The Acts of the Apostles provides us with what might be called a “narrative ecclesiology” (Joseph Ratzinger, Called To Communion, 41).That is to say, to the question, “What is the Church all about anyway?”, St. Luke offers the response, “Well, let me tell you the story of the first disciples of Jesus”, and we come to understand, through the telling of this story, the nature of the Church.
Today’s reading from Acts (18:9-18) opens up for us, then, another aspect of ‘what the Church is all about.’After many days of following St. Paul and his companions from one town to the next, from one encounter to another, today we see him ‘settling down’ in Corinth for a year and a half (v. 11).What does this tell us about the Church?Well, for one thing, it indicates very concretely that simply proclaiming the Word of God is not enough.Somehow, it tells us that there is a need to be ‘built-up’ in that Word, which is just the nature of discipleship.
Or another way at this point, it is one thing to encounter the Word, be gripped by it, and even respond to it by accepting baptism;it is another to be actually ‘fashioned’ to the Body of Christ.
Now this is of such incredible significance that we need to reflect carefully on it.Remember way back, early in St. Luke’s telling of this story, he shared the essential characteristics of the early Christian community.“They devoted themselves,” we were told, “to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” (2: 42).Now this reveals two essential ‘aspects’ to the life of the Church.The first has to do with the Word.The second, with the Eucharist.
The Word of God is directed toward the communal life.Now this can be appreciated only if the deepest sense is given to both the ‘Word of God’ and the ‘communal life.’The deepest sense of the Word of God is nothing less the Jesus Christ himself, the Word made flesh.It is by this Living Word, by Jesus Christ that “you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.” (Eph. 2: 19-20).The direction of the Word, then, is toward the building up of the one Body of Christ.The ‘communal life’, in its deepest sense, is nothing short of union in the very life of Jesus.
Now to the second aspect of that early Church community, that of the Eucharist.They devoted themselves, Luke tells us, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.Now the Eucharist is not the only prayer offered, but it is where all the prayers of the community find their summit.What happens in the ‘breaking of the bread’ of course is the ‘re-presentation’, the made effectively living, the very life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.In the ‘breaking of the bread’ is encountered the very person of Christ given over as gift for our lives.The prayers, then, and in particular the Eucharist, is directed at the making sacramentally present the Body of Christ.
Now please follow me on this.One can imagine St. Paul preaching the Word, gaining converts to the faith and teaching and empowering leaders among them, to celebrate the Eucharist—all in rather short order.That this is true is witnessed in our own lives as Christians today.The Eucharist, directed at the making of the Body of Christ sacramentally present to us, only occupies an hour on Sunday of most Christians’ lives.
The making of Christians themselves, by adhesion to the Word of God—which is Jesus Christ—takes a significantly greater amount of time.In fact, it takes a life time.This is witnessed easily by turning to St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.After his year and a half in their midst, they still encountered incredible obstacles on the way to conforming their lives as the one, unique Body of Christ.
And so, St. Paul stops, he takes time to do the hard work of preaching, teaching and discipleing the new Christians at Corinth.This he does, and here is the point I am really after, because the Body of Christ made sacramentally present in the Eucharist is directed essentially to making us the Body of Christ active in the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the praise and glory of the Father.And this takes time:time to be formed in thought and action by the Word of God, present in Scripture and the teaching of the Apostles.
And that is what the story of Acts tells us the Church is all about.