I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard say during my time as a pastor, “We’re Presbyterian, not Catholic. Why in the Apostles’ Creed do we say that we’re part of the Catholic Church.” Most often I have heard this from people who grew up in the Catholic Church and want nothing to do with it any longer. Well, let me assuage your concern. The word catholic in this instance does not refer to a particular church, but comes from the Greek word katholikos which means universal.

So when we say the line: I believe in the holy catholic church, what we are really saying is that we believe in the holy universal church. In a sense, this is a very unifying statement. It’s acknowledging that there’s a lot of different types of Christianity in the world, but that, in spite of our differences, we are one large universal church that is ultimately linked together. The question I want to explore this morning is how the church universal is linked together and what that means for you, the person sitting in the pew.

We read this morning from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. This is a famous passage where Paul talks about the body of Christ. He’s using the analogy that there are different parts of the body, but all the parts play a role and are useful to helping the body properly function. In this way, we can think of every different type of church denomination as making up the body of the church universal. To give you a sense of how many different churches we are talking about, there are more than 9,000 different denominations worldwide.

Just so we’re clear, there are 9,000 different types of churches. The question you should be asking yourself is: Where did all of these churches come from? Well, all of these churches started because somebody said, “I don’t like the way they’re doing this thing in my church, so I’m going to start my own church.” Now that thing they didn’t like could literally be anything.

Some churches split apart because they differ in how the music should be sung. For example, the Church of Christ, they were formed because they didn’t believe instruments should be used in worship. Their reasoning is they want to worship the way early Christians worshipped, which was without musical instruments. As a result, they sing everything acapella.

The Quakers formed because they believed that each individual can experience inner light, or the voice of God, without needing a priest, or the Bible. If you’ve ever been to a Quaker Meeting house, they sit in a circle in total silence. Whenever someone feels moved, they stand up and speak the voice of God inside of them. It can be really strange because sometimes you can sit through a whole service a nobody says anything and sometimes people will talk about the most random stuff you’ve ever heard.

Pentecostals formed because they believed that a true Christian should be baptized in the spirit. They believe speaking in tongues is evidence of one’s salvation. Our denomination formed because we wanted to ordain women as pastors. We are called the Presbyterian Church (USA), while the more conservative branch of the Presbyterian Church is PC(A). Our denomination split again about 7 years ago after we voted to ordain and marry the LGBTQ community.

The point being, Christians are really good at coming up with reasons why our churches are different and better than another denomination. We all think we have the right way of interpreting the Bible and worshipping God. However, what Paul’s commentary on the body of Christ is getting at is that, as much as we disagree and, as much as we all think we’re right, we are all part of this much larger church body and all of them are important.

Now, if you’ve been here for any length of time, then you know I can be critical of other denominations. Therefore, as you might expect, this is a hard pill for me to swallow that every church is important. One of the reasons why I struggle with this idea is because I see how harmful some of these denominations can be. I’ve watched people who are gay be told by pastors and members that God didn’t make them that way and to be sexually attracted to a person of the same sex is sinful. I know people who have been sent to gay conversion camps by their churches and how much it messed them up mentally.

I know people who were severely mentally ill, who needed serious help from medical professionals, but their church told them that the solution was simply having more faith and God would remove the demon or evil spirit inside of them. I’ve known women who were being abused by men and the church didn’t believe them. The leaders in the church told them to keep quiet and not say anything because God says men are the head of the household.

In fact, I want to play a clip for you from one such person. This is Jennifer Tillman. She grew up being part of the Jehovah’s Witness denomination, which is very patriarchal. In the clip you’re about to hear, Jennifer is remembering being brought before the elders of the church because she had accused her stepfather of abusing her. I want you to listen to what happened when she came before these church elders. [Audio Clip]

I know Jews and Muslims who have been violently targeted by Christians. Their mosques and synagogues were attacked for no other reason than they had been taught by their church that all Muslims are terrorists and all Jews are trying to destroy the world. In fact, this even happens in denominations like ours. I once had the opportunity to interview Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, the famous scholar of New Testament studies who is a practicing Jew herself. I asked Dr. Levine if she had ever experienced anti-Semitism and she told me this story. [Audio Clip]

Have I made my point why I tend to be critical of other Christians? And some people have said to me in the past, “Alex, you’re a pastor. It’s not right for you to criticize other Christians. You’re turning on your own people?” That’s when I ask, “Well, then who’s job is it? If we aren’t willing to police ourselves, then who’s going do it?” Being self-critical is one of the most important things we can do to make the church better for everyone.

This is why I struggle with the idea that all churches play an important role in the body of Christ. When I see such blatant harm, it’s hard for me not to look at them as a toxic or sick part of the body of Christ that should be cut off. But when I turn that same criticism back on myself, I very quickly realize that I too am contributing to the problem.

This sermon series is a good example of that. For me, I love talking about these ideas about how the Apostles’ Creed can mean different things to different people. But what I also know to be true is that by preaching a sermon series like this, it can really shake the foundation of people’s faiths in negative ways. Rather than enhancing their faith by expanding their perspective and giving them a new way to think about things, it causes a lot of internal angst and makes them question their faith.

I’ve had people come to me over the years and tell me that my sermons actually crushed their belief in Jesus. They had known Christianity to be one thing their entire life and now all of my ideas had made them unsure of what they believe, so they walked away from the church all together. So, as much as I criticize these other churches for causing harm, I am not exempt from that same criticism.

Therefore, what I realize is that each of us in these different denominations are doing our best to honor what we believe is the best way to follow God and Jesus. And these other churches, as much as I disagree with what they do, they clearly provide something that I do not. The people who attend those churches are there because that community means something to them. Indeed, those communities are very important, because for many people, it’s the only true community they have.

Therefore, when I say the line from the Apostles’ Creed that I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, I always think about the fact that what connects us together is that we are all flawed. We are all trying to live our best lives for Jesus and we all believe that our communities are providing something that people can’t get anywhere else. This is what makes us part of the body of Christ.

This is why when I read from Paul: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it,” it makes me want to fight hard so that those people who are suffering in those churches know that our church exists and there is an alternative, which is exactly what Jesus does on Palm Sunday, and, of course, is what we are here to celebrate today.

Every Palm Sunday, I walk you through the reasons why Jesus entered the Temple courtyard and overturned the tables of the money changers and sellers of the sacrifices. The Temple was run by priests who had to be loyal to the Roman government. Not only that, but when Jews went to the Temple to worship, they had to sacrifice an animal to receive forgiveness. The cost of those animals was so outrageously high, that most Jews had to go into debt just to do something that should have been a fundamental right of being Jewish.

Therefore, the Temple was seen as a corrupt institution by most Jews because it didn’t matter what your version of Judaism was, every Jew had to go to the Temple to worship God. This means that when Jesus entered into the Temple and started throwing tables and disrupting the business taking place in the Temple, he was not just doing that for himself. He was doing that for all the Jewish people. He wanted all of them to be free to worship without having to face financial ruin.

This is why they lay the palm branches down in front of Jesus when he enters into the city. The palms were a symbol of war. The last time palm branches were laid at the feet of a horse entering the city was when the Jews conquered Jerusalem and took back the Temple during the Maccabean revolution 250 years earlier. Jesus was going to reclaim the Temple in the name of all the Jews who were suffering.

Indeed, this is what we are called to do as Christians with the church universal. God calls us to reclaim Christianity for all those who are suffering. Our job is to help heal those in the church universal who have been discriminated against by other churches. We are here to embrace them and let them know they are loved unconditionally no matter who they are.

So how I want to end my sermon today is actually quite simple: There are lots of different churches for lots of different types of Christians. Our church is for those who need a God of unconditional love. Our church is for those who feel rejected by those other churches, who don’t fit in because they are different and operate outside the norm.

Therefore, if you know someone who is suffering in another denomination of Christianity; if you know someone who has been rejected by their church because they don’t fit a certain mold, let them know they are welcome here because as a member of the church universal, we are going to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and reclaim Christianity for those who are suffering. Amen.