What can we believe today about the Church?
A talk given in the education room by the Dean of Wells on Sunday February 23rd 2014
I want to frame this afternoon’s talk between two poems about the church. The first is probably familiar to many. It is ‘The Hippopotamus’ by T S Eliot. The poem is prefaced by a quotation from the letter to the Colossians. (Ch. 4 v 16)‘And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans.’
THE BROAD-BACKEDhippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ’potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
This was one of Eliot’s early poems, written in satirical vein, and yet with an underlying seriousness. Critics wondered if it was blasphemous, and Eliot later reflected that blasphemy might be ‘a way of affirming belief’. Certainly the reference to the Laodiceans seems fitting as the Book of Revelation says famously that the works of this church were ‘neither hot nor cold’.
The virtue of the poem is that it describes the church as both transcendent and earthy, praises wing to heaven, but like the hippopotamus the church is still ‘wrapt in the old miasmal mud.’ I suspect that corresponds to most people’s experience of church or cathedral. At one level the church is a very human institution with all the failings and power struggles that implies. But I want to suggest that it also speaks to us of heaven and that it is possible, as Yves Congar hoped, to offer ‘a notion of the Church that is broad, rich, living, (and) full of biblical and traditional sap.’ This is an important task, for it could be argued that the greatest defect in contemporary Anglicanism is that it doesn’t have a strong ecclesiology, a strong doctrine of the church, andlacks confidence in its identity, so that it gets bogged down in moral struggles, especially over sexuality.
To start this task we have to being with an understanding that the church is eschatological, a foretaste of the kingdom to come. This is a more dynamic vision than Eliot’s static and otherworldly description of the church. I want to site the church within history, pointing forwards to the kingdom still to come, but affirming that this kingdom is already known in the present. We are a people formed by the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, a people who experience the kingdom he came to offer in our midst, and a people who look forward to the reign of God that will be fully revealed at the end of time.
Pentecost
The key passage from the Bible that tells of the constituting of the church is the story of Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2. We read that the followers of Jesus are gathered together in one place, and wind and fire descend from heaven. ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ The story tells us that the church is formed by the Holy Spirit and continues to depend on the Holy Spirit for its life.
There are two important points here. The first is that the Holy Spirit is the link between earth and heaven after Jesus has ascended to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the sign that heaven continues to be present here on earth in the community of faith. We are in the last times spoken of by the prophet Joel, and quoted in Acts 2 v 17, when God declares ‘that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams’.
The second is that the dramatic picture of the gathered crowd where ‘each one heard them speaking in the native language of each’ is a reversal of the story of the tower of Babel. The Babel story is about the profusion of languages on earth, a multiplication that the writer sees as punishment for human presumption, for the desire to reach heaven and make a name for ourselves: ‘And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people and the have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11v 6f) So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth.’ At Pentecost the scattered peoples are re-gathered and the peoples can understand one another once more. Heaven comes to earth as a gift of the Spirit of God, rather than through the effort and achievement of men and women.
The church is inspired and structured by the Holy Spirit. In what I am going to say, I draw heavily on the work of the Dominican theologian Yves Congarwho was one of the principal architects of the Second Vatican Council. Congarspeaks of the church as formed, both in its life and its origin, by two divine missions. ‘The Church, then, is historic and visible and its ‘founder’ is Jesus, who is always living and active in it and its lasting foundation. The Spirit gives life to the Church and enables it to grow as the Body of Christ.’ He goes on to develop this link between earth and heaven in terms of sight and belief. The Church is both visible and invisible. ‘We see the Church in the manifestation of its ordained ministry, its worship, its assemblies, works and undertakings. We believe that the profound life of that great body, which is both scattered and one, is the culmination and the fruit, in the creature, of the very life of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
The Spirit is already present in the Old Testament but comes to earth in its fullness, first in the annunciation of the angel to Mary, and then in the baptism of Jesus. Leslie Newbigin reminds us that in Jesus the Spirit of God the Father found a home, a continuous response. He wrote ‘In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is spoken of mainly as a power coming upon individuals at particular times… The New Testament begins by describing how the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and abode upon him’. When Jesus no longer dwells physically on earth he sends the Holy Spirit on his followers who are the first fruits of the kingdom to come. The church still awaits the fullness of the messianic age, but experiences this age now in the power of the Holy Spirit that pointsto the fullness of life already shown in Jesus.
Orthodox theologians make the point that the church can never possess the Holy Spirit. The church exists to pray for the coming of the Spirit, just as it exists to pray for the coming of the kingdom. This is exemplified in the liturgy of the Eucharist when we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit to come upon both the people and the gifts of bread and wine to make them into the body and blood of Christ. The Book of Revelation ends in heaven with the Spirit and the bride, that is to say the church, bothpraying ‘come’.
The Four Marks of the Church
In the creed we say ‘We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.’ These four marks of the Church are given in the section of the creed that focusses on the work of the Holy Spirit. Congar looks at how the Spirit realises these four marks in the church and makes them come alive.
His first heading is ‘The Holy Spirit makes the church one; he is the principle of communion’. I have already suggested that this is the case in thinking about the story of Pentecost. The unity is founded on Christ as we become together the body of Christ. But just as we are one body by the Spirit we are many through the diversity of gifts that the Spirit has given. As Paul writes in ‘Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’ (1 Corinthians 12) The Spirit creates both diversity and unity within the body of Christ. The many people each hear in their own language. This unity is made possible because, in the Spirit, each person is for the other, each person uses their freedom to will the common good, to live in solidarity as the one body of Christ. The meaning of communion is wider than a particular act of worship, it is the way of being of the church united in mutual service to one another for the sake of the world. The church is called to live out the greeting at the end of the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians; ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.’
However we are all too aware of disunity within the churches. Rivalries, gossip, intrigue and church politics deface the body of Christ. If the second half of the twentieth century saw a wonderful drawing closer of the major Christian churches and some successes in uniting churches, such as the churches of North and South India, and the United Reformed Church. At the beginning of the 21st century it seems that fragmentation has returned, and that churches suspicious of the ecumenical movement are thriving. The Anglican Communion is disrupted over issues of sexuality and biblical interpretation. All this is a reminder that unity is an eschatological gift and that the world, although reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus is by no means fully healed. Unity – communion - remains a gift to be received, a goal to be prayed for, and a hope to be worked at in our relationships with one another.
Congar then looks at the Holy Spirit as the principle of catholicity. He writes that ‘(The Spirit) makes the Church catholic, both in space, that is, in the world, and in time, that is, in history’. Often we think of the word catholic either as meaning universal, that is worldwide, or as referring specifically to the Roman Catholic Church. Both meanings are inadequate. To be truly catholic the universality of the church has to be held together with the particularity of the local church. Just as within a particular church the different gifts of the spirit are to be shared within the community, so the lives of the local churches have to be freely shared with one another for the church to be truly catholic. Each church bears a particular tradition, a particular local human culture that needs to become more and more aware of the greater whole of which it is a part. The local church needs to discover,in its particular context, what is of the gospel, and what distorts it. Equally the authority of the widerchurch,that is usually exercised by a Bishop, should not impose its will on a local church in a way that does not respect its freedom and culture. The catholic church is comprised of local churches in communion with one another.
Together the church reads the scriptures in the Spirit and this leads over time to a common discernment of Christ. Congar writes: ‘The Spirit makes the Word present, taking the letter of Scripture as the point of departure. He enables the Word to speak to each generation, in every cultural environment and in all kinds of circumstances. He helps the Christian community at different times and in different places to understand its meaning.’ He asks ‘Is not this what Jesus promised?’
But the interaction of scripture and the catholicity of the church is always dynamic. It does not only depend upon the past. Each new situation, each new church is called to interpret scripture afresh from within its particular culture, and to test that interpretation against what has been said by others in past centuries and across the world. The fullness of the body of Christ, its true catholicity, is yet to be revealed.
But the church does not exist for itself. Congar says that ‘the spirit keeps the church apostolic.’ Congar sees apostolicity as both a gift and a task for the church. The church is founded on the apostles of the New Testament. It looks backwards to the traditions about Jesus. But the gospels suggest that the apostles lived as an eschatological community gathered around Jesus, and the task of the church is to preserve the messianic life of generosity and expectation that we have received, until the Lord comes again. The twelve were sent into the world by Jesus, as Jesus himself was sent into the world by the Father. On our journey in life the Holy Spirit recalls us to the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and sends us out again to proclaim the presence of the kingdom of God now, and to call men and women to follow in his way. Authentic apostolicity islinked to martyrdom, for martyrdom has always been associated with the deepest witness to faith, with those who have seen and lived their faith even to death. Martyrdom still exists today, although it should not be confused with self-sacrifice for a cause. It is always the Holy Spirit who gives to Christians the power to speak and confess the truth.
The Bishop has responsibility for pointing to the apostles teaching and for encouraging the apostolic life of the church in all its diverse forms. He or she stands in the succession of the apostles representing a communion of local churches amongst the wider college of bishops. The presiding role of the Bishop should not be seen as guaranteed solely by an automatic transmission of grace and authority through the laying on of hands. It is inseparable from the apostolic tradition carried by the whole church. The World Council of Churches agreed statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry says: ‘Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts that the Lord has given to each.’
Congar makes the point that the four marks of the church coinhere. Oneness is holy, the continuity of the church in the mission of the apostles is holy, the catholicity of the church is holy. When he talks about the Spirit as the principle of the church’sholiness he points out that the church is not directly called holy in the New Testament. Instead Congar offers images of the church’s holiness, and he talks of the church as an institution containing a holiness that goes beyond the holiness of its members. He writes of the church as the temple – a place of washing and of anointing, a place where God indwells, a place where God is invoked. The church is a spiritual house dependent on faith, but the church is also physical and embodied. He writes: ‘The Church is the holy temple in which, through the strength of the living water that is the Holy Spirit, faith is celebrated in baptism and love or agape is celebrated in the Eucharist’. He goes on to speak of the Church as bride. This echoesthe images of weddings from the gospels. Christ is united to his bride the church. But the bride is not yet fully ready for the feast, the church must experience the death and resurrection of Easter before she will be purified for the bridegroom.
Congar also describes the struggles of the spirit of Christ within the holy church of sinners.He knew this well having been forbidden to teach by the Vatican during the 1950’s. Congar writes of the continual reformation of the church ‘(The Spirit) encourages great initiatives to renew the Church, missions, the emergence of new religious orders, great works of the mind and heart. He inspires necessary reforms and prevents them from becoming merely external arrangements, so that they are able to lead to new life according to the spirit of Jesus.’ Finally Congar speaks of the communion of the saints that is based on the unity of charity, the call to koinonia, the call to be one. The saints reveal the Holy Spirit: that is to say they reveal the life of God as gift in the life of particular men and women. The communion of saints is the holy city still to come.