The Church is Catholic Part 3

This Sunday we talked about catholicity one more time. We reviewed the first two homilies for a bit before moving into new territory. By way of review, we noted that catholicity has some overlap with oneness (the church is one). However, we also noted that being committed to catholicity means that you are welcoming the very people with whom unity will not be automatic, but challenging. The challenge comes because of our sinfulness and brokenness that leads us to be fearful and insensitive to the other. We saw that last week when we considered the case of the Greek speaking widows in Acts 6 who were being overlooked by the Jews in leadership in the synagogue at Jerusalem. This week we encountered another rift between Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s letter to the Romans; however, this time the Gentiles have the power over the Jews.

In 49 AD, Jews were expelled from Rome by Claudius. Five years later, when Claudius died, they are allowed to return. At the point of their return, however, Gentiles were in charge of the home churches and they apparently did not have the best attitude towards Jewish Christians or the Jewish people as a whole. In fact, some number of Gentiles Christians were, apparently, unloving and smugly self-righteous towards the Jews in Rome (11:18,25).

What does this have to do with catholicity? Everything! For the church to grow in catholicity, we must be a place where ethnic barriers (and similar barriers) that keep people apart normally are torn down by the gospel; in their place must grow mutual love. If we can’t make catholicity work in the church, “the laboratory for communal life before God, the model that the world can see.... as the basis for its own rebirth (Luke Timothy Johnson)”, then we have a puny message to offer the world.

Application:

Paul’s challenge to Gentiles regarding their attitudes and actions towards Christian Jews and non-Christian Jews is that they are to be humble (Romans 11:20) regarding their place in God’s redemptive plan and to be hopeful about the final outcome of God’s redemptive promises for Israel and the world (Romans 11: 30-32). But what about us? We are not in house churches in 1st century Rome. How does this challenge of humility and hopefulness translate into our situation?

With regard to humility, I suggested that we consider again the words of Richard Bauckham regarding the posture we are to have to what we regard as the the truth of God in Christ: “It is the very nature of Christian truth that it cannot be enforced. Coerce belief and you destroy belief and turn the truth believed into a lie. Truth must be claimed in a way appropriate to the content of the truth.... The image the Bible itself often suggests is that of witness..... Witness is non-coercive. It has no power but the convincingness of the truth to which it witnesses. Witnesses are not expected, like lawyers, to persuade by the rhetorical power of their speeches, but simply to testify to the truth for which they are qualified to give evidence.”

With regard to hopefulness, I suggested that we need to flavor our gospel message with a deep hope for God’s salvation to extend to all people. I say this because this seems to be where Paul ends up in his lament over the promises of God to Israel. Like the laments of the Old Testament prophetic figures, Paul is frustrated with the unbelief of the people but also wonders why God would allow his promises to remain unfulfilled. Also like Old Testament lament, Paul ends on a note of remarkable hope regarding not only Israel but also the whole world (Romans 11:11-12; 25-32) - the Gentiles have been grafted in to make Israel jealous; God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he might show mercy to all. In turn, this note of hope, leads Paul to doxology: “O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.... who has given a gift to him to receive a gift in return?!” God is the one who knows the first from the last, God is one who gives gifts to us - his actions are not controlled by our “gifts” to him, God is in control of the world and desires for all people to be redeemed.

So, when it comes to accompanying our gospel message with a sense of urgency, we must leave people with the impression that the reason there is a sense of urgency to follow Jesus is based on his desire to move them into a place of redemption where they may flourish as human beings - not based on our presumed knowledge of what God will do with them if they don’t.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you agree that we should flavor our gospel appeal with a deep hope for God’s salvation to extend to all people? If, saturating our gospel message with this kind of hope is a solid approach, how ought we to go about conveying a sense of urgency around following Jesus? What words and grammar are we to use?

2. Rev. Dr. John Stott used to say something to this effect when he pondered the destiny of the world and the human race: salvation in Christ must be bigger than death in Adam in order to be consistent with the contours of God’s promises of a big redemption. Do you agree with this logic? Why, or why not?

3. If someone were to say to you: “I know you are a Christian and I know Christians believe everyone else is going to hell, do you think I am going to hell?”... how would you answer?