Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Pentecost +2
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Zechariah 12:8–10, 13:1, Psalm 63, Galatians 3:23–29, Luke 9:18–24

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church – The Nicene Creed

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Just after Trinity Sunday, in the wake of Pentecost, the church enters a season known as “Ordinary Time.”  This term comes from the Latin word,  “ordinalis,” meaning ‘numbered’ or ‘ruled’. Between today and First Advent, the Sundays are counted.  That’s the meaning of Ordinary Time.  However, in English, the play on words isn’t bad, either: from Advent through Pentecost, we focus on the extraordinary- the person and work of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  In the long, green growing season of Ordinary Time, the focus turns to what the extraordinary does in the lives of the ordinary – you and me.  In the wake of Pentecost, we turn our attention to the life of the church, and our life in the church. So today, let’s look at the church that Jesus gave us:  One and Catholic, Holy and Apostolic.

The church is one.  The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord. She is his new creation, by Water and the Word.  Nearly every religious system in the world is focused on self-salvation. That is, what someone has to do to be saved, to be right with God. In our own faith, this is most often seen in either decisionalism- the need to make a a decision for Christ- or performancism- the need to do some things, or live a certain way.  In Galatians today, Paul challenges both of these ways of thinking about salvation.  In verse 29, he names us heirs of Abraham- neither a decision nor an act.  An heir just is, by virtue of their being.  And we gain that state of being on account of what Christ has done for us.  In John 15:16, Jesus says “you did not choose me, I chose you” and Paul lays out for us the “how”: we are sons of God through baptism, having been clothed with Christ.  It is not the case that we have to apply ourselves, making ourselves into what he finds worthy of rescue, rather who Jesus is determines what we are. Hear Saint John Chrysostom:

if Christ is the Son of God and you put him on, having the Son inside yourself and being made like him, you have been made one in kind and form.

And Martin Luther as well:

To put on Christ is not a matter of imitation but of new birth and a new creation. We have not just changed our clothes in the outward sense but become entirely new people.

We do well to remember this:  the church is God’s idea. Decisionalism?  God has already decided- for you. Performancism?  The work of Christ is finished- on your behalf.  We can trust in Jesus for our salvation.

Because the church is founded on the Christ of God, as Peter confesses today, it is also free to be catholic. Catholic is a word that means “universal,” and the church of Christ is just that: it extends throughout ages and nations, comprising all those whom the Lord our God has called.  Built by him, it is free from all our understandings of just what a church should be, just what a church should look like.  And that’s a good thing, because any church we would imagine would likely somehow be less than catholic.  For, the effects of Babel continue among us, don’t they?  Our alienation one from another sadly endures. Presently, we live in age of very loud and sometimes violent judgement and division across all sectors of society, wherein our culture is constantly giving in to the temptation to identify and celebrate ever smaller “in-groups” with supposed privileges and superiority over others. This, while at the same time denigrating and demeaning those who don’t fit in.  In the church, we tell a different story- a universal story.  Here, there is no in-group, no out-group, no one inherently favored or inherently inferior.  In our reading today St Paul puts it thus: 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28, ESV)

Now, the heirs of the promise do remain wonderfully diverse, a testament to the glorious creativity of God. They are truly drawn “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” ( Rev7:9 ). It’s not that distinctions cease to be in the Kingdom, rather it’s that they cease to matter as a pretext for either judgement or righteousness. Because of Christ, as Paul writes in Second Corinthians, “we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.” (5:16, NLT).

If the church is one because it is founded on Jesus Christ- his work, Word and Sacraments- it is catholic because it is founded in his deep compassion and desire to create a people for himself.  John 3:17 states:  “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” (NLT)

The church is holy. Remember, holy means “set apart.”  It does not merely have the moral and ethical connotations we so often associate with the word.  With Jesus as our head, as a part of his body, we are free to repent, to change, and to grow up in him. Through his grace operating in us, we become his hands and feet in the world.  Dan Scott, former pentecostal pastor of Christ Church, Nashville turned Anglican Bishop puts it this way:

Holiness is not defined by how few sins we commit, but by how fully we move toward personhood—toward health, wholeness, and participation in divine life. It is a journey from fragmentation toward integration, from fear toward love.

It’s not so much that we do it, as it is that it is done to us. Our continued focus on Jesus, his mercy and power working in us, and above all his loving acceptance of us are the key. In our Collect today, we ask that the Lord would:

Graft in our hearts the love of your Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works

I would just point out this:  he is the grafter and increaser, he is the nourisher, he is the one who brings forth good works.  This is not a list of things we must do, rather it is a description of what happens to us as a result of our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Dr Philip Cary writes:

Our practical efforts to transform ourselves…are just not relevant to this task…The inward transformation of our hearts…happens not through anything we try to do but through faith in the gospel, because that’s how we receive Christ. He is the one who really changes us.

Slowly, but surely we become the people he has always wanted us to be- entirely new people, one in kind and form with him.

We now can begin to understand how the church can also be apostolic.  Another definition is in order: to be apostolic means to be “a witness,” it means to be “sent.”  A church founded on One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism has a truth to witness to.  A church that is catholic is well positioned to be all things to all people, to take the message of God’s love to the entire world.  A church whose members are moving from “fragmentation toward integration, from fear toward love” is able to do the hard work of loving our neighbors as ourselves. As Martin Luther says:

From Christ the good things have flowed and are flowing into us…From us they flow on to those who have need of them.

And so we are sent- with a message and a mission.  By the means of Word and Sacrament, he makes of us what he is. He makes us his body. And he bids us continue his work of reconciling love. Bishop Kallistos Ware says:

This…is the aim of the Liturgy: that we should return to the world with the doors of our perceptions cleansed. We should return to the world after the Liturgy, seeing Christ in every human person, especially in those who suffer.

We are apostolic. It may be ordinary time, but we have an extraordinary God and have been entrusted with an extraordinary vocation.