The Rock On Which Christ has Built His Church

I have written the following opinion on Christian unity based on the texts we heard a few Sundays ago (Proper 16, Year A), including Isaiah 51:1-6 and Matthew 16:13-20.

Have you ever noticed just how many different Christian denominations there are? We know there are Catholics and Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans and Baptists and Pentecostals and Orthodox and so on. But many such groups have had their own divisions, with their own subsets. The Baptists have divided into American and Southern. The Presbyterians have the PCA and the PCUSA. The Methodists are going through a schism of their own right now. And even our own branch of the Church has been rent asunder through schism. It has been estimated that there are no less than 45,000 different Christian denominations globally today. And this, I think, is one of the greatest detriments to the Christian witness to the world. We are tasked with the propagation of the Kingdom of God on the earth, and yet how are we to convert the world when our own house is so obviously in disorder?

The divisions in the Church are a problem which grieve the Lord’s heart, because he prayed, on the night before he suffered that we might be one as he and the Father are one. And yet, we wonder if we are too far gone; if reunion is even possible after so long a time and with such a deep sense of wounding on every side.

And yet, the other week, perhaps you’ll remember that Fr. Ladd began his sermon with the words of Psalm 133, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to live together in unity.” And we heard the story of Joseph and how he, through forgiveness and grace, accomplished reconciliation with his brothers, who had actually sold him into slavery many years prior. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a falling out with some of your siblings, but if anyone had cause to put the walls up, it was Joseph. And yet, his story shows that reconciliation and the healing of divisions is possible when God is on our side.

We have these same themes of unity and division in our texts today. We pray in our Collect that the Church might be gathered together—acknowledging that at present we are not. And Isaiah tells the people of Israel that they who are many were originally called as one in their father Abraham. Paul tells us in the Epistle that we are many members but one Body in Christ. And what I would argue today is that our Gospel fleshes out how unity may be possible for us, in these latter days.

For Christ this morning points us to St. Peter as the rock upon which he has built his Church, and he commands us through the Prophet Isaiah to look to that rock from which we were hewn. So I want to explore with you this morning how Jesus invites us to a Christian unity which has as its focal-point the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter, and how by aspiring toward reconciliation, he may use us, in our Anglican context, to reunite those who are scattered. Let’s take a look.

In our Old Testament lesson, the Prophet Isaiah preaches to a people who are divided. Already God’s people have split into two separate nations, the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. This sad division happened in the generation following King Solomon, when the northern tribes followed Jeroboam and the southern tribes followed Rehoboam. So Isaiah was speaking into a divided context. What’s more, he was prophesying of a day when God’s people would be further scattered in exile, when foreign powers would disperse the people of God all across the ancient world in what we now call the Jewish diaspora. Already the Jews were worshiping in separate places, they were following separate kings, and they were embodying the same kind of division which the Church is experiencing today.

Into this divided context, Isaiah calls the people to look to their common heritage. He compares them to many stones which were hewn from the same rock, many slabs which have come from the same quarry. So he encourages them, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn… When Abraham was one, I called him.” So Isaiah calls Israel to look back to their common identity in the patriarch Abraham, as many stones hewn from the same rock.

And it is no accident that the lectionary, on this day on which we pray for the Church’s regathering, appoints for our Gospel the passage in which Christ declares Peter to be that rock on which he will build his Church. In Isaiah, we are told to look to the rock from which we were hewn, and in Matthew we are shown who that rock is, the church’s equivalent to Abraham, St. Peter, on whom Christ’s Church was founded.

In the gospels, Peter is usually given the preeminence. We often read of “Peter and the other disciples,” and it is well-known that in his day, Peter was the chief of the Apostles. We see in him the spokesman of the Church in the Book of Acts, the figurehead of the Church’s unity. As time went on, his successors, the Bishops of Rome increased in their prestige, and they were consulted in matters of disagreement as the first among equals and the safeguard of the Church’s oneness.

And as we all know, over time, the various churches have walked away from the Bishop of Rome. In our Anglican context, this happened in the sixteenth century, when Henry wondered at how a bishop in Rome should have jurisdiction over his own realm of England, when he had his own bishops and archbishops right there in England. Why should he seek an annulment from the church of Rome when the church of England was ready and willing to do so?

And there have been many disagreements like these that have led to the disintegration of the Church’s unity. But if the will of the Lord is to be fulfilled and we are all to be made one as Christ and the Father are one, then we will be a people who are Romeward facing, who look to the rock, as Isaiah commanded. We will, like Joseph, be agents not of division but of unity and pray for and work toward reconciliation with the Bishop of Rome rather than accentuate our differences.

This has long been an Anglican priority, that we men and women who work toward oneness, that our divisions may cease. In the 18 and 1900s, Anglicans began to wonder, “Why do we call ourselves Protestants?” Of course, the word is rooted in the word “to protest,” and they wondered, “What are we protesting? We aspire not to division but to catholicity,” and in 1964, in General Convention, the Protestant Episcopal Church decided to officially drop the word “Protestant” from their name.

Likewise, you can find in the BCP our Church’s primary document on Christian Unity, which we call the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. I encourage you to take a look. It is on pp. 876-878.

Now of course we believe that the fault is not entirely our own, and even Rome acknowledges that in the Reformation, there were wrongs committed on both sides. They no longer relate to us as heretics but in reference to us use the phrase, “Separated Brethren.” I think that’s beautiful, because it reminds me of Joseph and his brothers. Just as God brought reconciliation and reunion to their relationship, so we pray that he would gather us back together as his Church, which he established many years ago on the rock of Peter.

When St. Paul exhorts us to unity in Romans this morning, he commands that we not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to but be humble, preferring others to ourselves. This is the kind of attitude which is necessary of us if we are actually to be agents of unity. To have the humility to not bash on the Roman Catholics but to look for commonalities, to not vote for issues at Convention which are not in lockstep with the rest of Christendom, to pray for those from whom we are separated that the Holy Spirit might bring us back together.

Perhaps this is the vocation to which God has called our branch of the Church, to be a reconciler, to be ecumenical in our trajectory. Our branch of the Church has a longstanding ecumenical dialogue with Rome, and many in our Church have the hope of regathering protestantism under a common apostolic succession so that we might usher in reunion with Catholic Christians across the world.

I have many Romeward facing friends who have “jumped ship” and become Roman Catholics. But I think God has a bigger plan in mind for us as a church—not to jump ship but to guide the ship into its harbor, in accordance with Christ’s prayer that we might all be one. For that oneness, is going to have the Bishop of Rome as a focal point, for he is the shepherd over the largest body of Christians in the world and stands in succession to St. Peter, on whom the Christian Church was first founded.

So as Isaiah commands us, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn.”

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.