Sermon Tone Analysis

©June 1, 2014 ~ Tom VanderPloeg

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Introduction

A coral reef is something we don’t see much of here in a landlocked state like Colorado.

So unless you’ve traveled to the tropical ocean somewhere or have been to aquarium here in downtown Denver, we don’t see much coral.

But here’s the interesting thing about coral.

It builds upon preceding generations of itself.

The brightly colored towers, spires, and structures that make up a coral reef are the remains of shells from the lifeforms on the reef that have already lived and died.

So the lifeforms that make up the community in a coral reef have the foundation of previous lifeforms at their base.

It is an ecosystem that could not possibly exist any other way.

And in other ways, a coral reef is a symbiotic community.

What do I mean by symbiotic?

It means they are interdependent upon one another for survival.

Coral is a living organism.

It needs oxygen to survive.

All coral exists with a particular kind of algae that also lives in the coral reef.

The algae gives off oxygen and other nutrients that the coral needs for survival.

And in turn, the coral gives off carbon dioxide the is needed by the algae to survive.

The coral and the algae need each other for survival the same way that we—and all other and animals—need plants for oxygen; and plants need us for carbon dioxide.

One cannot exist without the other.

But coral has another strange type of symbiotic dependency.

Often coral lives in colonies together.

Coral grows very slowly by secreting a hardened carbon outer skeleton.

As generations of coral live and die in these colonies, the reef builds and grows larger.

They are not only dependent upon the algae, but they are also somewhat dependent on the coral that has already lived and died.

And this coral will also eventually become the foundation for future colonies of coral.

We are not coral.

But in the church we do have something of a similar symbiotic relationship at work.

It is this unique community we have in the church that we want to talk about today.

Let’s begin by looking at what scripture says about our community.

!! HC Q. 54

So let’s start this topic by having a little bit of introduction to what it means to be the Church.

To do that we going to go back to the church of very early New Testament described themselves.

So we can read about qualities of the church in passages like Acts 2 which says, “All the believers were together and had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

But those in the first generation of New Testament churches also came together to agree upon and write down what they believed.

One of those earliest documents that we have is called the Apostle’s Creed which says, “We believe in a holy catholic church.”

About 500 years later in the 1500’s the pioneers of the protestant reformation explained what that meant in a document called the Heidelberg Catechism.

I’ve put this in your outline for you.

It’s question and answer 54 of the Catechism.

There’s great stuff in here.

And if you are wondering where the authors of the Catechism got these statements from, this all comes directly from the teaching of scripture.

I’m not going to take us through all of the 19 different passages footnoted in the catechism as foundation from scripture for defining the church the way it’s laid out here in the Catechism.

If you’re interested in knowing that information you can google Heidelberg Catechism and find that information yourself.

I just want us to note some of the language used here in the Catechism to describe the church.

Maybe one of the first things we should note is the Catechism’s use of the term “catholic.”

That can be confusing or misleading because for most people it probably bring to mind an association with the Roman Catholic Church.

And this is not what the Catechism means when is says that we believe in a holy catholic church.

The word catholic literally means universal, in the sense of wide ranging, all-encompassing, broad-based.

It means this is the church in its biggest possible meaning.

!! Horizontal

But beyond that, primarily at the heart of what it means to be the church is the idea of community.

The church at its foundation is a community of people.

Do you hear that.

It is not an institution.

It is not a building.

It is not a collection of policies or doctrinal statements.

The church is a community of people.

It is not articles of incorporation or bylaws.

It’s people.

And there is a horizontal element to this community.

The Catechism tells us that the church is made up of people gathered and chosen for eternal life out of the entire human race.

So while the church has a very local manifestation—that is, it is expressed in the form of a local congregation of people—we understand that we at Horizon are one part of something much bigger.

The church is not just Horizon, it is made up of all people who gather to profess Jesus as savior and lord.

Maybe there is a god correction for us to make here.

Often when we talk about church we speak of the church as individual congregations.

We say things like, “What church do you belong to?” – or, “Here’s what’s happening at my church” as though each individual congregation is a church.

So we talk about all the different churches that are around us.

But if we profess to believe in a holy catholic church, then this distinction is not correct.

We shouldn’t talk about different “churches” in the plural, because we profess one church—singular.

We are a congregation here at Horizon which is a part of the church.

Or to be even more precise, we are a congregation at Horizon, which affiliates with a larger collection of congregations known as the Christian Reformed Church, which is a collection of congregations that—together with countless other congregations—makes up the community of people known as the church.

So it’s accurate to think of ourselves at Horizon as a local congregation of believers.

And we strive here to be a community of believers as a congregation.

But we should never stop or limit our definition of community as being just Horizon and nothing more.

Sure we have some unique characteristics as a congregation that set us apart here in our local community—and that’s not necessarily bad—but it’s not the only thing.

Think of it this way.

We are all residents of the greater Denver metro area.

And we share a local community with all the others that call the Denver area their home.

But more than that, we are also Coloradans.

And in that we share in a larger community of folks who generally love mountains and outdoor activities.

But more than that, we are Americans and share in a larger community of folks from other states that share a value for democracy and liberty as defined by our country’s constitution.

And more-and-more we live in a world that is defined globally, that we are all together a part of the human race.

And just like we would never define what it means to be human by focusing exclusively on what that looks like only in suburban Denver, so too we cannot define what it means to be the church by focusing only on what that looks like in the congregation of Horizon.

!! Vertical

But this community of the church doesn’t stop here either.

There is also a vertical dimension to the church.

The Catechism says that the church is a community made up of those whom God gathers from the beginning of the world to its end.

So it is not just a community that includes the many other millions of people who gather in local congregations around the world on this day.

It is also a community that includes the many billions of people who have gone before us as well as those who will come after us.

In this way we understand the church as a community that exists for all time.

Consider the passages we read today from Matthew and Hebrews.

Both of these passages talk about the community of God’s people in both a horizontal and vertical sense.

Jesus states in Matthew 5 that we all have a communal responsibility to one another in following God, and this community is built upon the words of the prophets of previous generations.

Hebrews 12 also speaks of following God as running a race—and it’s all characterized by plural pronouns, that we are all running this race together.

But not just that, Hebrews 12 also mentions the cloud of witnesses.

Who are these witnesses?

Context makes it obvious that these are the heroes of faith in the previous chapter…those who have gone before and are given as examples.

These are no less a part of the community.