The third part of the creed falls under the header of having faith in holy spirit. Just like the Father is said to be the Creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus the Messiah of Israel, so the Holy Spirit is characterized by what follows: a dedicated and universal assembly. I have not translated ‘the holy Catholic Church,’ because in the time of these Jewish apostles, terms like ‘Christianity’ or ‘Catholic’ had not yet acquired the meaning that they have today.

The people's assembly

In fact, even the word ‘church’ has a fascinating background. It started as the people’s assembly of Athens. Six thousand free male citizens formed the ekklesia that voted on the laws and policies of the illustrious democracy of Athens. When the Greek translation was made of the Hebrew Bible in Alexandria, the translators chose to use this word whenever the congregation of the children of Israel was assembled. It stressed how the people voluntarily entered into a covenant with God, accepting the laws inscribed on two stone tablets given through Moses as their laws, and Gods presence (in the cloud that went with them by day) as leading their way out of Egypt and into the promised land. The holy One would be their God and they would be his Holy People, not in the sense that no one would make mistakes, but that collectively they would be dedicated to uphold the covenant of a righteous and merciful society.

Marc Chagall, 1966, Moses Beholds All the Work, from: The Story of Exodus, with Moses holding the tables of the Law and the cloud of God’s presence leading the assembly of Israel by day (a pillar of fire led them by night).

In the New Testament the ekklesia is the group of people who answered the call of Jesus to form a new community. Jesus was their ekklesiastes: the one who addressed them in their assembly. The innovation, by bishop Ignatius of Antioch in the year 107 CE, was to call the ekklesia ‘catholic,’ meaning ‘throughout the whole’ of the earth or humanity. Wherever the (spirit of) Jesus speaks, his people gather around him, and wherever two or three gather in his name, he is ‘with them,’ with his spirit (Matthew 18:20). As ekklesia was once used for all the children of Israel together, it is now used for all people in every place that simply come together to be inspired by him.

A community of the spirit, not ethnicity, status or gender

But the concept of being open to all kinds of people from every place on earth and not only to Jewish people was perhaps the biggest revolution that the spirit brought about. Some people think that the New Testament is about Jesus, and of course they are not wrong. But from Acts 9 onward, the big story in the New Testament is the way that the spirit drives the apostles to the nations, beyond the boundaries of Judaism, to bring people into community with each other and with God. That revolution broke through religious boundaries that they friends and family of Jesus had grown up with. Boundaries in the law that were meant to ensure that the children of Israel would remain dedicated to their covenant with God. Boundaries, also, that separated them from other nations. Just how painful that could be is shown in the letter of Paul to the Galatians. ‘Men from James,’ the brother of Jesus who led the authoritative church of Jerusalem, urged the Jewish members of the Galatian assemblies to maintain faithful to the Jewish laws, which implied here that they only ate kosher foods produced by fellow Jews. The practical result was that the dinner tables in church had to be divided between Jews and non-Jews. Paul is furious: if you truly want to form a community together with non-Jews you have to let go of the rules when they cause separation. You can’t make true communion dependent on the other accepting your rules. And he shows how truly universal this community becomes, even more so than in democratic Athens: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

‘But is the law not God’s law?’ people ask. And then Paul comes to a creative and deep theological insight: the law received by Moses as mediator, was a law given by ‘angels,’ divine messengers yes, but not the highest God. In other words: the sacred text as a whole is not the direct word of God, but an indirectly inspired work. The highest God is the voice he hears in the words spoken to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” But there are plenty examples in the Hebrew Bible where Paul sees how ‘angels’ are responsible to give Israel and other nations their particular laws. Those laws are useful in the context of training us, but they have no eternal value. They are bound to their cultural and temporal context.

That insight drove Paul when writing his lengthy letters (by the standards of his time) to the Galatians, the Corinthians (twice) and the Romans. It also caused him to be arrested and imprisoned. Fellow Jews, some of them followers of Jesus like him, accused him of breaking their ancestral laws and thereby causing riots between Jews and Gentiles all across the Mediterranean. In this context, the letters to the Philippians, to Philemon, to the Ephesians, and to the Colossians can be read. Paul accuses them of worshipping ‘angels’ or ‘cosmic elements’ (Galatians 4 and Colossians 2), -the Graeco-Roman gods were likened to planets like Jupiter, Apollo and Venus. Their religious laws restrict the people they lead in setting special festivals and sabbaths to observe and telling them what may be touched or eaten.

They are the ‘heavenly rulers’ in Ephesians 3:10, the religious authorities who now have to witness how the ekklesia of Jesus breaks their social boundaries. No rule is valid that creates division among God’s children. He is Father (pater) of all, his family (patria) is universal: Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women. Our families are just subsets of a larger whole.

The cross bridges the divide between Jews and gentiles

The key event that convinced Paul that he could no longer rely on the Law of Moses, was the crucifixion. He knew from the Law that a crucified man was cursed and could, therefore, never be God’s Messiah. For that reason, he first persecuted his friends who (still) followed Jesus after the crucifixion. But when he himself had a spiritual experience, in which he had a vision of Jesus in heaven, he knew that God had showed him wrong. The one who was crucified and cursed under the law was blessed and resurrected by God (Galatians 3:13-14):

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—  in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might [also] come to the Gentiles, so that we [all] might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

It is through the crucifixion that Paul understood that the Laws that separated him from others were less important than the blessing of God to all nations. If we follow Jesus, Gentiles do not have to become Jews to be part of God’s dedicated assembly (and note that Christianity was not yet seen as another religion). To understand the crucifixion not as a defeat at the hands of the Jewish high priest and the Roman governor, but as an act of self-giving love by Jesus that is blessed by God, is to make Jesus the model of bringing Jews and Gentiles together in one body, free from dividing religious laws, seeing more of God’s love than ever before on our own (Ephesians 3:16-19):

I pray that out of his glorious riches [the Father] may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge

As such the ekklesia itself becomes a powerful testimony that change is possible: that love can bring together a community where God is glorified over and above the boundaries of religious traditions that separate us.

*      *

Marc Chagall, Exodus, 1952-1996. After the Nazis had killed six million of his fellow Jews in World War II, Chagall shockingly paints their exodus with the crucified Jesus as the pillar of light leading the people through the night, choosing the common motif of the suffering servant.

Suggestions for dialogue

A moderator can explain the dialogue steps and invite people to contribute:

• Check in with yourself. Share with each other how you are in this moment. Then take a moment again to seek stillness, humility and openness. 
• First round: Share something from the text or image(s) that stood out to you and that you would like to explore with the group, briefly indicating the thoughts and feelings that it evoked within you. Listen to the others do the same: what resonates with you? Responses in this round should be limited to questions for clarification.
• Second round: Name one or two things that resonated with you from the things that others just shared. 
• Third round: Having heard the group, the moderator names the main topics for exploration. The moderator may also propose a common thread that emerged in several topics. The exploration normally starts with asking the person(s) who brought up the topic to expand on it.
• Leave room for silence and contemplation. 
• Check out by sharing what you take home from this dialogue.

These suggestions are an adaptation of the Estuary protocol. Look for more at https://www.estuaryhub.com