The Invisible Church

There are a lot of themes to pick up on this week. It’s Reformation Sunday. Which brings me to my annual question of why does Halloween always dress up as Reformation Day for Halloween? The Word Halloween is a contraction of All Hallow’s Eve. To break it down further, to hallow is to make or recognize something as Holy. So Halloween is All Hallow’s or All Saints Day Eve. Next Sunday we’ll then celebrate All Saints Day, a day to remember the lives of the saints including those who have died in Christ this last year. It’s traditionally one of the 2 main days to get baptized, though you can rightly be baptized any Sunday or any day, with water, or with sand if there is no water. But Reformation Day happens on the Eve of All Saints Day because that’s when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses against indulgences to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church. Luther didn’t attend to break away from the castle church, but wanted to see it reformed from the inside. The Anglican Church is widely understood to be what the Catholic Church would look like if they had taken the call for reform from Luther, Calvin, and others seriously. On that first Reformation Day, Luther wanted to end the ridiculous practice of indulgences, where people would pay the Catholic Church and in return the donor or his family would be free from purgatory and go to heaven. Seemed like a screaming deal and it built a huge basilica or grand church building in the Vatican, which is another reason to yell Boo on Halloween. So yes, this reform was straightforward and absolutely needed. But my currently favorite thing that came from the reformation is insisting on championing the distinction between the visible church and the invisible church. What on earth do I mean by this? We see it throughout Scripture in the parable of the wheat and the tares, for example. The visible church is the group of people in church. They attend worship services. And before the Reformation, there was no difference really held between the visible church and the invisible church. They were largely seen as the same thing. But what we see in Scripture is this concept that there is an invisible church, a group of Christians, in various churches in various denominations, who as individuals have actual faith in Jesus Christ. This means that just going to church is not enough to save you. Everyone in the invisible church should be a part of the visible church. But just because you’re a part of the visible church, doesn’t mean you’re a part of the invisible church, the people with saving faith in Christ. And the ramifications of this doctrine lead to all kinds of questions about faith, and justification, and the church. It requires us to go to church AND engage in our faith instead of JUST checking the church box.

We see something of a picture of the difference between the visible church and the invisible church in our Gospel reading. The Pharisee is confident in his social standing, in his religious standing. In his time and place, he’s certainly seen as a part of the right way to do religion and he’s in the hierarchy. No one would question his words or his status. The tax collector was borderline not-an-Israelite in the eyes of most people. The Roman Empire’s tax collectors were made up of the conquered people’s own people. So here the tax collector is Jewish. And they could collect taxes for Rome but also took more to line their own pockets. Everybody knew this and they had a reputation for being traitors and thieves. So if the tax collector and the Pharisee each wrote and self-published their book of prayers on Amazon, which one would sell better? Probably the Pharisee’s. As a reminder, he prays: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”

There is nothing wrong with tithing. There is nothing wrong with fasting. There is nothing wrong with not being a tax collector, with being faithful in marriage, just, and unmanipulative. These are all great. These are all part of what the visible church should look like, especially leadership. But they are not enough on their own.

The apostle James is a complicated guy to throw into the mix of competing themes this week. It was also his feast day this week. The epistle we have from him is where we learn that faith without works is dead. The Pharisee would have certainly agreed and it’s absolutely true. But what we see in our Gospel reading is that works without faith is just as bad, or even worse. If we practice works without faith we try to earn our salvation. The visible church practices good works, but the invisible church practices good works because their lives have been changed through faith in Jesus. Their hearts are moved by the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. They know they are loved by God not because they do good things, but because they see Jesus’s love for them on the Cross and what it accomplished. They know that his death actually effected reality and made a way for them to enter into communion with God, to approach him without being destroyed. Receiving the love and acceptance of God because of what Jesus did changed their hearts and makes them into new creations who actually walk in love, and justice, and personal devotion to God.

The tax collector prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” The invisible church throw themselves on the mercy of God and point to Jesus’s accomplishments, while the visible church can sometimes point only to their own accomplishments and metrics. And our own accomplishments are not only not enough, they condemn us, when they happen apart from faith. When they happen because of faith, they glorify God. Someday the invisible church and the visible church will be the same thing. It is good to be a part of both. But what we learn from Jesus’s parable and from the good teaching of the Reformation is that we don’t want to find ourselves doing all the church stuff without faith in Jesus.

If you look at the last verse of the Gospel reading, it says:

Luke 18:14 ESV

14 I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

If we find that we’re not willing to ask God for help, we are not humble enough for justification. On top of this, the person who is humble enough to ask God for help actually sees the situation clearly. We were never meant to have our own self-sustaining righteousness. And being a part of a particular church is certainly not the source of our salvation. We were always meant for relationship with God as the way to salvation. When the church is functioning as it should, it nurtures that relationship. When it’s not, and the church focuses too much on righteous or self-righteous output, the invisible church suffers for the sake of the visible church. Compound this enough and a call for reform is what is needed.

When the visible church humbles itself, and acknowledges sin, and asks the Lord for the help that only comes from Jesus’s sacrificial love for us in his death and resurrection, it’s then that we find ourselves as members of not only the visible church, but the invisible church as well. It’s then that we find ourselves justified, saved for good works that please God, and brought into everlasting life in him.

So let us be quick to repent and turn to God and ask for his help and turn from boasting in our own righteousness. And find our souls refreshed in the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit forever displayed for us on the Cross of Christ.