Big “C,” Little “c”
Big “C,” little “c” – capitalization counts people!
The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed are two of the most important declarations of our faith. In these short passages, we sum up the entirety of our belief in God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. And although most churches recite at least one of these frequently, I have never been to a church where someone didn’t ask why we believe in the Catholic church. I mean, the whole point of the Reformation was to break away from the Catholic church, so why do we use these creeds? In these moments, I point to the little asterisk in our hymnals next to the word catholic and if you look down below it says “universal.” The word “catholic” is derived from the Greek katholikos meaning “according to the whole” or “universal” and was first used by St. Ignatius of Antioch in 110 AD.[1] Since at the time there was only one body of Christ (and even then with different beliefs), it made sense that eventually the name would stick and it would go from little “c” to big “C.”
But as with anything run by humans, even the church would become corrupt.
In 1095, Pope Urban II was the first to sell salvation. He offered forgiveness of sins to anyone who participated in the first crusades, but those who did not participate could still be forgiven for a sum of money to help fund the effort.[2] From there it only got worse. By the 1500’s, salvation was being sold to raise money for different church projects.[3] They called these indulgences. It became like the money changers in the temple who had their tables overturned by an angry Jesus.[4] For the right price, you could buy a “Get Out of Hell Free” card. What the church would do would be to write a document on your behalf saying that you no longer had to confess your sins because you’ve already been absolved of them now and in the future. A priest by the name of Martin Luther thought there was something wrong with this.[5] Jesus had already paid for our sins, why were we paying again? He also objected to the church discouraging people from going to confession. If there wasn’t a need to repent of our sins, why did we need Jesus? On October 31, 1517, Luther sent a letter outlining his questions to the church, which came to be known as The Ninety-Five Theses. The church refused to change and over time a split occurred between the church in Rome and those who protested against the church’s actions. Those protesters became known as Protestants and that’s how the Protestant Reformation began. Now there was a big “C” and a little “c.”
As you can imagine, huge differences developed between the two.
The Catholic Church was convinced only they had the corner on faith, while the Protestants felt the church had strayed and given in to human temptation. They felt the Catholic Church held too tightly to human tradition and not enough to the essentials of faith, so they emphasized a return to the basics and went back to the Bible. The Protestants moved away from intercessory prayer where you prayed to the saints to speak on your behalf to Christ. Instead, they believed you could pray directly to God without someone having to intervene. In the Catholic tradition, only Catholics are allowed to take communion. It goes back to the belief that the Catholic Church holds the true faith so only those who believe as they believe are worthy of communion. In the Methodist tradition, we believe in what they call an “open table” (and if you’ve been with us before for communion, you probably know what that means). We believe God is calling all of us to the table of Christ and so it doesn’t matter if you’re Methodist or not, you are welcome at God’s table. You don’t even have to be Christian to come to our table because we believe in the mysterious power of Christ in communion to work in and through us. If someone is compelled to come up and receive the elements, we believe it is God working in them and we are not to get in the way of God’s work.
But perhaps the biggest difference between us is our belief in faith alone.
Sola Fide. It is one of the pillars of our faith. We believe we are justified before God by faith alone. This morning we will take a look at a passage from James to illustrate that point. If you have a Bible or Bible app on your phone, would you please go to the letter of James, chapter 2? We will be reading from James 2:14-26. Justification means God forgives our sins when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior.[6] He doesn’t forget, but instead he chooses to cover them up kind of like when you paint over graffiti. It isn’t gone, but we no longer see it. And while our Catholic friends believe in faith as an essential part of justification, they take it one step further and say we need to prove our righteousness before God will forgive us completely. We must prove our faith through works, something we call “works righteousness.” So even though we both believe in the power of faith, we look at what happens afterward differently. And that’s where we approach our passage today. If you’ll please rise as we read from James 2:14-26. Hear now the Word of the Lord.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. – James 2:14-26
Reading this passage it seems to prove the Catholic interpretation of justification.
James clearly says, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” He even says, “faith without deeds is useless.” But what James is talking about here is not faith by deeds, but rather deeds prove your faith. And that’s all the difference in the world. We believe when we turn to Christ and repent of our sins, God forgives. There are no conditions and we don’t have to prove it by our deeds. Rather, what James is talking about here is that a person who gives their life to Christ and who honestly asks for forgiveness will naturally do good deeds. They can’t help it. Deeds are the proof, not the condition of a forgiven life. It’s a small but important difference.
One thing I feel we need to be reminded of is that despite our differences, we both love God.
Jesus himself said in Mark 9:38-41, “whoever is not against us is for us.” And while we disagree on a lot of things, both Catholics and Methodists agree in the divinity of Jesus Christ. We believe him to be the Lord and Savior of us all. And we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Catholics like all who believe in Christ, come in all sorts of packages. They have varying beliefs. And they are sinful people trying to come into a better relationship with God. We are exploring the differences in our faith not to throw stones at fellow believers, but to help us better understand why we believe what we believe. And in the understanding, hopefully come to terms with our own faith in a deeper and richer way.
[1] As referenced in Wikipedia.
[2] From the UMKC School of Law page, “Questions & Answers Concerning Indulgences.”
[3] The interesting thing here is that it’s all based on a very secular understanding of finances. The church believed it had a “treasury of indulgences” based at first on the “merits of Christ and the saints” but then on the number of relics it had from the time of Jesus. The idea that material items could give you the power of forgiveness (a power only granted to Christ in our belief) would be ridiculous today.
[5] Notes on the reformation come from the Wikipedia entry “Ninety-five Theses” and from Adam Hamilton’s book Christianity’s Family Tree.
[6] For a deeper explanation of this sophisticated argument, R.C. Sproul has a great summary.
Craig's Corner 