September
23rd, 2012 “Our
Beliefs” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Sermon
Series: The Theology of Worship
(Based
on A More Profound Alleluia ed. Van Dyk)
Deuteronomy
26:1-11 and Philippians 2:5-11
This is the fourth sermon in our
series about how and why we worship the way that we do on Sundays. We have talked about the opening of our
worship; gathering together in the name of God, we have talked about the confession
and pardon; reminding ourselves of our sinful nature and God’s promise of
forgiveness, and we have talked about the sermon; how our worship always
centers around reading and hearing God’s word in Scripture and proclamation. This morning we will talk about creeds and
their tradition within our denomination.
Some churches in the Presbyterian
tradition recite a creed or statement of belief every Sunday. Some churches only recite creeds when they
celebrate the sacraments of baptism and communion. Some churches recite creeds when folks become
new members or are ordained as deacons and elders. The truth is that I haven’t been part of this
church family long enough to know when specifically you like to say creeds; but
I do know we haven’t done it since I got here.
The practice of reciting creeds or the
group statement of a singular belief has roots deep in the Jewish and early
Christian traditions of our faith. In
our New Testament reading we find Paul reciting what many scholars think of as
an early Christian Creed about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This idea that Christ emptied himself in
service to God was an important theme in the early church. The phrasing in Philippians suggests that
Paul is sharing a common statement of faith that would have regularly been
read, recited, or even sung in the early worshipping communities.
Our
Old Testament reading this morning is an example of a historical creed said by
the people of Israel. This statement of
belief served to remind the people of God’s saving acts throughout their
history. I find it particularly moving
that the speaker is called to remember something that might not have happened
to them personally but rather is the story of their ancestors, the story of
their people.
This practice of reciting our beliefs
as a group is no longer common in our culture so why do we still say
creeds? Theology professor Ronald Byars
reminds us that “President Dwight Eisenhower once urged Americans, in the
1950s, to have faith in something, it didn’t much matter what. During that era in particular, the romantic
notion flourished that one ought to have faith in faith itself. The early twenty-first century version of
that notion seems to be faith in spirituality, which either has no specific
reference or is a sort of cafeteria from which the seeker selects a little of
this and a little of that.”
You can see this practice all around
us today. Perhaps you have a friend who
considers themself to be spiritual but doesn’t go to church. Or you may know people who pick and choose
from various church traditions to craft their own form of Christianity. The truth is that the Christian faith has
concrete content. “We believe in certain
things about God, about human beings, about the created world, and about their
relation. The specific content of the Christian
faith is expressed in our creeds.” (Byars)
In the Presbyterian tradition we have
a Book of Confessions that is a collection of creeds, confessions, and
catechisms that we believe state our faith and bear witness to God’s grace in
Jesus Christ. Within this volume you
will find historical creeds that are part of the greater church tradition such
as the Apostle’s Creed. You can take a
look at it with me in your hymnal on page 14.
Though we haven’t recited any creeds while I’ve been here, I’m going to
guess that most of your experience is with the Apostle’s creed. I know we have talked about it a bit at brown
bag.
In your hymnal you will also find The
Nicene Creed which is another historical church Creed that Presbyterians have
adopted. The Nicene Creed was developed in the fourth century at a time when
the church needed to make a clear statement about the identity of Jesus
Christ. I am going to read the creed and
I invite you to follow along on page 15 in your Presbyterian Hymnal. Though the language may seem stately and
foreign, this creed can serve as a reminder to us that we are grounded in a
tradition of believers that is centuries old.
I will be reading the Ecumenical version as that is the one that is in
our current Book of Confessions.
One exciting thing about our faith and
about the Presbyterian Book of Confessions is that it is a living document in
that is always being addressed and changed.
Currently in our denomination there is discussion regarding changing the
language of one of the creeds, the Heidelberg Catechism due to translation
issues and a desire to be true to the original 1563 version. There is also
discussion regarding adding a new creed, the Belhar Confession which comes out
of the struggle in South Africa in the 1980s.
Another
wonderful thing about the Book of Confessions is that it contains creeds that not
only are contemporary to our time, but are specific to our Presbyterian faith. One example of this is The Brief Statement of
Faith which was adopted by the church in 1983.
You will find The Brief Statement of Faith printed in your bulletin and at
the end of this sermon we will recite this creed together.
One advantage to saying creeds in
worship is to remind us that being part of a church requires a serious
commitment on our part. Americans have a
certain affection for choosing to belong to private associations like clubs,
but the church is not like these groups.
The church is part of the gospel.
You can not claim to be in Christ unless you are a part of the body of
Christ. The two simply cannot be separated;
one is not possible without the other.
In our American culture, “many construe
the church as just another social organization, not unlike our service clubs
and civic groups. When the church is conceived
simply as a volunteer organization, an affiliation one makes for the sake of
companionship in faith, or mutual reinforcement, or finding allies in the
service of a common cause then one wears the relationship lightly.” (Byars)
If
we don’t take our relationship with the church more seriously then we take our
relationship with the Lions club, then it makes it just as easy for us to leave
it as it is to leave any other group we belong to. We need to remember that the church is here
not simply to fulfill our personal needs of the moment, but rather the church
is here to help form us into a people of faith for a lifetime.
While clearly a traditional act of
faith, saying a creed together in worship is now a daunting task for some. In fact “Saying a Creed together in worship
can be an uncomfortable moment for many Christians. But I believe that is because most of us live
with an insufficient doctrine of the church.
Some people have the mistaken idea that the creed is meant to articulate
the faith of individual persons. They
think that if they say the Creed aloud, they must know what it fully means and
they must fully agree with it. Anything
short of this constitutes personal perjury.
But this idea betrays a mistaken understanding of the church.” (Byars)
Kathleen
Norris tells this story about an Orthodox theologian’s visit in a seminary
classroom, “A student stands up and asks, ‘What can one do when one finds it
impossible to affirm certain tenants of the Creed?’ The student’s question may have been in other
words, ‘May I stand politely, but silently, while the congregation recites the Creed? Or shall I say aloud only those lines that I’m
sure I believe?’ The priest responded
‘Well, you just say it. It’s not that
hard to master. With a little effort,
most can learn it by heart.’
… The student, apparently feeling that
he had been misunderstood, asked with some exasperation, ‘What am I to do when
I have difficultly affirming parts of the Creed?’ And he got the same response, ‘You say
it. Particularly when you have
difficultly believing it . . .’
The student raised his voice: ‘How can
I with integrity affirm a creed which I do not believe?’ And the priest
replied, ‘It’s not your creed, it’s our creed,” meaning the creed of the entire
Christian church . . . ‘Eventually it may come to you,’ he told the student.
‘For some, it takes longer than for others . . .”
“Just as we do not each invent our own
words for the hymns, we profess the faith of the church in the words of the
church. When the church is summoned to
profess its common faith, it does so not in a cacophony of simultaneous
personal testimonies, but in words that belong to the community of saints,
including both the living and the dead.
The creed represents the faith of the church – the faith with which,
mature or immature, we have to do. If,
for now, these affirmations seem beyond us, we continue to say them
nevertheless. They are not our words but
the church’s. Our work is to say them
until we grow into them. Eventually it
may come to us. For some it takes longer
than others.” (Byars)
“This does not mean that we are to
swallow our questions or stifle our dissent.
It does mean that the purpose of our questioning and the purpose even of
our dissent is that we all grow to the point where we embrace this faith and
internalize it rather than too hastily writing it off because it is alien to
the contemporary mind. We grow into the
church’s faith; we reserve the right to understand it differently than some
others may understand it, as well as the right to understand it differently
then when we first encountered it. The
creed remains, however, a verbal expression of the church’s faith, with all the
limitations that implies, but nevertheless rightfully claiming our respectful
attention and lifelong reflection.” (Byars)
Friends, the point is that the creeds
and the Book of Confessions are not the possession of any single individual;
they belong to the whole body of the church, called and chosen by God. The Presbyterian Church is a denomination
that is founded in tradition and history.
It is a church that believes in certain concrete things. It is a church of declared beliefs, and it is
a church of Creeds
In closing, I invite you take a moment
and recite with me the words of The Brief Statement of Faith which you will
find printed in your bulletin. Let us unite
with the whole church and say what we believe . . .
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