contrasted with the wrong belief of the other, that we can distance ourselves from “them.”
St. Paul refuses to split or divide the faith; such splintering of the Body of Christ would seem contradictory to him. He doesn’t offer us a two-tier system of communion or the idea of a true church and other ecclesial bodies that are somewhat valid. He offers us one hope and one calling. We are called to be Christians. This is our primary vocation, it is the source of our identity, and it is the motive behind our lives.
We are told by St. Paul in the second chapter of Ephesians that we are “citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” This citizenship must never be understood to be “fire insurance” or a free pass into the Kingdom of God, rather it is a charge to those of us who take on the name Christian and share in the Eucharistic life of the Church to be formed by the unique practices of the Church. In today’s reading we hear St. Paul beg us to live a life worthy of the calling that we have in Christ Jesus. In next week’s epistle, St. Paul will encourage us to put away the falsehood of our former life. He does this, not to threaten us, but to remind us that we are the forgiven of God and ought to live as imitators of Christ.
While I could certainly say many different things about what is entailed in the notion of the imitation of Christ, this is a topic for another day and another sermon. My point in discussing the larger context of Ephesians is to point towards the holistic understanding of what it means to be Church. Not only does St. Paul tell us that we are members of the household of God, he also encourages us to imitate Christ. The only method available for us to fulfill such a cumbersome charge is to locate ourselves in the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” that that we find described in this week’s epistle reading.
St. Paul wrote “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from 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.” This charge to build up the body in charitable love must be our task if we are to fulfill the calling that God has given us. We cannot hope to fulfill God’s call alone as individuals, but must do so as a single body made up of diverse gifts.
Sadly, in the midst of our current ecclesial turmoil, we find ourselves doubting that we can find the unity necessary to complete this holy charge. We doubt that we can be the Church that St. Paul writes of in today’s epistle reading. In fact, we wonder if St. Paul had any idea of what Church was like when he was writing this epistle.
I can tell you that St. Paul was very much so aware of the strife we find as we attempt to make life together as the Body of Christ. We see it very clearly in his epistles to the Corinthians. If there ever was a church that was dysfunctional, it was the church of Corinth. But how do we find this life and unity? How can we hope to fulfill the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” that St. Paul describes?
I would point us back to our Gospel reading for today. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they were terrified. They thought that a ghost had come to do them some type of harm. In the midst of chaos and fear, Jesus tells his disciples to take heart. Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples and the wind ceases. The disciples are astounded, but the reading ends by telling us that their hearts were hardened. They could not understand what this encounter with Jesus meant for them and we have a hard time understanding what it means for us.
We must be diligent not to let our hearts become hardened. We must welcome the risen Jesus into his Church and allow him to be our Head. If we are to be saved from the wind of dissonance and schism that is currently blowing throughout Christianity, we can only do so by embracing Jesus, who is the Sacrament of God to us.
The Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx teaches us that the Church serves as the “visible realization” of the salvific work of Christ to the world. The Church exists as a community that fulfills the work of God on Earth. In the Church, the “grace of redemption becomes visible” and known in the institutions of the Church and in the gifts of the Church. We show the world what the peace of Christ, the peace of our salvation, looks like through our life together.
The sacramental life of the Church is presided over by Christ, who is the High Priest of the Church. The sacraments are central to Christian life and must be understood to be more than figurative extensions of our faith; they are the mysterious method by which the Lord relates to His Church. The Church cannot visibly see Christ, but through the sacraments, Christ is present in His Church. Likewise, in our sacramental practices, we show the risen Christ to the watching world.
As we share our sacramental life together, as we prepare ourselves for Holy Eucharist, we ought to look for the miracle-working presence of the risen Lord. It is in these practices that we see the peculiar vocation of Christian life at its most vibrant point. If we are to find unity together and fulfill St. Paul’s vision of the Church, it will be done through our sacramental life as we allow ourselves to be shaped by these rites.
We must also remember that our practices are not only limited to our sacramental rites, but also seen in acts of mercy and charity. The weakest among us often suffer the most in our church debates as funding and volunteers disappear for the work that cares for the sick, the poor, and the orphans. Sacramental practices build up the body of Christ, but the work of Christ is done in these acts that imitate our risen Lord.
While vigorous accounts of theological differences are certainly helpful in times of confusion such as these, this kind of discussion cannot replace our Christian practices. We must not harden our hearts towards each other and our divine life together, but must embrace one another and recognize that no matter how much we might desire from time to time, we cannot be separated from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is our hope and the only way forward. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we must lead a life worthy of the calling to which we have been given.
AMEN
posted by Thunder Jones | 4:55 PM
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