Early Church struggle to realize universal community identity overcoming linguistic barriers

For Jesus and the apostles, Christianity was already universal: the reign of God being omnipresent, from “within,” and not dependent on external social or political structures (Lohfink, 2012, p. 50). Known as the entos hymon, the Lutheran translation of Luke 17:21 suggests that the Church is universal, timeless, and independent of geographic or temporal considerations. God embraces all under the rubric of the Church.

Practically speaking, though, Jesus understood that the disciples created the first real, tangible Christian community. That community blossomed rapidly, albeit not without problems, dissent, and conflict. Luke frames the formation of the Church more dramatically, as an “act of God,” (Boring, 2012, p. 1). Disciples are more than followers of Christ, they are enacting God’s will. The early church built itself upon solid theological foundations of universality, inclusivity, and omnipresence. The conflicts between the followers of Jesus and the Jews, on the one hand, coincided with the conflicts between the Hellenic and the Hebrew worlds, on the other. The Church is the spiritual response for resolving these conflicts. “This community lives by the divine call to justice and compassion and by the teaching and example of Jesus, at the same time realizing the Hellenistic ideal of friendship: true friends have all things in common,” (Boring, 2012, p. 2).

Earliest sermons were not as much about the life of Jesus but about the Christian principles of community and inclusivity (Boring, 2012). The Church was to embrace “every nation under heaven,” (Luke 2:5). As such, the Church was the solution to fragmentation, strife, and sectarianism. The Church is the answer to the social and political problems Jesus identified, for Jesus was interested primarily in societal transformation as a spiritual need: “Jesus was not just concerned with souls. He wanted a changed society,” (Lohfink, 2012, p. 52). The Pentecost represented the return of Jesus, which would offer second chances to those who had initially rejected him. Jesus also represented the fulfillment of Old Testament promises and prophecy related to a reversal of the chaos of Babel (Boring, 2012). Whereas Babel symbolizes the frustrating fragmentation of humanity, the Christian Church reunifies human beings via God’s grace.

The messages of both the entos hymon and the universality of the original Church has immediate and ongoing implications for contemporary parishes. The parish is a place of worship, but also an extension of the entire body of Christ on Earth. Each person is valuable within the community, and each Church is valuable to the whole of humanity. God reigns within in the constant outflowing of love through Christ, who is present in all parishes. The goal of missionary activity and the establishment of new churches is to do more than save souls, it is to save humanity as a whole. Although some churches recognize the universal and inclusive message of Christ, the cleavages in the Christian community sometimes belie the core message of God’s truth.

If Luke were writing Acts today, he would not change is main message much. Luke would continue to focus on the fundamental principle of the entos hymon, which clearly implies that God is everywhere at once, and for all time. Perhaps somewhat surprised at the trajectory taken by the Christian community, Luke might still note that all churches remain dedicated to the common goal of outreach to the whole world. Karl Rahner’s remarkable statement, regarding the different epochs of Christian or church history, rings true. Whereas the early church was a movement within the Jewish tradition in which it sprouted, the bulk of Christian history was spent in proliferation of Jesus’s message as it did link together disparate people from different geographic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. More recently, and in the future, the reach of the church is in fact the entire world.



References

Boring, M. E. (2012). An Introduction to the New Testament: History, Literature and Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Lohfink, G. (2012). Jesus of Nazareth. Transl. Linda M. Maloney.