Here I Stand ~ Statements of Faith

 

One more set of questions today as you consider your theology and how you have witnessed the with-ness of God in your life:

 

What are my strengths?

Who are the role models and mentors who inspire me?

What practices and exercises will I employ in my everyday life?

What communities can I participate in and accompany?

What do I want to give back to the world?

 

The above questions invite you to explore the mystery of your one wild and precious life.  Please remember, you don’t have to answer every question.  There is no turning this in as an assignment.  Of course, if you want to talk about these questions, I welcome conversation and connection with you.  I also encourage you to give thought to any resistance or reluctance you have to these questions.  Sometimes the very questions we want to take a hard pass, refuse, refute, or call “silly” are the very questions where we discover the Divine in a new way.  God is not just some Genie in a bottle here to grant your every wish and make your dreams come true.  God stretches us in sacred ways and into sacred shapes.  To be clear, not every experience I have had is saturated in the holy.  Some experiences are drenched in humanness that drain me.  Yet God can be there even in brokenness and in moments I wish had never happened.  This is what makes faith endlessly fascinating and (honestly) frustrating.  Faith is not math to be solved, but a poem, a prayer, a praise to enter fully with our whole lives.   This week, we have paused to look at our lives.  Who is God, who is the other, and who am I?  Jot down thoughts today on this, and then, maybe at the end of December, make a cup of hot cocoa and review these questions and your thoughts.  In a few weeks, go back and notice what is shifting and what is stable, persisting.  May you and I continue to let loose your inner theologian, for the world needs to hear how God is at work in your heart/life ~ and we need to hear from each other.  Amen.  

Here I Stand ~ Statements of Faith

 

As we play with our theological toybox, we are discovering what we believe about God, Jesus, ourselves, and others.  I remember when I went through my toy box as a child; I would sometimes find, at the very bottom, a toy I forgot I had.  I would find a Matchbox car I thought was lost forever.  When we delve and dive into theology, the same is true.  You may discover in your theological toybox an idea about God hidden in the cobwebbed corner of your soul that you thought you gave away, let go of, lost years ago.  I know several people, for example, for whom referring to God as only/exclusively male can be hurtful and pick at the scab of a wound that has never healed.  This could be because their own father was abusive or abandoned them.  This could be because referring to God only as “Father” feels like your soul is cramped and confined.  This could be for a thousand reasons unique to each person’s experience and encounters.  Perhaps this week, one of the questions I’ve asked surfaced, stirred up the sand in the ocean of your soul, causing you to recall God as an old white man with a beard on a throne.  There are ideas in each of our theological toyboxes that we are called to ponder prayerfully.  I know this: God creates us in God’s image, and too often, in turn, we create God in our image.  What we say about God says more about us than the Holy Other of the Divine.  Remember all theology is autobiographical ~ talking about God is talking about ourselves.

 

While the last two mornings have been about you and God/Jesus/Spirit/Church ~ there is a whole world where you are not the main character of the play.  Ponder these questions:

 

What are my responsibilities to my neighbor?

What are my responsibilities to the poor and disenfranchised?

What do I want to give to the world?

What are the elements of a well-lived life? 

As you rummage and roam around your theological toy box with these questions, look for threads and themes that connect your response to each.  For example, is there a connection and consistency between your neighbor and the poor/marginalized?  For example, how is my love for my literal neighbor like my love for my siblings who are unhoused?  How might my love be different/distinctive for different people?  Is there a connection to how I view a life well-lived?  Perhaps all of this grows from thinking about my responsibilities to others in my life.  We live in a culture that worships at the altar of the individual.  We demand and decree that things be done our way, on our timetable, and to our liking, thank you very much.  Yet, the life of faith calls into question whether our life is ever isolated from others.  Faith challenges the myth of the “self-made” individual ~ which is biologically impossible and theologically irrational.  You are a collection of fingerprints, DNA, smudges and smears of others ~ some chosen and some you’d rather not have experienced.  Let these questions open you to the mystery that your life has never been lived on an island, but in community.  The price of community can be annoyance and ache and joy upon heaping helping of joy.  Let these questions move us beyond thinking to ways we embody and experience life in this beautifully broken/bruised world.  Amen.

Here I Stand ~ Your Statement of Faith

 

Yesterday, you let loose your inner theologian by talking about God, Jesus, the Spirit, humanity, church, and blessedness/brokenness.  Remember, this is not some assignment to turn in and forget; it is the work of our entire lives.  It is good to look both at our responses to questions and the very questions themselves.  Here is another set of prompts to help you think about how you think about God:

 

What do I believe about God/a higher power? 

What was your earliest image of God?  Compare that to images of God today.

What does it mean to me to be successful as a human being?

What comes into my mind/heart/stir in my soul when I hear the phrase, “a good life”?

 

Perhaps this set of questions awakens new thoughts about God.  I, especially, find the last two questions meaningful, if we are willing to be earnest, honest, and vulnerable.  Because you are reading this Morning Meditation, written by a pastor, your inner Sunday School student may want to say, “A successful human serves God with joy.”  Or maybe you studied Westminster Catechism (which is a set of questions about faith and answers to those questions) as a teenager.  The first question in that book is, “What is the chief end of (hu)man beings?”  The response is, “To glorify God and enjoy (him/her/them).”  Wait.  Linger with me on this.  How does that question and response land in you?  Maybe you are frustrated and flummoxed by the language of the question.  I get that.  Maybe you even think it is the wrong question.  I get that.  Maybe you want to raise your hand and ask, “How do I glorify God?  What are the benchmarks or key performance indicators that will be evaluated by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven?”  I don’t know.  When we grow up in a church where every question has an answer in a Catechism book, it can do two things.  First, it can teach us that if we disagree with the answer, we have no room in the church.  This breaks my heart.  Second, it can teach us that every question in faith must have an answer, which it does not.  There is mystery in our lives.  Part of the mystery is coming back to questions of faith, setting in dialogue our lives and our beliefs that were handed/shaped by the past and need to continually be updated to the future.  Your faith, like an Apple/Samsung phone, is continually getting software updates.  This week, we are seeing what the latest version of software for our minds/hearts/souls and lives is needed for this time and place.  I pray you are finding moments of joy in exploring your faith and being a theologian this week.  Amen.  

Here I Stand ~ Your Statement of Faith

 

In April of 1521, Martin Luther was called to Worms, Germany, to answer for posting his 95 Theses on the door in Wittenberg.  This was one way to begin a public conversation in Luther’s day; please don’t nail anything to the church doors today ~ they are made of glass.  One of the main reasons he was summoned before the religious authorities was to defend, or more accurately denounce, his objection to the selling of indulgences.  This was money you paid the church to free a loved one’s soul from purgatory ~ this was where your soul went after death ~ a waiting room between heaven and hell.  Before we chuckle, I caution us to consider that some of the practices we cling to in the church might not look good to future generations either.  We don’t know what will stand the test of time.  We don’t control how future generations evaluate our lives; we only pray for grace and understanding. At that trial, Luther would not take back what he wrote.  Instead, he said, “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.  Amen.”  This moment sparked and lit the fire of the Reformation.  There were other faithful people who wanted to reform the church prior to 1521.  Luther was not the first, nor would he be the last.  We are a reformed and reforming church.  The work of God in the church is never finished. Over the last few weeks, we have played with and pondered prayerfully Creeds/Statements of Faith.  I pray you have discovered new insights and have new ideas about who God is/what God is up to in the world.  Who Jesus is and the ways Jesus still impacts/inspires our lives.  Who the Spirit is (what Proverbs refers to as Sophia/Holy Wisdom), as She dances, weaves, and works to open us to the holiness of every day.  This week, in honor of Reformation, I invite you to think about your own creed/statement of faith/ideas about who God, Christ, the Spirit, humanity, the church, and our work in the world today.  I know this is a big invitation.  Maybe you’d rather talk about Halloween on Saturday.  I could talk about how we all wear masks to fit in and how we all live with unholy ghosts of the past that haunt our lives.  Wait.

Did you realize that previous sentence was a creed/statement of faith about humanity and community?  Saying we all wear masks unveils a thought I have about humanity.  Writing about unholy ghosts that haunt our lives from memories that still have power in the present is an idea about the world as I experience it.  Theology is not some separate, special task of people with degrees on the wall.  We are all theologians.  We say things about God, hold tightly to beliefs about others, and direct our energy/attention toward certain things.  Our lives are a living statement of faith, if we listen.  Remember, your theology is impacted by your autobiography; your past religious experience shapes your present beliefs.

 

Today, I invite you to find a piece of paper or open the notes app on your phone.  Jot down, fill in the blanks, to the following invitations:

God is…

Jesus is…

Spirit is…

Humans are…

I am…

The church is…

Salvation means…

Missing the mark/Brokenness/Sin is…

A few things about this exercise.  It is never one and done.  Our theology is being influenced and impacted by our experiences and encounters each day.  We may make sense of God one way today that tomorrow seems antiquated and out-of-date.  Secondly, notice if there is any thread woven through your statements.  For example, I could say God is unconditional love, Jesus is God’s love in flesh/breath/bone, and the Spirit enlivens each of us to live God’s love.  The theme is love.  I could talk about how humans choose fame/fortunate/followers online rather than love ~ because we trust more in the gospels of the world.  Play with your sentences, not just today, but in the week and days to come.  You are a theologian; you hold and are held by beliefs.  You have a recipe of faith you feast from and serve to others each day ~ let’s listen to that this week.

Prayer

 

Creator of all that was, is, and will be.  You continue to recycle the energy of life in the music of today.  You continue to call us to live from our reconciled spirits, rather than from wanting to be recognized and rewarded.  Help us, God, for too often this goes against the powerful gospel of the world.  Clean out our ears to hear anew Your conducting/composing ways.  Guide us to seek listening for understanding/insight rather than just thinking, “I’ll just do it myself, thanks anyway, God.”  Challenge us to notice that we are being shaped by what we give our attention and energy.  Savior, heal what is broken, especially when, as humans, we keep repeating history in heartbreaking ways.  We cannot erase the hurt of what was, so repair our woundedness of what is today.  We cannot eradicate all that divides us, because there is division within us.  Continue to open us to what You are up to in this world that we might delight in Your way and join our voices with others in the choir of all creation.  May each of us recognize that we spend time on the mat of the beloved in the story from last Sunday (Mark 2:1-12).  Help us honor that we all get by with more than just a little help from our friends.  And may this prayer provoke a new way of living as we let these words ground and guide us.  Create in us, through us, and help us cooperate with You. Amen.  

Statement of Faith ~ Week 4

 

We believe that our smallness can never diminish God’s vastness; that our frailties can never overcome God’s will for wholeness; that our sin can never crush God’s power for new life even in the face of death.  We believe, and in this belief, we need one another, as a choir needs every voice and every part for the harmony to be complete. An Affirmation of Christian Unity

 

When was the last time you felt your full humanness in the presence of God’s inexhaustibility?  I bristle a bit at the word “smallness” in the above creed.  Part of this is because of my own ego.  I don’t want to be small.  We have negative connotations of small, which is too bad.  Because there is holiness in all that is seen and unseen.  God is there in the bug crawling along the carpet.  God is in the atom we cannot see, and we know that the atom is in us and has been here since the beginning of time.  God is there in the mystery of the stars above and the depths of seas we have yet to explore.  Suddenly, I do feel a bit small.  I will never travel to space; I get motion sick in a car that goes too fast, let alone a rocket!  I will never dive to the deepest part of the ocean; I don’t even like swimming in my pool.  Maybe it is holy for me to name and notice that I am not the center of the universe.  Perhaps it is holy to remember my own fragility.  The creeds proclaim and propose that vulnerability is essential for community.  Recall moments of community from this past week, whether that was with one other person or a whole group.  How did that group help, and how did that group hurt?  Maybe you felt you couldn’t speak up or say what was on your mind, or maybe you shared too much (I often fall into the latter category).  Just as a choir seeks to bring/blend voices for sound, so too, our lives seek prayerfully to do the same.  In our world, it can feel like not only are we on different pages of the music, but we aren’t even in the same venue when we sing!  We can feel like we are singing from different pieces of music altogether.  We can feel like others are blaring and blasting sounds that send shivers down our spine.  To come back to center, to return to the One who is composing and conducting ~ God at the heart of all the music of our lives.  Ponder ways that you can relish and rejoice in smallness and share your voice as part of the unfolding larger choir of God.  What does that mean in your life?  How will you participate in singing out, not to overpower, but to cooperate and conspire?  May this invitation move within us today and in the days to come.  Amen.

Statement of Faith ~ Trinity as Holy Dance

 

We believe in God the Saviour revealed in the world as Jesus the Christ, who died and is risen, the one Lord of the church.  We believe in God the Reconciler, the Holy Spirit, who is always with us, bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. An Affirmation of Christian Unity

 

Yesterday, we noted that creeds begin by speaking about God.  The next part of most creeds speaks of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  The above speaks of Jesus and the Spirit being infused and inspired by God.  God is not only the Creator that we explored yesterday, but also the Savior and Reconciler.  God accomplishes God’s work in committee or in connection with Jesus and the Spirit.  God is relational in God’s activity.  I don’t claim to understand the Trinity.  I sense this as the holy dance of the Divine revealed in more ways than I will ever know.  I delight in the truth that God is not confined nor contained.  God is more than our words/thoughts/ideas.  As Karl Barth said, God is “The Holy Other”.  God in Jesus comes into the world, walks on the soil of the earth, and shares God’s love.  Because Jesus confronted the Empire of the World, the powers that be killed him.  The truth is that Good Friday isn’t just about the past, but the present.  We continue to hurt, harm, wound, and kill each other and the earth through violence as well as abuse in all its awful forms.  We keep choosing to use our creativity to come up with new ways to divide each other.  The “isms” of the world multiply in heartbreaking, soul-aching ways.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, agism, ableism, political dehumanization, economic oppression, and religious exclusionism, to name a few.  In fact, the way we treat others is how we treat the earth/God’s Creation.  I know that I can’t fix all of that alone.  That doesn’t mean I just veg out and binge-watch dog videos online.  I seek to engage where I can and how I can, knowing that God continues God’s salvific work today.  What is saving your life today?  Put another way, what is helping to align your head, heart, soul, body, and God’s fingerprints of love on your life?  I can be saved by a piece of music, a hug, a good lunch, a heartfelt discussion, or quietly standing outside as the sun sets.  Salvation is never one and done, but continual in our lives.  The church is called to be a safe space where we can be honest that we don’t have it all figured out.  The church becomes the place where we practice God’s love.  Yet, the church is made up of humans who can be and do very human things ~ see the list of isms above to recall this truth.  Those isms exist not just outside the walls of our homes/church but inside the confines of our very hearts.  We all carry around biases and brokenness.  Reconciliation isn’t only to God, but additionally to each other/Earth and continually day-by-day.  When was the last time you felt reconciled to someone?  Maybe a ruptured relationship with a friend found some duct tape of healing when you talked.  Or maybe you let loose your anger at God that things aren’t going so well and felt the cathartic healing of honesty.   Our lives preach a sermon that goes all over the place, taking unexpected exit ramps and getting way off course.  Our lives are a sermon: where and when are we practicing reconciliation because we are being renewed/saved/held by God?  May that question stir within you and sing from your life this day.  Amen.