THE CHURCH: WHOSE HOUSE?

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In the last several weeks the monks have been listening to a book being read at table during

supper, called City of Dreams: the 400 Year Epic History of Immigrant New York, by Tyler Anbinder. Besides recounting uplifting stories of people’s courage, determination and resiliency, it also tells the sad story of how each new immigrant group became the target of discrimination, distrust and hatred by the preceding group of immigrants who had been subjected to the same discrimination, distrust and hatred by immigrants who had preceded them. Whether you call it tribalism, herd instinct, or whatever, it is ugly, and runs counter to our highest traits and nobles aspirations as human beings.

I had this in mind as I read the first reading of today’s mass (the feast of the apostles Simon and Jude), a beautiful passage from Ephesians that follows Paul’s insistence that the church now includes not only Jews but also gentiles, so that all of us make up one single unified church.

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22).

In these four verses, some form of the Greek root-word for house (oikos) appears six times, underlining the writer’s point that Jews and gentiles have now been fitted together into the one household of God, the Church. And Christ is the capstone of the whole structure.

If you’re interested, here’s the passage with those six greek words in parentheses:

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens (paroikoi), but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household (oikeioi), 20 having been built (epoikodomethentes) on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building (oikodome), being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together (sunoikodomeisthe) into a dwelling (katoikterion) of God in the Spirit.  

Think the writer is trying to make a point? Anyway, my favorite of these six words is oikeos, “household,” which conveys the idea of a group of people living together, including family and servants. To me it implies a sense of belonging, of a safe place where you have an identity, and are surrounded by people who care about you and value you. St. Paul speaks of the church as “the household of God,” made up of Jews and gentiles, saints and sinners, rich and poor, and people of various races, nations and languages. And this sounds like a worthy ideal for the Christian church to aspire to.

Yet, just as with immigrant New York, tribalism and xenophobia have always worked their way into the church, beginning in the time of Acts, when the Christians wondered what to do about the non-Jews who wanted to join their community.  

It seems to me that the latest version of this kind of exclusionary stance can be seen in the

passionate reaction by some Christians against Pope Francis’s questioning why we must exclude certain people from the Lord’s table, and publicly suggesting that we need to look at ways of welcoming more and more of God’s children to the household of God. There are people who believe that this attitude of the Pope's makes him the Antichrist because it threatens to dilute the purity and the holiness of the household of God.

In this passage from Ephesians, there’s mention of the foundation of the house (the apostles and prophets), and the cornerstone or keystone (Jesus), but nothing about walls. Hmmm.