“No one can say JESUS IS LORD, but by the Holy Spirit”
For centuries upon centuries, the Feasts of the Apostles were observed and celebrated even if they fell upon a Sunday, the only exceptions being in Advent, Lent, Holy Week, the Octave Week of Easter, and Whitsuntide (see BCP, p. 94) when such observances are transferred. The practice recognizes the centrality of the Apostolic Faith communicated to us through the life and witness of the Apostles. It is what we proclaim and profess in the Creeds. “I believe One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” as in the Nicene Creed at Mass, and “the Communion of Saints” in the Apostles’ Creed. In both Creeds, these statements follow upon “I believe in the Holy Ghost.”
Today is the Feast of St. Bartholomew which happens to fall upon the Tenth Sunday after Trinity this year. I often find such conjunctions intriguing, instructive, and illuminating through the interplay of readings which invite us to a deeper reflection upon our life in the Body of Christ. At the very least they recall us to the radical meaning of what we profess in the Communion of Saints. This counters the overly individualistic aspects of so-called ‘personal faith’ which often betrays itself by overlooking or downplaying what we profess together. It is worthwhile remembering that “I believe” in the Creeds is actually “we believe” in the original Greek.
The Feast of St. Bartholomew complements and illustrates both the Epistle and Gospel readings for Trinity Ten; the one in terms of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as the uniting principle of our faith in Jesus Christ, the other in terms of Jesus’ weeping over the city of Jerusalem, because of our “knowing not the things that belong to our peace,” our “not knowing the time of thy visitation,” and thus betraying the nature and purpose of prayer, famously making “the house of prayer, a den of thieves.” In other words, the betrayals through sin of what belongs to our corporate life in Christ.
But what about the readings for the Feast of St. Bartholomew itself? What do they teach and how are they connected to the readings for Trinity Ten? First, they remind us of the lists of the Apostles among which Bartholomew is named in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and as well here in the Acts 1. Just a list of names? Yes, in a way, but as collected together again in the Upper Room and here after the Ascension and just before Pentecost, they are a reminder to us of their presence with Christ in his Passion, and in the events of the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Sending Down of the Holy Spirit; essential creedal moments, we might say, that belong precisely to the idea of the Apostolic Faith which we profess and which enrolls us with them in that Faith. In the Revelation of St. John, though their specific names are not given, the foundation of the walls of the holy city, Jerusalem, have “on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb,” as they are styled. A significant reference to Christ in his passion and sacrifice for us.
Secondly, the Gospel shows us the essential conditions of that apostleship in terms of service and humility grounded in the covenant of God understood in relation to the twelve tribes of Israel which is recapitulated and re-configured in the twelve apostles. All the Apostolic Feasts recall this sense of apostolic fellowship through the life of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. “No one,” Paul literally shouts out at us in 1st Corinthians – it is in capital letters – “can say JESUS IS LORD, but by the Holy Spirit.” This is central to the Christian Faith. In this sense, what is most important about the Apostles is not really their individual stories but their being chosen by God, sent by God. An Apostle is one who is sent on a mission.
The biographical data about the Apostles is rather sketchy, to say the least. The whole emphasis is on their office as Apostles and what that means. There are, of course, no end of legends and traditions that have grown up about the lives of the Apostles beyond what we have in the New Testament writings. Some of those legends and traditions point to the spread of the Gospel and its essential teachings connected in some way or another to the Apostles themselves. They belong to what I like to call ‘holy imagination,’ which is a way of saying that they convey something sacred and holy.
There is the myth about the Apostles’ Creed that serves as an illustration of what I mean. It is the idea that the Apostles each contributed one of the twelve articles of belief. It is a lovely pious thought but without any empirical basis. It has caught the imaginations of artists especially in the creation of stained glass windows, the proverbial bible of the poor and illiterate; in some cases, connecting each Apostle with the Prophets. But the attribution of each part of the Apostles’ Creed to each Apostle varies. There is, it seems, no consistent pattern. I am struck by a 13th century window which attributes to Bartholomew the eighth article: “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” Credo in Spiritum Sanctum.
We know absolutely nothing about Bartholomew in the New Testament apart from his name on the lists but Bartholomew is a family name and thus he may have had a personal name. His being paired with Philip in the Gospel lists gave rise to a 9th century tradition that associates Bartholomew with Nathaniel in John’s Gospel, the Gospel read in our Canadian Prayer Book on The Sunday Next Before Advent. It is about Philip finding Nathaniel and telling him that “we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.”
What immediately follows is Nathaniel’s question to Philip: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” This belongs to the recurring theme of the humble background and origins of the humanity of Jesus that illustrates the divine condescension. Philip answers Nathaniel, “Come and see,” repeating exactly what Jesus said to the two disciples of John. Jesus sees Nathaniel coming to him and says, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” A wonderful phrase. The reference to him as an Israelite refers to the story of Jacob who after wrestling with God is renamed Israel. It means one who strives or wrestles with God. Jacob’s being renamed signals an important transformation in his character; he had tricked his brother Esau out of his inheritance as the first-born son. In wrestling with God he changes from a person of deceit and cunning to someone who is steadfast and constant in his faith. That doesn’t mean being without questions but one whose questions seek to know; holy questions we might say. The dialogue with Jesus and Nathaniel reveals exactly that idea.
“How do you know me?” Nathaniel asks Jesus who replies “before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathaniel senses something divine at work in this ambiguous phrase and cries out with wonderful words of faith, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus says to him, “because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these,” namely, “you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” In this short sequence of dialogue, essential aspects of the Christian Faith are established for us; in part through Bartholomew as Nathaniel and in ways that complement and inform the Creeds as the teaching which comes out of the scriptures and returns us to the scriptures in a pattern of holy understanding. They are recalled for us in the lessons for the First Evensong of the Feast of St. Bartholomew.
For while there is a development of essential doctrine it is not open-ended. The essential teachings of the Creeds and the Chalcedonian Definition about the natures and person of Christ are not adds-on but explications of what is revealed in the scriptures. This is one of the great insights of the classical Anglican divines. Scripture and Creed are the one rule of faith; what is dilated or spread out in the scriptures is distilled, compressed or abridged in the Creeds, as John Bramhall puts it, noting as well that what was once an essential is always an essential and what was not an essential of faith can never be an essential of faith. Following Hooker and others he notes that there is an important distinction between explication, on the one hand, and additions or subtractions, on the other hand. This does not preclude subsequent development of theological reflection but emphatically denies any further additions to the essentials of the Christian Faith whether in the 16th century or the 21st.
With Bartholomew/Nathaniel we are recalled to the guiding work of the Holy Spirit without whom “no one can say Jesus is Lord.” This deepens our love and understanding of the Apostolic Faith in God as Trinity. All that can be said about Bartholomew is summed up in the Collect in recognizing God’s gift of grace to him “truly to believe and to preach thy Word” and in the light of that apostolic teaching to pray for the Church “to love that Word which he believed, and both to preach and receive the same.”
“No one can say JESUS IS LORD, but by the Holy Spirit”
Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. Bartholomew/ Trinity 10, 2025