In all of the four gospels, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, among all the words that Jesus spoke, the word “Church” only comes up two times – both in St. Matthew’s gospel. The first we heard proclaimed several weeks ago when Jesus told Simon, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” We like that one. First of all, the Church is HIS, “I will build my church.” And secondly he will provide for his Church a rock foundation. We can be assured of Christ’s enduring presence because its foundation is secure. The second time Jesus speaks about the Church is in the passage we just heard. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church.” Here is a reminder right in the Bible that being Church includes conflict, disagreement, differences, disputes and discord. What a blessed promise that Jesus makes: “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” And it is a good thing that he is in our midst because wherever two or three are gathered, you are going to have four or five different opinions. So being Church is a mixed bag. On the one hand it rests on the rock foundation of apostolic faith. On the other hand the church is populated by people remarkably like me, full of faults and failings, who are prone to messing up with some regularity. I used to have a banner once: “If you find the perfect church by all means join it. But remember that the moment you join it, it ceases being the perfect church.”
All of which leads to a phenomenon we see nowadays where people, good people, don’t feel a need for the Church. Some feel this way because of scandals in the Church which reflect the all too human messiness of those trying to follow Jesus. Others object to this, that, or the other thing that Church is saying or doing or not saying or doing. But if my family is any indication, most remain distant because they don’t feel a need for Church. “I’m a spiritual person,” my niece or nephew would say, “but going to Church does not add anything to my life.” They can’t connect what is going on in their life with what is happening in Church. How do we answer that? If Jesus provided a rock foundation for the Church and if the Church is meant to embrace disparate elements, what does the Church offer to those who aren’t connected in an ongoing relationships with other believers?
The answer to that question comes by looking around at those who are gathered here as Church on this Sunday. We are young and old, saint and sinner, rich and poor, black and white and brown and yellow. We are from this place and from many other places. We are homebodies and world travelers. We are Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, vegetarians and carnivores. We have advanced degrees and G.E.D.s. We like Masterpiece Theater and Judge Judy. We root for the Sox and that other team up North. We speak English and Creole and Spanish and Tamil and Tagalog and German and Hindi and Mandarian and Vietnamese. We’re from large families and small. We’re healthy and sick. We sing like angels and croak like frogs. We’re happy and sad, worried and content, lonely and loved, repressed and depressed and impressed. We are gathered as one in Jesus God’s son, as we sang today. All are welcome in this place as another song goes. James Joyce, who had his own issues with the Church, once wrote: “Catholic means ‘here comes everybody.’” Being Church is important because it is the one place we live our common humanity. Most times we hang around with our tribe – the people who look like us, the people who think like us, the people who talk like us, the people who are going through what we are going through. But Church is the place where we have to connect with the whole spectrum of humanity. We’re all God’s children in Church – red and yellow, black and white we are precious in God’s sight. There is no “America First” in Church. It’s people first. I felt like Church when I attended the High Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and I felt like Church when I was at a Mass in a building made of cardboard and tin in the hills of Guatemala with no electricity, water toted from the stream and where everyone but me was speaking kekchi. Being Church is important because it makes a “we” out of “me.”
I would address “spiritual” but unchurched people in this way – we need Church in order to love. Loving, of course, goes right to the heart of the message of Jesus. Love is the “Great Commandment” which he left us. St. Paul picks up that theme when he writes in the letter to the Romans, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” Love is what makes human life worth living. What Church provides is the venue for love, the environment for love. In Church we must love truly for we love people who are vastly different from than we are. We must love them not because they are smart or pretty or make us laugh or are our friends or agree with us. We love them simply because they are there. We see in Church people who embody the presence of God in the world. Our spirituality is incomplete without Church because when we get to pick and choose who to love we put limits on the creative Spirit of God. In Church we loved wildly and indiscriminately. In Church we get to love wholesale.
Those of you of a certain age might remember a book by Michele Quoist called Prayers. One of those prayers talks about Church. “Lord, why have you told me to love all of my brothers and sisters? You have forced me to open the door a bit. Some came into my home: there was still a bit of room left in my heart. But the others, Lord, I hadn’t seen them, they were hidden by the former, but these last were more numerous, they were needier, and they overwhelmed me without warning… They pushed their way in. There is no more room for me…” “Do not fear,” says God, “you have gained everything. Because while these were entering your home I, your Father, your God, I slipped in among them.”
