Synodality: Some Scriptural Perspectives on Communio, Peripheries and the Sensus Fidei

Abstract

Synodality:Some Scriptural Perspectives on Communio, Peripheries and the Sensus Fidei Jessie Rogers (bio) Keywords synodality, sensus fidei, Synod on Synodality, Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church, Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis, International Theological Commission, Austen Ivereigh, Evangelii Gaudium, Pieter de Villiers, Willie James Jennings, Yves Congar Synodality is so much more than the current pope's pet project or a passing fad. 'It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the church of the third millennium.'1 The challenge of synodality – to walk together as the whole people of God – is consonant with fundamental convictions that find expression in the New Testament. Scripture, therefore, offers a rich resource for helping us to imagine the life and mission of the church in a synodal key. And that which we can imagine, with the Spirit's help, we can become. In this article I look at an image from St Paul and a story from the Acts of the Apostles, asking what light they shed on our own synodal journey. I Paul, writing to the believers in Corinth, reminds them that they together are part of the one body of Christ: 'For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor 12:12–13 NRSV).2 There is an essential unity among all the baptised brought about by the Spirit. But this unity is not uniformity. Paul playfully invites his hearers to imagine a body that lacks diversity: a whole body that is just an eye or only a nose (1 Cor 12:17). That is not going to work! He also asks them to consider how each part is essential to the whole. When each part is not playing its role, either because it does not recognise its own value (1 Cor 12:15–16) or because other parts of the body are dismissive of it (1 Cor 12:21), the body is not functioning as God intended. This is an ecclesiology of communion, the participation of all the baptised in the life and ministry of the church. And it is not only participation; the very identity of the church as the body of Christ [End Page 13] consists in the communion of the members who, by the Spirit, are included in Christ and therefore connected to God and to one another. Paul's vision is not only local. In his opening greeting, the apostle reminded the Corinthians of the larger body of which they form a part. In their own calling they are 'together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours' (1 Cor 1:2). The body of Christ, which has a distinct local expression, is also a universal reality. This scriptural image highlights the diversity of gifts given to the body. There are a variety of gifts and callings, a diversity of activities and service, but they are given by the same Spirit, in service of the same Lord, activated by the one God, and to be exercised for the common good (1 Cor 12:4–7). This diversity is important. I sometimes hear understandings of synodality expressed that chafe against the distinctive role of the episcopacy. If the Synod on Synodality ends up with bishops discussing synodality in Rome, it is suggested, then how can it be about the whole people of God walking together? St Paul, writing at a time when the church did not have the developed structure it has today, lists a number of different charisms and callings (1 Cor 12:28). To hear this text today is to accept that there are those who are called to lead and to teach. The problem should not lie with this differentiation; the issue is with how leadership in the church has been understood. The church is not a monarchy presided over by a pope. It is not...