We believe

This morning, I’d like to talk about Creeds. Creeds are a funny thing. The Creed, or sometimes an Affirmation of Faith, is what we say about half way through the service, after the sermon and before the Prayers of the People. Creeds are a kind of statement of faith, and each one has a long and complicated history. I’ll get to some of that history in a bit, but first, I wonder if you’ll join me in a thought experiment. 

Imagine that you are hosting a gathering for, say, 12 of your relatives, and the relatives you’ve invited to this gathering are a mix of the ones you like and the ones you really don’t. The purpose of this gathering is to come up with a statement that says what the House of __________ (Dunn/Mathers/Trendell-Jensen) believes when it comes to things like politics, religion—the human condition. That’s right: Creed by Committee. This statement, in addition to being one that you all have to agree on, will also be recited at every family gathering from here on out, not only by those who put the statement together, but by every member of your family who attends in the future. 

I wonder how long it will take you to draft this statement? Hours? Days? Months? Years? I wonder if everyone will still be at the table by the time it’s ready? Are there some who will leave? Are there others who begrudgingly comply just to get the darn thing finished? The Creeds of the Church are like a statement of belief that a family made up of totally different people tried to put together. 

We didn’t always have Creeds. In the ancient church, before there were creeds, the church relied on the eucharistic prayer as the statement of faith. Only, in those days, the priest alone spoke the eucharistic prayer, and he (and it was a ‘he’) spoke it in an inaudible voice, so nobody could actually hear what was being said, which made it difficult to pass on any kind of tangible statement of belief. The idea was that the Eucharist was so holy, that the prayer over the bread and the wine had to be recited in a hushed tone to foster a sense of awe. With “quaking, fear, and harrowing dread” is how the priests in those days were taught to say this prayer. There are still some priests today who speak portions of the eucharistic prayer in this way, again, to foster that sense of reverence and awe. 

Before the church had Creeds, there were priests who mostly whispered the eucharistic prayer as a statement of faith and, then, things got really interesting. In Emperor Constantine’s time, there was a controversy between two big-wig theologians that threatened to split the Church. Emperor Constantine called a family meeting and he called it the Council of Nicaea. In an attempt to unite the Church and resolve the controversy once and for all, the Council issued an “imperial approved” statement of faith. It began,We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth . . . and so on. They decided, right, we're going to say this in every church in every place, and the people as well as the priest are going to learn it and that’s that. 

And, all was well throughout the Empire and there was never again a disagreement in the Church! 

Not exactly. Disagreements about what Christians believe would continue for centuries right up until present day when even now across the Anglican Communion you will find slight differences in the wording of the Nicene Creed in our prayer books. And, that’s just the Nicene Creed! There’s also the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed, not to mention Affirmations of Faith. 

The Apostles’ Creed, which was written in Rome—we think in the 2nd or 3rd century—was a way of summarizing what were the teachings of the apostles. It wasn’t written by the apostles themselves, but later, once again amidst controversy and disagreements about what it meant to be Christian. The Apostles’ Creed was a way of saying, okay these are the essentials for individuals who wish to become members of Christ’s household. To this day, the Apostles’ Creed is used at baptisms—the “Do you believe?” questions that get asked of the candidate and all who are gathered at baptisms, “Do you believe in God the Father?” . . . “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth,”—that’s the Apostles’ Creed.

Affirmations of Faith are said in place of a Creed. The one that we use most often here at St Clement’s is the Shema (Hear, O Israel, God is Love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength . . .) This is actually the ancient creed of the synagogue. It was used since the 18th century in the Christian Church as a substitute for reciting the ten commandments. We use it in our worship today as an Affirmation of Faith to restore it to the “central dignity it enjoyed in the synagogue tradition.” The Apostles’ Creed and the Hear, O Israel are complementary: “the first stresses faith as teaching, the second emphasizes faith as action.”

So, why all of this talk of Creeds and what does any of this have to do with our lives of faith today? It’s good from time to time to talk about topics that fall into a kind of “Anglican 101”, both for those of us who are newer to the tradition and for those who have been around for a while, but have maybe never stopped to ask why we say the things we say when we worship. 

The “belief” that we profess in the Creeds and in our Affirmations of Faith is also, I believe, an attempt to put into words the wisdom Jesus promised he would give to the disciples. In our gospel reading today, the disciples are talking about what happens when they’re called to give an account of what they believe—a statement of faith. Gee, wouldn’t it have saved a lot of people a lot of time if Jesus had just given them an “imperial approved” Creed? Instead, he tells them, “Don’t worry; I’ll be with you when the time comes.”

When we look back on the centuries of controversy and disagreement in the Church, I think we see people trying faithfully to say what it is Christians believe, and worrying, just a little about getting it right once and for all. I think Jesus tells his disciples not to worry and promises his presence with them rather than giving them a written statement, because he expected them to get it wrong. He suspected that those who followed his teachings would likely spend a lot of time drafting and rewriting as they worked out what it was, exactly, that they believed. I reckon Jesus knew that people would disagree, that there would be controversies. After all, if there weren’t disagreements in the church, I think it would mean we had lost our appetite, forgotten our call, to work out the relevance of Jesus’s teachings in the world today. 

There’s a brilliant introduction to the Anglican Church of Canada’s Book of Alternative Services. It talks about the role of liturgy as it relates to the gospel, and I reckon it applies to the Creeds as well. It reads, “The gospel is truly perennial: unchanging but ever new in its confrontation and transfiguration of the world. Liturgy is the means by which the Church is constantly invested in that gospel, in the reading of the scriptures, in proclamation, in praise, in prayer of deep concern, and in those sign-acts which wordlessly incorporate the believer [...]. Liturgy is not the gospel but it is a principal process by which the Church and the gospel are brought together for the sake of the life of the world. It is consequently vital that its form wear the idiom, the cadence, the world-view, the imagery of the people who are engaged in that process in every generation.”

I think we could probably say, likewise, that the Creeds are not the gospel, but a statement of faith by which the Church and the gospel are brought together for the sake of the life of the world. And, it’s vital, that as we say these Creeds, that we consider the idiom, cadence, worldview, and imagery the people of this generation are engaged in when it comes to figuring out what they believe.

In the same introduction to the Book of Alternative Services are these words, “The work of liturgical reform is not finished; in fact it is never finished. Liturgical texts cannot be tested in an armchair or at a desk, but only in use. There is bound to be room for refinement and improvement, in language, in symbolism, in theology.”

What we believe as Christians cannot be tested in an armchair or at a desk— or even in our reciting of a Creed on Sunday mornings. Christian belief is best worked out—articulated—when it’s put into practice. In the light of your experience as a Christian, I wonder what refinement and improvement you would make to the Creeds? Amen.

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