Acts 1: 6–14; Psalm
68: 1–10, 33–36; I Peter 4: 12–14, 5: 6–11; John 17: 1–11
This is a homily by
Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday,
May 28, 2017.
“UNITY
OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, THEN AND NOW”
(Homily text: John 17: 1–11)
In
our Gospel reading, appointed for this morning, we hear Jesus’ words: “Holy
Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one,
even as we are one.” (John 17: 11)
Since
unity among Jesus’ disciples is a key theme in chapter seventeen of the Fourth
Gospel (we will read another statement made by Jesus which reiterates His
prayer for unity among His followers in verses 21 and 22), let’s focus on the
matter of unity in and among the body of Christ.
And
since the Church is described as the Body of Christ (the Church being not an
institution in its truest and most basic understanding, but a collection of
people who are gathered around Jesus Christ), let’s examine the matter of unity
in the Body of Christ in its earliest years, and then let’s look at unity in
the Church today.
Before
we do so, however, it would be good for us to be reminded about this wonderful
seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel account, for it contains Jesus’ beautiful
prayer for Himself (verses one through five), for His immediate followers, the
disciples (verses six through nineteen) and for those who will come to believe
in Him in the years to come (yes, that includes you and me!) (verses twenty
through twenty six). Jesus’ prayer, which closes John’s thorough account[1] of the
events which took place during the Last Supper, has been given the title of
Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer”.
So
the process that unfolds in Jesus’ prayer comes to pass. His unity with the
Father becomes the foundation by which His disciples are unified. Empowered and
enlightened by the coming of the Holy Spirit, they go out into the world,
proclaiming the great things that God has done in the sending of Jesus Christ.
And, in due course, Gentiles are grafted[2] into the
body of Christ, that is, the Church. (Jesus’ prediction – made in John 10: 16 -
that He has sheep that are “not of this
fold” is fulfilled.)
Churches
are established throughout the known word. Some of their locations are embodied
in the names of the various letters which make up the New Testament: Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae,
Philippi, are some of them. And, of course, then there are other churches who are
named in these letters themselves: Chenchrae and Laodicea are two that come to
mind.
But
what sort of churches were these, and were they unified in some way? And, while
we’re posing questions about these topics, let’s add another one to the
list: If these early churches were
unified, how were they united, one to another?
Set
these questions aside in your mind for a moment, and let’s explore a reality of
Church life as we currently understand it today, a subject to which we shall
return before ending this homily. It is the reality that many Christian bodies
today tend to hold in high esteem (I might even venture to use the word
“glorify”) a particular period of Church history.
(In
the descriptions which follow, notice that I do not assign specific Christian
bodies’ names to the concepts described. I’ll leave it to you to “fill in the
blanks” where that is concerned.)
For
example, I think it’s fair to say that some Christians look back to the
Apostolic age of the first century, marking the period from the ending of
Jesus’ earthly ministry until the time of the Apostle John’s death (perhaps
around the year 90 AD) as a “golden age” of Church history. Oftentimes, the
belief is that, during this important and formative time in the Church’s life,
everything was wonderful and every follower of Jesus Christ was totally, completely
and organically united in common witness to the Lord.
Other
Christians tend to focus on the time of the Reformation as a glorious time, a
time when – by these lights – God renewed His Church and restored it to the
foundational principle upon which it was founded. Closely connected to this
view is another one which regards the great evangelical revivals of the First
and the Second Great Awakenings in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries
as an important and valuable time in Church history.
Still
other Christians believe that the first five centuries of Christian experience
are to be accepted as the formative age for the Church, for – such persons
believe – that it was during this period that the initial series of ecumenical
councils of the Church hammered out what orthodox Christians have come to
accept as proper belief.
For
most Christians, though, I think it’s fair to say that few of us manage to
regard all of Church history in its totality with universal regard.
Perhaps
the experience of the very early Church, during the New Testament period (which
generally coincides with the Apostolic age described above) can inform Church
life and unity today. So let’s have a look at the reality of the Church’s
existence in those early years.
We
begin with a look at problems, the existence or the lack of existence of them,
as we find them in the early Church.
Almost
immediately and apparently early on, there were problems in the Church. In Acts
6: 1, we read that there was a dispute from among the Greek members of the
Church that their widows were being neglected in the distribution of food.
(Remember that, in this very early time, the Church operated like a commune, in
which everything was owned and held in common.) The effect of this disunity
within the Church was the formation of the ministry of Deacons. Then, too, we
might consider the matter of the inclusion of Gentiles into the body of Christ,
which caused deep differences of conviction among the believers. We read about
the deliberations of the Council of Jerusalem (which took place in the year 49
AD) in Acts, chapter fifteen, and the attempt of the council’s work to bring
unity over the question of whether, and if so, how, Gentiles were to be folded
into the Church. We could also mention the very divided nature of the Church in
Corinth. Reading St. Paul’s two letters to that Church will instruct the present-day
Church in quite a number of important matters.
This
cursory look at early Church history reveals that, instead of being a golden
age that was free of problems, challenges and disunity, in many ways these
years carried with them their own fair share of problems. So it would be well
for us to remember not to “sugar coat” our regard for this time period.
An
instructive analysis of the state of the early Church during the New Testament
period can be found in Raymond Brown’s wonderful book “The Churches the
Apostles Left Behind”.
In
this book, Brown (who was a Roman Catholic priest and one of the world’s
pre-eminent New Testament scholars) maintains that a close study of the New
Testament reveals that there were no less than seven different models of Church
organization. Furthermore, Brown identifies distinctive concentrations of
belief within these disparate Christian communities.
A
brief description will illustrate some of Brown’s conclusions:
Matthew’s
community, for example, apparently had no formal clergy leadership. This
community of faith must have had what we now call “congregational polity”, a
method of organization in which the members of the community made decisions
collectively. A brief reading of Matthew, chapter eighteen, will underscore
this way of organizing the Church.
By
contrast, however, the churches of whom St. Paul was thinking in his two
letters to Timothy and his letter to Titus were organized around the office of
bishop. The bishops appointed and consecrated by Paul in these communities were
to be the symbol of unity of the Church and they were to be the guardians of
proper belief and practice.
Brown
addresses not only the matter of organizational practices, but he also
highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses of each community.
For
example, the Johannine communities which gathered around John emphasized each
believer’s individual relationship with the Lord, laying great emphasis on each
individual’s ability to be accountable in the final analysis to God alone for the
own relationship. (I cannot resist saying that, today, evangelical and
fundamentalist Christian bodies make frequent use of John’s gospel account,
laying great and indispensable weight on the matter of the individual’s
personal relationship with Christ. Of course, as Brown points out, the weakness
in such a way of organizing the Church comes when individual believers’
concepts differ. The result then often becomes one of separation, a reality we
see in today’s multitudinous bodies of evangelical and fundamentalist Churches,
many of whom have separated from other evangelical and fundamentalist bodies,
leading to still more separations.)
Brown’s
book is well worth reading. In fact, I found it to be one of the most valuable
ones I encountered during my seminary education. I commend it to you.
If
there was quite a variety of Church organization and life in the first century,
was there any sort of unity among these bodies? Apparently, there was.
The
unity that bound the churches together in the New Testament period was,
apparently, their common witness to Jesus Christ. This common witness prompted
them to send aid to the Church in Jerusalem during a time of famine, for
example. (See Acts 11: 27–29.)
It’s
been estimated that, today, there are about 35,000 different Christian bodies
in the world. It is a staggering number. (If you want to read about some of
these groups, many of which are quite small in number, I commend to you a book
entitled “Handbook of Denominations in the United States”.)
We
might well ask why the Body of Christ, the Church, is so deeply divided these
days. Oftentimes, I think the unbelieving world around us also asks the same
question. Added to this reality is the further reality that some of these
groups are proud of their independence from, and their differences with, other
Christians. Some even claim to have an exclusive claim to the truths of God.
Some
of the things that differentiate Christian bodies from other Christian bodies
are significant matters of belief and/or practice. In recent years, there’ve
been welcome and long-overdue attempts to overcome some of these divisions and
to cultivate common understandings and a common witness to the one Lord, Jesus
Christ.
Outcomes
of this work are many: For example, there’ve been many agreements to establish
covenant fellowship between various groups, whereby clergy and ministries maybe
shared. In other instances, churches have formally united or re-united one with
another. A broader movement to recognize the value and the faithfulness of
other Christian groups’ ministry, work and belief, is emerging.
(Allow
me to point out that we Anglicans are uniquely positioned to appreciate the
strengths of other Christian bodies’ attributes, for ours is a Catholic and
Reformed expression of the Christian faith….we look both ways, to the Church’s
Catholic[3]
heritage, but also to the re-invigorating renewal of the faith that took place
in the Protestant Reformation.)
The
world around us is watching, even if it seems as though those onlookers aren’t
paying much attention to the state of the Church. Given the fact that so many
stand outside the Body of Christ today, it becomes all the more important that
Christians unite in common witness to a common Lord, emulating the experience
of the early Church in New Testament times. For though organic unity within the
Body of Christ is a long way off (or so it seems currently), common witness to
Jesus Christ is possible today, and it is a reality that is growing
exponentially.
In
truth, perhaps the quest for organic unity among Jesus’ disciples today isn’t
the goal we ought to be aiming for, for no one way of organizing the Church, no
one way of emphasizing and putting into action a set of convictions about the
faith, will suit or satisfy everyone. Unity-in-diversity allows us to
appreciate what others are doing. Maybe we, ourselves, can benefit from such
studies.
Jesus’
prayer that His disciples might be one, even as He and the Father are one,
remains our command to carry out. We do so in order that, as the Lord prayed,
that the world would come to believe in Him as a direct result of the common
and united witness of His disciples, in this and every age.
AMEN.
