Mere Catholicity

This contribution is part of the new series, “Everyday Ecumenism.” This collaborative project will be a compilation of contributions from women and men seeking to engage theology from an ecumenical perspective for the benefit of the Church.

“Poems, parables, and paradoxes! That’s all the Bible is!” At least that’s how one cynic described it. His crass reductionism aside, he did bump up against something that is worth exploring: there are a lot of poems, parables, and paradoxes in the Bible. There are also many precepts, principles, and promises in there too, but we will leave them for a more convenient season.

God gifted us with poems andpleasant prose so that we might be able to fully express ourselves. He spoke tous by way of parable and paradox because we learned to express ourselves alltoo well. Parables are God’s way of stupefying those who reject plain speech.Paradoxes are God’s way of mystifying those who are stupefied by plain speech.Poems require eyes to see world around us; parables and paradoxes both requireears to hear the Word before us.

This is never more true than whenJesus speaks to us concerning his kingdom. Either we don’t understand hisrather obvious statements, or we just don’t like their implications.

To one group of Jewish followers hemakes it plain that the Kingdom is much broader than they think. He takescrumbs from the table of Israel to feed a feeble, Syrophoenician pup. TheKingdom has gone to the dogs! He astonishes yet another group of Hebrew hearersby clearly stating that the Kingdom is much narrower than they think.(Admittedly, even his plain dealing is somewhat paradoxical.) He openly chidesthose who think that they can identify their spiritual lineage by pointing totheir birth certificates. A faithful heathen gains admittance and faithless Hebrewsare shut out. Such is the Kingdom of God.

Jesus was saying that the Kingdomwas, at once, both inclusive and exclusive; it was to be marked by unity andpurity. It’s little wonder that such plain speech was too hard for them tohear. We still haven’t warmed to the idea.

So he opened his mouth in parableand paradox. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like wheat and weeds. The Kingdom ofHeaven is like an arboretum, and a woman baking bread, and gold in a garden,and a sailor searching for pearls, and a pile of dead fish.” Perhaps the onlything that is clear from the words of Jesus is that the Kingdom is clearly notwhat we have thought it was.

If we could be permitted to speakthe way that the Bible speaks, we might say that the Church is, at once, ariver and a redwood. These seeming opposites are in no way opposed.

A river begins all over theplace. A small spring up in the hills; a distant lake, itself fed by streams; aglacier that has seen one too many summers—all of them and hundreds morecontribute to the babble and rush of water, the smooth flow here and theswirling rapids there. Gradually other streams, even other whole rivers, pourforth and make their contributions. Out of many there emerges the one.

On the other hand, a tree beginswith a solitary seed. An acorn into the soil: tiny, vulnerable, alone. Throughthe administration of water and light, it sprouts and puts its roots down intothe dark earth. Simultaneously it raises a shoot upwards into the sunshine andair. The roots quickly sprawl out and probe all over the place, looking fornourishment and water. The small shoot becomes a large trunk, again a singlestanding stalk, but this, too, quickly diverges. It will spread far and wide inall directions. Whereas the river flows from many into one; the tree grows fromone into many. Such is the Kingdom of God.

The Church is like a rollingriver. In the Apocalypse, John the visionary sees a huge throng of people fromevery nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue coming together in a great chorus ofpraise. Like a river, they all started in different places, but they have nowbrought their different streams into a single flow. The image of the riverforcibly reminds us that, though the Church consists by definition of peoplefrom the widest possible variety of backgrounds, part of the point of it all isthat they belong to one another, and are meant to be part of the same powerfulflow, going now in the same single direction. Diversity gives way to unity.

But at the same time the Churchis like a sprawling redwood. The one seed, Jesus himself, has been sown in thedark earth and has sprang forth in resurrection power. Easter branches have setoff in all directions, some pointing almost directly upward, some reaching downto the earth, some heading out over neighboring walls. Looking at the eager,outstretched branches, you’d hardly know they were all from the same stem. Butthey are. Unity generates diversity.

The plain teaching of theScriptures is that the Church of the Living God bears the image of the One whoformed her: unity and diversity. She must never be forced to choose between thetwo. Likewise, there is no disparity between unity and purity, or betweenexclusivity and inclusivity.

C.S. Lewis, following RichardBaxter, admonished the people of God to rally under the banner of “MereChristianity.” That is, we should prioritize what we are instinctively asChristians who affirm the same creeds above what we may be distinctively asChristians affirming different confessions. To this I add my hearty, “Amen!”But common orthodoxy should lead to a common orthopraxy. Eventually it has toput on boots and do something or this “Mere Christianity” just becomes meretalk, or what the apostle Paul once called, “vain jangling.”

“Mere Christianity” should leadquite naturally to “Mere Catholicity.” This answers the problems of postmodernmulticulturalism as well as the lingering racism of modernism. In the Church,fragmented humanity is put back together. So, we must be about the business ofputting the Church back together. If Christianity embraces “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism,” then wemust learn to embrace one another. And must should happen without jettisoningpurity and unity. It can be done. Those wise sages, Loggins and Messina, oncemused that “Momma don’t danceand Daddy don’t rock and roll.” Yet, here we are. They were able to cohabitatein spite of such glaring liturgical diversity.

Since there is only one, holycatholic Church we have to act like it. Or else those two words proclaimed atthe beginning of our creeds just add up to one big fat lie. How’s that forplain speech?

The present fragmented state ofthe Bride of Christ would put to a shame even a certain Levite who once shippedbits of his late wife in the mail. At least they were able to come together asone man. Enough of our “holy huddles” and“Me-and-my-son-John-us-four-and-no-more” ecclesiological insanity. The oneChurch is both holy and catholic—that includes both holiness and wholeness.

Genuine catholicity may requiretelling some brethren that the Kingdom is broader than they think. If God haswelcomed people to His table what right have we to bar them? It may alsorequire that we tell some brethren on the other side of the Tiber that theKingdom is narrower than they think. What is certain is that we will never tellthem if we don’t talk to them. But be careful if you do…you might just learnsomething.

It isn’t altogether clear how weare to get from scattered and fragmented bodies to a single army, marchinglock-step with one another. Lord, Thou knowest. But the least that wecan do is prophesy to the wind and speak to the divided and strewn bones. Godhas breathed on such things before.

We should probably start with thebones in our own backyard. Stop looking at your brethren with sidelong glances.Be more eager to offer the tender hand of fellowship than the tightened fist ofcontroversy. Pray for their ministries…by name…on Sundays. Stop thinking of“them” and start thinking of “us.” Afterdoing such things, I have a sneaking suspicion that soon we would hear thesound of joyful singing coming from the cemetery. “Hip bone connected to thethigh bone, thigh bone connected to the knee bone, knee bone connected to theshin bone. Now hear the Word of the Lord!”

Then we might be ready for poetryonce again…

Then I saw a new heaven and a newearth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the seawas no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heavenfrom God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voicefrom the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He willdwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with themas their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall beno more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for theformer things have passed away.’

J. Brandon Meeks is an Arkansas native laboring as an aspiring poet, studio musician, and Christian scholar. He received his PhD. from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is also a fan of Alabama football, the blues, and cheese. He is a regular contributor for The North American Anglican and he also blogs regularly at The High Church Puritan.