The Organic Nature of the Church -2

The Rt. Rev'd Dr. Ray R. Sutton

Abiding in Christ involves the Church. Jesus follows His command to abide (in St. John 15) with another command to love one another. Abiding in Christ means loving the Church and loving the Church consists of abiding in Christ. Think of it, we can't love the Church without God, and we can't love God without the Church! From the earliest days this has been understood. The Church put this organic relation between God and His Church in the creeds. Not only do we confess that we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but notice how belief in the Holy Spirit is defined. We say, "I believe in the Holy Ghost: the Holy Catholic Church." In other words, to believe in and to be filled by the Holy Spirit is to believe also in the Church. Our filling of God the Holy Spirit is in exact proportion to our faithfulness to the Church. The Apostles' Creed calls us not only to believe in God but to believe in the Church. A true believer is what the ancients called "vir ecclesiasticus", a churchman. Belief in God and separation from the Church is never envisioned in the Holy Scriptures or history. There is no such thing as knowing the will of God apart from the Church. As a matter of fact, not only is it impossible to know the will of God apart from the Church, it is impossible to 'be" in the will of God apart from the Church. The greatest minds in the Church have formed one united creedal chorus through history. From Cyprian, Augustine, and even down to the great Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, the refrain has been, 'He who has not the Church for Mother cannot have God for Father." Our walk with God forms an organic relation to our life in the Church.

In the first lecture, we saw that our union with God is organic. God is a Trinity in unity to whom we are to relate to all three Persons of the Godhead. We are called to know all three, God the Father, God the 5on,:andGod the Holy Spirit, not just one or two. In this lecture, we similarly learn that we can't love God without each other in the Church. To know the Trinitarian God is to believe in and love the Church. In this sense, the image of the Trinitarian God is writ so deeply into the soul of the Church that the Church has this Trinitarian quality about it. One theologian has said,

God did not make us . . . for the fulfilling of a solitary destiny; on the contrary, He made us to be brought together into the heart of the life of the Trinity. Christ offered Himself in sacrifice so that we might be one in that unity of the divine Persons. That is . . . there is a place where this gathering-together of all things in the Trinity begins in this world; "a family of God," a mysterious extension of the Trinity in time, which not only prepares us for this life of union and gives us a sure guarantee of it, but also makes us participate in it already (Henri De Lubac, The Splendor Of the Church, p. 238).

In the words of Cyprian, the Church is "the people united by the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost" (De Oratione Dominica, ch. XXIII.). Origen said that the Church is "full of the Trinity," and that 'The Father is in her as the Principle to whom one is united, the Son as the medium in which one is united, the Holy Spirit as the knot by which all things are united; and all is one" (Selecta Psalmos; xxiii, i). The Trinitarian God creates the Church to be what He is. Just as He is Trinity in unity, so the Church is to be a plurality in unity.

When we turn to the second passage in St. John 15, Jesus fleshes out for us what it means to abide in Christ; it is to love one another in the Church. This love we are to have for one another is just as organic as the union we have with God. Biblical love is living and complex. It is living just as a branch is vitally connected to a vine. There can be no love without a vital union. So it is in the Body of Christ. But this union of love and life is also complex. We can't love by ourselves. Holy Scripture says that "we love because He first loved us" (I John 5). Love doesn't occur in singularity. It can only happen in the plurality. Christ loved us and so we love. Furthermore, we love Christ by loving those for whom He died. To say that we love Him without the Church is a denial of His love and our love as well. So love is organic. In the second pericope of St. John 15 this becomes apparent as Christ says that we are to be "committed to, in communion with, and constructive toward" one another.

First, Jesus depicts the organic nature of the Body of Christ as a "committed "relationship when He says, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (St. John 15:13). This is an organic description of love. Part of the life cycle is death. Living things can only perpetuate themselves as either all or part of the creature dies. In the plant world, trees shed their leaves. In the world of humans, St. Paul describes death as the planting of a seed. And so all of life in Christ is to be the formation in us of what His life was for us. He lived to die that He might be raised again. So according to St. Paul we are to live to die that we might be raised again; we are sown that we might be raised with an imperishable body. Short of death, however, we are called to love organically our fellow Christians. Jesus tells us that this organic love consists of death. This takes the commitment of being willing to lay down our lives for one another just like Jesus did for us.

In the great revivals of the East African Church in the 1930s, this sacrifice for one another was referred to as a "brokenness" for one another. A famous spiritual leader of the Ugandan Church, F. Kefa Sempangi, spoke of commitment as brokenness,

Hardly any of us can go to his own Christian community and say: 'This is my body which is broken for you. I am laying all my professional skills, abilities, and economic resources at your disposal. Take them and use them as you see fit." We cannot say this because we are not broken. We are too proud to give our lives away to people who are not perfect. We don't want to lose ourselves for sinners. We want to find them. So, like Judas, we make only a partial commitment to the body of believers to which we belong, and we find our identity in rebellion from them ("Walking in the Light," Sojourners, February 1978, p.27).

Another author who refers to this statement said that "he wept" when he read Sempangi's statement (R. Paul Stevens, Liberating the Laity, p.158). I must confess to you that I wept too. The sacrificial language of laying down our lives for one another to the point of being broken is Crucifixion and sacramental language. Christ's death on the Cross was His being broken for us. And this death is manifested in the Eucharist when the bread is taken and broken to be distributed. In the same way, our love can only be passed to one another by first being broken.

Sacrifice for and being committed to the Body of Christ means being willing to be hurt by Christians. We are to love the unlovable. And not all Christians are very lovable. It's like that tension between Linus and Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip. Lucy is in a deep search for inner peace. However, she still threatens and bullies her little brother Linus. So Linus asks her, "But I thought you'd found inner peace." To which she responds, "Sure, I have inner peace, but I still have outer obnoxiousness." I have to tell you that in many ways Christians will hurt us more than the world. We are drawn closer to one another, and many times too close for comfort.

It's like that little poem:

Oh to dwell there above
With the saints we love
That will be such glory.
But to dwell here
With the saints that we know,
That's another story.

One of the great difficulties with the "saints below" is that weaknesses are exposed on all sides. In fact, our weaknesses are often revealed more than they are in the world. And it is for these weak brethren, sometimes mistreating us, that we are supposed to lay down our lives. Isn't this one of the practical realities of particular redemption? If Christ laid down His life for the Church, it means that He gave His life for those who hurt Him. . . sometimes more than anyone else.. They were and are His biggest source of pain. Those closest to us always hurt us more because we love them more. And the people whom we love more often let us down; in fact count on it. But then Jesus not only laid down His life for His friends but for those who were still His enemies: "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." We are called to do no less. So view in your mind the Christian(s) who have given you the most difficulties. Jesus says that we should be broken for them. It means more than simply dying for them; it requires being willing to live for them. And this involves being hurt by and for one another.

Painful love like all pain makes us want to pull away. It may even make us want to run harder and faster in the other direction. Isn't that what happens when we are hurt by fellow Christians? Often it works like this. We think that all we have to do is find the right Church and the right people. Then we finally find that church. We begin with high expectations. But then there is inevitably trouble in paradise. Imagine that, troubled relationships in the Church. Of course, if we read the New Testament, we find a great deal of trouble in paradise. It is simply that way this side of eternity. All too often, however, we have unrealistic expectations about life on this side of the river, if you know what I mean. It also happens in marriages. We simply expect life with and in the midst of sinners to be paradise. In some respects it is, I'm sure. But relationships cannot be perfect. I say this knowing full well that we would all freely admit that there can not be the perfect Church. If we are honest though, we look, long, and live for it. Besides, you really wouldn't want to go to a perfect church with perfected people. One of my professors used to say, "If you think you've found the perfect church don't go there, you'll ruin it."

The Church is an imperfect place in the presence of the Living Christ. Because of Him, it is a work in progress. And in many regards, it is the most painful place in the world because to be part of it we have to be willing to be broken day in and day out. It will produce the kind of pain that makes us want to wince and to recoil from it. What happens when you put your hand near the fire? Your reflexes say "pull way." And so they should - that's what nerve endings are for. However, the love of Christ calls us to go against the natural impulse. He bids us to act with a redemptive impulse. He says, 'Yes, there is pain but I ask you to go ahead and put your hand in the fire for your Christian brother and sister." It will be the pain of rejection, the pain of criticism, the pain of gossip and slander, the pain of frustration, the pain of failure on the part of friends and ministers, yes, it will be the pain of being broken. But here is the point. God wants to break "us." We can't be broken without the pain of being broken for our fellow Christians. It's simply the only way. So the Church is the most painful place in the world because it calls us to a life of sacrifice.

Consider this, however: the life of brokenness and pain in the Church is better than the alternatives. As C. S. Lewis said, "Hell is the only place outside of heaven where we can be safe from the dangers of love" (The Four Loves, p.169). Our option is Hell in the next world, which will be more painful. Here is what happens when we allow ourselves to be broken for our fellow Christians. As we love people by giving a blessing for a curse, the miracle takes place in us first. When we love people who are not being nice to us and even being downright mean, I believe it is at this decisive moment that we learn how much Christ loves us. Because that is the way we have treated Him. Yes, we have done to Christ what people do to us. Through it all, Christ still loves us. So that is how it must be with others. Our love for Christ is organically connected to those who belong to Him. Just as we cannot love others without Christ, so we cannot love Him without others. It is as organically complex as a vine with branches and a root system. This is the committed, sacrificial and broken love of the first part of St. John l5: 12-17.

The second aspect of an organic love of the Church has to do with "communion." It is expressed in the words, "You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you" (St. John 15:14-15). I am taken by the fact that "communion" is the difference between a slave and friend in Jesus' statement. Jesus communicated (revealed) Himself to make the disciples communicants with Himself as well as a communion of saints among themselves. Christ creates a communion of saints interdependent on each other, what He calls "friends." They are friends who cannot live without each other no more than they can live without Him.

At the outset we discover that the essence of Christianity flies in the face of the Western and American spirit of individualism. We can't fly solo for God. To do so is not to fly for God or with Him or in Him at all. The modern Church is afflicted with the disease of individualism. It comes from our culture. Our heroes are more often than not built on the fantasy of the successful loner... Daniel Boone... Kit Carson... Davy Crocket and so forth. This is the world of illusion, for none of our heroes did what they did all alone. Maybe they were personally loners but they didn't achieve greatness alone. Greatness alone is a myth! Into each life is poured the life of countless others. .. a mother.. . a father . . . an aunt. . . an uncle. . . a friend. . . a mentor. . . a teacher. Achievement in the singular is impossible; it is always in the plural whether it is recognized or not. Mostly it has gone unrecognized in this age. And this spirit has expressed itself in many ways in our society. Several years ago, many of us sang that famous song by Simon arid Garfunkle, "I am a rock, I am an island... for a rock feels no pain... never cries." Yes, and the corollary is that a rock is not organic; it is not living. Yet, that is precisely the solitary mindset that the post WWII baby boomers grew up under. We would deal with pain by being a loner. Holy Scripture says that that is the lifestyle of a rock.. of an inanimate object... of death.

Specifically, C. S. Lewis addresses one of the very real pastoral problems that is a result of an overly individualistic view of the Church in his famous Screwtape Letters. He observes that an individualistic approach to the doctrine of the Church has produced what he calls a "congregational as opposed to a parochial approach" to the Church. Through his demons the following conversation takes place,.

My dear Wormwood, You mentioned casually in your last letter that the patient has continued to attend one church, and. one only, since he was converted, and that he is not wholly pleased with it. May I ask what you are about? Why have I no report on the causes of his fidelity to the parish church? Do you realize that unless it is due to indifference it is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.

The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organization should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy [who is God] desires. The congregational principles on the other hand make each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise -- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how groveling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He [God] is!) This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper. So pray bestir yourself and send this fool the round of the neighboring churches as soon as possible (p. 72-73).

Were you able to follow this insightful conversation between two demons? Lewis understood that a superficial commitment to the Church is not enough. Virtually every Christian will affirm the Church. The real question is, "What do our daily ecclesiastical habits tell us about our real loyalties?" As Lewis has observed, our very freedom of choices becomes a hook in our side to drag us away from the Lord. The free market approach to the Church of the modern world enables a Church choice all too often to be on our own terms or in terms of an overly critical spirit. How quick we are in our culture with our congregational mindset to criticize anything and everything about the minister, the leaders, the church and so forth. I'm not talking about a good and healthy sense of friendly interaction. Rather, it's the censorious spirit that Lewis described. Of course, it's always justified with some kind of righteous reason. . . or is it? As Lewis said, "even a platitude becomes really audible to the soul" with the correct attitude. Maybe we need to face the possibility that we are playing into the Devil's hands with an overly critical spirit that really stems from an ungodly individualism. Maybe we should realize that all too many times our hypercritical tendencies are due to an unreformed, Congregationalist mentality, and not a result of our parochial, Episcopal commitments.

The modern Church has responded to this crisis. of individualism with a cheap imitation of true communion, "friendliness." Please do not misunderstand. I'm not suggesting that we take on the spirit of the pre-converted Ebenezer Scrooge. Warmth invites visitors to return. Being friendly is good. However, let us not mistake friendliness for true friendship, "the communion of the saints." All too often, a momentary hug and a pressing of the flesh across the pew passes for the essence of Jesus' command to love one another. Perhaps there is a way to convey this in the service, but I don't know how. Rather, worship seems to be for worship. The coffee hour seems to be a better place for passing the peace. This way both worship and friendliness can be heightened. I must confess, the trivial approaches to friendliness lose worship as well as the point of true friendship. A friend doesn't just smile. He sticks with you through thick and thin. He doesn't stab you in the back.

Jesus called His disciples friends. The power of Jesus' definition of love in John 15 seems to be that friendship is the inner core of love. So the way back to Biblical love is through friendship. We simply cannot have the greater, agape love, if we do not have the lesser, friendship. This is why "communion" is the second organic aspect of love.

The third and final aspect of an organic nature of love for one another is that it must be "constructive," as well as committed and communicative. Jesus says, "You did not choose me, but I chose you, arid appointed you that you should go arid bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you. ask in My name, He may give to you" (St. John 15:16). Once again; in the context of describing the love that the Church should have for one another, Jesus turns to organic imagery to explain the love He has demonstrated for His disciples. His love was not destructive, as is so often the case in human relationships. Rather, He loved in a constructive way to the end that the disciples would bear fruit and ultimately pray effectual prayers.

The progression is sacramental, because Jesus argues that He was a means of grace to His disciples. First He was willful in His love toward them. He chose them, meaning He chose to love them. Second, by His willfullove He provoked fruit, which is character according to the fruits of the Spirit. And finally, because they became godly through His love, their prayers became effectual. Thus, He loved them sacramentally. And after He completes His statement, He repeats again that they are to love one another as He has loved them. His point is that just as He became a means of grace to them so they should become a means of grace to one another.

That Christians should be a means of grace to one another is a profound concept. This does not mean that Christians can conjure up grace and give it to people. Only God can do this. Besides such a view would be arguing that man is the originator not the means. Rather, Christ is saying that Christians are to be a means of grace to one another, living conduits through whom the grace of God flows and touches other lives.

The famous Gordon-Conwell Church Historian mentioned earlier, Richard Lovelace, makes the same observation. He comments about the need to expand our understanding of the means of grace to a sacramental way of living when he says, "Among the most vital means of grace are other Christians. Neither the Bible nor the Sacraments will leave the shelf or the sanctuary to rescue a Christian who is too discouraged or backslidden to prayer or worship . . . living in community is still another way of abiding in Christ" (Renewal as a Way of Life, p.178). In other words, the means of grace found in the Word and the Sacraments should transform a Christian's life into a means of grace. After all, if one is touched by the grace of God, the New Testament teaches that grace should flow from his life. St. Paul, for example, tells "husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. . . that He might sanctify her. . . that she should be holy arid blameless" (Ephesians 5:25-27). To paraphrase, the husband's love should be nothing less than the love of Christ through him' to the point of producing godliness in his wife, what is called in theology, sanctification. His love is a means of grace to her and as such is constructive.

Listen further to the sacramental phrasing of St. Paul in reference to the constructive effect of communication in the Body of Christ. He says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Ephesians 4:29). St. Paul says that our human words are conduits through which the grace of God flows. If we will only think for a moment, we have come to know the grace of God through choice servants who showed us the constructive love of Christ. Our lives as such are supposed to be sacramental vessels pouring forth the grace of God to those around us.

I believe that Jesus and Paul have presented a sacramental way of living. Husbands are to be a means of grace and not wrath to their wives and families. Parents are not to provoke their children to wrath; rather, they are to be a means of grace. And in the Church, perhaps the many admonitions against quarreling and fighting take on new meaning. Any destructive behavior is anti-sacramental. It is in opposition to graceful, gracious living. Instead, we are called to be constructive, which in Christianity is to show gentleness and graciousness at the very least. What the world wants to experience is grace! The only way it will see it is through the Church. When unbelievers remark, 'My, how they love one another," they are really telling us that they are witnessing living grace before their very eyes. This is the third aspect of the organic love to which Jesus calls all of us.

Perhaps now the ancient aphorism takes on new meaning, 'He who has not the Church for Mother cannot have God for Father." In this lecture we have explored the organic relation among ourselves as Christians. Christ's love calls for commitment, communion, and constructive sacramental living. John Donne expressed the organic nature of the Church in one of his most famous sermons: "No man is an island. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. . Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Donne could only have made such statements with an organic view of humanity, and yes, even the Church. Cranmer called it the mystical union between Christ and His Church in the Holy Communion. This is the love for which the world searches, imitates, and even scorns in its pathetic attempt to find it. It hears the tolling bell of which Donne spoke. Yet it does not understand the sound. Let us therefore hear the same toll and know that it tolls for you and me. Amen!