Author: Linda Rozumalski

Like Jeremiah, whom we heard of last week, Habakkuk is a prophet to Judah, thought to be active after the Assyrian conquest and into the aftermath of the Babylonian captivity. It was a time of intense national calamity. There are internal troubles – wrong-doing, strife, contention – and very big external troubles looming in the form of the Chaldeans of Babylonia.

Habakkuk opens with lament.  “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?  Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.  So the judgment becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous — therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” 1:1-4

And then God answers the lament – “I am doing things you won’t believe. The response to your prayer for justice will be brought to you by the Chaldeans, they will be the tool of my judgment against you.” 

Within the span of a few generations, the Assyrian army marched through the land formerly known as Israel, and then Judah, destroying one city after another, brutally killing as they went (701 BCE), followed by the Babylonians under king Nebuchadnezzar, who attacked Jerusalem three times – first taking the leaders and skilled citizens into exile, and then in 587 BCE, destroying the city and the temple. Violence was everything, everywhere. We can imagine the cultural, social, spiritual chaos as their nation was deconstructed and depopulated.

Naturally, Habakkuk is dismayed by this response. “Are you not from of old, O Lord my God, my Holy One? … Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?”  And so, as chapter 1 closes, God has become the problem.

What happens when you pray to God and God doesn’t seem to get it?  Doesn’t hear? Doesn’t respond? 

This is familiar ground for many of us. Why does God tarry in responding to urgent prayers? Habakkuk says in effect, “You’re not listening, God! I trusted in you, but your solution prospers my foe while we perish.” 

In Israel’s history, this prophet’s message will be followed by many more years of violence, suffering and injustice. This divine response for the people God has chosen and loves challenges all the easy answers or quick fixes that we actually pray for in our own lives. Deliverance will come, but / and – you can do nothing to hasten it or understand it. You must wait.

This first Sunday of Advent finds most of us waiting for something – looking forward to it or dreading it, but waiting… Sometimes waiting becomes our life: not only in lines at the store and in traffic – or the lifetime it seems to take waiting for the results from a lab test or word from a loved one. Waiting seems to become life itself, a perennial looking forward to something better, for this current stasis to end. The waiting life  can be one of chronic discontent or disregard for the moment. We wait in fear or worry or disquiet for the future, for endings, for death. We wait eagerly for the next stage of childhood, for the completion of a huge project, for retirement. Many of us wait for some future time when everything we have worked for and daydreamed about will come into being and life will be perfect. Right? Hand’s up for those who’ve gotten there! 

That’s what I thought. 

I can’t tell you how many versions of this wonderful-daydreaming-wait I’ve constructed for life at our little farm in Washburn. Then the house is done, the tractor starts, the fields are intentionally managed, the garden is a miniature copy of the kitchen gardens and orchard at West Dean College in England. In my imagined life, Mike and I are waiting for the sauna to get hot and that’s about it – everything else is good. The main problem with my waiting life is that in my plans I’m still 38. Time passes. What am I doing in the meantime?

Our response to “Wait for it” might be to sit and let it come, or to fuss and pine about the way it tarries, or to scurry around being busy – waiting and denial being one and the same.

But here’s something. The word for “waiting” in Hebrew is the root of the word “hope.”

The word of God that comes to Habakkuk is a terrifying word – that the Chaldeans will crush them and take them and destroy everything his people hold dear, ravaging even the land so that no crop or fig or olive will come to harvest, no flock will make it to the fold. But deliverance will come… eventually….. in the fullness of time…. Wait for it.  

“Then the Lord answered me and said: ‘ There is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.  Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.’ 2:2-4 

Centuries later, Paul will say that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

That’s not what Habakkuk is saying, though. It’s more remarkable than that.

It’s not simply that Habakkuk can’t see anything to be hopeful about – he is claiming faith in the nature of God that flies in the face of everything he does see – faith in what is completely contradictory to what he sees. Despair seems the only plausible response in his world view. 

Maybe that seems to be about right for you, too. Everything your eyes see tells you to despair, to give up, that no good will come of it. But Habakkuk has another word to say… he says, yet. “Yet, I will rejoice. Yet, I will exult in the God of my salvation. Even so, just so.”

“O Lord, I have heard of your renown, I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known; in wrath may you remember mercy.” 3-2   “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.” 3:17-19

“Despair cannot have me – and though God tarries, though the turn of fortunes may come too late for me, or certainly too late to suit me, yet… there is a God who is my strength… a God who makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights. A God who claims me.” 

For this incredible prophet, faith is the ultimate act of defiance. “Despair cannot claim me because God has claimed me, and so I can trust that there is a future contrary to the future I can see, because I belong to God.”

 

I worked in Montana one summer when I was in college. I was a backcountry forest ranger intern. And at the end of the summer my roommate and I took two weeks to hike and camp and bike ride through Glacier National Park. I will say without hesitation that riding a bike is not the way to see Glacier – the uphills never end and the downhills are terrifying …. but I digress.

My point is that we watched mountain goats and big horn sheep up in the heights where we couldn’t dream of being. Up above tree line, up where it’s just rock and boulder fields and chasms and snow and wisps of clouds – there were baby mountain goats learning to jump. 

Watching them, I couldn’t imagine how they found footing, how they could find food, how they could survive the winds and harsh conditions. Why didn’t they go somewhere else lower down the mountain to greener pastures, beside still waters, on wider trails?

 “…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

Those young mountain goats didn’t seem to be picking their way, carefully, safely along the trails up there. They weren’t waiting to grow up, or for more favorable conditions, or for the grass to grow at their feet.

Their mommas didn’t seem to be giving them instructions in personal safety. The young ones didn’t tread on the heights, they trounced and bounced and careened and pranced … The Lord God gave them remarkable feet, and remarkable instinctual trust. They were a terrifying and joyful sight. 

I don’t suppose that’s quite the image Habakkuk had in mind, but it gives me an idea for how he felt, for how he trusted. If you’ve ever tried rock hopping you know that feeling. To successfully rock hop a stream or hillside, you turn off the rational part of your brain, the part that thinks about sprained ankles and cracked skulls. You release ‘rational’ and let the intuitive, spacial, leaping, instinctual side take over. It’s a rush. 

Rock hopping might seem to be the opposite of waiting – and might make waiting sound pretty good – but it gets to the active, radical root of the Hebrew word –  God’s word to Habakkuk. Active waiting grounded in hope, letting God guide your life and your future  – not knowing where you’ll put your foot down next. In rock hopping, if you think about it it’s too late. Mountain goats calculate on the fly. Waiting in radical hope is trusting that your foot will land, fleetingly supporting, launching you into the next boulder and then the next. 

It’s an anxious life to imagine for those of us who are pretty well grounded in safety and satisfaction and denial. Radical trust is faith in a God who is active and present, whose deliverance has come and also is not yet here. This first Sunday in Advent, we open the church year waiting…. believing beyond our fears.

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, …yet…. I will rejoice in the Lord; I will trust in the God who formed me.”

  Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.

Pastor Linda

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been reading about, thinking about Woman Wisdom.

I’ve always liked her as a biblical character even though she’s not embodied. She clearly has power.

 

She is with God at the beginning, bringing forth creation and delighting in it.

Michelangelo paints her at the very center of heaven’s womb, supporting God in the divine enterprise of creation. With her right arm around God’s waist, her left grasping his forearm, the kinetic force of this moment shows Wisdom as the counterweight allowing God to extend his reach toward the dustling. Without her, the ineffectual little cherubim would go tumbling out after God like birdies from their nest. 

 

In Proverbs, Woman Wisdom stands in the public places where prophets stand, and sounds very much like a prophet in this opening narrative. She calls to those who would attain wisdom and rebukes those who ignore her. Her warning is reminiscent of Isaiah, almost a direct quote. The main difference is her agenda. Justice isn’t her agenda, nor compassion – those are attributes of God. In Proverbs, her target audience is quite narrow. Woman Wisdom’s agenda is for the sake of the institution; her aim, the faith formation of sons of the religious elite.

“Does not wisdom call,  and does not understanding raise her voice?  On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;  beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it.  Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right … Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? …  Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,  and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.  Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.  Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof,  therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices.

 But those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.’ … if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures— then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.  For the Lord gives wisdom; knowledge and understanding;… guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.” ~ from Proverbs 8;1;2

Job and Ecclesiastes are also books of the Wisdom genre. They offer arguments that run counter to this mechanistic view. Bad things do happen to the innocent, to the righteous, dutiful, faithful ones.  Wisdom’s speech highlights Job’s distress as a righteous one who never-the-less receives calamity as a whirlwind. What is the Woman up to?

The historical setting is helpful. While the two line sayings – the proverbs – of Proverbs are very old, the narratives about Woman Wisdom, Woman Folly, and Wonder Wife in the last chapter are the newest sections of the book. Scholars believe these date to post-exilic Judah. During this Persian period, the people have been allowed to come home, but the structures of life – the governmental, social, religious fundamentals are all gone. There is no temple, there is no king. Their homes and olive groves, vineyards and villages have either been razed or taken over by others who have now lived there for a generation. How do you start again? How do you teach your young their identity, their inheritance of faith? 

You go back to the beginning – to creation and the proper ordering of things – in Proverbs, with wisdom as the guiding principle – and back to the law. But their world view has changed during exile. Israelite thinking has unwittingly taken on the dualism of mind and body of their captor’s culture.  Purity, righteousness, obedience  – those head things – become the hallmarks of ‘fear of the Lord’ and the good life. One attains this Wisdom through instruction. Beginning with the parents at home and then with the sages, the traditionalist’s position is that righteous living will be rewarded with wealth and plenty; foolish living will undercut their society and end badly.

When culture is under stress, people find comfort in law, in ‘insider-outsider’ distinctions, in clear-cut, easy to discern wisdom. Stress is not a time for nuance and creative ambiguity. In times of tension, there is comfort in being told what to do, in having clear instructions and choices so simple that even fools don’t go astray. (Isaiah 35:8)

  “Happy are those who keep my ways,” she says. “Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord; but those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death.” (8:32 ff)

“Whoever finds me finds life; all who hate me love death. Choose life!  Live the good life!”

Woman Folly, then, is clearly the siren of the dark side.  She is Stranger Danger, who feigns wisdom, but her way leads to shame and death.

“The foolish woman is loud; she is ignorant and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the high places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, ‘You who are simple, turn in here!’ And to those without sense she says, ‘Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But they do not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.” 

This Wanton woman is woven throughout the proverbs variously described as an adulteress, a prostitute, a foreigner who would woo away vulnerable youth and seduce them into following false gods. She is competing religious traditions; she is frightening female otherness. Her name is Folly because it is folly for a young man to follow her, to give in to his desire for the Strange Woman – the women of these other people who now live among them with foreign gods and foreign rituals who would dilute and weaken Israelite identity and social structure.

Why is this pertinent?

Bring this forward to Jesus’ time – 500 to 600 years later.

Who were the law keepers, gatekeepers, instruction givers, the sages? Who carried on the black and white world view of good and bad, insider and stranger?

They were the priests, the scribes and Pharisees.

Whom did Jesus contend with? The priests, the scribes and Pharisees. 

Hmm, so, what happened? How did the Wisdom of God twist around?

The 10 commandments were a divine gift to the people – ten things that could easily be memorized that would aid ancient Israel in keeping their lives in proper order. Love God first, provide for the vulnerable in society – older parents, servants and strangers are the exemplars, and treat your neighbors with respect and integrity. Follow these laws, this wisdom, “so that it will go well for you, and you will live long in the land.” Israel was not chosen because they were an example of purity or wisdom or righteousness. They failed miserably at those things. The histories, the prophets, the gospels, Pauls writings – all give ample evidence of the failure of Israel (and all people) to live according to the 10 basic commandments.

They weren’t chosen because they were a good example, Israel was chosen to be a living example, a community incarnation of God’s will and way and wonder and wisdom – to embody divine abundance in a desert land.

But by Jesus’ day, the laws were oppressive requirements not used to help but to oppress. The Law no longer functioned as a tool of compassion and justice, but a power tool for the elite to wield. Sabbath, instead of a gift of rest, became a day when the hungry could not eat, the sick could not be healed. Over time, the good law had become rigid, fear based, insular, abusive.

Jesus keeps going back to that list. Love God, love your neighbor. He finds remarkable faith in a Roman Centurion, their enemy occupier, saying, “Never have I seen such faith in all of Israel!” 

Jesus commends the despised Samaritans in the parable of the good Samaritan who shows mercy to his foreign neighbor after all the law abiding, righteous, ‘pure’ Israelites had walked by, and in the Samaritan woman at the well who listened, asked questions, was openminded enough to consider the view of this “totally other than herself” Jew. And then she invited her people to come listen. And they changed their minds about long held cultural grievances and prejudices – something even Jesus’ disciples couldn’t do. And there was the Syrophonaecian woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” Jesus said. She said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Jesus said, “Woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” 

It seems that Jesus prefers the stranger, the other, the foreigner, the Samaritans with their mixed race and worship at Mt Gerizim. Maybe ‘prefer’ is the wrong word, but he treats them equally to the Jews. Jesus breaks down the “us and them,” raises the lowest of society to status of Friend – unmarried women, tax collectors, sojourners and leaves the religious elite to “eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices.”

Why is this pertinent?

Bring it forward to our day.

Who are the law keepers, gatekeepers, instruction givers? Who carries on the black and white world view of good and bad, insider and stranger?

How do we use Law, and for whose benefit? Are our laws intended to control and oppress the vulnerable while insulating the elite? (as in Jesus’ day) Or are they gracious and fair, meant to protect and promote all life, all creatures? (as intended) Do we uphold the letter of the law at the cost of children’s welfare, for example? At the cost of habitats and species being extinguished for industrial gain and the GDP? At the cost of our own species’ future life on the planet for political maneuvering and basic everyday laziness and greed? Are we again afraid of these other people who now live among us with foreign gods and foreign rituals who will dilute and weaken our identity and social structure. (remember that we were once those people, too)

Would you say our individual and communal ethics would put us in contention with Jesus, with God’s way and will and wonder and wisdom? Do they serve God?

It’s complicated, isn’t it?

Woman Wisdom and Woman Stranger embody the duality of mind and body, spirit and earth. In the beginning Wisdom delighted in all creation and creatures, but after the disaster of Babylon, Israel’s need for Wisdom changed; she spoke dispassionate, motherly instruction and she taught through fear and insider’s loyalty. She kept the young men safe.  

God didn’t come as a dispassionate, divine thought, however – or as an un-embodied or disinterested righteous one who would keep you safe. I like that about Michelangelo’s image: God is about to fall out of heaven in his reach to touch the human. God came among us (individual to family to clan to nation, through creation and words and prophets and finally in Jesus), to teach Wisdom as a human body that felt things, a human body who loved, who touched healthy bodies and wounded ones and dead ones. Jesus broke the purity codes and Sabbath laws and taught that the actual needs of people came first – hunger, suffering, thirst; their bodies came before rules and religion.

God said through the prophets – I don’t want your sacrifices or your solemn assemblies. I want a humble heart, a wise people to attract the nations, show hospitality to the sojourners in your midst. I want my people to be irresistible envoys of grace, and forgiveness and steadfast kindness. I don’t want to set you apart, but I set you right there in the thick of it where you belong.

How is this pertinent?

Fast forward to your life, your choices, your actions…. 

…how pertinent is it? 

 

We’re starting a new preaching/teaching series today.

If you were here for the Trinity and Creeds sermons, you heard me whining about Wisdom being left out of the divine Being’s three-in-one body. Wisdom should be the Son’s sister, Chokhma in Hebrew, or Sophia in Greek. But that wasn’t the way the patristic world saw things. And since it wasn’t, I am perhaps making the divine siblinghood up. But nevertheless, there is a strong Wisdom tradition throughout both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and we’re going to spend a little time there. 

A couple years ago we worked through the book of Job. I’m not ready to return to him yet, but Job is one of the wisdom books. The wisdom tradition is strong in much of the gospel of John and in many of the sayings of Jesus in Matthew and the other the gospels of the New Testament. 

The three books we will be highlighting in the next four weeks are ancient: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

All three books are in the Writings, the part of the Hebrew Bible that is ordered after the Torah and Prophets, that includes, in general, the latest and last-canonized books of the Bible. The actual authors and writing dates are unknown. The language of Ecclesiastes dates (at least this form of it) to between 300 and 200 BCE. Scholars date Proverbs’ various parts from Solomon’s time in the 900’s BCE to its final editing in the 500’s BCE. But the Song of Songs wins. It dates anywhere from the early 13th century BCE in Mesopotamia to its final form in the 300’s BCE. Solomon may very well have contributed to any or all of these writings 3000 years ago. 

Besides not knowing the authors or dates, Wisdom is old advice – really old! – and yet she speaks with a surprisingly modern inflection. We will hang with her for a few weeks.

These books don’t get a lot of preaching attention because they tend not to make much mention of God. Pastors like to preach about God. When Wisdom is in focus, the God of power and might and miracles is somewhere in the back 40, or has taken off his toga and slipped on his smoking jacket, sitting in an armchair by the fire with a pipe, giving sage advice, telling stories, sipping milk with honey. 

Wisdom is not unique to the Hebrew scripture-tellers. The literary forms are borrowed from Egyptian, Sumerian, and other Aramaic poetry and proverbs. Wisdom was a central idea in Greek philosophy, in Platonic thought, and Gnosticism – all dualistic traditions in which the head rules the heart. For them, Knowledge is the highest virtue; and Wisdom the purest knowledge. 

In a nuanced form of this, Orthodox Christianity, and my favorite, Christian mysticism, tended more to the poetic, embodied, experiential form of wisdom grown from different biblical root stock.

Especially from the late Middle Ages onward – with it’s mind over matter, rational-classification-system approach to all things – the Earth Mother goddess image of Wisdom was purified, leaving early biblical references and imagery of Wisdom as the consort to God on the cutting room floor – or at least at the back of the bookshelf and not brought out into polite society for Sunday sermons. She became Hagia Sophia – Christian’s Holy Wisdom. That’s not really the image the Bible paints. But we’ll hear from and about her next week.

In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 86 sermons on the Song of Solomon – and never got past chapter 3!

In Hebrew understanding, Wisdom is not found in the head as the Greeks would attest, but rather in the heart and the will and in daily life. Hebrew wisdom is not theoretical; it is practical, it’s based on common-sense principles of right and wrong, on beauty and humility and awe. Insights drawn from the natural world are a source of knowledge about human society and revelations encoded within creation. The one who lives with an eye on God’s word, who knows the commands in their heart, and keeps their feet in the earth – this one is considered wise.

Proverbs, as a book to read, is best taken in small doses. With the exception of a few longer narratives, Proverbs is made up of two-liners that, in our day, show up in unfortunate places like roadside church signs. But they cover many topics:  

“The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.” 14:20

“Just as water reflects the face, so one human heart reflects another.” 27:19  

“Like vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so are the lazy to their employers.” 10:26 

“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense.” 11:22 

“Better is a dinner of vegetables where there is love, than a fatted ox and hatred with it.” 15:17  

“Do not let her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for a seductive woman’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.” 6:25.

Solomon had problems with this last one even though his dad, King David, probably taught that lesson at length. A wanton woman or an adulterous man can bring down kingdoms – nothing much has changed in 3000 years.

The first verses of chapter 31 are unique in that the wise advice to King Lemuel is from his mother. She speaks of leadership qualities that, though ancient, many of us would wish for:

“No, my son! No, son of my womb! No, son of my vows! Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.  It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to desire strong drink; or else they will drink and forget what has been decreed, and will pervert the rights of all the afflicted. 

Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;  let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 

Proverbs is an interesting book when it’s read in short spurts, but it’s not gripping reading. Ecclesiastes – other than the “for everything there is a season” part, is known by its melancholy refrain, “All is vanity, a chasing after the wind, and there is nothing new under the sun.” The Song of Solomon or Song of Songs, is love poetry that one would say might be better suited to a steamy romance novel than to Holy Writ. If you want to get confirmation students to pay attention, I’m told,  give them a good battle scene from the book of Kings or have them read the love Song of Solomon. I haven’t tried it, but I think it would be flashlight reading once they caught on.

So, why in the world should we delve into this little backwater section of the Bible? 

Well, why not? It is my opinionated belief that the main thing wrong with American Christianity is a complete lack of imagination for God’s character, for the scope and diversity of biblical images for God, and a lack of humility for the mysterium – the holy wonder.  Too many people think they know what God is like because they have Jesus in their pocket and verses to quote for every situation. 

We might hear something new in these books… you might be tempted to read something you’ve never read before. And that can’t be bad.

Proverbs is not concerned with issues of salvation, but with issues of how to live life in this world of God’s design, to have the good life that God intends for all people. This kind of common-sense wisdom is based not on revelation (there are no burning bushes or heavenly visions) but on experience and everyday observation. 

Its task is character formation. Parents, Woman Wisdom … God … exhorts young people to do well by doing good; that is, to have “the good life” by exhibiting the virtues of honesty, hard work, self-control, and above all, the fear of the LORD. Every avenue of everyday life is fair game: economics, friends, family, work, sex, politics. As one commentator puts it, “The proverbs are spiritual guides for ordinary people, on an ordinary day, when water does not pour from rocks and angels do not come to lunch.”1    I really hope angels don’t knock on our door looking for lunch, but that’s my kind of spiritual guide. There is a problem with this innocent wisdom, though – bad things happen to good people. Israel had to deal with this after the Babylonian captivity. Job is the story of that and offers a counterpoint to the traditional view of action=consequence formula.

So, what is the good life? 

How do you define it and how close have you come to living it? How big is the gap between your description of the good life and the life you live day to day?  Can you bring to mind an image of you living the good life?

My mind immediately goes back to two summer images: One from my childhood of an ordinary summer day spent at our cottage on a small lake 20 miles from our “rest of the year” house. My dad couldn’t get coverage for vacations, so my parents built a summer cottage to help him pretend. I spent as much time as I could every summer reading on the screened porch and playing in and out of the lake. Until my first job, my summer wardrobe consisted of an always damp swimming suit and a sweatshirt. For an introvert at least, the cottage housed a perfect, peaceful, good life. 

The other image fast forwards to our first 4 or 5 summers here. I read aloud to the kids every summer night on the porch of the parsonage. The hum of mosquitos, the call of loons, June bugs bouncing off the screens, reading late into the night to the light of dragonfly twinkle lights, the kids snuggled on the floor on cushions from the couch and living room chairs. That was the good life for me.

So, what is it for you? European travel? A little red convertible? Mortgage paid off? Being known, acknowledged in your profession or in an ideal job? A return to something or someone you’ve lost? Someone to love? A big meal with your best friends at the table? The garden in and weeded and a cool one in your hand on the porch?

How big is the gap between your ideal and your day to day?  Has it changed in the past 5 years?

Would you say that your job or vocation is satisfying… that you’ve earned enough money to spend, save, and share without staying up too many nights wondering how the bills will get paid? Would you say you have enough possessions, enough food, enough financial security, enough toys, enough tools to succeed?

Would you say you have friends and relationships that you trust, that you take pleasure in, that you feel valued by and have value for?

Would you say you can get the care you need in an emergency or in illness? Would you say you have a sense of personal safety?

Would you say that life is good?

On a day to day basis in the beginning of summer I think most of us here would rate our life satisfaction as pretty high – crops and gardens are in (if never fully weeded), flowers are blooming, birds are singing, the woods smell exotic with honey locust and basswood and pine and fertile earth and the passing of the latest rain shower being drawn up into the sun. The lakes are alluring, golf courses are bright green… It’s hard to set foot outside and not feel a deep sense of contentment bordering on outright happiness.

Do you know how rare that is?

If this describes your feelings, do you know how rare you are?

I listened to On Point on NPR – Whatever Happened To Peace, Love And the American Summer Vacation? or How the US became the no-vacation nation. The program talked about our American workaholic culture where even those who can, don’t take vacations because of fear that someone who doesn’t will get ahead of them. Jobs go to, and stay with, the highest producing, highest pressurized employees who have no interests or time outside of their career. The program could also have looked at families who can’t afford to take a week off – to pay for the gas, the meals, the camping equipment or motel nights.  Europeans look at us and shake their heads. They are expected to take a minimum of three weeks off. Everyone knows how unhealthy our system is personally and corporately, and still we play the game, blaming the economy – as year by year we ramp up the costs in depression and anxiety. We are the most medicated, counseled, addicted, escapist generation – ever. 

Life is short. How close are you to your version of the good life?

Claire, Jay and I were at Synod Assembly last weekend and the thrust of the event was about growing the church young. Finding/creating new ways to be the church, paying attention to our context and the functional gifts and economics of fellowship and generosity, of reaching out to needs in the community, not just within our local church. Sounds like Wisdom, doesn’t it?

In national surveys, self-serving, narcissistic dissatisfaction seems to be the plight of those who have the means to enjoy the good life, and the the rest are working their fingers to the bone trying to catch up to this ideal. Simplicity and fellowship and transformative relationships may be our goals, but there always is too much to do before we can get there.

The good life is more than the easy cheerful life of nostalgic childhood, it is trust and hope and the observation of small joys and daily beauty even when the rest of your life feels like it’s falling apart. God may not be in the forefront in these stories or in the way we live and think about our lives, but wisdom begins with trusting that God is there, in all circumstances, for all circumstances.

How big is the gap between the life you live and the life you dream of? Whatever your circumstances, whatever your need, whatever your dream, it is perhaps a space God alone can fill. 

3:¹³Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.  Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold Wisdom fast are called happy.”

 

 

1. Ellen F. Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), p. 12.

Today is Trinity Sunday and our last week on this topic.  I hope it’s been interesting if not always edifying. The liturgical color for the day is white, because it’s a Holy day. The altar piece of embroidered flowers is appropriate because with the Trinity we now enter the season called Ordinary Time – 27 weeks this year between Pentecost and Advent – the season of growth and grace and greening. In spite of the very cool Celtic symbols they could employ, Hallmark hasn’t picked Trinity Sunday up and promoted it as a holiday, so no one knows what to make of this Holy day.

The Trinity is the doctrine around which the creeds were designed: the Three-in-One Godhead of  God the Father-Creator-Lover, God the Son-Savior-Teacher, and God the Holy Spirit-Sanctifier-Comforter-Inspire-er.  Many more descriptors could be added.

It wasn’t until this time around that I realized the Son is only specifically, knowningly Jesus after the incarnation and during his lifetime. Before that, the Son of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is pre-existent and non-specific as in the prologue to the gospel of John where he is called the Word.  After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the Son is Jesus the Christ, or Christ Jesus. Of course, the formula was devised, revealed, centuries after Jesus’ life and death so they had the advantage of seeing it that way.

What we have learned in this series of sermons is that the Trinity is not biblical – meaning that it is not found or formulated in the Bible. The concept grew out of the influence of Greek philosophy – Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian thought. The apostle Paul used this philosophy as a way of evangelizing the Greeks in his various letters.  The Trinity was formed in the mathematical and logical necessities of the age – as I talked about a couple weeks ago – so it’s very man-made in that regard. But the Trinity is rooted in scripture. The church fathers deliberated with scripture in one hand and philosophy in the other. They spent their careers working out the contingencies and heresies (those theological mis-steps) if certain understandings of Jesus or the Holy Spirit were taken to their unreasonable, but logical extreme. They were serious about this business. They wanted to get it right. Theirs was the age – the fullness of time – for codifying belief in the body and substance of God.

The church today is the inheritor of those struggles, their moments of inspired brilliance, the heated controversies, but most of all – of their incredible intellectual curiosity about God.  That was the gift. What remains of that time are volumes and volumes of systematic theology – the scientific branch of the study of God – (yes, there is a scientific branch of the study of God) which no one outside of seminary and a handful of us church nerds actually reads; and we have the creeds.

On Trinity Sunday we celebrate not an event like Christmas or Easter or Pentecost, but a reality: God comes into human experience in a diversity and a unity. During this long Ordinary season, the meaning of those church events takes root and growth tendrils out into our lives. Worship themes focus on fundamental human conditions – sickness and healing, loving your enemy as well as your neighbor, guilt and forgiveness, the individual and society. Sermons might focus on the parables Jesus taught, or the psalms, or a book like Esther or Ruth. The image of God shifts in these. The persons of God shift in our lives, too. We might identify with one essence of God more than another. Jesus might be a teacher in your life, or a brother; or you might hear the judgement – especially in the gospel of Matthew where Jesus keeps saying the wicked will be thrown out into the utter darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth – and might adopt an image of an angry God and a narrow way. You might identify with the God of creation in these gorgeous summer days of growth and power, or the Spirit of Peace in an evening of birdsong and fireflies. I still believe that Woman Wisdom is part of the Trinity, ignored by the Church Fathers, but present in the experience of God in our lives. 

I was looking for a Hans Christian Andersen story to connect with his week – which I didn’t find, by the way, so don’t look forward to it – but I read that he didn’t believe in the dogma of the church. Hans Christian didn’t believe in Trinity, but in one God and believed Jesus to be a specially chosen man – like a super prophet, the summa prophet of God’s word, but not divine. Interesting.

My point is that even if we each believed in Trinity in good and proper form, God would still be a mystery – a unity of diversity. God necessarily becomes One made of countless persons (not simply three), because we know and trust and turn to and believe in God in a hundred thousand unique images, no matter what the formula says. We each imagine a different thing at the name of Jesus. We each believe in a different set of qualities in the nature of God. Not because we are heretics, but because that’s the way God has self-revealed the divine nature of love to us.

So, while there is the need for a formula, a doctrine, a creedal statement of belief, it is for the sake of the church universal. It is for teaching. In the midst of worship, it is a logos reminder of the skeleton of God’s being. It is the God we worship in name, but not the God into whose arms we fall when we’re crying. Not the God who meets us at dawn on a misty morning lake. Not the God I love and almost hold, feeling the weight of the newborn Christ child against my chest as the last chord of Silent Night fades at the late Christmas Eve service and the candles go out and we go out into the snowy path home. You could add your own, “This is the God I believe in” images. We don’t need to parse the persons, we know it is all One. The divine Being is purely mythos, beauty, a sounding at the depths of our DNA, some connection to the image into which we are made.

For us, today, Trinity Sunday is not much of anything, it is the Sunday that gets swallowed up by Memorial Day and the start of summer. And that’s okay, because it isn’t anything in itself. Trinity is God coming to us in three persons so that we have God with us wherever we go, whatever we manage to do with our lives, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. God has promised to be with us – revealed and hidden – in nature, in each other, in biblical teachings, in God’s Spirit of love, in creative inspiration, in the comfort of the saints around us and those gone before, in peace. 

May that peace, and that Three-in-One God, be yours this day.

This week we are listening for news of the Spirit of God. There is citing of the Spirit all over scripture from the first book to the last, but – as you might expect by now, they aren’t consistent or especially descriptive. In the readings, pay attention to which member of the Trinity is present, which is first, and which one does the sending of the Spirit out to do God’s work.

But first, just because I’m kind of ornery after reading the early church history again this week, what do you suppose happened to the fourth member of the Trinity? Her name is Sophia in Greek, Chochma in Hebrew, and she is Wisdom (both feminine nouns). There is a strong Wisdom tradition throughout the Bible, but she gets no role in the patristic era of church formation. I wonder why? (she says sarcastically)

Aside from my peevishness, this does pertain to our topic, so, from Proverbs, chapter 8: Wisdom speaks:

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains from below, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command,when he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside him, like a master worker;and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

From Genesis 1:  “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void, and darkness covered the deep, and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.”  

From the prologue to John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Later in John’s gospel, Jesus is saying farewell to the disciples, assuring them of his/ God’s/the Spirit’s continuing presence with them. 

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.  I will not leave you orphaned… I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Paraclete, Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you…”

And from the Nicene creed:

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,*who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”

 

Here we go again: Last week I talked about the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds and the controversies Greek grammar and logic of the 3rd and 4th centuries created in trying to determine the substance of, and precise relationship between, the Father and the Son. As far as the third article goes, the Apostle’s Creed doesn’t ask much from us: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” 

But the Nicene creed says a bit more: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.* ”   It continues but we’re stopping there.

That little phrase, “and the Son” – or Filioque in Latin (and as the controversy is known) – divided the Christian church East and West in the Great Schism of 1054. The Greek speaking Eastern church and the Latin speaking Western church have never recovered from it. One word, Filioque, has divided the Christian church for over a thousand years.

It goes back to last week’s conundrum of whether the Son is homoousious, of the same substance with the Father – and therefore co-eternal (begotten, not made), or homoiousious, of similar substance, created as the first of God’s creation (as Wisdom said), and therefore finite – in the sense that he had a beginning but no end. This has implications for the next logical determination of whether the Spirit, the third essence of Trinity, proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son.

Good Lord! It makes my head hurt; and to modern reasonableness, it’s a ridiculous argument. I think if anything, it would speak against the Spirit’s engagement with the whole church enterprise.  A disagreement over the illogical necessity of making logos, logical sense, about the correct formulation of God… I mean, talk about hubris! This arrogance that we – any configuration of human minds from any era – can determine the substance and persons of God – and then make that the basis of the Christian church and the standard of belief, is remarkable.

In addition, their logic seems to have fatal flaw. If they are being this literal about the timing and substance, how then were they able to ignore the maternity of this begotten Son? If God the Father begets a co-eternal Son of the same substance… who bore this Being? Begetting is typically in reference to a male bringing forth a child through the process of reproduction – which requires a woman – so, how did this work? How did God bring forth a Son from his own self with no one else involved? 

In the old Hebrew Scriptures, Yahweh occasionally had a consort, Ashera. She was also called the Queen of Heaven. But she was edited out by the post-exilic redactors because their mandate was to purify the faith in order to prevent more disasters like Babylon, and a female consort to God Almighty was too close to the pagan religions of their time.  There are a few references remaining. Even so, she would be more along the lines of created Wisdom, than a pre-existant mother to the Son of the Father. Are you seeing hints in this reasoning as to why Mary had to be virgin to bear Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God? 

If we continue with this search, the Hebrew word for Spirit – ruah – is a feminine noun, and the Syriac Christian church refers to the Holy Spirit as “She”, but before we jump to hopeful conclusions, pneuma, the Greek word, is either neuter or masculine depending on the attending participle. So the Advocate in John’s gospel, the Comforter – are masculine nouns and of no help to the problem of the Son’s begetting.

I’m not trying to destroy your faith, I promise. Although, that might not be a bad thing. In seminary, we were told that our faith was going to be broken. We would get angry and lost and wonder what was left for us to believe in, but that it needed to happen in order for us to open our eyes and see what the Bible really says. We needed to give up on what we thought we believed, what we had learned in the innocence of Sunday School and begin to see the truth of Jesus’ teaching, life and death; to see what happened between his death and burial, and the rest of the New Testament writings that utterly transformed peoples’ lives. We were told we’d have to trust the Holy Spirit to inspire and guide us on paths we could not yet see. I hope the same for you – and please, as always, if you want to talk about this, question me, disagree with me – I would welcome that kind of engagement. I mostly feel like I’m talking to myself up here. Your thoughts – even your anger – would be valuable.

So, back to the Holy Spirit. Let’s leave the Creed and it’s painful logic behind. 

Not many of us would expect logos language to make sense of the most mysterious person of God. Mythos is just right: the poetic, resourceful, whimsical, intuitive language that tells the truth of God that is bigger, truer than the words we might assign it.

Psalm 104, verses 24 and 30 are a good place to start:

“How manifold are your works, O Lord! In Wisdom you have made them all: the earth is full of your creatures. You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.”

Song of Solomon: “Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and come to me as a gazelle across the craggy heights.”

Until the day breathes. What a wonderful image. We are very aware of what time the day breathes. 4:38am. The songbirds seem to take one big breath and raise the shade of darkness with their incredible cacophony. It even startles me from sleep. That breath is the breath of God, the rush, wind, spirit, ruah.

The same Spirit of God brooded over the dark primordial ooze of creation, was puffed into nostrils, inflating the lungs of the adamah – the first dustling, and gave Adam life; it comes upon prophets giving them words of judgment, warning and assurance. It comes as wisdom’s inspiration to us more worldly and common folk too, as wisdom/Sophia, in lived and loving advice for others.

God’s spirit/wind/ruah – pnuemo in Greek –  spun Nicodemus in circles when he went to see Jesus – born again, born from above – the same thing but seemingly very different.

We are clearly in Mythos language with this third being of God. It is the carbon of sacred things – omnipresent, uniting, bonding, joining, essential for life, invisible, mysterious. It is beyond religion or dogma or doctrine. The great Spirit just is… “I am.” (The self-given name of God).

Perhaps I’m prejudiced, being so entrenched in Christian thought that I’m blind to other faiths, but I think this sense of Spirit is a universal part of most of the world’s religions which might not claim God or a cosmic Christ. If God is an active verb, as you’ve heard before, then the Spirit is that action, the doing of God. The Spirit is the acting force of good, of kindness, of peace, of courage, of love, of healing and wholeness and transformation.

The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples hiding out in their room as flames of fire, it says in Acts. “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

“Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in kingdom of Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ 

“All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

“But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  Even upon my slaves, both men and women,in those days I will pour out my Spirit..”

It is a gracious word, an inviting, accommodating, creative Spirit at work – not making a new religion, not intending to form a church based on correct dogma, or doctrine, logic and orthodox belief; but a Spirit speaking to and through each as they are able to understand. A Spirit that invites each into fellowship with God, to new life through the teaching and love and compassion of Jesus, the Christ, the human face of God’s way and will and desire for all creatures.

 I don’t know what to do with the creed embedded in our liturgy. 

I don’t want to maintain meaningless traditions simply for the sake of a tradition we inherited if that is what it has become. On the other hand, I think it’s a good reminder that this faith is not ours; it’s a faith of the whole church – yes, a church with enormous flaws – that struggles to stay relevant in Europe and liberal America, a church that is growing like crazy in parts of Africa. It’s a statement of faith our forebears recited, maybe questioned, maybe loved and relied upon – those holy ghosts that kneel beside us completing the circle of communion out beyond our walls. It’s a statement of the faith our descendants may need to hear because they don’t know the stories, they don’t come to church, don’t dust the Bible under their bed, but still need some mythos to provide a story bigger than their conjuring, bigger than their personal, selfie-documented narrative, bigger than their sorrow or their joy or their need.

It’s a statement of faith I don’t always believe in, but it’s also a recitation whose point I trust to be true in the poetic, whimsical, playful way of the Spirit – that God has come to us for love, for life, for a future and fellowship with the saints surrounding us; that God came through Mary’s “Yes”, and Jesus’ life, and through Pontius Pilate – unbeknownst to him, and even through death. It is a statement of the God, seen and unseen, whom I try to see like warblers in the woods, try to follow and please. I want to make God happy, to give God something to smile about once in a while instead of school shootings to weep over. Maybe stretching and compressing my faith into a set form and thinking about the content of belief is something that pleases God. Who knows?

In our wandering and wondering about the personage of God and the substance of faith, may we be blessed, guided and gifted by this form of Trinity – Growth, Grace, and Mystery.

Pastor Linda

 

Philippians 2

Let the same mind be in you that you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be seized, 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. 

 

This is the third week of our consideration of the creeds and trinity, of how they express and provide imagery for God… how we experience God in ancient, communal words of faith. Two weeks ago when we started, I said that a month of preaching the creeds could be dreadful – remember that? Today you’ll know what I meant.

We hear references to the early church – that we are on a trajectory for a return to the form of early church – which cast it in an idyllic glow. One might think it was the most pure, most unified expression of Christian belief because Jesus was still on the edge of collective memory.  In the first century after his death, the gospels were fresh, the letters of Paul were circulating, but, as those letters indicate, there was not a uniform faith.  The truth is that they didn’t know what to think about Jesus, or resurrection, or post-resurrection appearances, and so they thought and proposed lots of things.

Christianity was in its toddlerhood – an age of discovery, of questioning, false starts, kind of making things up as culture and world views changed. During the 200’s, Christians went through times of persecution by Rome. Christian faith spread rapidly because of this as people moved to new territories. Some had the writings of one gospel, or copies of a few of Paul’s letters, or other documents and letters circulating at the time that have not survived or didn’t get included in the cannon of scripture. Converts came from many backgrounds – and were attracted to Christianity for various reasons – including practical ones: a role for, and safe haven for women;  caring, serving communities that had greater survival rates during the plagues of those eras. But this rapid spread and growth meant that there was no cohesion in the stories, beliefs, and faith people took with with them from place to place. Theories about the person and divinity of Jesus were all over the map – literally. It was like the child’s game of telephone. By the time Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313, declaring tolerance for Christianity throughout his Empire, there were divisions and competing theories and controversies from North Africa to Rome to Cappadocia in Asia Minor.

The three Creeds of the church – the Nicene, Athanasian, and Apostle’s – exist because of this. They were the result of long, difficult discussions and compromises as church leaders gathered from these regions to work out in rational, reasonable logos, the nature and mystery of God in three persons.

Here is a sampling:

Pelagius taught that the human will, as created with its abilities by God, was sufficient to live a sinless life, although he also believed that God’s grace assisted every good work. Pelagianism has come to be identified with the view that human beings can earn salvation by their own efforts. This was deemed a heresy.

Sabellianism is the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three different modes or aspects of God, three masks of God through which he is revealed.  Sabellius was also considered a heretic.

Modalistic Monarchianism is a variant of that thought, believing that the different “modes” or “manifestations” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelt in their fullness in Jesus from the incarnation. The terms Father and Son are then used to describe the distinction between the transcendence of God and the immanence of God. It held that the Holy Spirit is not a separate entity but rather describes the action of God. Monarchians and modalists were also decided to be heretics.

Monarchians were opposed by Logos theologians who believed Jesus to be the incarnation of a pre-existant Logos, as described in the prologue to John’s gospel, rather than the incarnation of God in his fullness as the Monarchians held. But, as you might expect, Logos theologians were divided, too.

Have you heard the phrase that “there’s not an iota of difference” between two things? My mom used to say that when I was trying to get away with something, trying it from some other angle. Now I know what it means.

The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. debated the terms homoousios and homoiousios. These two words differ by one ‘i’ (which in Greek is the smallest letter, iota).The word homoousios means “same substance”, whereas homoiousios means “similar substance”.  Same or similar. We would probably say, “yeah, whatever.” They did not say that. The little iota was a very big deal.

Origen, the first great theologian of the church, taught that the Son was subject to the Father, but that the relation of the Son to the Father had no beginning, and that the Son was “eternally generated”. This was kind of middle position.

Arius built on Origen’s theory, arguing that the Logos did have a beginning and that the Son, therefore, was not eternal, and that the Son is clearly subordinate to the Father in scripture. Logos is the highest of the Created Order. This idea is summarized in the statement “there was a time when the Son was not.”

This was strongly disagreed with by those in the Logos camp led by Athanasius. They believed that Christ was co-eternal and con-substantial (of the same substance – homoousios) with the Father. For about two months at the first council of Nicaea, the two sides argued and debated, with each side appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. Arius maintained that the Son of God was a Creature, made from nothing; and that he was God’s First Production, before all ages. And he argued that everything else was created through the Son, that only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; but, therefore, there was a time that He had no existence. The Son was capable of His own free will, said Arius, and thus “were He in the truest sense a son, He must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when He was not, and hence He was a finite being.”

According to accounts, this debate became so heated that at one point Athanasius slapped Arius in the face. Eventually, a majority of bishops at the council agreed on the first form of the Nicene Creed. It included the word homoousios, meaning “consubstantial”, or “one in essence”, which was incompatible with Arius’ beliefs in a similar substance. He was excommunicated as a heretic.

I’m sorry to say these are just a few of the heresies and controversies that led to the formation of the creeds. 

Logic was the gift (and the curse) of their time. The church leaders felt obligated to work out the logically necessary connections of God to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They argued using mathematical principles – if a=b and b=c, then a=c, and so if a=b they have to be of the same substance (homoousious), but how in the world do you get Jesus to be of the same substance as God who is spirit? 

This was their driving question. And it’s why the creeds are written the way they are. There had to be a virgin birth. There had to be an ascension to God following Jesus’ death. What entered the tradition of Jesus’ stories as mythos describing the holy mysteries of God’s love for the earth and all its creatures, became a logical necessity in doctrine.

From this, it was a short step to determine that God required Jesus’ divinity in order to pardon our sin. The atonement theories were the next set of logical debates trying to explain the necessity of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Not motivated by God’s love as the gospel of John makes clear, but by logic.

I warned you that it could be dreadful. In seminary, I found it very discouraging that politics and this weird, rigid reasoning played such a big role in the way we see and hear about God, about Jesus, when in fact, no one really knows. Why was it necessary for Jesus to be divine and to die? The creeds claim that we need it – “for us and for our salvation” – the atonement theories claim that God needed it – as substitution or ransom or sacrifice necessary before God could forgive us the sin of being human. This is where the doctrine of Original Sin enters the picture. It is not in the Bible as doctrine, but as narrative, as truth we know about ourselves, as the part of us that God continued/-s to forgive.

Perhaps the question of our day is, do we still need the dogma, the doctrines? It’s pretty clear from the proliferation of denominations and splinter groups that – despite the recited creeds – we don’t have uniformity of belief (even as Lutherans!). Orthodoxy is itself a myth in the modern sense of the word – widely held but mostly untrue belief subject to being busted. We have inherited the words, but have lost the significance and urgency.

This is a question I want you to think about. Do we need the creeds, do they serve a purpose today, do they serve a purpose in this church? Do they express and support your faith, or do they cause you to stand silent – unwilling to profess belief in something you’d prefer be left as mystery? They aren’t required by the rubrics of Lutheran liturgy. They are part of the tradition. If traditions fail to do what they were intended to do, are they worth maintaining? Some would say, yes, for the sake of future generations who deserve the chance to hear and know them. 

As the reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians shows, there are other formulas of faith. This is an early Christian hymn used by house churches in Paul’s day describing the relationship between God and Christ.

The gospel of John presents an alternative both to the virgin birth and to the necessity of Jesus’ death. It was part of God’s plan, part of God’s inexplicable my-ways-are-not-your ways-nor-are-my-thoughts-your-thoughts design. Christ – the savior of all creation, the lover of all people, the defender of all oppressed, the model of servant power to the entitled, the counselor, mighty God, prince of peace, the Logos of God – was from the beginning and found human form in Jesus.

John gives us a vision of God invested, engaged in this world and in our lives out of illogical, inexplicable love for the creatures of her making.

Julian of Norwich was a Christian mystic in the 14th century. Here is her formula using a different kind of logic – one filled with the love of God. It’s a bit long for a creed, but still, it’s lovely, refreshing:

“It is a characteristic of God to overcome evil with good.

Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother. We received our ‘Being’ from Him ­ and this is where His Maternity starts, ­ and with it comes the gentle Protection and Guard of Love which will never cease to surround us.

Just as God is our Father, so God is also our Mother.

And He showed me this truth in all things, but especially in those sweet words when He says: “It is I”.

As if to say,  I am the power and the Goodness of the Father, I am the Wisdom of the Mother, I am the Light and the Grace which is blessed love, I am the Trinity, I am the Unity, I am the supreme Goodness of all kind of things, I am the One who makes you love, I am the One who makes you desire, I am the never-ending fulfilment of all true desires. (…)

Our highest Father, God Almighty, who is ‘Being’, has always known us and loved us: because of this knowledge, through his marvellous and deep charity and with the unanimous consent of the Blessed Trinity, He wanted the Second Person to become our Mother, our Brother, our Saviour.

It is thus logical that God, being our Father, be also our Mother. Our Father desires, our Mother operates and our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms; we are thus well advised to love our God through whom we have our being, to thank him reverently and to praise him for having created us and to pray fervently to our Mother, so as to obtain mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy Ghost, to obtain help and grace.

I then saw with complete certainty that God, before creating us, loved us, and His love never lessened and never will. In this love he accomplished all his works, and in this love he oriented all things to our good and in this love our life is eternal.”      

Thanks be to God.

 

 From “Revelations of Divine Love”  by Juliana of Norwich (1342-1416), (LIX, LXXXVI).

 

Luke 18:1-8         Sunday School Skit – You just had to be there.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.         Nicene Creed, Article 2

 

And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’ And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.

If even an unscrupulous judge – who acts solely out of his own self-interest – accidentally enacts justice for a widow, how much more then will God – who is, well, God – pay attention to, and honor our creaturely needs and rights?

Matthew and Luke share this theme. Jesus teaches about God’s love for us by holding a mirror to our own behavior. “Who among you, if your son asks for a fish would give him a snake, or if your daughter asks for Æbleskiver would instead give her a flat pancake? If you, who are wily, imperfect, arrogant, self-centered, at times mean spirited, hateful and proud, nevertheless, act out of compassion, empathy, goodness, kindness, courage, love – then why would you expect anything less from God? This is your trust, your sure and certain hope, that God who is love, loves; that God who creates, will creatively provide.

As the kid’s parable demonstrates, the gospels show Jesus to be the Explainer of God, the face of God, the living skin of God, the breath of the Holy Spirit, the word, wisdom, lover of God, the fire, passion, pathway and eternal being of God. In short, God.

And, although it might be hard to see it, that is what the creed is trying to express, as well.

The purpose of the creeds is to provide a statement of correct belief or orthodoxy, to describe the work of the three persons of the Trinity. The Christian creeds had been drawn up at times of conflict about doctrine: acceptance or rejection of a creed served to distinguish believers and deniers of a particular point or set of doctrines – the divinity of Jesus, for example, was a big one.

And it still is, I think, at least in ways.

The rubbing points for many people in reciting the creeds are in the particulars, perhaps, more than the concepts. The one I hear more than anything else is: Do we need to accept a virgin birth in order to believe that Jesus is of, from, in God as a Son to a Father? As waffle and Æbleskiver are of the same substance? I think it is a very good question.

The gospel of Mark doesn’t mention Jesus’ origins, and John’s gospel places them before all things in the Christ who became incarnate in Jesus without any explanation of the how or when. His mother is never given a name in the John’s gospel. Has the Christmas story of Matthew and Luke – as much as we love them at Christmas – become a stumbling point when made into doctrine?

Language has two characters: mythos and logos. Both of them tell the truth, but understand truth in different realms. Mythos is myth, poetry, transformational story language that helps us see ourselves and big concepts like faithfulness, honesty, heroism, bravery. Jesus used it in telling parables. We might describe the bonding, the joy of hard communal work, the way in which the scent of Æbleskiver and medisterpølse trailed out of the Hall after each of us last night and followed us, bringing that communal memory into our individual homes. That is mythos language.

Logos is a rational truth-telling language. The statistics of how many meal tickets were sold, how much the raffle items earned, how the bake sale contributed, how the hot water held up, how much fruit soup is left over compared to other years – this is the language of logos.

I suspect that those who have a hard time reciting the creeds because they can’t, with integrity, proclaim belief in the virgin birth, or the third day resurrection might do better with it if we had a better grasp of mythos, if we accorded mythos equal stature to the facts and reproducible, objective language of post-enlightenment logos.

Because the creeds, like scripture itself, are intended to promote faith, not block it. The gospel writers used the language, social structures, world view of their intended audiences to convince people in the Greco-Roman world that there is one God, not a pantheon of gods mostly interested in messing with humanity and fighting among themselves, and that Jesus is that God in person; that Jesus returns to God, as will all believers after death. Mythology was part of that world view, the language of mythos, poetry, imagination fills ancient literature as well as Hebrew and Christian scripture.

Having recently read John’s gospel, the language used there regarding Jesus is familiar  – eternally begotten – God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the father; through him all things were made…the creed mirrors John’s mythos language in these images of Jesus’ identity and mission. It is telling the truth, but not in facts and figures. So there is no reason to shift into logos language when we get to the particulars. And there is no reason not to. Meaning, that we are allowed to use whichever realm of truth leads to and supports our individual faith in the communal truth of God in Jesus.

The creed is the gospel in shorthand. It was especially intended for teaching the faith to converts and those who wished to be baptized. This is the faith they are entering.  Recited in Sunday worship, the creeds are a reminder of the promise of the “abiding” presence God, not a confining abstract speculation or roadblock. They are an invitation to experience the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as mythos and logos – a saving and comforting presence in the midst of our day-to-day world seeking truth even in mystery.

“In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you… ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Paraclete – the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener – whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”        John 14:19-ff

Every month, on the second Thursday, a group of area pastors get together for a conference meeting. We begin with fellowship as a buffer allowing time for GPS signals to track down some of the better hidden churches. Shortly after 10, we move into the sanctuary for worship led by the hosting pastor. We have a short business meeting, a program of some sort, and lunch.

I hosted the event in April. Last week’s reflections offered by Christy, Molly and Claire (a sermon in 4 acts) came from that conference worship service. From Chris’s opening notes on the piano, through the unconventional sermon, to the last bit of dessert served by Barb and Mike, it’s a fair claim to say that those pastors were impressed by the gifts of this congregation. So am I, by the way. Very.

One of the things that I’ve been impressed with in attending other monthly conference worship services is the incredible speed with which many pastors recite the Apostle’s Creed. It’s like there is a contest to see if you can say it all in one breath, or perhaps a small prize for finishing first without stumbling. I can do it in 19.85 seconds and three short gasps. I can… but I don’t.

While the race of words is run, I intentionally say the creed quietly, slowly, in protest as though these particular words have meaning. I quit when everyone else does even though I’m barely beyond “I believe in Jesus.”

But when I’m the host, I have a microphone and I can slow them all down. And I did. Because words do have meaning. If one is going to say, “I believe,” then the content that follows should be said with integrity and intentionality.

The thing is, for some of us, that’s hard to do. The words of these ancient formulas – the Apostles and Nicene Creeds – don’t necessarily express our beliefs. For some – maybe many of us – the creed becomes almost a stumbling block to faith, not a cloak of comfort and cohesion uniting us with believers from all times and places, as was intended. Maybe that’s why some pastors race though them, so no one has time to take offense or be embarrassed, so there’s no time to get lost wondering about the disparity between one’s personal beliefs and this archaic condensation of 66 biblical books into three statements one can recite by rote in 19.85 seconds. Maybe saying them when you are ambivalent about the content, like skimming over thin ice, is safer the faster you go.

To be fair, I don’t think my fellow pastors are conflicted by the creed. But I am, in ways. And I know that some of you are.

So, you might want to turn to pages 104 and 105 in the front of the hymnal and mark the page. For the next few weeks we’re going to think about these words slowly, taking a chance with thin ice and heresy. I hope you will talk about them at fellowship – about what might be your particular stumbling point, or what is the rock upon which you stand?  I want to do this little series now, while we still have language from the gospel of John in our heads, because I think that context, that poetic, symbolic, swirling imagery might help.

The history of the creeds is interesting, discouraging, disheartening because of the politics of church and state involved in their formation, the divisiveness between Eastern and Western Christianity; because of the decades of theological struggle – even deaths – that came in the formulation, in the precision of words. An historical perspective might offer a new appreciation of the creeds…  but I don’t want to start there.

I want to start with Mystery.

Most of you know I like mystery – especially BBC murder mysteries.… I like that a number of them have vicars, monks, theologians, or elderly women involved in sleuthing. I like that they bumble along at a nice slow pace. I don’t have to sit on the edge of my chair. I can be carried along by the author’s imagination and twists in the storyline without anxiety.

I try to offer God the same artistic license.

I also like that within an hour or two the mystery is solved, the loose ends are all collected, the villains – who thought they were so clever – are brought to justice. I am embarrassingly impatient with God.

Murder mysteries tidy everything up on a Sunday night. My prayer life, my engagement, and dealings with God are not as neat or quick or decided.

Mysteries train us to consider all that is, all the options. So do the creeds.

Article 1 from the Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

One God, the maker of all that is both seen and unseen? Or…

One God of all that is;

One God, seen and unseen.

I also like the ambiguity of grammatical clauses.

My theology, my understanding of God and God’s ways, thrives on the unseen. Maybe this creedal statement is saying we believe in a God who is revealed and hidden in all created things, a God who shows up in our lives in unexpected, inexplicable ways now and then – a God who is always there but willing to be overshadowed, made invisible by the gifts of this world created for us.

A God who is seen and unseen fits my theological world view – my faith’s “on again, off again, hopeful, but wondering” pathway.

I think preaching for a month on the creeds could be quite dreadful. But a month of considering the ground of our faith – the landscapes and pathways – the content of the creeds and how we process and experience the trinity …  that could be a worthwhile use of a few Sundays.

The seen and unseen nature of God allows an expansive view of faith. Modern American Christianity  – the way it is represented in the headlines or by the loudest voices today – is actually a very small rivulet of the stream of Christian faith that has flowed through the centuries.  This, too, gives me hope. When we recite the creed, we step into this flow of water. There is depth and breadth within history. From the gospel evangelists, to the desert Fathers and Mothers, from martyrs to heretics, from mystics to reformers, from rationalists to confessors – every age has struggled with, and gloried in, the seen and unseen nature of God and what it means to confess, “I believe in God… near at hand and unknowable, sought after, revealed, incarnate, silent, inspiring.

We might think we know too much of life to maintain the innocence of faith. We’ve seen too much of the world’s sorrow and hardship; our blessed assurance has wilted. We need re-crisping, like wilted greens brought in from the garden and vivified by standing their stems in a glass of cool water or tucking them into a crisping drawer. Our knowledge of “all that is” has exploded since these creeds were devised. We have pitted science and rationalism against faith as though we have to choose one or the other, as though there is only one way of knowing, a single narrative. We need to be reawakened to the mystery of God, whom we have allowed to become too small and stodgy, or who we feel must be protected from challenge and change. We would do well to make room for the not-knowingness, the hypothesis of faith.

At their best, creeds help us make a connection with a deeply grounded, personal, and communally tended spiritual life. They are an open door through which we walk into the marvelous space of life with God. Please talk about this when you have the comfort of a coffee cup in your hand. What does it mean to believe in God, the Father; the Almighty? God the creator of heaven and earth? God the giver and source of mystery? Is God your scaffolding…the structure and support of your life? Does the language of ‘all things, seen and unseen’ create enough space for questions and rubbing points?

This is a somewhat awkward, unedifying end to a sermon, but I do want you to think about these questions, so I leave you in peace for a few moments of reflection.