Homily for
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
Sunday 26 March 2017
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church
Readings:
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Preaching Series
on the Creed
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I believe in … the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints…
What are we confessing in professing the faith
in this portion of the Baptismal Creed?
We should be mindful first that we are
confessing something that cannot yet be seen apart from faith. This is a
profession of unity on a scale that comes close to exceeding our imagination
and our vision. I say that because this Church is so vast that it
includes the whole people of God from every nation and peoples, from every time
and generation. And what a vast number that is; those who at any point
have been numbered among the people of God.
Recall also that it is none other than Jesus
who is the door to the kingdom that is the Church through which all these have
passed and are numbered by Christ who is also the Good Shepherd. I dare
say when at last the fullness of the Kingdom of God is revealed, if it were not
for the healing transformation of the resurrection that shall change us to be
like Christ, if we remained as we are today, we would likely be shocked at whom
we will find numbered amongst the saints of Christ. In we are honest, we
might even be so offended that we might think it better for us not to be found
in the company of Christ who keeps such bad company and who requires that we be
in fellowship even with those we would never count worthy of the Kingdom.
But it's not up to us! The Church
belongs to Christ and none other. We have one Lord, one Judge, Christ
Jesus, who alone has the authority to fling wide the doors into eternal life
and choose who shall enter. And lest we be offended at the thoughts of
whom Christ might welcome and think we know better, could we not likely find
people who would say that we ourselves are not worthy to receive Christ, that
we are just fooling ourselves by saying we belong to Christ?
Perhaps it is easier for me to ponder this
than some because I have lived these experiences. Until I was a teenager,
I was raised in the belief that anything resembling either a liturgy or worse
yet the Catholics was of the devil and that there was no salvation in these
empty rites and dead souls. As a teenager, I found the beauty of the
liturgy and in it I was amazed by the power of the Gospel! For some time,
even members of my family believed that I had rejected Christ and his Church
because I was in a liturgical community. In their hearts, I was
condemned to hell and outside of salvation.
My own personal experience that I have just
shared with you was driven out of an experience within one of the many Protestant
traditions. These are not limited to those traditions. Sadly, some
of our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church build similar
divisions among Christ’s Church. They do this primarily by mishandling this
portion of the Creed and engaging in bad grammar, believing the word Catholic
to be a name rather than a description. The effect then is that the very
word which is intended to speak the profound truth of the unity of Christ's
people becomes a divisive and hurtful object of disunity, division and
rejection. Remember my friends that the
word Catholic simply means "universal." This word reminds us
that the Church has no walls, no limits, no standards for membership, no
exclusions.
What then does it have? It has a Lord to
whom the Church belongs, who has taken the Church to himself as a groom takes a
bride, delighting in her and loving her, wishing to share all that he has and
is with her and enjoy life together. It is this Lord who reminds us again
and again in the Gospel that he is the physician of our souls, who reminds us
also that it is those who are sick who need a physician.
What are we to take from this? I think
here of Frances, Bishop of Rome, who reminded us all some time ago that the
Church is not a museum. In our American culture, I think we might do well
to add to his voice that it isn't a social club either. What then is
it? The Bishop of Rome has reminded us that the Church is a hospital for
the sick!
That reminder should drive everything we ever
do in the Church. We don't come her to socialize. We don't come
here to be entertained. We come here knowing that we shall encounter
again and again the Lord of Life in the celebration of the Sacraments and in
the proclamation of the Word of God. We come here to be healed!
The healing that we receive is both temporary
and eternal. Unless we should fall asleep in Christ in this liturgy, we
shall be driven back out into the world for the sake of the world and the
living out of the Gospel. The gifts we receive in this place and from
Christ's hand equip us to go and live the Gospel in word and deed with the
certainty that we belong to Christ who loves us perfectly. In the giving
of these gifts we catch a glimpse of the full healing yet to come. In the
Eucharist, a window to heaven is opened, and Christ is in our midst. Only
he isn't alone. Not only do we believe in the Church. We believe in
the communion of the saints, the fellowship of the Church catholic. One
day we shall be numbered among them and enter into that heavenly liturgy in
which the saints praise God, offer thanks, and rejoice to worship God
forever. On that day, sin will be no more, death will have died,
there shall be no illness and suffering. For we have a physician that is
so perfectly healing us that we will no longer need healing, but shall never
forget the wonder of that healing touch, nor loose our appreciation and
admiration for so great a gift.
Father
Timothy
Alleman
