| Everyone is a theologian. Each of us has
a belief system. Some have studied the doctrines of faith more than
others, but everyone who has faith has thought about what it is she or
he believes. Lent seems like an appropriate time to ponder our beliefs
and the Apostles Creed gives us a touchstone that is familiar to us all. Interestingly, Methodists have never been a “creedal” denomination. Unlike other organized church bodies, the Methodist church has not adopted a single creed as its gauge for believers. However, there is legislation on the table at this year’s General Conference (April/May 2004) that would mandate clergy and congregants to embrace a set of orthodox, traditional beliefs in order to be United Methodists. So, the time seems right for us to examine our understanding of the Christian faith and to update our own personal belief systems so that we know what we believe and why we believe it. All of this as explanation of why I chose to preach this interactive sermon series on Reclaiming the Apostles Creed for the 21st Century! Let’s begin with the origin of the Apostles Creed itself. Early Christian writers believed that the orthodox faith was transmitted in its completeness to the churches by the apostles. A legend described how the 12 apostles composed the Apostles Creed jointly, each contributing a clause. The Apostles Creed actually developed in Rome in the third century and was derived from a late second century baptismal creed used in Rome at believers baptisms. The rise of false teaching was responsible for the creed. Teachings by the Docetists, who denied Christ’s humanity, and teachings by the Ebionites, who doubted Jesus’ unique status as the Son of God, called forth a belief statement in Jesus Christ who was fully human and fully divine. By 400 AD this “Apostles Creed” was known and used in Christian churches. I hope that you will enjoy this opportunity to think about what you believe. Too often we grow and mature physically and emotionally, while our faith and theology never move past childhood beliefs. How important it is to give ourselves permission to question what we learned as a child and let our faith grow and mature along with the rest of us! Interestingly, the Apostles Creed and other creeds of the church developed out of a Question and Answer format. What do you believe about God? the question asked. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth” was the adopted answer. So, revisiting the tenets of faith and re-asking the question “What do I believe” is an exercise that mirrors the original writing of the creed itself! The difference is that we are now in the 21st century and you are going to be the author of your own creed. Each week you will find an insert in your bulletin that will give you the opportunity to write your own creed, using lines from the Apostles Creed as your starting point. I encourage you to keep these and when the sermon series is finished and your creed written, perhaps some of you will be willing to share your creed in a little booklet that we might put together. So, let’s begin with the words “I believe.” In a world of prolific scientific discoveries, what we believe to be true is always changing: for example, understanding quantum physics affects our theology. But our spiritual beliefs are based not only on fact – perhaps it is fair to say that our Christian beliefs are not contrary to fact, they transcend fact. According to Joan Chittister, “to believe something is to know its truth not so much in our minds but in the center of our souls…to say ‘I believe’ is to say yes to the mystery of life.” (p. 14 and 17, In Search of Belief. I would like to acknowledge the influence and inspiration that this book has had on this sermon series. Many of Chittister’s views will be reflected as the series unfolds.) God is the ultimate mystery in whom we believe. None of us can prove that God exists. Neither can we prove that God does not exist. We feel, we sense, we see, hear, and taste what we call the presence of God in our lives. And then we tackle the impossible – to define God. The writer of the exodus narrative defined God simply (and profoundly) as the I AM.” That is certainly an inclusive understanding of One that is everything and beyond everything that we know. It is what I like to think the word “Almighty” suggests in the creed. Later, in the context of a pre-scientific world that believed that life came out of male semen and was simply nourished by the female womb, God was assigned the male gender to attest that God was the life force, creator, begetter of all of creation. Still later, our church fathers insisted that God be designated as Father. Jesus called God his “Abba” an endearing term for Daddy and in doing so, suggested God’s intimacy with humanity. Interestingly, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus uses the term “father” as a reference to God only four times. 70 years later, when the Gospel of John is recorded, God is referred to as “father” 101 times. The language of the church became more patriarchal not because Jesus was patriarchal, but because the writers of our tradition were men only. And so you and I were born into a tradition that references God as “He.” The majority of us grew up imaging God as an old man with a white beard ruling creation from a throne in the sky. What was your first image for God? where did you learn this? at church? at home? And has this image changed over the years? Has learning about the differing biblical images of God changed your image of the Divine? How have the voices of contemporary women and their invitation to claim the feminine side of God effected your naming God? I invite you to turn to a neighbor and share for a moment how your maturing beliefs about God differ from the beliefs that you were taught as a child. Has your understanding of God changed over the years? And then take a moment and write under the lines that say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty” how you would choose to name God. The creed continues. “I believe in God, Creator of heaven and earth.” Personally, I can relate to believing in a Creating God. It is here that science and religion compliment each other. The more that I learn about scientific explanations of creation and matter and DNA and galaxies beyond galaxies, the more I ponder the purpose of creation and God’s intentions for the universe. This is a good time to play with your play dough! Ponder God’s creation. Form something from creation that fills you with awe. Picture its beauty and feel your own wonder. Our faith informs us that we are created in the image of God. On Ash Wednesday we were reminded that we are made from dust. But the dust created into human form has within it a spark of the Divine so that, we, too, have the ability to create. The Creator and the Creator’s creatures are co-creators in this world. I like the translation that I found for our reading from Genesis 1. It does not say that after God created us God gave us dominion over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea but rather that God gave us responsibility for all of creation. Indeed God created the heaven and the earth and then looked to us to be its caretakers. Retired Bishop Dale White invites us to mature in our “creation theology” moving beyond a theology of dominance, and even past a theology of stewardship, to a theology of relationship. According to this view, creation has value because of its relationship to God, rather than its utility for humanity (as quoted in White’s paper, In Praise of Creation). If all of God’s creation is sacred, then we become priests of this cosmic sacrament and prophets who rail against exploitation and pollution and environmental racism. Look at what you have created with your play dough. What can you do to help preserve its beauty so that it will never be extinct? Finally, we have those two words: heaven and earth. In the 3rd century they were intended to mark the boundaries of God’s home and ours. God and the angels were in the heavenly sphere. Humankind and the rest of creation resided on the earth. But it is the 21st century and with satellites on Mars and space exploration on the moon a reality, we are invited to rethink our understanding of heaven and earth. You have heard me suggest before that heaven is wherever God is to be found. Heaven is right here on earth when we embrace God’s will and intentions. Wherever there is love, repentance, forgiveness, grace, justice…there is heaven. When we love God with our hearts and minds and souls and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, there is heaven. “The kingdom is Heaven is within you” Jesus taught. When our heart is one with God’s heart, there is heaven. “Is there a heaven in the afterlife?” you ask. And I would quote St. Paul and say “Now we see in a mirror dimly. Some day we will see face to face.” Let me leave you with a story from Chittister’s book In Search of Belief that speaks to these first few lines of the Apostles Creed. It suggests how single events in our life can remold and reshape our theology and what we believe. It was a six year old child that invited Joan Chittister to restate her long held belief in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. She writes: It was the night that their mother died that I was one of the people who undertook to get her six-year-old twins ready for bed. As each child ran down the hall fresh from his bath, he was rubbed down, bundled into pajamas, and held against the fright that comes from being without a mother. For the adults in the house it was a sad and empty night. For the children it was a time for thinking, for explaining, for understanding why and where and how things were now. Jimmy, the first twin out of the tub, was sitting on my knee waiting for his brother. “Well,” he said, fresh from first grade catechism class and looking up pensively at the crucifix, “by this time Momma’s in God’s stomach.” I felt my religious sensibilities lurch a little. “No, no, Jimmy,” I corrected him, “not God’s stomach, God’s arms. Momma’s is in God’s arms now,” I taught clearly and firmly. “God’s arms?” Jimmy repeated, surprised and even a little chagrined, I thought. “Of course, Jimmy,” I went on, repeating old images, reinforcing half a consciousness of the nature of God. Then, finally, moved by his incredulity, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was fascinated. “Jimmy,” I asked in the kind of gingerly way you use to call rabbit, “why ever would you think that mommy is in God’s stomach?” “Well,” the little boy answered with great certainty and patient logic, “Sister says that God is all around us. And God’s stomach is the only place that I can think where you can be if God is all around you.” At that moment I began to understand the power of the term “womb of God” (p. 29). Are we not all held in the “womb of God” in this life on earth and beyond this life in eternity? Does not our father-mother God create us, protect us, love us both with grace and expectation, and delight in those moments when we are united in Love? Oh, yes, I can exclaim: I believe in God, in whom is heaven and who never ceases to create and call life good – very, very good. Thanks be for this Mystery called Love. Allelulia! Amen! |