Please take note of the insert in your worship flier. It gives you an outline of today’s message
so you can follow along now and be reminded later of the key verses we talked about. On the
back is a daily guide to help you in your personal study of the Bible. Each day you get a verse
and a few questions to help you better understand what you’re reading. We do this because
what you believe … matters. That’s what this series is about. Our goal is not for you to
understand what I believe but hopefully to give you a better handle on what you believe, so it’s
there when you need it. To do that, we’re comparing how Christians view key ideas of the
faith. In November, we’ll actually look beyond the Christian faith at other religions and I’m
trusting that God is going to work through this series to give you a more solid foundation on
which to build your own values. Because what you believe … matters.
During this series, we’ve been keeping an eye on how the Church has evolved since the first
century, and we’ve noted that for the first thousand years, the Christian church was one church.
There were plenty of disagreements among followers, but somehow the Church was able to
remain unified from the time of Christ until 1054. Up to that point, there was one church with
two centers of authority … one in Constantinople and one in Rome. Rome was where the papa
or the pope lived, so that was the main center of authority, while Constantinople was where the
emperor lived … so it had a sort of secondary authority.
Until the year 1054 A.D. That’s when the Church in Rome excommunicated the Church at
Constantinople over three words in the Nicene Creed that they felt were necessary in order to
honor the nature of the Trinity. That was it. Three words. And the church at Constantinople
excommunicated them back … so the Church split. The church at Constantinople became
known as the Greek Church and the Church at Rome became known as the Roman Catholic
Church. That’s the church we’re talking about today.
1
For this message this week, I interviewed two men … Father Michael Lubinsky, who serves at
The Church of the Most Holy Trinity downtown; and a colleague, Allen Hunt, who hosts a
weekend talk radio program on WSB Atlanta. He has successfully moved the conversation
about faith into the mainstream media, so we’re pretty proud of him. You can hear Allen in
Augusta on Sunday nights on WGAC. Allen calls himself the “pastor of the airwaves.” He has
a Ph.D. from Yale and for eighteen years, he served as a United Methodist pastor … most
recently at Mt. Pisgah in Atlanta, which is the third largest United Methodist church in the
world. Last year, Allen converted to Catholicism … so he brought a unique perspective to our
conversation as a life-long Methodist who is now Catholic.
Allen joined the largest team out there. Half of all Christians in the world are Roman Catholic.
The next largest denomination is Southern Baptist, but Catholics outnumber Southern Baptists
4-to-1 and outnumber Methodists 9-to-1. There are a few things Methodists and Catholics
share in common. Most importantly, we all agree that Jesus Christ is Lord … which was really
the creed before there was a creed. We also agree that the Bible is the cornerstone of faith,
although the Catholic Bible includes six more books than ours. Martin Luther was the one who
began removing books from the Bible so the Catholic Bible predates the Protestant one.
Methodists and Catholics also share a common belief that sacraments are … sacraments, not
symbols … that God is present in these events in an important spiritual way. So … these are all
places we agree.
So where do we differ? For starters, we differ on the role of the priest. In the Catholic church,
they are called priests and they are always men and always celibate. Methodists, by contrast,
affirm the role of women in ministry. We mentioned this last week when we talked about
Baptists. There are still some articles in the back if you would like to read more on that.
2
When I was ordained as a pastor, the Bishop laid hands on me and ordained me to take
authority to lead the church through Word, sacrament and order. That’s what it means in the
Methodist church to be an elder. That’s what I am. It means that my role in the church is to
interpret the Bible, guard the integrity of the sacraments and order the life of the church. I
spend most of my time on that third piece. When a Catholic priest is ordained, his main role is
to preserve the sacramental life of the church. Catholics take a high view of the priest’s role as
a mediator between God and the people. For them, the priestly role is best defined by Peter,
one of Jesus’ followers. One time Jesus asked his followers to talk about what others were
saying about him, and they aired a few things they’d heard … then Jesus said (Matthew 16:1519) - 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered,
"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon
son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, (the Greek word means rock) and on this rock I will build
my church, and the gates of death will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you
loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
A Roman Catholic might hear in this verse authority for the Church … established through
Peter … to bind and loose spiritual power, specifically with the priest as the mediator of that
authority … binding the sins of the people through confession … loosing the power of Jesus
through the Eucharist (which is another word for communion). Methodists would say that the
keys of the kingdom were given not just to the priests, but to anyone claims Christ as Lord and
Savior. All of us who claim faith in Christ have power to bind on earth what is bound in heaven
and to loose on earth what is loosed in heaven. When you go to Christ for forgiveness, I as a
3
pastor can bring nothing to that table you don’t already have access to. In fact, the goal and the
passion of a Methodist pastor is that you develop your own hunger for Christ and your own
passion and your own path to that place of grace. That is a deeply engrained passion.
So one difference between our traditions is the role of the priest. Another difference is the role
of Mary and saints in the spiritual life of a Catholic. This is about intercession. Catholics take
Elizabeth’s word to Mary while she was still pregnant as their theme verse for the blessed
mother. When Mary visited Elizabeth while they were both still waiting for their children to be
born, Elizabeth felt the Holy Spirit in Mary’s child and said (Luke 1:42) – “Blessed are you
among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” Catholics see Mary as the only human
other than Jesus who was without sin. And in a very real sense, she was the mother of God.
Catholics also honor others … they call them saints … who have attained a kind of special
holiness in their walk with God. They quote Hebrews 12:1-2a – Therefore since we are
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the
sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For Catholics, this great cloud
of witnesses is all the saints who have lived the faith well and who are now at the throne of
grace interceding for us. Father Michael said “they are our prayer partners.” I admit … I kind
of like that idea. But for Methodists a saint is anyone who has claimed Christ and run that race
and finished well. And we would not see praying with the saints as scriptural … not in the
sense that they hear us and have power to answer our prayers. God is the one for that job.
My friend, Allen, says that his journey into the Catholic church … his final decision to make
that step from Methodism to Catholicism … boiled down to two things: unity of the church and
the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He believes Christ birthed one Church. And he
4
says, “The fact that there are 30,000 branches of Christianity in America alone grieves my
heart. I believe that continuing division and debate over essentials provides a poor witness to
the lost about our Christian unity in the one Lord.” It would make sense, then, that the Catholic
Church might appeal to Allen. After all, the word “Catholic” means “universal” and the hope
of all Catholics is that one day, the Church will be one. They lean on scriptures like Ephesians
4:4-5 - 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were
called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism … And even more on Jesus’ own prayer to the Father
before his death in John 17 He said (John 17:20b-23) - … I pray also for those who will
believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in
me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in
them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know
that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
This a prayer we should all pray … daily … that we might be unified in Christ. The question
comes in how we achieve that unity. For Catholics, unity comes at their altar. Allen Hunt says,
“The formative issue of Christian unity is the need for all Christians to believe that the body and
blood become the actual body and blood of Christ. When all Christians believe that, we will
achieve unity.” And I guess that may be the sharpest point of difference in our traditions …
how we see Christ as present in the elements.
And the crazy thing is that for you, it has probably never been a question. Certainly not a
concern. But this is the issue on which the Protestant Reformation hung. This was where the
rubber hit the road. Peter Kreeft, who wrote Jesus-Shock, said that this is the issue that had
“Protestants and Catholics calling each other not just heretics but devils.”
5
The Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches that when the elements are blessed by the
priest, they become the actual body and blood of Jesus. Not physically, so we’d taste it, but in a
mystical, spiritual but real way … the bread becomes his body and the juice or wine become his
blood. That is the power of the priest and it is the central idea of communion. And Catholics
would say that when the world gets it that Jesus Christ is physically present in the elements of
the Eucharist, we will achieve unity.
Now, remember, we are People of the Book. So with ideas like this, we need to go back to the
Bible. Is this even in there? Every Catholic I talked to this week brought John, chapter 6, to
my attention, so I want to read most of it to you … (John 6:35-58) – 35 Then Jesus declared, "I
am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty. 41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, "I
am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?" 43
"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered … 47 Very truly I tell you, whoever
believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the
wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people
may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this
bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 52
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh
to eat?" 53 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is
real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just
6
as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will
live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate
manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."
What a strange thing to say. This had to shock anyone in earshot. What did Jesus mean?
Catholics would say that Jesus meant what he said … that when they take this bread or drink
this wine, they are receiving the very flesh of Jesus. For them, it is about His great desire to be
our food … our nourishment … our everything.
We believe that Jesus used shocking language to make a serious point … that real life is in
Jesus. As he says in John 3, flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit. So
these elements, when taken as spiritual food, nourish us spiritually. These elements are not the
real presence of Christ, but somehow they empower us to become the real presence of Christ.
They are like a prayer for us … a prayer that can not be expressed with words. They are our
prayer that Christ will come again … they are our prayer that we might be one with him and
one with each other … that we might somehow learn how to love like Jesus loves and serve
like Jesus serves. They are our prayer that the world might know that Jesus Christ is Lord.
They are our prayer and our plea for Jesus himself to come and eat with us. If these elements
could speak, they would say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
And you know what? In these elements is everything I need. Right here at this table, I have an
invitation to confess to Christ himself my deep need of forgiveness. Right here at this table is
my prayer partner. This table ties me to every other believer in the world. Today, in fact, is
World Communion Sunday … so today, followers all over the world are receiving this same
7
gift of grace that you are about to receive. In every language, these elements mean the same
thing: in Christ is our life.
This table is the great Leveler. Everyone is welcome. Jesus said (Luke 14:13-15) - … when
you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed.
Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." 15
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed are those who will
eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Come, Lord Jesus! Blessed are those
who will eat at the feast of the kingdom of God.
8