March 6, 2016
Dr. Thomas J. Pace
Start Here: What is the Role of the Church?
Acts 2:42-47
We’re talking about the church in our series on looking at what we believe, what each one of us believes. And we’re using the Apostles Creed as kind of our skeleton, and today we’re going to talk about, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” We said those words just a few minutes ago. Our Scripture today is a snapshot of the early church just after the Holy Spirit has come and breathed life into her. So listen as we hear the Scripture read today.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common;they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceedsto all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47
I love the church. When people talk about the church, I am often defensive. I came to Christ, because when I was fourteen some people in the church loved me, a youth group and young adults. The church nurtured me as a young person, nurtured my parents before me and my grandparents, and great grandparents before them. Every paycheck I have ever received in my adult life has come from the church. So I love the church. I must confess when I hear pastors griping about the church I often think, “Well, you’re kind of biting the hand that’s feeding you there, don’t you think?”
Every significant relationship in my life, my wife, my best friends, the people that I love the most and those who love me the most, came from the church. So I love the church unabashedly and unapologetically. But I am a part of it and I do see how the sausage is made. So I see the shortcomings of the church. Everyone has not had the same experience with the church that I have had. I know the church can be hypocritical and narrow-minded and judgmental, that it can be filled with politics and money and all of the things that make people say, “Aw, I don’t want to be a part of the church.”
But even with all of that, if it were not for the church, if you look back at history, were not for the church, the hospitals, the universities, the schools, you see the impact that has been made in the name of Christ. Even though the fact that our primary outcome is just to say to you every Sunday, “Be nice to the people around you, love your neighbor, the people closest to you.”
So here’s what I want to do today. I want to talk about who we are. I want to remind us of who we are. There’s a great passage in Philippians, and it’s always been one of my favorites. It’s a great little verse that simply says, “Let us live up to that to which we have already attained.” I want to remind us of who we are so we can live up to who we are.
So we’re going to look at this little snapshot of the church from Acts 2 as well as some other Scriptures that are there in your bulletin, in your insert. I hope you’ll follow along and that something will speak right to your heart. We’re going to look at the church in two specific ways. The nature of the church, the identity of the church, and the mission of the church.
Let’s pray together. Lord, open us up, open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear what you have for us. Open our hearts that we might feel and then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
So I’ve heard many different images, many different kind of pictures of what the church is. The church is a family, the church is a hospital for sinners, the church is a battleship, the church is a lifesaving station – I use that one regularly as I talk about who we’re called to be. The Scripture has two primary images for the church. One is that of a building with Christ as the foundation, as the cornerstone and all else built on top of that. But the primary image that runs through Scripture is the church as a body, as the human body. An organic instrument with Christ as the head and the church as the body.
I want to begin by saying that the nature of the church is the body of Christ. On the test at the end today, that will be on the test, and you will need to say “The Body of Christ.” The nature of the church is the Body of Christ.
The Scripture from I Corinthians 12 makes it clear, and that’s just a little tiny snippet of an entire chapter that talks about the church as the Body of Christ. The church is the Body of Christ, and every one of us is a member of that body, like a hand, or a foot, or an eye, or an ear. And if we’re the Body of Christ, Christ is the head of the church. When we say the words, “I believe in the holy catholic church” to say we’re “holy” says we belong to the Lord. We’ve been set apart for a holy purpose.
Now you might look around you. Do those people look holy? Not always. In fact we’re kind of this conglomeration of bedraggled sinners that come in here. We sit in a room together, and somehow something is supposed to make us holy? What the Scripture is trying to tell us is that this is our identity, the Body of Christ, and what we have to do is live into it.
One of my favorite stories from history is from the 12th century. You probably know it. It’s the story of Thomas Becket and King Henry II. They were carousing, drinking buddies, and they chased women together and drank together, and they partied together. And King Henry decided that it would be good if his chancellor who was Becket was made the Archbishop of Canterbury and was put in charge of the church. That way the church couldn’t tell him what he was doing was wrong. And that way he could have control not just of the kingdom but of all the clergy as well. So he put his drinking buddy Thomas Becket in charge of the church. And something happened. When you put on those robes, when you decide that God’s got a call on your life, there’s a change that happens. There is a holiness that comes over you once you realize you’ve been claimed, when you put on that uniform. So Thomas Becket didn’t do what King Henry said he should do. In fact over time, as they continued to struggle, finally one day King Henry supposedly said – there’s a great debate about whether he said intentionally or not – he said, “I sure wish I was rid of that pesky priest!” And four knights heard him and went and killed Thomas Becket. King Henry ultimately had to do penance by being whipped at the altar for his part in the murder.
The truth is when we put on the uniform, when we understand ourselves as the body of Christ, when we see ourselves as holy, we begin to live into that. The old baptism ritual says, “The church is of God.” The word “church” in Latin literally means “of God” and the ritual says, “The church is of God and shall be preserved until the end of the time.”
We are the holy Body of Christ, but to say we belong to Christ, the second part of saying we are the Body of Christ says, “We belong to each other.” The word catholic means “universal.” It doesn’t mean Roman Catholic. About once a year someone asks me that question, “Why do we say I believe in the Catholic Church?” Catholic means “universal,” all brothers and sisters in Christ, all the saints together. We believe in that universal church of all followers of Jesus. We belong to one another.
The Scripture from I Corinthians 12 says, “When one of us suffers, all of us suffer. When one of us rejoices, all of us rejoice.” You can’t say, “I don’t need you,” because we all need each other.
It was in the passage from Acts, wasn’t it? It’s so clear, so full. It just dominates the tone of this little passage. “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day as they spent time together in the Temple and broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts praising God and having the good will of all the people…” Do you feel that? That sense of connection that we all belong to each other?
Most of you know that my mother-in-law passed away recently. And it’s hard to lose someone you love. On my wife’s desk at home there is a stack of cards this tall from people like you who sent us cards to say, “We love you. We’re thinking about you. We’re praying for you.” My father-in-law at his house has a similar stack.
And Dee will open one of those cards while standing in the kitchen, and she’ll say, “Who is that?” And I’ll say, “They come to the 11 o’clock service and sit about three quarters of the way back over on the right side.” The truth is that we may or may not know the person well, but there’s a sense in which we’re together. We love each other. We care for one another. And I will tell you that when you go through these moments, whatever they are in your life, when you go through those kind of tough times, you realize how often you take for granted the connection you have to the Body of Christ, not just to your own church, but other Christian friends who are there to pray for you and support you.
I don’t want to make it all about cards and fuzziness, because it’s far deeper than that. Our ministry that began out of our Gethsemane campus, we began in conjunction with St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, we call it reVision. It’s aimed at gang-affected young people. When we started in the southwest part of town we asked people around, “What is the one thing no one’s doing anything about?” And they said, “Gangs.” So suck it up and let’s see what we can do!
So we began reVision, and it starts in the southwest part of town, then it moves to Spring Branch and now out in Katy as well. And here’s the basic premise. The one thing we want to do is keep young people in school and not in alternative school, because we realize that alternative schools are the pipeline to prison. Honestly, that’s exactly where that starts. So we want them to stay as much as possible mainstreamed in school where they can have friendships and not get sort of separated out. And then we want them to have mentors, so they’re assigned a mentor. But the key component is that we want them to experience community. We want them to have a place where they belong so that when they go out into the world around them, they don’t think they’re alone. When I see gangs emerging all around us, what I realize is that the church hasn’t done our job. The point of us being together is that we live in a dangerous world, and all around us you can’t go it alone.
This is kind of an aside, but this sense of being connected to one another is illustrated in the book of Genesis after Cain kills his brother. He is thrown out in the community to live in the world by himself. And you know what he says? He says to God, “God, they’ll kill me. If I’m out here on my own, they’ll kill me.” So God puts the “mark of Cain” on him to protect him, because he knows that you can’t make it on your own. We belong to one another.
So understand that the nature, the identity of the church, is the Body of Christ. Now if that’s the identity, what’s the mission? We don’t just come together to be friends with one another. If it were just that then you can take a cooking class and make friends there. We are friends with a mission, with a purpose.
I like to say we’re not face to friends only, but we’re side by side friends. Paul writes to the Philippians, “I thank you for your partnership in the Gospel.” We’ve linked arms and we’ve got work to do.
The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. God has made us the Body of Christ, holy and belonging to one another with a purpose, to make disciples for the transformation of the world.
In the book of Acts making disciples in this passage seems almost accidental. It’s kind of funny, “And the Lord adding to their number daily, those who were being saved.” Oh, how I wish it were that easy. But if you read the first four chapters of Acts, it isn’t so easy. What you see is this fire that is burning in the disciples as they share the Gospel. In Acts 4, where Peter is speaking out, the authorities tell him, “Shhh. Quit talking about it! You’re stirring everyone up!” And Peter says, “I can’t help it. We cannot stop speaking about what we ourselves have seen and heard.”
In your bulletin is Matthew 28, the Great Commission. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” That’s the mission – to make disciples.
Yesterday I was walking our dogs in the neighborhood, and there were Jehovah’s Witnesses working the neighborhood. They were in conservative clothing, going door to door in pairs, and walking up to the doors with Bibles in hand. No one was answering the door. I felt for them. I had two emotional reactions as I watched them. One was I felt sorry for them, because I thought how hot it was. It was warm outside. They were wearing the conservative clothing, and they faced rejection after rejection, I’m sure. But the other was guilt. I felt guilty, because I don’t agree with the “why” of what they’re doing. Jehovah’s Witnesses has a sort of fear-based faith, “You better believe or else!” And I don’t really applaud the “how.” I don’t want to be the guy who goes door to door and pesters people.
But what happens is we throw out the “why” and the “how,” and along with it, we throw out the “what.” We don’t want to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, so we just don’t talk to anyone about our faith. We just don’t share it. How can that be? How can it be that we don’t share the transforming love of God that has saved us? How can that be?
When I’m walking, the anthem I like to listen to often is from Cat Stevens. He had a few Christian years, only a couple. He wrote a song that I love. It goes like this, “I can’t keep it in, I can’t keep it in, I’ve gotta let it out. The world’s got to see. See all the love. Love that’s within me. Why walk alone? It’s warm over here. I can’t keep it in, I gotta let it out.”
To share the love of God with others, to say to them, “Look, I don’t know what you’ve done in your life. I don’t know what you’re doing even today, but there’s absolutely nothing that will separate you from God’s love. You are treasured and celebrated by God.” Wow!
Okay, so we make disciples, but that making of disciples is not the end game. The end game is making disciples for the transformation of the world. The Acts passage says it almost sort of accidentally as well, “Many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” They were changing the world.
We talk here at St. Luke’s about not just making disciples but making apostles. The end game is apostles, people sent to change the world. Our pathway is seeker, to believer, to belonger, to disciple, to apostle. That’s the end game - to send people to change the world.
A number of years ago a passage that I have read before came to life for me. It’s a passage we preached on the Luke version of it a few weeks ago. But the Matthew passage is printed in your bulletin. It’s in Matthew 16. Jesus is talking to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi, and he says, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter says, “You are the Christ.” And Jesus says, “Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you, but my Father in heaven. You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.” And then he says, “And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
I always thought that was sort of poetic, I guess. Then a number of years ago my daughter was graduating from Southwestern University. James Winkler was at that time the General Secretary for the Board of Global Ministries, and he was giving the commencement address. So all the young people were gathered there, along with their parents and grandparents, and he said, “I know that I’m supposed to tell you to pursue your dreams and your passions. But I’ve got to tell you, I could care less about your dreams and your passions. I need you to storm the gates of hell. We live in a world that is full of poverty and war and disease and inequality.” Then he went on through the list, you can make your own list, of the evils that are around us. And he looked at the students, and he said, “You have been given by the church of Jesus Christ a first class education. Now do something with it that matters.”
It was like all of a sudden I got that. You know, if you’re going to say, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” doesn’t that imply that the church is storming the gates, that the evils can’t hold us back if we’ll take on the mission? The evils can’t hold us back, and we can storm the gates. We make disciples followers of Jesus who are then sent by Jesus to change the world.
Some of you have been doing our small group study which Eric Huffman and I wrote together. It’s about these six Sundays, as we’re focusing on the Apostles Creed, and what we believe. This chapter on the church was written first by Eric, and then I responded. Listen to what Eric writes, because I love what he says. “I’ve been asked this question several times. Do I have to go to church if I want to be a Christian? My answer is that it’s definitely possible to be a Christian without going to church, but why would you want to? The ekklesia [that’s Greek word for church] is the most powerful, most exciting movement the world has ever seen. And when we get it right, there’s nothing like it. Wherever the ekklesia of Jesus has gone, empires fall, cities change, families stay together, discrimination gives way to equality, and world class hospitals and schools follow. Poverty disappears and lives are transformed. The same can still happen today wherever Christians remember that the church is a revolution, a rebel based camp of people who are called out for the purpose of sharing God’s love for the sake of the world.” To say “to make disciples for the transformation of the world,” sounds like a just nice little phrase, but it’s a call to action.
I love the little comic strip of “Peanuts” where Lucy walks in on Linus where he’s watching TV. And Lucy says, “We’re going to change the channel.” And Linus says, “Who died and made you boss? Why are you in charge?” And Lucy takes her hand and makes it into a fist and says, “These five put me in charge.” And he changes the channel. Then in the last panel he looks at his five fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys get organized like that?”
I would say that to us. We have a mission. We’ve got to get organized. We have to get after it. The gates of evil should not prevail against us.
The nature of the church is the Body of Christ, with Christ as its head, us belonging together. The mission of the church is making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I love the church. Let’s live up to that which we have already attained.
Pray with me. Lord God, we confess that sometimes we come to the church to be comforted. Our hearts are broken, and it feels so wonderful to have people around us who love us, who support us, who care for us, who pray for us, who encourage us, who lift us up. Remind us, God, that we belong to one another, and out of that identity and body, God, may we hear your call to mission that we might leave this place and make disciples of your son Jesus Christ that we might storm the gates of evil around us. Your promise is that they cannot prevail. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.