A sermon shared with First
Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, March 12, 2017
A few months back, a young person
in our congregation asked me, “How do I know God exists?” A few weeks ago, someone
asked me what the words “Holy catholic Church” in the Apostles’ Creed mean.
(I used the link to the Wikipedia site since it provides an unabashed presentation,
rather than one of the denominational sites.) Since the answer to the first
question leads us to the answer to the other, I thought I’d tackle them both
today.
We are theological people. Theology
is the study of God. We study God to know what we believe. Like the young
person who asked, we are preoccupied by the unknown, e.g., who is Jesus and God,
how Jesus began and what he stands for. As responsible Christians who love
fact-based reason, we are theological inquirers. Judaism and Christianity,
perhaps alone, share that urge to know God and how God shapes our religious beliefs.
We have the feeling that we cannot
demand allegiance to and worship something unless we understand it with some clarity. Who
are we? Where did we originate? What do we
know about God? We want to write down the answers. Inquiring minds want to know the truth.
At times that urge for certainty
blinded the early “church fathers” (and us) to some of the key teachings about
God by the prophets and Jesus. The
Lord tells Isaiah, “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts.
Jesus
tells his disciples, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father;
and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except
the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” The bottom line is
that we cannot know and understand God or God’s reasons by human understanding.
God must reveal himself to us by
the Holy Spirit.
This answer to the young person’s question, "you have to experience God," may not be satisfying, but scripture says we neither
fully define God or explain God. We may feel we have a “glimpse” of God, but
that is it. The very essence of belief embodied in the good news demands faith
alone in who God is. Faith alone comes
from prayer, reading scripture and serious effort to live the good news
ourselves, not from a logical and reasonable explanation. We believe because
we have had an experience that supports our faith. Think about what I just
wrote. You can discover in perhaps the only certain way the nature of God and the
good news by the experience of living and sharing the grace given you, because
it is revealed to you in your experience. (So get off the pews and out into the world!)
Most Christians use the Apostles’
Creed as a declaration of what we believe about the Trinity (to preserve monotheism). (Declaration is
what the word “creed” means.) But… we seldom notice that all Christian
congregations do not use the same version of the Apostle’s Creed. Many Methodists do not use the words, “He
descended into Hell.” Catholics capitalize “catholic” (catholic means
“universal”) in “I believe in the holy Catholic church,” but Presbyterians and
other Protestants do not capitalize “catholic.”
This raises a more critical issue.
We Christians all do not explain our faith the same way. Most important and
overlooked, people of faith interpret scripture differently to define
what they believe. Is our Presbyterian version the “right” way and everyone
else not a Christian? Or more technically, is PC(USA) correct and PCA wrong, or the reverse? Or are the Methodist, right? Or, the Catholics? Or those
who refuse the Apostles Creed, or any creed at all? It is going down a rabbit hole, if it is anything, to fight over denominational polity, in my opinion.
Let’s go back to the early days of
Christianity when it was a truly Christ-centered movement with no denominations
(but plenty of arguments I will ignore for now and not mention for our humility's sake) to find the answer. In the span of perhaps 50 to 75
years after the crucifixion and resurrection, Christianity spread from a strand
of Jewish theology centered in Jerusalem to synagogues in Gentile communities,
and to the populace in Syria, Egypt, Greece, the islands of the Mediterranean
and even to Rome, itself, and beyond. (For the first 250 years, one can account
for the total population of Christians by only 10% of the Jewish believers in the synagogues of the Diaspora! See
pages 133-140 of Stark’s Cities
of God. )
These earliest congregations focused
on the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Mark and letters of Paul (or
on the writings attributed to John in sectarian groups). Christian life
centered on the substance of who Jesus was and what he preached, not where he
came from and how.
Mark challenges us to a radical
confidence in our faith. His gospel, according to the consensus of scholars, begins with an adult Jesus walking out of
the desert to be baptized and ends at 16:8, with a man clothed in
white standing in an empty tomb saying to the women, “If you are looking for
Jesus, he has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid
him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to
Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” Then the women went out and fled from
the tomb in terror and amazement and they said nothing to anyone, for they were
afraid.”
This is the end of Mark’s story of
the good news in the most reliable manuscripts. It leaves unanswered questions,
“Where did Jesus come from?” and “Where did he go? Mark places us in the
predicament to accept that Jesus is the Son of God, was raised from the dead
after crucifixion, may have met the disciples afterwards and is in Heaven as an
article faith.
Mark tells a gospel story that
hangs on an article of faith alone to resolve the uncertainty of his gospel. That
posed a real problem for many believers. It did not take long before smart
people like our young perosn began asking questions such as “Where did Jesus
come from and where did he go after the Resurrection,” and “How is Jesus
connected to God.”
The first congregations posed
these questions and arguments over God and the life of Jesus to the 12 Apostles
and Paul. These questions comes from a fundamental consequence of being human.
We want to reduce everything to a reasonable explanation. We thirst for
certainty. We hate ambiguity.
Luke understood that. The introduction to his gospel says,
“Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events
that have been fulfilled among us just as they were handed on to us by those
who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too
decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first,
to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you
may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been
instructed.” We read the disagreement and uncertainty over what it means to be
a Christian between the lines of this introduction.
Luke’s gospel,
like Matthew amplifies Mark with other sources. “The Acts of the Apostles” describes the
history of the earliest congregations (not in perfect agreement with Paul's). In Acts, (2:41-42) Luke defines
“Christianity” as “the teachings of the Apostles” who were with Jesus, who observed
his resurrection and experienced the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Luke tried
to give “an orderly account” of these “eye witnesses” about “the truth” in
short as logical explanation as he can give.
You will find in Mark, Luke, Acts
and Paul’s letters (also John
and Matthew) the conviction that the whole Gospel, including who God is, that
God is the father of Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all linked carefully to
Jewish history and God’s compassion for his creation, but you will not find
certainty, only faith that any of them writes truth.
Presbyterians and most people who
claim adherence to the Reformed faith do not rely upon another person to reveal
who God is and God’s reasons for acting. We can only read the scriptures,
everything written and said about Christ, God and the good news, but we do it holding
this caution clearly in front of us at every moment: We read and understand using
our judgment guided by praying
for illumination by the Holy Spirit.
We cannot know the mind of God even in scripture except as God chooses
to reveal it to us. As I said earlier, books don’t do it, the most direct way
to understanding and belief is through the personal experiences of God’s
action in the world that supports our faith.
Even if we accept the answer to the
young person question, we do not let well enough alone. We create
“Creeds,” or “statements of faith” that define our system of belief. We are following
that Judeo-Christian thirst for theology to tell us what we believe about
God. Remember the Shema the young people
placed in mezuzahs? That is an example of the Jewish Credo.
If we take this urge to write down
what we believe too literally and ignore the irony of our task, it can get us
into trouble. If we believe we can write down everything about God then we say
we can understand God completely by reason. Yet the prophets and Jesus tell us God
is above description and in control. God decides to reveal himself, God decides
how he is reconciling himself with humanity that rebels against God. Not us.
Our creeds are human statements of
belief interpreting scripture in the context of a present-day problem that
challenges the church and its members. The Confession of 1967 was the Presbyterian
attempt to seek reconciliation over slavery and war, the Barmen Declaration was
an attempt to define the independence of the Church from Nazi Government. (You
can find all the creeds we acknowledge here
except the last one, the
Confession of Belhar. The controversy over this last confession only
underscores what I am about to write.) I
use the words “attempt to define” because every creed is subordinate to
scripture and its words depend on the understanding that the Holy Spirit leads
us to believe about the issue. We discuss creeds with our fellow Christians and
if we all come to agreement, we accept them as a human expression of belief
guided by scripture.
The Apostles’ Creed is one of the earliest creeds accepted by Presbyterians
and most other Christian denominations. It seeks to do what we cannot do
perfectly, describe God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit by reason and logic. (If you
want to read one of the earliest in hymn form, read Philippians 2: 5-11, perhaps
one of the most moving declarations of who is Jesus. Paul came back to it in Romans 10:8-10.)
Creeds are a valued human
expressions of God plan. But I repeat, they are subordinate to scripture. The
scriptures say God alone is in control.
We must acknowledge that the creeds (and sermons) rely upon our
conscience to decide what we believe.
We have the humility to know that
we may be wrong. It is demanded. We rely on our brothers and sisters as
sounding boards that creeds make sense. We admit even if we all agree on
something that we are fallible and liable to make an error and misunderstand
what the “right thing to do is.” (Slavery is a good example.)
To write a creed, or say, “I
believe this is God’s plan,” a responsible Christian accepts that the only way
we can truly know is by the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That comes
by thoughtful and meditative prayer, discussion with peers and most
importantly, through the experience of God’s presence.
Presbyterians believe that the
ultimate authority of human understanding of scripture and God is our conscience.
No creed, or claim by another overrules what our conscience tells us is what
scripture says is Christian behavior, even if it results in our exclusion from
their fellowship. The dispute over same-sex issues is a classic example where so
many on both sides lost that humility to acknowledge human fragility and the
essential nature of Paul’s
declaration.
This sermon began with two
questions. The answer to “Who God is?” comes by the human experience of gracious living
according to the good news and discovering God’s presence. It isn’t a rational
scientific answer but it is the best there is. You must discover God on your
own.
That
leaves ‘What is the Holy catholic Church?” whose answer depends on
the first question. Remembering that making and accepting
a creed requires great personable responsibility, trust in our fellow
Christians and the humility to always recognize that you may be wrong. The word
“catholic” means universal. The
phrase one “Holy universal Church” means there is one Church that belongs to
Jesus Christ.
When the
Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church write the Apostles’ Creed they
capitalize Catholic because they believe their leader is connected to the
original Apostles who began the first organized “congregations” and then the first
organized Church of Jesus Christ. Catholics are saying “there is one universal
Church, Christ’s Church” and believe they are the Church whose
purpose is revealed by the Holy Spirit as I have described today to its human
leader.
Protestants
believe the same thing, there is one universal church, “Christ’s Church.” But
Protestants recognize human fallibility and read scripture to say that only God
can reveal his purpose and intent in the world to anyone. Protestants and
Catholics have struggled to death at times over this issue that one human
should have ultimate responsibility to understand the revelation of God for
everyone. Catholics and Protestants are closer to agreement than ever before
because now we both acknowledge the one universal Church, though Protestants
persist in keeping the lower caser “c” and Catholics keeping the capital “C” in
the universal (C)(c)atholic Church.
Presbyterians
recognize no denomination is the Church. Denominations are all local expressions
of the universal Church whose head is Jesus Christ described by Paul in
Philippians 2: 5-11.
We can
say the apostles’ creed as our statement of belief without worry that we are
endorsing Catholicism. When we say the Apostles Creed we are affirming
regardless our differences in interpretation, that we are all brothers and
sisters in Christ’s Church.
Here for your benefit is
that powerful Philippians credo:
Let the same
mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form
of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point
of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore, God
also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
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. AMEN!
Note the "stripped down- bare minimum essence" of faith embodied in this declaration.
Note the "stripped down- bare minimum essence" of faith embodied in this declaration.
Grace and peace to you all.
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