Today is the first official day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I have been involved in this event in one way or another since my student days, when I and many other Christian students of my acquaintance were gripped by the dream of Christians being “one big happy family.” Quite clearly, this dream has not been fulfilled in the way we envisioned at that time. Even within Anglicanism, there are obvious cracks in the façade of the household of God. So today I pose the question:

“Is Christian unity a fantasy or a real hope?”

Recent events in the Anglican Communion might lead us to believe the former. After all, if a church body which has built itself on being “comprehensive” has trouble holding itself together, who can? Might it not be better just to let go and accept that the church will never truly be one?

I would argue that such a defeatist attitude (even if it seems practical) would violate our calling, and deny the doctrine of the church as summarized in the Nicene Creed, in the so-called “four marks of the church.” These four marks are:

·       One

·       Holy

·       Catholic, and

·       Apostolic

As we recite them Sunday by Sunday, it is easy to let these four words slip off our tongues and “fall to the ground.” We do well to pay them close attention. While our focus today is mainly on the first mark—“The church is One…”—the four are very closely related.

Today’s we heard an excerpt from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It is actually the opening formalities of the letter: the name of the sender, the addressees and a greeting, followed by a prayer of thanksgiving. In most of his letters, Paul uses these sections to set the tone for the body of the letter, and to point ahead to his main message. While Paul raises a number of specific issues, at its heart, First Corinthians is an extended appeal for church unity: the verses we heard point us towards the marks of the church.

Working backwards through the four:

The church is apostolic. The church in Corinth came into being through Paul’s ministry, and his very first words identify him as “an apostle of Christ Jesus.” Our heritage is the faith of the Risen Christ, passed on from those first called to bear witness to the Resurrection—the apostles. In this letter, we are listening in on the debates of the church’s first generation, but twenty centuries later, we still trace our heritage back to the apostles. Just as a tree has many branches, but one root, so the church has many branches, but still only one root—the apostolic witness to the Resurrection.

The church is catholic. Paul does not write just to the faithful in Corinth, but also to "all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours."

While the people in Corinth certainly acted that way, the church is not only a local reality, but a universal one—the proper meaning of the word “catholic.” For most of us, for all intents and purposes, “church” is the place and the congregation where we worship. Nonetheless, Paul will not let the Corinthians (or us!) forget that the church is the body of all the faithful. It is true that we sometimes have trouble recognizing the faith of Christ in people on other branches of the apostolic tree, but just a question is difficult is no reason to deny our calling to address it.

The church is holy! Paul was addressing a group of people who were engaged in some most unholy goings-on, all in the name of the one who is most holy. But “holy” is the word he uses to describe their calling—called to be saints, literally called to be “holy people” (hagioi.) The church is a people set apart, “called out” (ekklesia) and dedicated to God’s purposes. If some people in some places are found to behave badly, we should not lose sight of our calling to be God’s holy people. Holiness is not found so much in moral or spiritual perfection as in dedication to the mission entrusted to the church by God—being a faithful and fruitful branch of the apostolic and catholic tree.

And the church is one. There is one tree, because there is one Lord, one faith. There are many branches—some large, some small, some fruitful, some less so—but all are shoots from the same root stock.

The church in Corinth was deeply divided, and the church in today’s world is also deeply divided. There is nothing new about that, but twenty centuries of Christian history have grown a tree of immense proportions and diverse branches. We understand disunity far better than we do unity, for we live in the reality of division.

What then? Have we come back to that fantasy world of a unity which can never be? Friends, I do not nor do you live in a dream world. Lest us therefore we look at the church as a mighty tree, rich and diverse, bearing fruit in all seasons. And let us as the limbs of that tree hope that all its members will rejoice in their shared roots and in the riotous diversity of the gifts God has poured out upon it? Can we act as if we truly believe that

God is faithful; by him (we) were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The faithfulness of God is displayed in the faithfulness of all God’s people:

·       One

·       Holy

·       Catholic and

·       Apostolic

As we hope and trust in God, so may we hope in and for God’s church, that all of God’s people may show forth the faith of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Amen.