Statements of Faith ~ Jesus

 

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, God has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the whole creation to its Creator.

 

Whereas God got several lines in the UCC Statement of Faith, Jesus gets one long sentence.  Make no mistake, this sentence is profoundly powerful.  First, remember “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name.  Christ is a description of who Jesus is and why Jesus came.  Christ means ‘Anointed’ and is connected to the Hebrew word, mashiah or messiah.  The Statement of Faith could have said, Jesus the Anointed One or Jesus the Messiah.  In the Jewish imagination, the job description of the messiah was to restore Jewish rule and restore/reconcile the Promised Land/throne of David.  Ever since the Babylonian Exile, the Jewish people had been oppressed and occupied by foreign powers.  

Some of those powers were kind, and others were cruel.  But the right to self-government was continually diminished and denied.  This reality went against and contradicted the very claim that they were God’s chosen people.  It is hard to be the light of the world when you are under the oppressive sandals of Caesar.  Many prophets and preachers said the Jewish people could still be a light even when they were being ruled by others.  But the Messiah would come and right all wrongs, overthrow the powers that be, and return the people to the glory of the good old days.  If that sounds familiar, it continues to be a political talking point to this day.  The juxtaposition of Jesus being both the Messiah and a human is where there remains discussion and debate.  

This isn’t new; it is as old as the church itself.  How much of Jesus was divine and how much was human?  What were the percentages?  Today there are followers of Jesus who think of him as just a really great teacher and swell guy, and others who say that unless you call him Savior, you are going to hell.  Eek, I’ll take door number three, please!  I don’t know how much of Jesus was human or how much was holy.  Could you even measure that out?  Can you distinguish those two parts of Jesus into separate containers?  I believe the humanness and holiness of Jesus mixed and mingled together.  From the time Jesus called a beloved daughter of God a ‘dog’ (Mark 7:24-30) to times he turned over tables (Matthew 21:12-17) to Jesus forgiving people from the cross (Luke 23:34), Jesus shows us the holiness and humanness being brought and blended together.  The statement above goes on to remind us of Jesus’ death and resurrection; how Jesus shared in the good, bad, and ugly of life, and through the mystery/marvel of Easter showed us a new way to life.  This circles us back to yesterday, God showing us life and death to choose life each day.  Jesus shows us how to live a human/holy way.  Jesus preaches about all creation thriving beyond surviving.  Jesus lived a life that flourished.  Flourishing doesn’t mean succeeding and winning the trophy while confetti rains down on you.  Flourishing means feeling fully alive.  As St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive!”  How might you explore and embody this invitation to be fully alive today?  How might that be the way Christ inspires us to do each day?  May those questions stir and swirl around all of us today.

Statements of Faith

 

Slowly read the UCC’s Statement of Faith with me again:

 

We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, who is made known to us in Jesus our brother, and to whose deeds we testify:

God calls the worlds into being, creates humankind in the divine image, and sets before us the ways of life and death.

God seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

God judges all humanity and all nations by that will of righteousness declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, God has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the whole creation to its Creator.

God bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be servants in the service of the whole human family, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

God promises to all who trust in the gospel forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, the presence of the Holy Spirit in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in that kingdom which has no end.

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto God.

Amen.

 

Calls…creates…sets…seeks…saves…judges.  Those are the six verbs used above to describe and define God’s activity ~ who God is and what God is up to in the world.  First, God calls.  I believe God sings out not just to humans, but to all creation, to praise.  Recall the sermon on Psalm 33 from Sunday.  Secondly, God creates us in God’s image.  Notice this is a present tense verb.  God didn’t create you, wipe the divine hands clean of the dust, and say, “All good here.”  God continues to craft you each day, and we are called to wake up to God’s movement in our lives.  Third, God sets and serves the invitation to choose life each day.  Remember from a few weeks ago, in the sermon I started with the Mary Oliver quote, “Every day when you wake up the world says to you, 'Here you are alive and awake and aware…care to make a comment?’”  God offers us ways that lead to life and ways that lead to pain, brokenness, and despair.  This theology comes from Deuteronomy 30:15: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.”  Every day we are given choices from our calling and continually being created in God’s image.  At the same time, in the original operating system of the human condition, we are given free will.  God doesn’t demand or decree that we do anything, because love is never forced.  Love is always invitational.  We can decide to follow and pave the path today with bricks of love or throw them at others with snarky comments online with keyboard courage as we hide behind anonymous screen names.  To be sure, some decisions have heavier consequences than others.  I don’t think my choice of breakfast cereals is going to change the world, but how I show up at a meeting at church will leave an impression.  Henri Nouwen once said that “Freedom is the core of the spiritual life.”  At the same time, people all around us choose death daily.  Whether through hate, spreading fear, abuse, anger (which is fear flexing muscles), belittling others, violence, and discrimination… all these are reflections of our very human ways.  So, the words above say that God seeks to save us from aimlessness and sin.  Fun Theological Nerd fact from the sermon two weeks ago: sin means missing the mark.  We need to reclaim the word “sin” from finger-wagging, pulpit pounding, hell/fire/brimstone.  God as some divine Santa Claus who makes us prove our worth, or sinners in the hand of an angry God dangling over flames licking our feet.  Good Lord, somewhere God is rubbing God’s temples, saying, “Why do I put up with this?” God’s vulnerable love was arriving as a baby born in a barn.  God’s sacrificial love was shown on the cross, rather than sword-swinging military power.  God’s resurrecting love on Easter still shows the wounds of Good Friday.  This is so counter-cultural, of course; our minds want to reconcile God’s upside-down mobility message with the consumeristic, winning, have-to-be- #1 mentality of our world.  I can hear you saying, “But what about that word, ‘judges’, Wes, that doesn’t sound very loving!”  Right, if we picture God as a human judge.  But what if God is a judge who wants what is best for us?  I recently heard a theologian describe a judge in a custody hearing for a child who said, “My job is to listen to everything and help put you in the best situation possible.”  Judging here is not about guilt or innocence, but about being God who is on our side, trying to help us see when we are aimless or are so angry we lash out at others.  God guides, refines, reconciles, renews, restores, and re-stories through the womb of mercy.  What verbs would you use to describe God?  Or flip through a hymnal to see how God is described in the hymns there; what words do we sing from our theological textbook of the hymnal?  Let this invitation stir and swirl around us as our calling, creating, setting, seeking, saving, and correcting God moves in our lives.  

Statements of Faith

 

“Words are bricks, which, depending on how you use them, can pave pathways or build walls.”  ― Jeff Chu

 

If someone asked you to describe or define your faith, what would you say?  You might start by talking about the God you don’t believe in.  For example, a Divine being who is judgy and “shoulds” on your life or throws lightning bolts or smites people.  You might start by talking about where you show up and speak up in the world.  After all, the United Church of Christ is a branch of the Protestant tree that grew out of protest.  When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door in Wittenberg against the sale of indulgences, he was offering a protest and proposing a conversation.   Or, when asked about God, you might change the subject to who will win the World Series or your feelings about Pumpkin Spice lattes.

 

Faith can be slippery and subversive, difficult to define or describe.  Faith won’t always stay confined in containers we create.  There are parts of faith that are always mysterious and elusive.  Throughout human history, people of faith have tried to put words on paper about what we believe.  This week, we will dive and dwell in the United Church of Christ’s Statement of Faith.  In the coming weeks, I will introduce you to other statements of faith, because each can bring beautiful ideas to life.  Today, slowly read the words below.  Where do you discover a path being paved to your soul in the words below?  Where do you shake your head, “No,” emphatically because you just don’t agree with the words you read?  Where do you feel confused and want to raise your hand for clarification?  Hold these words, noticing and naming where they land in you:

 

We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, who is made known to us in Jesus our brother, and to whose deeds we testify:

God calls the worlds into being, creates humankind in the divine image, and sets before us the ways of life and death.

God seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

God judges all humanity and all nations by that will of righteousness declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, God has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the whole creation to its Creator.

God bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be servants in the service of the whole human family, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

God promises to all who trust in the gospel forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, the presence of the Holy Spirit in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in that kingdom which has no end.

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto God.

Amen.

 

What stirs in you from the above, what feels like sandpaper, and where do you shake your head in confusion?  Let’s sit together in the holy attempts to give expression to how, where, and when we encounter the Eternal in our lives.  Amen.

Prayer with Francis

 

Do few things but do them well, simple joys are holy.  St. Francis of Assisi

Creator of all that was, is, and will be.  For birds that soar, help me listen.  For trees that slowly grow, sinking roots deep while stretching limbs above, help me listen.  For other humans, some who warm my heart and others who are like sandpaper to my soul, help me listen.  Thank you for Francis.  For his love of Your creation.  For his words and wisdom, light and love, for truths that meet us here 800 years later.  Let us continue to be people who strengthen our web of mutuality with all Your living beings.  Let us speak Your peace to those people in wolf clothing, who gnash their teeth.  Let us continue to pause, listen for You before we speak.  And remind us that if we think You are constantly agreeing with us, perhaps we need to clean out the earwax of our soul.  Guide us, connect us, challenge and grow us, shaping us more and more into Your holy image.  In the name of the One who lived as an instrument of Your peace and whom we follow, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.  

Sitting with St. Francis

The deeds you do may be the only sermon some people will hear today.  St. Francis of Assisi

 

What sermon is your life preaching this week?  Ouch, that is a tough question.  In some ways, I am not sure.  Life can be so busy it becomes a blur.  We race and rush from one thing to another, so we don’t pay attention to ourselves or others.  What sermon is your life preaching?  Not just with words, but Francis is clear that how you show up matters.  Do you sigh and roll your eyes at meetings?  I do.  Do you wait on the edge of your seat when someone is talking so you can quickly jump in with your story?  I do.  Do you have your plan for today and ask God to keep up with you?  I do.  Connect the quote from today to the prayer from yesterday.  St. Francis gave us a sermon in his prayer.  Am I preaching peace, love, and hope?   And am I listening to others who do the same, and am I willing to listen to others who are different?  We spend much of our one wild and precious life paying attention to the voices that feel like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Yes, it is important to listen to people we disagree with, but we can also pay attention to people who are living St. Francis’ prayer.  When are we listening to the trees or birds or wind?  St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and ecology.  He is said to have preached to birds.  St. Bonaventure records that sermon as Francis saying, “Oh birds, my brothers and sisters, you have a great obligation to praise your Creator, who clothed you in feathers and gave you wings to fly with, provided you with pure air and cares for you without any worry on your part.”  I love this.  

There is also the story of St. Francis making the sign of the cross on a wolf that had been terrorizing the town of Gubbio.  Here Francis says, “Come here, Brother Wolf.  I command you on behalf of Christ that you do no harm to me or anyone.”  The wolf closed his mouth and became meek as a lamb nestling at Francis’ feet.  In that story, I hear Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kin-dom (Isaiah 11).  Our sermons need not only preach to people, but also live in harmony with all creation.  What sermon is your life preaching today?  Are you listening to your own life?  I pray today for God to open your heart, ears, eyes, and whole presence for the movement of the Holy.  Amen.

 

Sitting with St. Francis

 

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved, as to love. St. Francis of Assisi

 

This is one of St. Francis’ most famous quote/prayers.  I am struck by that first line: am I really an instrument of God’s peace, or am I a loud, crashing cymbal just trying to get more likes on social media?  Do I sow love or hate?  Do I practice forgiveness or lug grudges around in the backpack of life?  Do I give in to criticism and cynicism and pointing out where everything is wrong, or do I also notice and name the goodness and God-ness of the world?  Do I join the arguing and bullying, or do I offer light, love, curiosity, and care to a broken world?  To be sure, St. Francis’ prayer can lead us to dualism, where we think it is either/or.  That we must always be pardoning, faithful, loving, joyful, shiny happy people holding hands all the time.  This would be difficult and might lead us to think it is only up to us.  The point of a prayer isn’t that this prayer is a to-do for us to check off, but an invitation for God to infuse and inspire our living.  Prayer is about setting our intention for the direction our energy will flow.  Prayer is opening my ears/heart/life to God’s vision of what could be in this world.  I don’t think I will ever cross off and accomplish living this way.  I don’t think I will ever cross the finish line of always and forever embodying this prayer.  Yet, this prayer gives me a different way to live.  St. Francis isn’t interested in our beliefs or how well we know the Bible; St. Francis wants us to live our faith in the world.  From how we offer our time/talent/treasure to how we let God guide our energy to embody the words above.  I love that St. Francis’ prayer allows room for diversity within unity.  The way you share and show faith can be different from me, but together (with God’s grace) there is harmony.  You could pray these words every day and never exhaust what they mean, because life is constantly changing and offering us new ways of sowing God’s love where we are and with the people we meet.  So may you and I find ways to let this prayer awaken our minds and energize our souls in such a time as this.  Amen. 

Sitting with St. Francis

 

Lord, help me to live this day, quietly, easily. To lean upon Thy great strength, trustfully, restfully. To wait for the unfolding of Thy will, patiently, serenely. To meet others, peacefully, joyously. To face tomorrow, confidently, courageously. St. Francis of Assisi

 

I invite you to re-read this quote several times.  Which word(s) do you emphasize above?  Read the quote aloud: where do the words strangely warm your heart, and which words are like sandpaper to your soul?  For example, I love the idea of a day that is quiet and easy.  That sounds good.  I delight in the image of relying on God for strength and rest.  And then, that third sentence lands with a thud in my soul.  To wait on God’s will, wait…what?  Does that mean God isn’t on my timetable and in line with my agenda?  Does that mean that I may not know what is best all the time?  This rubs against the gospel of the world that says you deserve to have it your way, and not only when you are at Burger King.  You deserve to have your needs met right now with a 100 percent money-back guarantee. 

 

Recently I saw a Peanuts cartoon that is sticking with me.  Charlie Brown walks up to Snoopy, who is typing on a typewriter (so quaint to remember a typewriter).  Charlie asks Snoopy what he is writing, and Snoopy replies, a book of theology.  For me, this makes perfect sense; dog is God spelled backwards.  But Charlie is aghast: what could a dog know about theology!  And Charlie asks what the title is, and Snoopy replies, “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?”  That is a good theology title and a good reminder of faith.  I don’t know what I don’t know, but that often doesn’t stop me from quickly forming and sharing an opinion.  To wait on God for God’s wisdom.  And to seek out God’s wisdom. 

 

What would it mean to not just lean on God’s great strength (as if God were there to give you motivation to do your will), but to trust in God for God’s will?  What if our strength, then, was to show up in the world as God’s peace, joy, hope, and love each day? 

 

Ponder this quote as a doorway to our still-speaking God at work in our lives each day.  Amen.