The Foundation is Apostolic

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. That is what we proclaim. Every Sunday. We place our faith in a Church that has four essential characteristics. It is one. It is holy. It is catholic. And it is apostolic. There is no stated hierarchy of those four qualities. Each is, at least, grammatically equal.

My experience as a pastor, though, is that apostolicity is the foundation of the others. It is the basis of the Church’s unity, its sanctity, and its universality. The reason is that of those four qualities, apostolicity is the one that necessarily requires us to turn outward. Without it, unity can be mistaken for isolation. Holiness can be mistaken for introspection. Catholicity can be mistaken for the exertion of power. Turning outward, it seems to me, is the essential quality for spiritual health, being outwardly oriented. The foundation is apostolic.

Apostolic is derived from a Greek word that means sent. The apostles were people who were sent out. Being an apostle wasn’t about their status, not even being one of the twelve. Paul, after all, was not one of the twelve but was most certainly an apostle. And what made him one? It was being sent out. Being sent is what all of the apostles share in common. They were all people who were sent out. See, e.g., . Lk. 10, Mt. 28:16ff., and Acts 1:8.

Being sent has a way of bringing people together despite differences of opinion. Being sent has a way of helping us reexamine what we thought were the orthodox absolutes in the light of lovingly meeting the real needs of real people. That is, after all, what someone no less orthodox than Paul found when he set out to meet the Gentiles where they were and how they were (Gal. 5:6). It was the same with Peter, who was sent to the home of Cornelius the centurion and found that what he had thought about what foods were clean and unclean no longer had the same importance it once did in light of the mission on which he was sent (Acts 10:28).

It is true now, too. Along the way I had an idea to use our diocesan camp to address a serious problem in our part of the country with literacy. We started a program called Reading Camp. The idea was to make a strategic intervention in the lives of third and fourth graders who were seriously behind in learning to read because children who cannot read proficiently by the fourth grade usually end up getting further and further behind until they are left behind altogether.

Reading Camp has proven to be extremely successful. What began as one camp serving 25 students in 2002 has now spread to several other dioceses and 15 or more camps serving several hundred children each summer. There are even camps in three African countries—South Africa, Liberia, and Cameroon. Kenya will soon follow, I hope. Reading Camp has become the epitome of what it means to be sent.

Here’s the point. Part of the miracle of Reading Camp is how the reality of being sent and turning outward overcame what seemed like a pretty significant theological divide. When I first proposed the idea, the two people who happened to respond (and it is difficult for me not to see God involved in this) came from opposite ends of the theological spectrum, about as far away from one another as one can get. This made me nervous, I will admit, but I trusted it. That turned out to be a very good thing. These two people gathered a committee and set to work to make Reading Camp a reality. They steadfastly refused to let the decisions of General Convention come between them despite considerable pressure to. Their work has made a huge difference in the lives of many children. And in their own. And in mine.

Now, to be sure, theology was not part of the work of Reading Camp so theological differences were not likely to surface. In fact, in order to work with the public schools, there was no religious teaching with the students involved (prayer and worship were very much a part of the experience for the volunteers, though). There was much more to this reality, I think, than the fact that the occasion for disagreement was just avoided.

I think it had to do with an ancient truth we see at work in the lives of Peter and Paul. Apostolicity, being sent, overcomes a lot of difference, and serving trumps division. Could it be, I wonder, that it is because being sent gives everyone, no matter what they may think or perhaps in spite of what they may think, a chance to meet Jesus on the same ground? After all, that matters more than anything.

Peace,

+ Stacy