Homily

In today's epistle St. Paul is hurrying to try and get to Jerusalem before the great feast of Pentecost and he stops at Miletus. From there he calls for the presbyters of the Church in the nearby great city of Ephesus to come and meet with him. And we heard part of his speech to them in the reading. He said, "I know after my departure savage wolves will come among you and they will not spare the flock." Of course he's talking about the persecutions the Church will face in the future. Then he continues, "And from your own group men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them." It's almost certain that here he is speaking of those Christians, both Jewish and even some Gentiles, who keep trying to impose parts of the Law of Moses on their fellow Christians.

In time the Judaizing heresy gradually fades away especially as the Church faces, in the next 250 years, attacks from the wolves as periods of great persecution breakout from time to time in different parts of the empire. Then, with the victory of Constantine in 314, Roman persecution comes to an end. No more wolves attacking the sheep of Christ's flock. Instead the trouble comes from men within the Church who pervert the truth "to draw the disciples away after them," as St. Paul said. Not many years after persecution ends comes a priest named Arius.

For those of you who may have forgotten, and, trying to keep this short, basically Arius taught that Jesus was not equal to God the Father, and was not truly God. Instead, He was created by God the Father, and was the most perfect of all beings, incredibly higher than human beings, and even angels, but, all in all still just a creature, not a divine person. Arius teaching made sense to a lot of people because it seemed to solve the problem of how Christians could speak of believing in one God, and yet also call Jesus the Lord. If Jesus, although the highest in all creation, was still just a creature, we can easily say there is only one God, our Father. Problem solved. This teaching began to spread throughout the Church and became widely popular, with even some bishops beginning to embrace this new idea. Those who held to the orthodox faith refused to cave in to the Arian party and division racked the Church. So in 325 the emperor Constantine called and invited all the Christian bishops in the world to come to Nicaea and settle this doctrinal question. About a third of them showed up and they declared their belief in the divinity of Christ, and wrote the first part of the Nicene Creed we still say today, that Jesus is "Light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father." The true faith triumphed in this creed.

But Arianism did not go away so easily and it took much longer time before it finally died out. And that was not the end of attacks upon the faith from within. Over the next several centuries new and different heresies were taught and preached, causing great divisions in the Church, and wounding the Body of Christ. The situation never completely changes for it seems that in nearly every century there is some person, some group, some idea or philosophy that comes forth and contradicts the authority of the Church as teacher and attacks the truth of Christ's teaching as the Church explains it. I was thinking of how long that list would be from the past 2,000 years. Sometimes the damage to the faith was small, but other times, such as in the Protestant Reformation, the damage was severe and large.

Even today we find those within the Church who pervert the truth and seek to lead others astray. I can think of a number of Catholic politicians who fit that description. And other people who may not be famous or even have a large impact, but they also try to chip away at the foundation of faith. Just the other day on the radio I heard a woman from the Portland area who claimed she was a Roman Catholic priest. When the interviewer asked what it means for her to say she is a Roman Catholic priest if the Catholic Church does not recognize her as a priest, she said that it didn't matter because she was validly ordained, and she didn't want to get stuck on this point, so could they please move on to another question. He asked her why she wanted to be a priest and she said because that's the only way you can have power in the Church. Hmm. In the seminary we were not instructed in power tactics, but instead about how to serve God and His people in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. And I think of the poor people who may be duped into believing they are receiving the sacraments from this woman.

Thinking about these two things this week, Nicean Council and Arius, along with deluded woman in Portland with vestments, made me think of the Church I've belonged to all my life, and how grateful I should be to Christ for this great gift. If it were not for the Church I would not have a share in God's own divine life, I would not have a steady and reliable resource to tell me what is good and what is evil, what is life-giving and loving. Without the Church I would not have the Sacred Scriptures, the grace that flows from the sacraments, the examples of so many heroic men and women and priests who have helped me so much in my life. Without the Church, I would not know what true purpose or place my life has in the world, or what it would be like to have my sins forgiven. Without the Church I would not know what comes after this life, and I doubt that I would know any of you. But so much worse than that, without the Church I would not know Christ, the Lover of Mankind, including even me.

So St. Paul was right. There are still wolves out there who seek to ravage the flock. There are still those within who distort the truth and lead others into error and sin. And there are those who think that their independence in faith is a sign of great wisdom. But for me, I am going to think and give thanks to God every day this week as we move to the birthday of the Church next Sunday, and remembering all of you, as well as myself, that we never fall away, never allow ourselves to be separated from, that we never choose to neglect or diminish or destroy our place in the Body of Christ — for that is where we will find Him, and that is where He will save us.