There were lots of great moments at Annual Conference.  One of our former staff members, the Rev. Ava Berry, Abilene District Superintendent shared the communion sermon.  It was a powerful sharing of God’s Word as she invited us to consider what we were drinking as the church.  She asked if we were drinking living water of new life in Christ or if we were drinking formaldehyde, a preservative for the dead.  She talked of the temptation to be so intent on preserving what once was and what is comfortable that we no longer are open to what God is doing by His Spirit.  Which are we drinking this morning?

I almost started the sermon today by gathering a group of early 50-something guys to sing a song for you.  It was a song made popular by Herman’s Hermits that sang,

      “I’m Henry the 8^th I am,

      Henry the 8^th I am, I am…

It was one of those silly 60s songs and why would I start out a sermon on the “holy catholic church” with that?  Because for United Methodists, we trace our roots back to not-so-good old Henry VIII, who because he wanted to divorce and remarry as he chose, created his own church, which he named “The Church of England.”  From that church have come three major branches: the Anglicans, the Episcopalians, and the Methodists.  In Henry’s day, the church looked and sounded pretty Roman Catholic, but the Church of England was a joint venture of church and state with Henry calling the shots.  Of course that was a repeat of some 12 centuries earlier when a certain Roman Emperor by the name of Constantine found it pleasing to his mother and smart politics to convert to Christianity and then turn “the catholic church” into the Roman Catholic Church, again a joint venture of church and state.  Neither Constantine or Henry VIII were good for the Church.  And when we say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,” we are saying something that predates them both.  The Apostle’s Creed was commonly accepted in the church before some of the books of the Bible, like Hebrews or the Revelation of St. John. And the word “catholic” didn’t refer to a denomination, but rather was descriptive of the church.  The church was and is to be holy and catholic. 

First, the church is holy.  Holiness has been greatly misunderstood, often seen as prudish or at the very least anti-fun.  The word literally means “set apart” for a purpose.  We are set apart as the church for two things: for relationship and for witness.  In relationship we develop a growing love for God and for each other, and in that order.  The church is to be a body that grows in her love and commitment to God.   When we worship together, we draw near to God.  When we learn together, we learn more of who God is and what it means to follow and be like Christ. God says in the Old Testament, “Be holy, for I am holy.”  And in Exodus 31, God says, “I am the one who makes you holy.”  Holiness does involve right behavior, but it is more than that as we develop a character and a love that shows we are God-connected.  Bishop Whitfield talked to us yesterday morning about how necessary it is to take the time to nurture that connection.  He said, “We all do that in different ways, but not doing it is not an option.”  In the book of Revelation, Christ chides the church of Ephesus for “losing its first love.”  A holy church has loving God and growing in that love as her first priority.  Our scripture lesson reminds us that our growing love for God is always in response to God loving us first. 

But growing in our love for God always means learning to love one another.  It’s so much easier to love God whom we can’t see.  When God makes us uncomfortable or we would rather do something un-godly, we can just ignore Him.  And we do, to our peril and to our own deadness of soul and life.  But if I choose to love you, it means I have to get to know you, embrace you, tussle with you and learn from you.  Our scripture lesson is very clear,

“If someone says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother or sister, that one is a liar; for if you don’t love a brother or sister whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you can’t see?”

Well, just watch us, we try to do it all the time.  Love here is not mere sentimentality and chill bumps.  We’re talking about love with its soft and hard edges, its beauty and its toughness.  Loving each other can be wonderful, as we find ourselves in friendship and common interests and feel like we belong to each other.  Loving each other can be enlightening as we discover so much about ourselves by seeing ourselves in others or contrasting ourselves with those who look, act, and think differently.  Loving each other can be scary as we risk being vulnerable and share who we really are beyond the “Hi, how’s it going?” façade.  That vulnerability risks acceptance or rejection.  It also opens the possibility of deeper love and growth.  Loving each other can be painful as we disagree, based on our background and perspective.  Paul writes in I Corinthians 13 that “we see through a glass darkly” and that “we know in part.”  But we really like living in the illusion that “we know it all” and that “we can do it all.”  To love you is to embrace my own inadequacies and let you love me in them.  To love you is to be there for you when your inadequacies appear.  It’s just so much easier to sing “O How I Love Jesus”, than to sing “Help Us Accept Each Other.” 

To be holy is to grow in our love for God and for each other.  But we are also set apart for a task.  We have a job to do.  We are to bear witness to the world about this growing love we are experiencing, to bear witness to a whole new way of life that Jesus calls “the kingdom of God .”  Remember that our witness in the world is always a demonstration speech.  The church must be in growing love: connected, learning, vulnerable and working in and through differences.  People must know first that “we are Christians by our love.”  Then the demonstration becomes something we share with those outside the Church.  We follow Jesus who emptied himself and became a bond slave in the world, who risked rejection by the many to receive the acceptance of the few.  It’s that old adage you have heard me say before, the world doesn’t “care how much you know until it knows how much you care.”  We put our love out there, risking rejection in hopes of acceptance.  We have knocked on doors in Lubbock on twelve days and approached between 2,500 and 3,000 homes.  I have knocked on doors 11 of the 12 days.  I love to be loved.  I hate being rejected.  Each knock on a door means the possibility of rejection and I have spent my life in ministry, partly because I want to love and even more to be loved.  That’s why I am the consummate people-pleaser.  About 70 people have become part of our 2 campuses because of those door knockings.  We have, so far, endured 2,430 “I’m not interested”, “I attend another church,” and “give me your card so I can get back to what I’m doing” responses to get 70 positives (representing less than 30 families?).  Our response rate is about 1%.  Is it worth it?   Ask some of the families who not only consider both of our campuses a place to grow in faith but also a lifeline in difficult times.  Taking that kind of risk is what it means to be holy.

Now we come to that word “catholic”.   I have had some church members who have said, “I can’t say that creed because I’m not Catholic.”  Or I have had people who have been raised Catholic ask, “You mean you’re Catholic?  I thought you were Protestant.”   Well, we are Protestant, but among them we are more Catholic friendly than some.  The word “catholic” literally means “universal”.  So some Christians substitute, the term “Christian” there saying, “I believe in the Holy Christian Church.”  While I do believe that, I think the word “catholic” is worth thinking about.  First, the word “catholic” speaks to our unity.  There was only one church, just as there was one faith, one Lord and one baptism.  Jesus did not say, “Upon this rock, I will build my churches!”  The many denominations who claim that only they are going to heaven would have been considered heretics in the early church.  As United Methodists, we believe that everyone who names Jesus Christ as Lord belongs to the Church.  We have been pioneers in the ecumenical movement, in which churches come together for common work, witness and worship.  That’s because we believe in a holy “catholic” Church.

But to embrace the unity of the church requires us to embrace our variety in three ways.  First, the believers in a particular church will have a huge variety of understandings, styles, and backgrounds.  Paul called us “the body of Christ” and in so doing invited us to embrace one another and work together, allowing our differences to become the source of cooperation rather than conflict.  Second, we embrace the variety of churches.  People ask, “Why are there so many different denominations and non-denominations when there is only one church?”  For the most part, denominations represent a move of the Holy Spirit at a particular time that continues to touch people’s lives today.  So in them are different styles and emphases in Christian faith.   None of them, including United Methodists have a corner on who God is and what God does or can do.  Third, we are called to embrace a variety of ways to reach people for Christ.  At Annual Conference, Jim Smith, the pastor of St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church and chairperson for our committee on Church Extension and Revitalization said something very interesting.

“There are no more people ‘out there’ just like you.  If the people were just like you, wanted to worship just like you, look like you, and think like you, then they would already be in your church.  Instead, we must reach out to those who are not like us.  To do so, we can’t keep doing things the way we have been doing them.  It takes new approaches to make new disciples.”

That is requiring historic churches who have followed usual patterns to embrace a broader understanding of the church, a more catholic understanding that will allow our great variety and still be one. 

Ron Enns, a layperson from Central UMC in Dalhart talked about the need for us to confess our sacred cows.  He said at first he thought that meant a trip to the slaughterhouse to get rid of the sacred cows.  But then he realized that the need was really to get his sacred cows and the sacred cows of others into the same field. He said, ‘You know what happens if you get those cows together?  Soon there will be a new breed that is different than either of those who gave birth to it.  There will be a stronger bloodline.’ 

Of course when these Christians with different sacred cows discover their greater catholicity, they will also see their differences more clearly.  What then?  Well, John Wesley had an answer.  In Wesley’s day, the people were arguing over the methods of holy communion.  People still do that today.  Some prefer to serve it at the altar while others prefer it at the pew.  Some prefer wafers and cups, while others prefer broken bread dipped in a cup.  But Wesley taught that most of what church people fight about is not necessary.  He says that Christians will always disagree and that they should not hide from those disagreements.  At the same time, it is faith in Christ and love of our neighbor is all that is worth fighting for.  So amidst the many differences, he would say, “If your heart is as my heart, take my hand.”

So now we come to the Lord’s table: a place where we nurture our God connection and receive “the forgiveness of sins.”  We draw near to each other celebrating a common gift in Jesus Christ.  We receive to strength to carry our witness into the world.  We grow to be more holy. But we also remember that this is the gift that unifies us, that takes down our walls and invites us to embrace each other in our differences and open our hearts, minds and doors to God’s new work in God’s new day.  We grow to be more catholic.  May we indeed be that catholic people with a catholic Spirit.

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