Church of the Holy City

A Kingdom of Priests

A Kingdom of Priests
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
January 24, 2010

Exodus 19:1-8 Matthew 4:12-22 Psalm 84

Since today we will be holding our Annual General Meeting, I thought I would reflect on the nature of the church. I thought about what constitutes the church, what it means to be in a church, and the relationship between churches like this one and God.
I chose my Bible readings for this morning with this thought in mind. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the theme is the calling of people into a church. In the Old testament, God calls the Israelites into communion with Him through Moses. And in the New Testament, Jesus calls the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow Him. And without question, they drop their nets and follow Christ. Also the psalm I selected is based on the house of God. This means the temple in Jerusalem, which was on top of Mount Zion. Even in the psalm, the house of God is a metaphor for living according to God’s ways. The Psalmist writes, “Blessed are those who dwell in your house.” No one lived in the temple, so it is clear that by dwelling in God’s house is meant following the laws of God.
Our Old Testament passage gives us a good idea of exactly what it means to be truly a church member. God tells the Israelites, “If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then . . . you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5). God asks the Israelites to obey Him and to keep His covenant. Their covenant with God was the law that had been given them by Moses. So being called by God’s name means to obey God and to follow God’s law. This passage is striking because holiness isn’t seen in the priests or the prophets, or even Moses alone. Each individual will be holy if he or she obeys God and keeps God’s covenant. So God says “You will be a kingdom of priests.” Everyone will embody the holiness of the priest. The same idea is symbolized by dwelling in the house of God, as we heard in this morning’s psalm. Swedenborg writes,
The House of God in the universal sense is the Lord’s Kingdom; in a less universal sense, the church; and in a particular sense the person himself in whom is the Kingdom and the Church of the Lord (AC 2048).
So the House of God is the Lord’s Kingdom everywhere—in heaven and everywhere on earth where people call on God in their lives. In a more narrow sense, it is the Christian Church. And in an even more narrow sense, the House of God is every person who obeys God and keeps His covenant.
The same may be said of our New Testament passage. We heard about four of Christ’s apostles being called to follow Christ. Being a disciple of Christ is obviously not just those twelve that followed Jesus wherever He went. We are all called to follow Christ. We are all disciples of Christ if we embody the principals for which He stands and if we follow His teachings.
The church in its widest sense is wherever the Lord is. Swedenborg defines the church universal as follows,
The Divine of the Lord is what makes the church with a person, for nothing is called the Church but what is proper to the Lord; it is the good which is of love and charity, and it is the truth which is of faith, which make what is called the Church (AC 2966).
Wherever God is, there the church is. And the Lord is present wherever there is love and truth. This means that the church is everywhere. It is not just Christians; it includes Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Muslims, and people all over the world who have goodness in their hearts and truth in their minds. Swedenborg makes this point very clear.
Churches are not churches from being so called and from professing the Lord’s name, but from being in the good and truth of faith; it is the good and truth of faith itself which makes the church, nay, is the church, for in the good and truth of faith there is the Lord, and where the Lord is there is the church (AC 3379).
I think that this is a remarkably progressive statement when you consider Swedenborg’s background and the times in which Swedenborg wrote. He was the son of a Lutheran bishop. And he lived in Europe in a time when for all intents and purposes Europe was a Christian continent. Yet despite this, Swedenborg’s broad consciousness was opened to see that wherever goodness and truth were, there God was and is.
The primary distinguishing feature of every church is a life of love, or what Swedenborg calls charity. All the churches in the world would be united if only they held love and living a good life in the primary place. There are always going to be differences of opinion in matters of doctrine. But if only people put love for God and the neighbour and the good life that comes from it in the first place, there would be only one great church the world over. This is the hope and the vision Swedenborg holds out to the world.
If charity were in the first place . . . the church would have a different face, . . . They would then not make many churches by distinguishing according to opinions concerning truths of faith; but they would say that there was one church, in which are all who are in the good of life, not only those who are within the region where the church is, but also they who are outside it (AC 6269).
All the warring factions and dissention about religion would come to an end, if the world could but see that love is what matters most in religion, and the good life that derives from love. This is a radical teaching, and many Christian churches are dead set against this idea. They draw on John 3:16, 18 and emphasize it to the point of heresy. Those verses read,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. But whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
For many Christian sects, if a person doesn’t believe in Jesus, he or she will be damned. I interviewed with a Lutheran minister when I was seeking an internship for ministry. He had gone online and found a web page about Swedenborg. He printed it up and highlighted a line from our faith that said God is present to save all people, everywhere whose lives affirm the best they know. He pointed to that line and said, “I can’t accept that!” And up here in Edmonton, I had an unpleasant conversation with a friend who thought that all the billions of people practicing other religions were condemned because of John 3:16, 18. And, of course, she cited that passage in our conversation. I’m with Swedenborg. And the kind of God who would condemn those who do not worship Jesus is not the kind of God I believe in.
We have talked about the church in general as everywhere that God is. We next need to consider the church in particular. The church in particular is each person who has God in his or her heart. Each devout person is a church. And, in fact, the greater church couldn’t exist unless it were made up of the many people who have God in their hearts. We are called, each one of us, to be a church. This means that we are not a church according to where we go to worship, or according to which denomination we belong to. We are a church according to our relationship with God. Swedenborg writes, “The person who is in truths of faith from good, he is a church” (AC 5806). And Swedenborg goes on to make clear that the church as a group must be made up of individuals who all practice love and seek truth.
The spiritual person is a church in particular, and a number are a church in general; if a person in particular were not a church there would not be any church in general; it is the congregation in general which in common conversation is called the church, but each one in the congregation must be of this character in order for there to be any church (AC 4292).
The church as an organization, or religion as an institution has this idea as its purpose. The purpose of a church is to nurture love and truth in its members. It is also a place where people bring their love and express the truths they know. A church is truly alive when its members bring their faith to the worship service and the church community. And a church is truly alive when it fosters spiritual growth among its members. A church is not measured by the number of people who come to it. A church is not measured by the attendance of its members alone. A church is measured by the hearts and minds of its people. A church, be it few or many, is known by God’s presence in it. And God is present when each individual in the church, from the depths of his or her heart, responds to God’s call, and says, “Lord, I will follow you.” A church is a kingdom of priests when its members enter into a heartfelt covenant with God, and agree to obey God and keep the commandments of His Word.