Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scriptures: Psalm 133, Ephesians 4:1-6, John 17:20-21
September 12, 2004
When I was but a wee, little lad (on the near northwest side of Detroit), Roman Catholicism was a foreign and not always friendly world. Many of my friends inhabited it, but never explained it. Perhaps, because they barely understood it. In those days, Catholicism wasn’t about understanding. Catholicism was about practicing.
My friends went to Catholic school….it was big then. They also went to weekly mass….it was in Latin then. They observed the priest from a distance….the sanctuary being humongous then. Where they viewed him from behind….given that he faced the altar then. Never was I invited to go with them….it wasn’t done then. Nor would they come to anything at my church….claiming it wasn’t allowed then. As to what they thought about my eternal prospects, they never said then….but their belief, confidently held but never spoken, was that I was going to hell then.
Where I was not going (in my late grade school years) was anywhere near the Littlefield playground on Friday afternoons. That’s where they played CYO football. And if St. Brigid won (which they almost always did), Protestants could get beat up on the sidewalk then.
During my teenage years, my Methodist youth group scheduled occasional visits to Catholic churches, just to see how the other half lived. We weren’t given shots. Neither were we issued passports. But, in those years, things Catholic felt foreign. And more than a little foreboding. True, I still had my Catholic friends. Although, as I wrote in Steeple Notes, we were friends in spite of our churches, not because of them.
The fact that many of you can’t imagine such a day, let alone remember such a day, speaks volumes about how fast things changed. Beginning in the early sixties, doors opened…. sanctuaries brightened….nuns dehabited….parochial schools dismantled….English for Latin, substituted….confessions aborted….followed by guitars strumming, congregants singing, and Catholic girls and Protestant boys marrying. All that, coupled with the end of fish on Fridays.
I would not want to oversimplify any of this. There is still much between us that bewilders and separates. But those differences are no longer fearful or foreboding. Yet, vestigial memory fades slowly among we elderly. I still find it odd to make a cross of ashes on my forehead at the beginning of Lent, given that’s what “they” do. And many Catholics, entering this building for the first time, are certain that they will be the only one….maybe the first one….fearing that the rest of us will notice and stare (“Look, there’s a Catholic”)….and that the roof may be in jeopardy as a result of their entry. What they don’t know is that on any given Sunday, they will have plenty of once-Catholic company.
Which is why, when we say as part of the Apostle’s Creed, “I believe in the holy catholic church,” it still feels funny. To this day, some don’t say it. Others mumble it. And many wonder why we do it.
In the creed, of course, the word “catholic” is not capitalized. Meaning that it is not part of the proper name “Roman Catholic.” Rather, it is an adjective (drawn from the Greek word katholikos) meaning “general” or “universal.” When Paul reminded his Corinthian readers (I Cor. 1:1-9) that they were called to be saints together with all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord, he was describing the catholicity of the church…..its universality….its inclusivity….its amazing breadth and its global reach.
John Wesley once preached a famous sermon entitled “The Catholic Spirit,” but in it cannot be found any word of things Roman. In fact, the word “catholic” (small “c”) appeared when the creed appeared in 390 A.D. in France. While the name “Roman Catholic” (large “C”) was never formally applied to the Church of Rome until sometime in the 15th century (about the time of the Protestant Reformation).
In scrolling through 762 Internet references to the phrase “I believe in the holy catholic church,” I found one Methodist sermon so titled. It was preached this year, no less, in Dover, New Hampshire by Anne Robertson. Ann’s most interesting paragraph reads:
On its most basic level, saying you believe in “the holy catholic church” means that you can’t automatically designate the members of some other church or denomination as going to hell. I’ve said before that we really can’t do that to anybody. It’s not our decision. But this sentence acknowledges that we believe all other Christian churches are, at a fundamental level, of the same faith as we are. So if you have a strong hatred for some other church or denomination, this line in the creed says that Christianity doesn’t teach such a prejudice. In a very real sense, we are affirming the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, along with the Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Congregationalists, and any other church founded on faith in Jesus Christ. We are saying that we are “catholic”….one church….connected.
Which echoes Paul’s oft-quoted line about the church, suggesting that one will find (in it) “neither Jew nor Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free….but Christ in all” (Col. 3:11). Which calls to mind Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane that “they (meaning his followers) might all be one” (John 17:20).
Paul tells the Ephesians to “forebear one another in love” (which is pretty much the only way some of us can forebear others of us….thankful that while we are called to love each other, no one said we necessarily had to like each other). “Forebear one another in love, being eager (interesting word, ‘eager’) to maintain the unity of the spirit.” Which is not a new challenge held out solely to Christians, given that Psalm 133 extends a similar challenge to Jews:
How good and pleasant it is when brothers (and presumably, sisters) dwell together in unity. It is like precious oil running through the beard, or dew quietly settling over the mountains.
Which is a lovely sentiment, even though I can’t quite get “into” the idea of oil running through my beard. But what everybody seems to be suggesting is that unity is an ideal state….albeit an elusive one. Over time, the issues change….as do the combatants. As I suggested in Steeple Notes, the “separation of the house” no longer runs along the Protestant/Catholic fault line, but through the hearts of denominations and even individual congregations. It was three churches and thirty years ago when I first heard myself say: “Strange as it seems, I feel a greater kinship with Catholic priests who look at things the way I look at things, than I feel with Protestant clergy who don’t.” And to this day, I even like some of theirs better than I like some of ours.
Today, there are people in large ecclesiastical bodies….like our own (and the Presbyterians and Episcopalians….who literally salivate over the idea of taking their entire denomination to divorce court. The only thing slowing such action being the issue of who gets to keep the buildings. Forty years a minister and I have seen Christians split the family over everything from baptisms to bylaws. But recent (repeated) skirmishes seem to center on the issues of what sinners can eat at the table….what couples can come to the altar….and what genders can preach in the pulpit. And there are always those buzzwords that spike blood pressures….like “spirit-filled” (I’ve yet to see a church that totally was) and “Bible believing” (I’ve yet to see a church that totally wasn’t).
John Buchanan of Fourth Presbyterian….that church on the Miracle Mile in the Windy City that everyone loves to visit (in part, because John Buchanan preaches sermons everyone loves to hear)….writes in The Christian Century:
There are some of us who still place a premium on the unity of the church, even though there hasn’t been a day in the past ten years I haven’t wished I belonged to a church that wasn’t fighting and arguing. But I stay with it….just as many thousands like me stay with their ecclesiastical families….because we believe our Lord wants us to. And we believe our Lord was serious when he prayed for the oneness of his disciples so that the world may believe.
Whereupon he adds (and don’t miss this):
The unity of the church is an evangelical imperative. For if we can’t hang together through the disagreements we face, why would the world take our gospel of reconciliation seriously?
I don’t know whether you caught it, but Rachel Billups said something fascinating in the final sermon she preached as our Duke summer intern. Said Rachel: “We talk all the time in church (and especially in seminary) about the need for the church to cast a wider net….open a bigger umbrella….so as to embrace a greater diversity (theologically, biblically and culturally). But I’ve never, even once in my life, seen a church that actually did it. Until I came here.”
Now either we pulled the wool over Rachel’s eyes for twelve weeks, or we need to acknowledge the truth of what she said. Could it be that we are onto something that is less common than it is desirable? Could it be that we hang together fairly well….which is another way of saying that we don’t get all hung up on the hang-ups we have with the people we hang with?
As concerns the question of Christian unity, this sermon is no naïve call for one church. I gave up on that long ago, if (indeed) I ever thought about it in the first place. We are too cussedly (and blessedly) human for that to happen. Unity does not mean unanimity. Neither does community require conformity, or collegiality require similarity.
It is very much in the nature of Christians….just as it is very much in the nature of everybody….to turn toward the like-minded. Many of us here think that if we could just get all the like-minded people together, we would never have any problems and everything would go smoothly.
Wrong! For just as it is very much in the nature of Christians to turn toward the like-minded, it is also very much in the nature of Christians to turn on the like-minded, when all the differently-minded have been divorced, distanced (or otherwise abandoned).
In a passionate plea to fellow evangelicals among Presbyterians, Richard Mouw who, himself, heads up one of the more evangelical seminaries in America….Fuller, in California….recently said:
We need to hang in there with the liberals. Because if we leave them….or they leave us….we conservatives have a history of arguing among ourselves. And it will not be all that long before splits occur in our ranks. Which is why I would much rather see us fight out the issues in an admittedly pluralistic denomination than get into the debates that inevitably arise when evangelicals establish their own “pure” denominations.
Which is good advice to any group in the church, given my belief that “purity” is hard to come by. I have a great many convictions about my faith….which I hold passionately, but humbly…. given Paul’s word to Corinth suggesting that everything, in this life, is “seen in a mirror dimly.” Meaning that in almost any area of my faith, I could be wrong.
Forty-three years ago, I read something by Sherwood Anderson in an upper-level literature class at Albion College. Which took me a while to find, given that I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it. But I did. And it was.
Anderson shared a legend, suggesting that in the beginning there was a valley filled with truths. And the truths were all beautiful. There were truths about every subject under the sun. There were truths about virginity and truths about passion….truths about wealth and truths about poverty….truths about thrift and truths about profligacy….truths about carefulness and truths about abandon. There were hundreds and hundreds of truths, all of them beautiful.
And then the people came along, pouring into the valley. Each snatched up one of the truths. And the strong, several. But in trying to protect their truth from others, they squeezed it until it became misshapen….deformed….even grotesque. Until the person holding it became grotesque. Which happens in my business all the time. And which is why I hold the truths I love in humble hands. For short of eternity, there is little I can claim with absolute certainty. I suppose if you persist in a belief that out there is to be found “the one true church,” all I can tell you is where you cannot find it….that being the church that claims (to the point of bragging) that they have it. Whatever you do, don’t go there.
Some day I expect to see Jesus. Along with the friends of Jesus (the number and nature of whom is not mine to guess). But this much I do believe. Helpful as they may be here, I do not expect to see denominations there (“Okay, let’s have all the Baptists huddle up by the drinking fountain”). Truth be told, I do not even expect to see churches there. Unity being God’s desire there. As well as here.
Which I cannot help Him with much. Except here and there. Mostly here. Where I will continue to do what I can….by holding as many of us together as I can. How, you ask? Well, I have learned some things about myself in these forty years. And one of them is this. When it comes down….as it sometimes does….to a choice between protecting the faith or pastoring the people….I have generally pastored the people. Not that everybody should be as I am. Somebody ought to protect the faith. But it means that when it comes to a question of standing for or standing with, I have generally stood with. Thankfully, it hasn’t come to that very often. But it’s nice to have figured out what I am likely to do when it does.
Purity? Unity?
Theology? Humanity?
Propositions? Persons?
Platitudes? Attitudes?
Given that this has been pretty heavy, let’s lighten it up as we close. A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. Suddenly the light turned yellow. And though he could have run it, he chose not to. The tailgating woman….who was all set to run it with him….missed his rear end by a matter of inches. Screeching to a stop, she jerked forward in her seat. Figuratively, she hit the roof. Literally, she hit the horn. Rolling down the window, she screamed and gestured (loudly and obscenely) until an officer approached her in mid-rant and had the gall to ask for her license and registration.
When he returned, she had calmed enough to inquire as to why she….rather than the stupid jerk in front of her….was under suspicion. “Well,” said the officer, “when I pulled up behind you blowing your horn and screaming, I paused to read your bumper stickers.”
God loves you and so do I.
Honk if you love Jesus.
My boss is a Jewish carpenter.
“Then I saw the chrome-plated fish emblem on your trunk. So you can understand why I assumed you had stolen the car.”
When I heard that story, my initial response was an arm-pumping “Yes.” Until I remembered that she, too, is my sister in Christ.
Note: I am indebted to a great many sources for the material in this sermon. Rachel Billups is a second-year student at Duke Divinity School. During the summer of 2004, she served as an intern on our staff as part of the Learned Clergy Initiative we share with Duke. John Buchanan is the senior minister at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He also serves as the esteemed editor of The Christian Century. His remarks can be found in a recent Christian Century editorial. Richard Mouw heads Fuller Theological Seminary in California. In early January of 2004, Richard Mouw and Barbara Wheeler (Auburn Theological Seminary) had a pair of articles printed in The Christian Century. They concerned factionalism in modern church life, specifically related to the issue of homosexuality. Broadening the subject to include other issues, Richard’s article defined why evangelicals continue to need liberals. Barbara’s article focused on the need liberals have to maintain ties with evangelicals.
As concerns Sherwood Anderson, the book referenced in the sermon is a classic. Its title, Winesburg, Ohio. The legend discussed in the sermon is a preface to Anderson’s book, carried under the title “The Book of the Grotesque.” It was an eye-popping insight in 1961 and remains so today. Ironically, Winesburg, Ohio is the fictional name for the town known as Clyde, Ohio, which I learned from a member of the congregation following one of the services.
The final story is obviously apocryphal. I found it in several Internet reprints and also received it from my friend, Doc Patterson.
