Sermon: 17 Pentecost (23 September 2007)

17 Pentecost: 23 September 2007
(Acts 10:34-43/Te Deum laudamus/Colossians 3:1-4/Luke 24:1-10)
On the third day he rose again.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It’s a classic scene in the film Shrek. Shrek, the ogre, and his companion, a talking donkey named Donkey, are walking through a field on their way toward a great and life-changing adventure. For the first time the surly and defensive ogre begins to open up a little, to reveal his emotionally fragile and wounded “inner ogre.” Of course, doing that to a talking donkey has its risks.

Shrek: Ogres are like onions.

Donkey: They stink?

Shrek: Yes. No.

Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.

Shrek: No.

Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs.

Shrek: NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

Well, the resurrection is like onions; it has layers, too – layers of meaning. Or maybe a better image would be the nested, Russian Matryoshka dolls. The largest, outer doll is beautiful in itself, but, twist it open and inside is another beautiful doll. And inside that, yet another. And so on until you arrive at the inmost treasure, an exquisite, tiny figure and perfect reward for your effort.

On the third day he rose again. That’s all the Creed says about the resurrection: it happened, and it happened on the third day. The Creed assumes that we have been taught by the Church to unpack the layers of meaning of this bare statement, that the tradition has been faithfully passed on to us and that we have faithfully received it, and that we will pass it on to our children – our children in the faith or in the body, or, if we are so blessed, in both.

The meanings of the resurrection are preserved in the tradition of the Church: in liturgical worship, in the sacraments, in the Scripture, in life in community and in the world. When we give voice to the liturgy – Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. – we witness to a particular meaning of the resurrection. When we attend to the Holy Gospel, we hear and proclaim still other meanings. When, during the Eucharist, we acknowledge the great mystery of our faith – Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. – and feed on the most precious body and blood of God’s Son, our Savior, we reveal yet another layer of meaning in the resurrection. Layer upon layer, truth upon truth, mystery upon mystery, it unfolds before us.

It is this way in Scripture, too. The New Testament authors – and ultimately the Holy Spirit who inspired them – present multiple layers of meaning in the resurrection. Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Apocalypse: these nested dolls of Scripture show a development in the church’s understanding and appropriation of the resurrection. The earliest, inmost, layer is found in Acts, in Peter’s great Pentecost Sermon. A few year later, Paul explores and develops the meaning of the resurrection in his letters to various congregations scattered throughout the Mediterranean – congregations attempting to live the resurrection in their place and time. Later still, John, the last of the Apostolic witnesses of the resurrection presents the fruit of his deep reflection in his Gospel and in the Apocalypse – a meaning so grand and sweeping that it takes us from the Garden to Heaven and back again. On the third day he rose again.

It is Pentecost; only fifty days have lapsed since Passover, since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On this morning God, the Holy Spirit, has come like a mighty, rushing wind, like flames of fire, to bring new life to those few witnesses of the resurrection. Driven into the streets, Peter preaches to the gathered multitudes.

“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know – this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.

“This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:22-24, 32-36, NRSV).

What meaning has the resurrection for Peter? The resurrection is the declaration of the Lordship of Jesus Christ: that is Peter’s sermon and the Gospel in a nutshell – Jesus is Lord! The resurrection vindicates Jesus before the powers that opposed him; it declares him to be right before God and all of them to be wrong. The resurrection exalts Jesus in his triumph over the powers that opposed him: Pilate, who boasted he had the power of life and death is shown to be an impotent coward; Satan, who thought he had the power of sin and death is trampled underfoot and soon will be cast into the lake of fire prepared for him and for his angels. The resurrection makes possible the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise – I will ask the Father and he will send a comforter. – his promise never to abandon or forsake us, but to be present with us and to empower us through life in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is Lord: vindicated, exalted, and present. This is what the resurrection means to Peter on this first Pentecost. It is the inmost layer, the most fundamental meaning of the resurrection: Christus Victor – Christ the Victor, Christ the Triumphant. Because of the resurrection all the world may “know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus” who was crucified and who rose again.

Some twenty years later Paul writes to a troubled church in Corinth: split by sectarian loyalties, polluted with sexual immorality, enmeshed in pagan cultural practices. He writes to remind them.

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Cor 15:1-8, NRSV).

What is of first importance for this church or any church? Christ died, Christ was buried, Christ was raised on the third day: this is the tradition that Paul received and the tradition that he passes on. Some in Corinth were denying the resurrection of Christ – denying, in fact, the general resurrection of the dead. Paul confronts them with eye witness testimony to the resurrected Christ – confronts them with credible witnesses like Peter (Cephas) and the other apostles, James the brother of the Lord, five hundred disciples, and even Paul, himself.

What meaning has the resurrection for Paul and for his Corinthian brothers and sisters? He spells it all out for them clearly.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have died in Christ have perished. If for life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But, in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power (1 Cor 15:17-24, NRSV).

The resurrection of Christ is the substance of faith, the evidence of forgiveness, and the hope of eternal life. Yes, Paul agrees with Peter: Jesus is the Lord who will destroy every rival ruler, authority, and power. But Paul deepens the meaning of the resurrection and makes it intensely personal. We will die, every one of us. Death entered the world through Adam and has brought all humanity under its dominion. Until Jesus. For the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ shows that death is a defeated enemy who has lost its sting. Jesus’ death brings us forgiveness, but his resurrection brings us life. And not just more of the same life. No. Eternal life, the life of the ages: imperishable, glorious, powerful, immortal. Death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Cor 15:54, NRSV). What is the meaning of the resurrection? Jesus is Lord – Lord of life: author of faith, fount of forgiveness, and hope of eternal life.

By now, late in the first century, Peter is dead. Paul, too. Only John remains as eyewitness of the resurrection. Through many years – six decades or so – he has pondered that mystery and has peeled away its layers of meaning one by one. Before he falls asleep in the Lord he tells the story once again for all future generations – for us and for our children and for all who are far off, so that we, too, better may grasp its meaning. John the Apostle, John the Theologian, John the Seer, John the poet writes.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb (John 21:1, NRSV).

Some time later the same day – a few hours, perhaps, on that same first day of the week – Mary stands alone, weeping at the empty tomb, not comprehending its message. She hears or senses someone behind her, and turning, she encounters a stranger who says, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thinks the stranger must be the gardener, the caretaker of this garden cemetery. She learns better as the gardener speaks her name, “Mary,” in a voice so familiar that she recognizes it immediately. Rabbouni! Teacher. Jesus. And in this simple, touching story, John unveils a new layer of the resurrection, one so sweeping and profound that it encompasses all of creation. The resurrection is the first day of the week, and on that first day we find ourselves in a garden. This is a creation story – more truly, a new creation story – God at work in a garden bringing forth new life. John consciously writes his gospel account as a parallel to Genesis: this is the meaning that he wants to reveal to us, that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is once again busy creating – recreating – the world; that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is once again busy bringing forth life; that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is once again busy among his people to bless.

The first Christians, though thoroughly Jewish, nevertheless left behind the Sabbath as their day of worship; they replaced it with Sunday, the first day of the week, which they called the Lord’s Day. For 1200 years they had followed the commandment to remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy. Why forsake it? Because the resurrection inaugurates new creation, a new creation in which the Law has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Because the resurrection inaugurates a new creation in which the Spirit of God is busy recreating, renewing – not resting. Because the resurrection inaugurates a new creation in which our promised rest lies in the future, in the hands of the one who said, “Mary,” on that first day of the week and who has spoken each of our names, as well. What is the meaning of the resurrection? Jesus is Lord – Lord of life: author of faith, fount of forgiveness, and hope of eternal life. And this Lord is busy renewing the face of earth, restoring all creation, making all things new.

It is Sunday on the island of Patmos near the end of the first century. John’s body is exiled on this barren spit of rock, but his spirit is not imprisoned there. No, it is with his churches. It is with his Lord. It is caught up in worship with the elders and the four living creatures, with angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, around the very throne of God. And there he sees things, things which he is permitted to write. There he sees the ultimate layer of meaning in the resurrection.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:1-4, NRSV).

What is the ultimate meaning of the resurrection? Nothing less than the full reconciliation of the created order with the Creator. Nothing less than eternal life in the presence of God. Nothing less than the fulfillment of man’s created purpose to be the true and perfect image-bearers of God. Nothing less than the world put to rights. On the third day he rose again.

Peter had the first public word on the resurrection: Jesus is Lord. He has a fitting final word also, a word which encompasses layer upon layer of meaning.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice (1 Pe 1:3-6a, NRSV).

On the third day he rose again.

Amen.

Sermon: Holy Cross Sunday (16 September 2007)

Holy Cross Sunday: 16 September 2007
(Isaiah 45:21-25/Psalm 98/Philippians 2:5-11/John 12:31-36a)
The Elephant In The Creed


THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“’Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
John Godfrey Saxe

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. These words are the Elephant in the Creed. We all stand before them like the blind men of Indostan; each of us gropes about in the dark for some hint of this great mystery of the death of our Lord. Like the blind men of the poem, we may stumble on the truth or be guided to it, but it will always be partial truth at best. What is required then is a great deal of humility. Yes, we know something but no, we do not know everything. We need dialog with other blind Christian brothers and sisters – dialog that spans tradition, culture, geography, and generations. We need a composite understanding that accounts for those features of the Elephant that we have yet to touch ourselves.

The historic church, in its Scripture, worship, and traditions offers just such a composite understanding. Read Saint Paul for instance; scattered throughout his epistles are several different images or descriptions of the meaning and purpose of the death of Jesus Christ. Each of them answers some of our questions and each of them raises even more questions.

God is a righteous judge before whom we must all stand and give account for our sins. Justice demands that God – And do you see the problem that idea raises? Something, anything, making demands on God! – justice demands that God render a fair and impartial verdict: guilty, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And, since the penalty for sin is death – And do you see the problem here? Why must the penalty be death? If God decides the penalty could he not decide otherwise? –since the penalty is death, that verdict places all of humanity, all of God’s fallen image-bearers, on death row. Then Jesus intervenes. He willingly takes on himself all the sins of mankind and submits himself to God’s righteous judgment, dying in our place. Christ in his love and mercy satisfies the righteousness and justice of God. This juridical image – the law court image – is one of Paul’s descriptions and it is true, as far as it goes. The problem comes when we insist that this image is the full and sole truth regarding Christ’s death, when we believe that it completely explains everything and exhausts the depths of the mystery. The Elephant is a wall.

Paul also presents Christ’s death as a ransom paid to free us from bondage, again an apt and true analogy. Of course this raises questions: To whom was the ransom paid? Who held us in bondage? God, Satan, sin, our fallen nature? Again, this image is part of the answer and also part of the problem if we focus exclusively on it. The Elephant is a spear.

Under the Old Covenant the atonement for sins required blood sacrifice; where there was no blood, there was no forgiveness of sins. The New Testament presents Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, a spotless lamb offered upon the altar of the cross. This is powerful imagery that connects us to the story of God and his people – makes us part of the ancient story. But it is not without problems. How did the death of an animal purify its owner from sin? How does Christ’s death do the same for me? The Elephant is a snake.

And we could go on with biblical image after biblical image, all of them pointing to a feature of the truth and none of them completely revealing it. Theologians endlessly debate and argue and break fellowship over which image of the atonement is right

And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

I say all this so you will know that whatever we say here today, necessary as it may be, is also necessarily incomplete. I say all this so you will have some sense that in the atonement of Christ we are approaching the Holy of Holies of the great Mystery. Whatever else we do, we must take off our shoes – for we are on holy ground – take off our shoes and fall before our Lord Jesus Christ and worship him. We must take our place with the four living creatures, with the elders, and with many angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand as in heaven they sing their great hymns of praise to the Lamb.

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth” (Rev 5:9-10, NIV).

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise” (Rev 5:12, NIV).

Amen! Alleluia!

As usual, any unraveling of the mystery of our great salvation must begin in the Garden. What happened to us there? What were the results, the consequences, of our first parents’ sin? This question divides Christendom east and west, Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox. We just don’t agree – again because each of us has grasped a different part of the theological Elephant. Issues of free will, human nature and depravity, and inherited guilt separate us. But there is at least one point of overlap in all our theologies, one consequence of the fall on which we all agree: death.

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen 2:16-17, NIV).

And later, after man’s sin,

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen 3:17-19, NIV).

G. K. Chesterton once said that original sin is the only really provable Christian doctrine. The proof is simple: everyone dies. On this all Christians agree. Sin entered the world, and with sin came death. Since that day we have all been subject to death’s tyranny. It’s dominion is felt in every aspect of human existence and is exercised largely through the fear that death inspires. We fear that our lives will end all too soon and so we struggle to squeeze every pleasure out of every moment; we use everything and everyone as tools to satisfy our desperate longings – sex, money, and power are the drugs we think will numb our fear. They may do so temporarily, but, as with any drug, we become acclimated to them and need ever increasing doses. When the billionaire Donald Trump was asked how much money was enough he replied, “A little more.” That is fear of death.

Because of death we fear the meaninglessness of life. As he lay dying the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe moaned repeatedly, “Let me not seem to have lived in vain. Let me not seem to have lived in vain.” That haunting refrain is familiar and sings to us in the depths of the night when we awaken alone in the dark to the sound of our hearts pounding. If the good and the bad, the rich and the poor, the wise and the foolish, the righteous and the evil all die alike, then there is no meaning to life beyond what we assign it. So we seek meaning in career or family or even in sacrificial service, but all to no avail. We demand that others fill our lives with meaning and we place burdens on our relationships that they were never intended to bear. And when that fails as it certainly will, the fear comes calling. Fear of death lies at the root of much – some would argue all – of our sin. So, humanity is caught in a vicious cycle: sin introduced death, death causes fear, and fear tempts us to sin. Where death and fear abound, there our ancient foe, the devil, reigns, just as he did that moment in the Garden when the fruit was eaten and the curse pronounced.

But into the midst of the sin and death and fear comes Jesus Christ, God’s only son, our Lord. Into the heart of the human condition comes one conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. Why? To defeat our ancient foe, to destroy death, to free all whose lives were in bondage to sin.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death (Heb 2:10-11a, 14-15, NRSV).

How did his death do all this: defeat Satan and set us free from death and the fear of death? I don’t know, but the imagery in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus is among the most moving possible explanations I have ever heard.

It is Friday and Jesus hangs on the cross dead. Satan and Hell gloat over their victory.

Behold Satan the prince and chief of death said unto Hell: Make thyself ready to receive Jesus who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God, whereas he is a man that feareth death, and sayeth: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And he hath been much mine enemy, doing me great hurt, and many that I had made blind, lame, dumb, leprous, and possessed he hath healed with a word: and some whom I have brought unto thee dead, them hath he taken away from thee.
Hell answered and said unto Satan the prince: Who is he that is so mighty, if he be a man that feareth death? for all the mighty ones of the earth are held in subjection by my power, even they whom thou hast brought me subdued by thy power. If, then, thou art mighty, what manner of man is this Jesus who, though he fear death, resisteth thy power? If he be so mighty in his manhood, verily I say unto thee he is almighty in his god-head, and no man can withstand his power. And when he saith that he feareth death, he would ensnare thee, and woe shall be unto thee for everlasting ages.

And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.

Then did the King of glory in his majesty trample upon death, and laid hold on Satan the prince and delivered him unto the power of Hell, and drew Adam to him unto his own brightness.

And the Lord stretching forth his hand, said: Come unto me, all ye my saints which bear mine image and my likeness. Ye that by the tree and the devil and death were condemned, behold now the devil and death condemned by the tree. And forthwith all the saints were gathered in one under the hand of the Lord. And the Lord holding the right hand of Adam, said unto him: Peace be unto thee with all thy children that are my righteous ones.

And the Lord stretched forth his hand and made the sign of the cross over Adam and over all his saints, and he took the right hand of Adam and went up out of hell, and all the saints followed him.

How did Jesus defeat sin and death and deliver us from the fear of death? He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. He joined his divine nature to our human nature in his incarnation. He accepted human suffering, he submitted to human death, he descended to the depths of hell in his humanity, so that in his divinity he might trample the bars of hell and release forever those bound by the fear of death. He entered into death and made a way through, out the other side. And he brought redeemed humanity with him. And one day he will lead us through death and out the other side.

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of death is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:54-57, NRSV).

How then dare we live as ones afraid of death? It has no power. It holds no terror. We are free now to take up the cross of Christ and follow him– free to enter into the suffering of the world – knowing the cross to be a symbol not of defeat but of victory, knowing the way of the cross to be not only the way into death but the way through it and out the other side.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Sermon: 15 Pentecost (9 September 2007)

15 Pentecost: 9 September 2007
(Genesis 1:26-31/Luke 1:46b-55/1 John 1:1-4/John17)
Partakers of the Divine Nature

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.


16Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod,* east of Eden.
17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. 19Lamech took two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. 21His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Gen 4:16-22a, NRSV).

There was no music in the Garden. Oh, the birds sang almost certainly. But the sound of wood and string – the harp and lyre – and the sound of wood and wind – the flute and the pipe – well, these were not heard. Human music was generations away, east of Eden. There was no art in the Garden. Oh, the artistry of the Creator filled the earth and the sea and the heavens above them both. But the work of human hearts and hands – bronze sculpture and statues – well, these were not seen. Human art was generations away, east of Eden. There were no cities in Eden, no tended flocks. These, too, lay generations away and to the East. Much that is distinctive about human nature – our culture and civilization – was nowhere to be found in the Garden.

All these human accomplishments – music, art, tools, architecture, animal husbandry and the like – followed man’s original sin; but, there is no biblical reason to believe they proceeded from it. If anything, this human development shows that man, even in his fallen state, is capable of and is drawn toward God-ordained growth and maturity. Had man remained in the Garden, lovelier music and art would have graced Eden than that which we now know. Tools would have cultivated the garden and not ravaged it; never would plowshares have been beaten into swords. Architecture and agriculture would have ensured homes and food for all Eden’s inhabitants; homelessness and poverty – certainly born of sin – would never have been known.

A garden is not only an idyllic place of beauty and rest, it is also a place of fertile potential, a place where growth toward abundance is both possible and natural – expected. Perhaps we should envision Eden not as a beautifully landscaped but essentially static English garden, but rather as a newly-furrowed working farm awaiting the seed. As stewards of the Garden our first parents were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, which has implications far beyond mere physical reproduction. Grow, develop, mature in your relationship with creation, with one another, and with God – learn to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself: these were the divine mandates spoken into the very nature of man when God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,” (Gen 1:26, NIV). From creation man was oriented toward God – not statically, but dynamically – moving ever closer, growing in grace and knowledge, reflecting ever more clearly and fully the image and likeness of God. Man was to become like God through an obedient relationship with God. This was, and still is, our nature and vocation.

And then sin entered the Garden. If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will be like God, the tempter promised. You will be like God. Do you see the temptation, the snare? Becoming like God is the God-given nature and vocation of man; it is what we were created to do and to be, but only through obedience, only in relationship with God. The tempter offered another way, an apparently quicker and easier way – a way of death masquerading as a way of life. And our parents fell for it. They turned from the Creator to the creature. Man who was oriented toward God, moving ever closer and growing in grace and knowledge, turned his back on God and charted his own path.

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death (Pr 14:12, NIV).

And death it was, for our parents chose to separate themselves from the Source of life, from God their Creator. Not death only, but exile too – life east of Eden. Still man’s nature calls; still man’s vocation beckons. We were made to be the sons and daughters of God, to be partakers – to share – in the divine nature. It is that union with God for which we continue to long and to strive. So, in this land east of Eden, let there be music. Let there be art. Let there be tools and cities and farms and flocks. Let us be fruitful and multiply. For this is good and God-ordained.

But for all this, even our best efforts are tainted by the sin which surrounds us and forms us from the womb. As Michael Card observes, man was meant to wake up in a garden, but finds himself instead in a sin-impregnated world. That sin pulls us away from our vocation and entices us to act contrary to our nature. The ultimate goal of union with God eludes us.

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’* 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’* 35The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born* will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 38Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-35, 38, NRSV).

This is the mystery of the incarnation, a mystery beyond our comprehension, beyond our best mathematics and biology: one God in three Persons, one person – Jesus Christ – comprised of two natures. Try to do those theological sums: 1 person + 1 person + 1 person = 1 God, or is it 1 nature + 1 nature = 1 person? Try to construct the Punnett Square for a hereditary cross between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Is divinity dominant and humanity recessive, or is it the other way round? All we can do is echo both Mary’s wonder – How can this be? – and her faithfulness – Let it be according to your word.

The Creed distills this account, this mystery, into very few words: He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. And these few words change the course of human history. Actually, these words – and the truth behind them – put human history back on course again.

In Jesus, specifically in the incarnation, the union of man and God that eluded us in the Garden – the union that we rejected through our disobedience – was accomplished on our behalf by God himself. Perfect obedience, perfect relationship, perfect union: these are the gifts of the incarnation. What we did not, and now cannot, achieve on our own God achieved for us through the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit and the life-accepting yes of the Virgin Mary: He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

When the proclamation of the Gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit gives birth to faith in us, when we are baptized into Christ’s death and raised to walk in Christ’s life, we become the sons and daughters of God and are made partakers in the divine nature. What is true for Jesus through his incarnation is made true for us and for all who are in him through faith.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and this is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is (1 John 3:1-2, NRSV).

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4, NRSV).

The incarnation has returned us to the Garden, reawakened us to our true nature, reoriented us toward a relationship with God and placed us once again on the path toward perfect union with God through Christ Jesus. We are once again on the path – not yet at the final destination – but able, in the light of Christ, to see the path and in the power of the Holy Spirit to walk the path. And walk it we must. Peter, who tells us that through Christ we may become participants of the divine nature, calls us to walk the path toward perfect union.

For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are your and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you (2 Peter 1:5-8, 10-11, NRSV).

Through the salvation that is ours in Christ – a salvation that begins with his incarnation – perfect union with God is made possible. It is promised – not as a completed event but as an ongoing process. As with so much in our faith, it is “already but not yet;” already made possible and sure but not yet fully completed, already inaugurated but not yet consummated. And so we must cooperate with the Spirit. We must struggle. We must discipline ourselves. We must repent. We must work out our salvation. It is a struggle through life, for life. And though we have an essential part to play in this process, the power behind it all, the enabling power and grace are God’s.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified (Rom 8:28-30, NRSV).

It is our God-ordained destiny – our nature and vocation – to bear the image of God, to be conformed to the image of his Son. He calls us; he justifies us; and he will glorify us. Those who are in Christ Jesus and who abide in him will one day – on the day of his appearing – be transformed fully into his image.

45Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is* from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will* also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Cor 15:45-52, NRSV).

One day we will all be changed, all those who are in the last Adam, Jesus Christ. But we can’t wait for that day. We must walk the path of transformation now. We must press on in obedience toward our high calling as the image bearers of God, certain that even now we are being changed into the likeness of Christ through the power of his incarnation.

Amen.

Sermon: 14 Pentecost (2 September 2007)

Homily: Renewal of Marriage Covenant
John and Clare Roop
2 September 2007
(Tobit 8:5b-8, Psalm 128/John 2:1-11/Revelation 21:1-7)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

(This homily is offered in celebration of my 30th wedding anniversary and in preparation for the Renewal of Marriage Covenant to follow.)

My friend Gary introduced me to the Internet Monk. He’s not a real monk, mind you; that’s just his blogging persona. His real name is Michael Spencer and he’s not even Roman Catholic or Orthodox; he’s a Post-Evangelical Reformed Protestant, a Southern Baptist, a husband and father, an English and Bible teacher at a southeastern Kentucky secondary boarding school dead center of nowhere – all in all about as far from being a monk as you can imagine. And he’s a blogger – one of the most well-known and respected in the Christian blogosphere. “A voice of sanity in the post-evangelical wilderness,” is how he describes himself. “Man, I’m tired of being right,” is the opening verbal assault of his companion podcast. A little arrogant, maybe, be he’s well worth reading and listening to.

Blogs are the internet cousins of radio talk shows, written instead of oral, but similar nonetheless; they are hosted by opinionated people – why bother otherwise? – and they deal with hot topics. The posts are often provocative: sometimes – and often in the case of the Internet Monk – provocative in the best sense of provoking deeper thought and good conversation. A recent post is a case in point. It was titled There Is No Such “Thing” As Grace. There’s a certain intended shock value to the title for the serious Protestant. After all, one of the most fundamental principles of the Reformation was salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Grace is really the heart and soul of Protestant theology. Deny grace and the Reformation crumbles. Well, it turns out that the writer Michael Spencer was quoting in the article believes in grace just as much as any Protestant. His point was that grace is not a “thing” – not a substance or spiritual quantity that is bestowed upon or transferred from one person to another– but rather is a description of a relationship with Christ. To have Christ is to have grace; grace is nothing – no such thing – apart from Christ himself. Really a very Protestant idea cleverly presented. The article contrasts this understanding to the doctrine of the Medieval Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church did – and I think still does – conceive of grace as a thing, as a stockpile or repository of merits won by Christ through his obedient life, death, and resurrection. This grace is distributed to the faithful as the basis of their salvation; even in Catholic thought we are saved by grace. And how do we receive this saving grace? Well, this was the point of contention that spurred the Reformation. In Catholic doctrine it is the Church that doles out grace, specifically through the sacraments. The faithful receive grace through baptism, Holy Communion, confession, ordination and the like. There were seven means of grace in the Church, seven sacraments. To separate yourself from the Church – or to be forcefully severed from it by excommunication – deprived you of the grace of Christ, and led toward eternal damnation. It was this stranglehold on grace – this “power play” of the Church – that the Protestant Reformers could no longer tolerate. “There is no such ‘thing’ as grace,” is not a bad summary of their complaint.

But, as with many reactionary responses, the Reformers went overboard in some important areas. In denying the Church’s power to dispense grace through the sacraments, many of the Reformers and their followers simply dispensed with the sacraments themselves. They may have retained their forms – baptism and the Lord’s Supper most prominently – but they denied their power. The sacraments became symbols only, ordinances to be observed , acts of devotions or commitment, but not vehicles of grace. And that’s a shame, a real loss. I think there’s a much better way, a way the Internet Monk article hints at but fails to develop sufficiently. It rightly views grace not as a “thing” but as a relationship with Christ; to have Christ is to have grace. Why not take the next step and consider the sacraments to be those actions of God’s faithful people that make Christ present among us, that make visible Christ’s presence among us, that deepen our relationship with Christ so that grace may abound? The sacraments are not containers or channels of some “thing” called grace, but rather the visible expressions of Christ’s presence with us, which is grace itself.

Take the two most “common” sacraments (though I hate to use the word “common” to describe sacraments): baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Paul says that we are baptized into Christ, that spiritually we put on Christ through baptism so that we no longer live, but Christ lives within us. Of course we do still live; it’s just that the intimacy engendered by baptism is so complete that it becomes difficult to tell where we leave off and Christ begins. The two have become one. After baptism comes the Lord’s Supper where we feast on the Christ who is present with us in body and blood, in bread and wine. We take Christ into ourselves. He nourishes us, sustains us, becomes the most vital part of our lives. These are sacraments as the visible expression of Christ’s presence with us, and they are grace themselves.

In this scheme how many sacraments are there? Roman Catholics have seven and those Protestants that speak of sacraments generally have two. But if the sacraments are acts that make visible Christ’s presence among us, then we are awash in sacraments, immersed in them. The world becomes sacramental. What about the assembly of the saints – otherwise known as “going to church?” Well, Jesus promised that where two or three are gathered in his name he would be present. That seems to make the assembly sacramental. What about acts of mercy – feeding the hungry, caring for the orphans and widows, visiting the sick and imprisoned? In those moments, the least of these our brothers and sisters encounter Christ in our words and hands and feet, and we encounter Christ where he promised to be – in the disguise of the hungry, the naked, the prisoner; Christ is present to both groups. That seems to make acts of mercy sacramental. So, how many sacraments are there – seven? No. Seventy times seven.

Earth is crammed with heaven
And every bush aflame with God
But only those who see take off their shoes.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Let those with eyes see and know themselves to be on holy ground. Christ is present within us and without. The world is his and he is not absent from it. In fact, he is present in some of the most ordinary places, some of the most “earthy” experiences in our lives, and his presence makes them extraordinary and heavenly. His presence makes them sacramental. It was in sacrament that our story began.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen 1:26-28, NIV).

I believe – I do not know, but I believe generally – that the image of God is not perfectly reflected in the individual man or women, but in the union of man of woman: “in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In the union of the complements – male and female – God’s image is manifest and his presence uniquely known. The rest of the story strongly hints at this.

18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh (Gen 2:18-24, NIV).

God ordained the union of man and woman for the benefit of his creation – all his creation, for we are its stewards, its caretakers, and our role is to make all creation fruitful. God ordained the union of man and woman in order to make his image clearly seen and known in his creation. When a man and woman – a husband and wife – give themselves to each other without reservation, God is present and known. When a man and woman – a husband and wife – sacrifice for the welfare of each other, God is present and known. When a man and woman – a husband and wife – keep covenant faithfulness with each other in spite of hurts and doubts and anger, God is present and known. When a man and woman – a husband and wife – forgive each other time and time again, God is present and known. And that is sacramental.

St Paul – who was himself apparently without wife and even counseled celibacy under some conditions – nonetheless insisted that Christian marriage is sacramental; the mutual subjection of husband and wife for the sake of Christ is a visible expression of Christ that makes his presence known and ministers grace to his people.

21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. 24Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30because we are members of his body. 31‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband (Eph 5:21-33, NRSV).

For Christ’s sake – literally for Christ’s sake – let’s be done with all the foolish, politically correct arguments about who’s in charge in the family. Husband, lay down your life in sacrificial service of your wife – as Christ did for the church – in order to present her holy and blameless before Christ on the great day of his appearing. If you want to be head of the family, that’s how you do it. The one who is greatest is the servant of all. Wife, love your husband as the church loves Christ – as she loves the one who lived and died and rose again – who went to hell and back – to redeem her. Surely, that kind of sacrifice is worthy of your respect. And if all this be truly done – in the name of Christ – then the two will become one flesh and the marriage will be a visible expression of Christ’s presence among us. It is a great mystery, this relationship between husband and wife, this relationship between Christ and the church. The word we use for mystery is sacrament.

For thirty years I’ve lived this mystery, this sacrament. What have I learned? That it is all very mysterious. That God truly can make of two, one flesh – one heart and mind – so that you can no longer tell where one leaves off and the other begins. That love is the way – the only way – and that such love must come from God himself because I’m not capable of it. That God is love, and that those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. And that all this is sacramental.

I’ve learned that thirty years or thirty lifetimes is not nearly enough to plumb the depths of this great mystery that is marriage, this great mystery that makes visible Christ’s presence among us and nourishes us with his grace. And I’ve learned that I’d like to do it all over again. Which is why at this moment I ask my wife if she would like to do it all over again, if she would renew with me our marriage covenant, this great mystery of husband and wife, of Christ and the church.

Sermon: 13 Pentecost (26 August 2007)

13 Pentecost: 26 August 2007
(Jeremiah 1:4-10/Psalm 76:1-6/Hebrews 12:18-29/Luke 13:10-17)
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord: so opens the second stanza of the Creed. Familiar phrases all – Jesus Christ, only Son, Lord – scattered as they are across the pages of the Gospels. Yet, I wonder if their very familiarity might lull us into a false sense of understanding, or at least into unthinking repetition. It’s good periodically to step back, to see these phrases as if for the first time, full of meaning and wonder. Who is this Jesus Christ of the Gospels and the Creed? Who indeed?

There is great confusion and controversy about Jesus’ identify as even a quick survey of bookstore shelves reveals. We can read about the Gnostic Jesus in Dan Brown’s fiction and Bart Ehrman’s pseudo-fiction. We can read about the Jesus of revisionist history in the publications of the Jesus Seminar or in John Dominic Crossan’s many works. We can read about Jesus the CEO or Jesus the psychologist or Jesus the “life coach.” You name it and we can just about find a book that claims Jesus fits the bill. And the confusion isn’t just among the “experts” who author books; ordinary folk at the grocery store or ball game are confused too. Get ten people in a room together and you’ll find at least fifteen different opinions of Jesus. Even Bill Cosby was confused about Jesus’ identity; at least he says he was. From ages 7 to 15 Cosby says he thought his name was Jesus Christ because every time he did something wrong that’s what his Dad hollered at him: Jesus Christ! Stop that! And, from the inflection in Cosby’s voice it was clear that both he and his Dad thought Christ was really Jesus’ middle name, much as if I were to holler “Mary Kathleen – you get in here right now!” Not that I ever would.

Well, Christ isn’t a middle name, of course. We know that. It’s a title: Christos, the anointed one. It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew meshiach, messiah. And it’s an important key to understanding Jesus truly as he was and is. As soon as we acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, we are immediately caught up in a story, a particular story about the God named YHWH – God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth – and about a particular people, the Jews. It is this story that provides the context in which we must understand the identity and mission of Jesus. We can’t take him out of this particular story. We can’t abstract or generalize his message. It’s the story that keeps us from creating Jesus in our own image. Jesus is the fulfillment of the story that began with God’s declaration, “Let there be light.” It is the story of creation and fall, the story of call and covenant, the story of slavery and deliverance, the story of Law and land, the story of Judges and Prophets, the story of exile and restoration, the story of incarnation and ministry, the story of death and resurrection, the story of ascension and coming again, the story of life everlasting. It is the story we tell as we gather around the table of Jesus Christ, the Messiah:

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere
to give thanks to you, Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth.

At your word the earth was made
and spun on its course among the planets.

Your hand formed us from the dust of the earth
and set us among all your creatures to love and serve you.

When we were unfaithful to you, you kept faith with us,
your love remained steadfast.

When we were slaves in Egypt,
you broke the bonds of our oppression,
brought us through the sea to freedom,
and made covenant to be our God.
By a pillar of fire you led us through the desert
to a land flowing with milk and honey,
and set before us the way of life.
You spoke of love and justice in the prophets,
and in the Word made flesh you lived among us,
manifesting your glory.
He died that we might live, and is risen to raise us to new life.

It is the story of Jesus Christ – Jesus the Messiah – through whom creation will be restored, sin forgiven, death vanquished, covenant extended to bless all the peoples of the earth, and man reconciled to God to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

To say “I believe in Jesus Christ,” is to say “I believe in this story.” Even more, it is to say I want to take my place in this story, to root my identity in it, to found my life on it as did Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. It is to say I reject all the lesser stories that clamor and dazzle and seduce – stories of self, stories of power, stories of wealth, stories of lesser gods. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” is a declaration of independence, a pledge of allegiance, an embrace of a history, an acceptance of identity – both his and mine, for the story of God that centers on Jesus Christ is large enough to encompass me – and you – as well. I believe in Jesus Christ.

I believe in Jesus Christ who is also God’s only Son. This apparently simple phrase – only Son – is a theological minefield and has been since the first centuries of the faith. Jesus, himself, is clear that God has many sons, not just one: the peacemakers (Mt 5:9), those who practice piety privately – who give alms and pray and fast secretly (Mt 6:1-18), really all those who seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness are God’s sons. In this sense, we are the sons and daughters of God, all of us. So, only Son can’t mean singular Son. A better translation of “only” might be “unique.” The Creed would then read, “I believe in Jesus the Messiah, the unique Son of God.” Yes, we are all God’s sons and daughters – all related to God familially – but not in the unique sense that Jesus is. This is precisely the point that the “other” creed, the Nicene Creed, strains so hard to emphasize.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.

While we are truly sons and daughters of God – and what a privilege that is! – none of these statements apply to us: I am not God from God or Light from Light and neither are you. But Jesus is, and only Jesus is. Jesus is the unique Son: uncreated, eternal, truly God, one in essence with the Father. Quite simply, what God is, Jesus is – and that uniquely so. We cannot think rightly about God without recourse to Jesus, for Jesus is the perfect self-revelation of God in human form. Paul explains to the Colossian Christians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:15, 19-20, NRSV).

All of this – and more than will ever comprehend – is implied by the phrase “his only Son.”

In this passage from Colossians, and elsewhere, Paul expands the notion of Jesus’ sonship to include not just unique relationship with God, but also unique vocation (work) from God. Jesus’ identity and mission are inseparable; he could accomplish his work on our behalf only because he was and is the unique Son of God. Paul again:

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Col 1:19-20, NRSV).

Only because Jesus was the unique Son, only because in him dwelt all the fullness of God, could he accomplish his vocation of the reconciliation of all creation to God through the blood of the cross. Jesus said as much in a passage we’ve known since childhood.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son [note the identical creedal language], so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17, NRSV).

And then, on the night of his death, Jesus once again made his unique identity and vocation clear to his confused and disheartened apostles.

Jesus said [to him], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (John 14:6-7, NRSV).

And there it is again clearly: unique identity and unique vocation. See Jesus, see the Father. Come through Jesus – and only through him – and you may come to the Father. It simply isn’t true for the Christian that all roads – or even many roads or even some other roads – lead to God. Once again, Jesus is unique: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” And this is where Jesus’ unique vocation to be the way to the Father drives our unique vocation to proclaim the way to the Father, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his only Son.

The Creed proclaims and we believe in Jesus Christ, his [God’s] only Son. It also proclaims Jesus as our Lord. There may be no more theologically and politically charged word in the Creed than this word Lord. It is blasphemous if not true and seditious if true. You may remember that God first revealed his personal name to Moses at the burning bush on Sinai: I Am, or I Am That I Am. In Hebrew this name is represented by the tetragrammaton – the four letters – YHWH. We have no real idea how to pronounce the name; no vowels are indicated and the key to pronunciation has been lost – probably not by accident. The name of God was considered so holy – names in general were considered objects of power and mystery – so holy that it was never pronounced. Whenever YHWH occurred in the Hebrew Scripture another word was substituted and pronounced for it, generally Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord. This tradition persists in many English translations of the Old Testament where you encounter the word Lord typed in small capital letters, lord. Wherever that appears it is a substitution for the tetragrammaton, the personal name of God.

When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek around the 3rd century B.C., the Jewish scholars selected the Greek word kurioV as the translation for Adonai. In other words, they used kurios as their substitution for YHWH, the personal name of God. Confused yet? Well, here’s what it all means. When the Creed calls Jesus “our Lord,” it calls him ton kurion hemon -- Iesous kurion, Jesus Adonai, Jesus YHWH. To use the New Testament and Creedal proclamation Jesus is Lord, is to say Jesus is Adonai – Jesus is YHWH. No Jewish Christian could have missed this bold proclamation. Of course, Jesus himself had made the exact claim during his ministry and had incited the Jewish leaders to stone him.

‘Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple (John 8:56-59, NRSV, emphasis added).

We say in the Creed only what Jesus first said about himself: Jesus is Lord; Jesus is Adonai; Jesus is YHWH; Jesus is I Am. If not true, it is blasphemy. We believe it’s true.

But Lord has another resonance also – this one political, this one directed toward the Roman Empire. It is subversive. It is confrontational. It is a hallmark of Paul’s letters as described by N. T. Wright.

Paul explicitly (and we must assume deliberately) speaks of Jesus in language which echoes, and hence deeply subverts, language in common use among Roman imperial subjects to describe Caesar. In the pagan world of Paul’s day … it was natural for emperors to be treated with divine honour. Already in the time of Tiberius, his predecessor, Augustus, was regarded as divine, so that the emperor became first the son of a god and then, in turn, a god himself. Kyrios Kaisar was the formula which said it all: Caesar is Lord.

Most pagans within the Roman world were quite happy to acknowledge Caesar as Lord; they did it politically, and doing it religiously was all part of the same overarching package. And Paul said: no, Kyrios Iesous Christos: Jesus Christ is Lord (N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 88).

And the Creed picked up this same language: Jesus is Lord. Which meant that Caesar was not. This makes the Creed – at least historically – not only a religious statement, but a political manifesto, as well. I suggest that it still is. To say “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,” is to say I recognize no higher authority than his. It is to place not only individuals but governments and nations under his dominion. They may not acknowledge Jesus as Lord, but if they do not they are in open rebellion against the rightful sovereign of all creation, against the one at whose name

every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11, NRSV).

And such rebellion has consequences as Psalm 2 reminds us.


Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
with trembling kiss his feet,
or he will be angry, and you will
perish in the way;
for his wrath is quickly kindled (Ps 2:10-11, NRSV).

We are entering the political season all too quickly. Soon presidential candidates and certainly the President-Elect will claim the people’s mandate to govern according to his (or her) agenda. Don’t believe it. The Creed reminds us that the mandate to govern is Christ’s as is the agenda. All leaders are called to submit to Jesus as Lord. All creation is called to submit to Jesus as Lord. So the Creed reminds us. So the Creed demands of us.

And so we stand together and say: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Which is to say I believe in Jesus the Messiah whose story was written before the foundations of the world, before the morning stars sang together at creation’s dawning – a story of creation, fall, restoration, and reconciliation. I believe in Jesus, the only son of God – unique in identity and vocation, the only one in whom the fullness of God dwells and the only one who can reconcile creation to Creator. I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, the great I Am and the sovereign over all. Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

Amen.

Sermon: 12 Pentecost (19 August 2007)

Pentecost 12: 19 August 2007
(Isaiah 5:1-7/Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19/Hebrews 11:29-12:2/Luke 12:49-56)
…the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For had it been an adversary who taunted me,
then I could have borne it;
or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me,
then I could have hidden from him.
But it was you, a man after my own heart,
my companion, my own familiar friend.
We took sweet counsel together,
and walked with the throng in the house of God.

My companion stretched forth his hand against his comrade;
he has broken his covenant.
His speech is softer than butter,
but war is in his heart.
His words are smoother than oil,
but they are drawn swords (Ps 55:13-15, 21-23, BCP).

Several Psalms give voice to human struggle, confusion, and disappointment – lament, we call these. Few are as poignant to me as this Psalm 55, this great cry of betrayal. A friend, a companion, a kindred spirit has proven untrue and the psalmist can scarce contend with his treachery. Had it been an adversary, yes; but, you – a man after my own heart? How to understand that, how to cope with that: such things elude the psalmist.

We’ve all felt this at one time or another, haven’t we: a sense of betrayal, a sense of trust broken? It happens in ways great and small – though none seem small at the time – to old and young alike. A husband has an affair. A mother abandons her children. A close colleague plots an office coup. A friend violates a confidence. A schoolmate ridicules and excludes. A teacher taunts and humiliates. The deeper the trust, the greater the pain of betrayal. And so we learn – early on – to protect ourselves, to trust only haltingly and sparingly. To say someone is a trusting soul is not necessarily a compliment.

The opening words of the Creed – I believe in God – are bold and risky words. I put my faith in God, I trust in God, are not words which come naturally to those who have known betrayal, which is to say to most all of us. They are bold words, risky words, foolish words unless the character of this God is known, unless the agenda of this God includes my welfare, unless the track record of this God is one of unfailing faithfulness. That’s why the next few words of the Creed are so critical: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. This God is worthy of the great risk of trust because his character is known – because he is Father, because he is almighty, because he is creator.

Of course, when we try to describe the character of God we quickly bump hard against the limits of revelation and language. Our knowledge of God is limited to what God has revealed: speculation and philosophy are not so trustworthy here where the issue is very much one of trust. Nor is our language adequate to express God’s self-revelation. How can human words do justice to God whose own words have the power to create worlds? We are limited to analogy, metaphor, simile – essentially to comparison. So, to what do you compare the God who is unique, who is, almost by definition, that being beyond compare? The framers of the Creed settled on Father as that comparison most in keeping with God’s self-revelation and with human experience and language.

As soon as you describe God as Father though, objections arise. Surely, you’re not saying God is male: Why should we not consider God as Mother or perhaps generically as Parent? What about those who have had terrible experiences with their own fathers: neglect, abuse, abandonment? Such experiences certainly distort a view of God as Father. These are understandable concerns; we shouldn’t dismiss them out of hand. They are stumbling blocks to some and we should address them with sensitivity. But we need not, and really should not, let these concerns force us to abandon the Father language and image. It is, after all, how Jesus referred to God and how he taught us to think about and pray to the God who is also our Father.

Just what kind of father God is emerges clearly from the Sermon on the Mount.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:43-48).

“[But] when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:3-4).

“[But] whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6).

“[But] if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt 6:14-15).

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:31-33).

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Mt 7:11).

A Father who is prodigal in his providence, who pours out blessing and provision on the good and evil alike; a Father who knows and sees our inmost, truest selves – not what we project to others – and who loves and rewards our feeble attempts to give, to serve, to pray; a Father who longs to forgive errant sons and daughters and who longs for them to forgive errant brothers and sisters; a Father who is poised to answer, eager to be found, and ready to open himself; a Father who is good, perfect, and gracious: this is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our Father. This is a Father worthy of our trust. This is why we can say, I believe in God the Father.

The Creed tells that us that, in addition to all this, God the Father is almighty. And here we must be careful because our concepts of might and power are likely distorted; the cross certainly tells us that God’s thoughts on power are not our own. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, suggests a particularly helpful approach in his book Tokens of Trust.

The word translated ‘almighty’ in fact in the Greek means ‘ruler of everything’ or even something like ‘holder of everything’; and this suggests a slightly different approach. It means that there is nowhere God is absent, powerless or irrelevant; no situation in the universe in the face of which God is at a loss. Which is much the same as saying that there is no situation in which God is not to be relied upon…that his love never exhausts its resources, whatever may happen in the universe in general or in my life in particular. [‘Almighty’ is] a way of saying that God always has the capacity to do something fresh and different, to bring something new out of a situation – because nothing outside himself can finally frustrate his longing. So almightiness in this sense becomes another reason for trust (Rowan Williams. Tokens of trust. Westminster John Knox Press. Louisville, KY. 2007, p. 16.).

This concept of almighty seems a bit more nuanced than I might like. What I really want is a Father almighty who will step in at the first sign that life might not be going exactly to my liking – who will step in to straighten it out with miracles flying and lightening flashing, who will let no harm come to me ever, who will do my bidding on-command. I want a genie and endless wishes. I want what Bruce wanted in Bruce Almighty: all that power – omnipotence – at my command. But – thanks be to God – that’s not the kind of Father almighty that we have.

What the Bible puts before us in not a record of a God who is always triumphantly getting his way [or my way] by doing miracles…but a God who gets his way by patiently struggling to make himself clear to human beings, to make his love real to them, especially when they seem not to want to know, or to want to avoid him and retreat into their own fantasies about him (Williams, pp 16-17).

What the Bible shows us is a God who is determined to put creation to rights not by an overwhelming exercise of miraculous power, but by entering into the pain and struggle of creation himself – supremely in Jesus Christ – and by holding all things together in his love as his will unfolds toward new creation. This way of God’s being almighty can allow things seemingly to go pretty badly wrong in the short term. There are Darfur and Iraq. There are the Indonesian tsunami and the Minneapolis bridge collapse. There are Columbine and Virginia Tech. There are poverty and hunger and disease. There are…well you can continue the list of horrors we wish God would eliminate, wrongs we wish he would right immediately. But, right in the midst of all these evils and horrors there’s a cross planted atop a hill with a dying man groaning out his last words, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” And that’s the ultimate example, the ultimate proof, of the almightiness of God – the ability to absorb all the pain and evil of the world and to turn it to the greatest good, the willingness to suffer death to bring forth life, the power to conquer hatred through love alone. We may not understand the ways of God; in fact, we often do not. But we can see and know his character. We can say, with Paul,

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:38-39).

That’s something like what it means to say, I believe in God, the Father almighty. We can see this incarnated – a flesh and blood example – in the life of Job. This poor man clearly does not understand what is happening to him, the terrors that he is receiving – so he thinks – at God’s hands. His doctrine of God’s justice and righteousness lies as shattered as the pots with whose shards he scrapes the boils covering his body. He wants to plead his case, and does so to his worse than useless friends: all they do is spout the conventional misunderstanding of God that Job now knows to be false. All is pain. All is despair. All is anger. And yet. And yet Job holds on. As much as he might want to, he can’t bring himself to let go of the God he has known in the past as Father almighty.

Even if he slays me, I will hope in him. I will surely defend my ways to his face (Job 13:15, NET Bible)!

It’s hard to tell if this is a cry of faith or of despair, but it certainly is the cry of a man who has known God to be Father almighty in the past and can’t understand why he fails to be in the present. Like Jacob wrestling the angel at the Jabbok, Job knows he can’t win, but he’s afraid to let go. The way through this impasse is a deeper understanding, a deeper experience of God, the Father almighty. And God appears – not just as the Father almighty, but as the creator of heaven and earth.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
4‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy (Job 38:1-7)?

Verse after verse, page after page, God bombards Job with similar questions – all of them rhetorical and all directed toward the same conclusion: I am the creator and sustainer of heaven and earth. All things exist and are preserved by my power. I know things you do not know. I do things you cannot conceive. This God who speaks to Job from the whirlwind is no passive deity who winds the clockwork of his creation and steps aside to let it tick away without him. No. This God – the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth – is always and everywhere present within creation, caring for it, nurturing it, drawing forth righteousness and justice where none seem possible.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 7‘Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. 8Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? 9Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
10‘Deck yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendour. 11Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on all who are proud, and abase them. 12Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand. 13Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. 14Then I will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can give you victory (Job 40:7-14).

Do you really believe, Job, that your justice, your righteousness, are more to be trusted than those of the God who created and sustained the world? Well, since you put it that way…

Then Job answered the Lord: 2‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3“Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know (Job 42:1-3).

Had Job known the words of the Creed I suspect he might have added this to his response: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

Amen.

Sermon: 11 Pentecost (12 Aug 2007)

11 Pentecost: 12 August 2007
(Isaiah 1:1, 10-20/Psalm 107:1-9/Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16/Luke 12:32-40)
I Believe…

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When the church marries a couple we have them stand up before family and friends, before the communion of saints and all the company of heaven and God himself, and we ask them questions: “Do you?” and “Will you?” questions. Do you take this man to be your husband or this woman to be your wife? Will you love and comfort, honor and keep, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, be faithful as long as you both shall live? If the bride and groom are young, they stand there before the church overdosed on endorphins, superfueled by hormones and we try to put the brakes on. “Listen here, young man. Before we authorize you to have sex with this young woman you’re going to have to make her some promises – and we’re going to expect you to keep them. And you, young woman, wake up. This Prince Charming beside you is going to grow old, fat, and bald and will certainly disappoint you in countless ways. Can you handle that?” A good marriage ceremony is designed to scare the living daylights out of the bride and groom. It is a solemn and holy commitment they make, a sacrament of Christ and his church. We want them to know just what they’re getting themselves into.

Likewise, when the church baptizes candidates we have them stand up before family and friends, before the communion of saints and all the company of heaven and God himself, and we ask them questions: “Do you?” and “Will you?” questions. Do you renounce? Do you turn? Do you promise? Do you believe? Will you continue, persevere, proclaim, seek, serve, strive, and respect? In a way, here too we’re trying to put the brakes on. No less than a marriage ceremony, the baptismal liturgy should scare the candidates; it begins with death and burial, after all. It is a solemn and holy commitment they make. We want them to count the cost (Lk 9:57-62). We want them to know just what they’re getting themselves into.

The Do you believe? questions in the baptismal liturgy follow the Apostles’ Creed, which likely developed as a form of catechesis, a pattern and method of instruction for baptismal candidates. It is the Cliff Notes of Christian faith and theology – not all we will grow to believe, but an essential starting point, a common foundation upon which the theology of the church rests. There should be nothing objectionable here to Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, or Protestant Christians and nothing that any group would leave out. In the familiar slogan, In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love, the Apostles’ Creed falls under essentials. Though the non-denominational church of my youth rejected all manmade creeds as superfluous and even divisive, even they affirmed all the truths of the Apostles’ Creed.

The early church considered the Apostles’ Creed, or an early precursor of it, as the regula fidei, the rule of faith – the standard of truth by which they measured all spiritual understanding. "Christ was pure spirit and therefore only appeared to die," said the Docetists. "Not so," replied the church. "He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried." "There was no resurrection. Jesus’ body was likely thrown on the garbage heap outside Jerusalem and eaten by dogs," says John Shelby Spong. "Not so," replies the church. "On the third day he rose again." So much nonsense, so many heresies, can be swept aside by the Creed. It remains the regula fidei of the church. So, for the next few weeks, as part of our confirmation instruction, we will explore the Creed together, this summary of the faith that we have gotten ourselves into.

The basic structure of the Creed, like the basic structure of our faith is Trinitarian. There are three sections: one dedicated to the Father, one to the Son, and one to the Holy Spirit. Each section begins with a bold declaration: I believe.

I believe lots of things. Some of my beliefs are simple statements of fact – usually facts beyond my power of observation or verification, facts discerned by experts and communicated to the rest of us. I believe that the earth revolves about the sun as Copernicus said and not the other way round as generations before thought. Few today believe otherwise. Why do I believe this? It’s in the science textbooks and my teachers assured me it’s true, and really for no other reasons. It’s presented as fact and I accept it as fact. (Whether that acceptance is a good or bad thing is itself worth exploring – both science and public education have agendas, after all, and those agendas deserve careful scrutiny. But that’s another story.) Some others of my beliefs are merely opinions, expressions of personal preference. I believe that Starbuck’s coffee is superior to Seattle’s Best; I believe that most any coffee is superior to Seattle’s Best. I believe that rap music is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. And yet there are almost certainly people who go to Border’s Bookstore café on a rainy Saturday afternoon to enjoy a cup of Seattle’s Best coffee while listening to rap music on their iPods – and consider that time well spent. My opinions notwithstanding, they believe otherwise. And they’re not wrong; on these type of beliefs we may agree to disagree.

Some beliefs are statements of fact and some are expressions of opinion. I believe in God, we say in the opening words of the Creed. But what do we mean? Are we saying that we accept the existence of God as a fact discerned by the experts – Who would they be? – and communicated to the rest of us? Well sure, in some sense this is exactly what we mean. Most of us believe because our parents believed – those are the immediate experts – or because some other significant person in our lives believed and passed that on to us. The notion of the self-made man or woman is highly exaggerated; we are formed by others and belief is often part of that formation. Part of the agenda of the church – and we don’t try to hide this – is spiritual formation, the passing on of beliefs from one generation to the next. That’s why we use ancient liturgies, gather around an ancient book, and practice ancient rituals. We have received these and we are determined to pass them on. So yes, we say we believe in God as a statement of fact, though others might question our conviction. Are we saying that we accept the existence of God as an opinion, as a personal preference? Again, yes; in some sense this is exactly what we mean. We choose to view our lives as created, meaningful, relational, and transcendent – in short, we prefer to live in a world created by God and endowed with meaning and purpose. We prefer and pursue a relationship with that God and we hope that relationship will transcend the boundaries of our very brief physical existence. In our opinion it will. Of course, our opinion notwithstanding, many believe otherwise. Our culture, which values diversity and tolerance above all else, assures us that they are not wrong; on these types of beliefs we may agree to disagree. (Whether such tolerance and the view of faith as solely personal preference relegated to the private and not the public realm is a good or bad thing is itself worth exploring – our culture has an agenda, after all, and that agenda deserves careful scrutiny. But that’s another story.)

This September I will have been married thirty years – good years that have passed all too quickly. I hope for thirty more. Out of these thirty years comes this simple statement: I believe in my wife. What do I mean by that? Is it a statement of fact, a simple acknowledgement of the existence of this other human being who is in a particular relationship with me? No, it’s much more than that. Is it an expression of personal opinion or preference – I prefer this wife to my other ones or I prefer this woman to all others I might have chosen as wife? Well, at some personal risk, I must admit that this is not exactly what I mean either. I believe in my wife is not merely a statement of fact or an expression of opinion or personal preference. This belief is in another category altogether – a category it shares with the opening statement of the Creed: I believe in God.

When I say I believe in my wife I mean that I trust her, that I’m convinced her prime agenda is for my good – really for our mutual good. I mean that our relationship is life-giving. Do you remember all those marriage promises we spoke of earlier: to love and comfort, honor and keep, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, to be faithful as long as you both shall live? I mean that she has kept her promises to me and that I have every reason to believe she will continue to do so as long as we both shall live. This isn’t merely a statement of fact or an expression of opinion; it is relationally verified reality. Thirty years of life together, thirty years in which my wife has been faithful to me – to our relationship – have engendered and nourished my belief in her. This belief certainly includes both fact and opinion; but, it subsumes them, it transcends them. This belief is trust.

The church means – I mean – something quite akin to this in the opening line of the Creed: I believe in God. I mean that I trust God, that I’m convinced that God’s prime agenda is for my good – that God has no agenda which does not include my good. I mean that my relationship with God – and what an astounding notion a relationship with God actually is! – my relationship with God is life-giving. I mean that God has kept all his promises to me – promises contained in covenant and cross and revealed in the word written and the Word made flesh – and that I have every reason to believe that God will continue to do so throughout eternity. And all this in spite of the reality that I have broken my promises to God time and again! The years of my life with God, years in which God has always been faithful to me, have engendered and nourished my belief in God. This belief certainly includes both fact and opinion; but, it subsumes them, it transcends them. This belief is trust. Most days, anyway. But not always and equally so. My trust is strained easily by lack of understanding. It is brought into question by difficult circumstances. I argue with God as I argue with my wife – usually over something quite selfish and petty – and then I sulk and withdraw for a time. Trust doesn’t come easily or naturally for most of us. We have to work at it. We need help. And that is part of the importance of the Creed, of this corporate confession of the church. On those days when I can’t honest say I believe in God as a conviction of trust, it means everything to me to be surrounded by people who can, at that moment, say the words to me and for me. You don’t believe right now? Well, we do. It’s all true. You have no trust right now? Well, we do. Share some of ours. The Creed reminds me that I need you, that I need this community of trust in and through which God becomes flesh and shows himself trustworthy. When I say I believe in God I’m also saying that I believe in God’s people, the church – that I believe in you. I’m not sure it’s possible to separate the two; I’m sure it’s unwise to try. So, some days I believe in God only as one fact among many. Some days I believe in God only as preference – the Word over silence, meaning over meaninglessness. But most days I believe in God as trust. I want that for all my days.

I think our society overestimates the power of facts. Take sex, for instance – more specifically sex education. Why do we have sex education in public school? (We call it Wellness now, but there’s still a healthy dose of sex in the curriculum.) It all comes down to disease and unwanted, early pregnancies, both of which are costly to and disruptive of society. And so the schools have been tasked with presenting the facts of life – physiology and mechanics, yes, but those only secondarily so. Our culture has an agenda, remember? Mainly we want to present our young people the facts about the risks and dangers of unprotected sex so they’ll stop it. (Isn’t it interesting that we talk about sex as safe so long as there is only a slim chance of disease or pregnancy? No matter the devastating emotional and spiritual consequences sex may have – anything but safe there.) Our government and culture are convinced that knowledge of the facts will change the sexual behavior of young people. All I can say is that they obviously don’t know our young people. They don’t understand that hormones trump facts, that pleasure vanquishes reason. You know as well as I, the teenage couple in the back seat of the car aren’t going over the facts. Besides, pregnancy and disease happen to other people, not to them. And how long have we known now that cigarette smoking causes cancer – known it as unquestionable fact? We teach that fact in Wellness also. Yet how many people start smoking each year – young people who just know they are ten feet tall and bulletproof? And have you noticed how large our society is now? Knowledge of the tremendous health risks associated with obesity don’t seem to stop people from saying, “Supersize that.” Of course it’s generally better to know than not to know, to have the facts than not to have them. I just don’t share our society’s conviction that facts significantly alter behavior.

That’s surely one reason the Creed aims for belief in God not just as a statement of fact or of opinion, but of trust. It matters not only what we know, but how we live. And for that, trust is more important than facts. I can believe that God exists – accept that as fact – without it affecting my behavior in the least. In fact – pun intended – James says that the demons believe in God and shudder (James 2:19); but, they go right on being demons in rebellion against God. But trust? Well, that’s another matter entirely. Trust caused Peter and Andrew and James and John to leave their fishing nets to become fishers of men. Trust caused Levi to abandon his lucrative tax-collecting station and strike out with this carpenter-turned-rabbi. Curiosity took Zacchaeus up the sycamore tree but trust brought him down and trust compelled him to restore all he had stolen. Trust nailed Jesus to the cross and held him there: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” is the sound of trust. And trust broke the power of sin and death and rolled back the stone on the morning of our Lord’s great victory. I believe in God all these said in the word of the Creed – not with their lips, but with their lives.

Amen.