Credo 2: Father Almighty

Image by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Reading: John 13: 1-5, 12-17

Video of talk here from 34 mins 20 secs

Audio of talk here

Last week we started a new series called Credo, based on the Apostles’ Creed. We saw that this was the oldest, most widely accepted statement of the Christian story. Its roots can be traced all the way back to the early 3^rd century. It may even be older.

The word Creed comes from the first line in Latin Credo in Deum. I believe in God. Last week we looked at those opening two words, I Believe. Today we’re going to focus on two more words.

Father Almighty.

But before we get there the more observant will notice a bit I’ve missed out. In God. The Creed never attempts to prove the existence of God. Nor, it might surprise people, does the Bible. I’m not spending the morning doing so either. It can be wrapped up any way you like but belief in the existence or non-existence of God are equally statements of faith.

Besides it only gets you so far. Of way more interest is what type of God you’re talking about? I often find that when people describe the God they don’t believe in I find I don’t believe in that God either. That said the same is true of some of the descriptions of God I have heard preached in churches.

So, you believe in God? Great! Tell me, what’s your God like?

This morning we consider two words the Creed uses to describe the God of the Christian story.

Father Almighty.

However helpful a creed might be, it’s here we come to its limitations. It can never be exhaustive and, when it comes to describing God it doesn’t matter what words you use – they will fall short.

The Bible uses lots of images to describe God. Shepherd, Judge, King, Rock. And they help to build a picture of what God is like. But none of them are perfect. You need to be wary of pressing them too far. God may be dependable and stand firm in a storm, like a rock. But God’s not made of stone!

And the same is true of the words we are considering this morning. Father Almighty.

I caught some of  this last Sunday, looking at my Facebook feed. It was Father’s Day, one of those days to which people have all sorts of reactions, depending on their experience. For some it is a real cause of celebration, for others it reminds them of pain for all sorts of reasons.

It’s a day which has never really figured highly in my thinking. My father died when I was 16 months old, so I never really knew him. The circumstances of his death promote a positive image but it still never figured greatly in my thinking. Each year the date came and went, barely registering with me as it passed.

And I’ve never had children, so I’ve never been on the other end. Last Sunday was the first occasion when I got a Father’s Day card ‘from Siggy.’ It said Dad, there’s nobody I’d rather have by my side…

… awkwardly waiting while I poop. Happy Father’s Day!

Yet in another sense, the idea of God as Father has been very much part of my upbringing. When my father died, leaving my mum in her mid-30s, with 4 children, aged between 12 years and 16 months, my mum claimed as a promise a verse in Psalm 68.

            A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows

            Is God in his holy dwelling.

But for some, their experience of fatherhood has not been positive and it is right to acknowledge that they might find it difficult when we are inviting people to express faith, trust or confidence in one whom we call Father.

Nor is it helped when you couple it with the word Almighty. Power is not a nice word. It suggests domination and control. Does it mean one who can do whatever they want? One who can do what he likes without regard to rights or without explanation. If your experience of fatherhood has included one who is dominant, overbearing, abusive, that may not bring the most welcoming of images to mind.

So before we look at these ideas there are a few things I want to highlight. They’re all linked, but worth pointing out separately.

These issues are not new. Parenthood and power looked very different in the world in which Jesus lived and the world in which the Creed was formed. And not exactly for the better.

Secondly, although in some ways setting those two words side by side may not bring the most welcoming image to mind, they are actually set together in a very different way.You might sayeach is designed to balance the other out.

And that is because thirdly, although in some ways we are taking things apart, they shoudn’t be read in isolation. Because both are defined and redeemed when understood in the light of Jesus.

You might ask why father and not mother? And indeed the Bible does use both images, though father is more common. In part, you could argue it is the product of a patriarchal society.

But it was more than that. The ancient world understood a father as one who generates children outside of himself, as opposed to a mother who grows the child within herself. In that sense fatherhood is easier. The father is only essential at the moment of conception. Mothers carry the child throughout. Which might have made it seem more appropriate.

The image of father was a way of acknowledging our createdness, that our very existence comes from God, whilst also maintaining the sense of God as distinct from creation. It stopped us thinking of creation as the womb of God.

But the main reason we use it is because Jesus himself used it and invited his followers to do likewise. And the Holy Spirit also empowers us to use it – in Romans we read that the Spirit assures us that we are God’s children and enables us address God as Abba, Father.  

Throughout the Bible Father is an image God owns for himself. God is the father of Israel. At the start of the Exodus God sends Moses to tell Pharoah that Israel is his son, his firstborn. In Deuteronomy Moses says Is God not your Father, who created you, who made you and established you? Isaiah says Thou, O Lord, art our Father.

And the reason the analogy is powerful is it works, or at least it should. God cares for us as human fathers should care for their children. God is the source of our existence, like an earthy father. We are made in the image of God, just as there is something of our earthly father within us. God exercises authority over us, just as good parents do with their children. He knows our strengths and weaknesses, just as earthly parents should.

But Jesus gave that idea a whole new dimension. Amongst the social media stuff I read last week was a number of comments like anyone can be a father, but it takes a man to be a dad. That reflects something of the difference Jesus brought to our understanding of God as our Father.

William Barclay, a Christian writer I know some of you love, describes a difference between paternity and fatherhood. Paternity is when someone is responsible for the existence of a child, but need not play any further role.

Father is a relationship of love. Father is involved in life. In this sense you can be a fantastic father even though you would never pass a paternity test.

Yes, when we call God our Father, we are saying God is the source and origin of all life. But we go further than that. God loves us with an intimate, caring relationship deeper than paternity can ever go. Dad is often used for someone we have a personal relationship with, someone we know and love and from whom we experience love.

And that is why the word Jesus pointed to, when he spoke of God’s fatherhood was Abba. It’s a love that is deep and personalised. All of God’s love is poured out on each of us. That same love and mercy is extended to good and bad alike, without exception. That God is Father to each one of us is to say God’s love is all inclusive.

To call God Father, as Jesus tells us we can, is to know we are not alone in the universe, at the mercy of fate, or some impersonal forces. We are loved, totally and completely by a God who longs to relate to us intimately as a good, loving father should his children.

But God isn’t just Father. He is Father Almighty. In a sense it stops us swinging too far the other way over- sentimentalising the notion of God as Father.

But as I’ve suggested already power may not necessarily be a good attribute. We say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And again this is nothing new. Several times in the Gospels we read of disciples arguing amongst themselves about who was top dog. On one occasion Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them…

…Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If Jesus rewrote what it meant to understand God as Father, he blew any ideas of power and what it meant to be Almighty out of the water. As one of the first Christian hymns puts it, even though Jesus was in nature God,

he did not consider equality with God 

something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very natureof a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Truly powerful people don’t need to throw their weight around. They don’t need to compete for position. They know what they’ve got and can relax in it.

Perhaps the most potent, visual examples of this is in the passage we read together this morning. When Jesus, knowing that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Jesus takes the lowest part. But he doesn’t do it from a position of weakness. Jesus knows that the Father has put all things under his power. Jesus knows who he is. That’s something about truly great people. They’re not frightened to muck in and do the dirty work.

God totally rewrites what it means to be Almighty. He doesn’t need all the advantages, privileges and trappings of this world to rescue us. He comes as a helpless babe. He empties himself of all the trappings of God-dy-ness. And is prepared to go to the greatest lengths to reach us. He surrenders himself into the hands of his enemies and gives his very life over to them.

And still breathes love and forgiveness over them.

True power is not found in the ability to coerce and control. Such a motivation comes from an awareness of insecurity, weakness, limitation. True power is found in the ability to love and enable without reserve.

You see, when we speak of Father Almighty, in Jesus we see the Almighty balances the Father bit and the Father balances the Almighty bit. It’s one thing for God to love us as a Father, but it is because he is Almighty he has sustain, rescue and redeem us. It is one thing for God to be Almighty, but the Abba Father bit balances out the power so that the power is always entirely motivated and directed by love.

In the Creed we confess 3 great movements of God’s power, all of them motivated by love…

In God’s power he lovingly brings the world into being.

In Gid’s power he lovingly enters the womb of a woman, takes on frail, vulnerable human flesh and becomes part of the world in Jesus.

In God’s power the Holy Spirit is lovingly redeeming and transforming the world by transforming the lives of his people.

Viewed through the lens of Jesus, calling God Almighty does not mean God can be capricious and changeable on a whim. In Jesus we see the reliability of God. That he has committed himself to us and has committed himself to our salvation. We are loved with an everlasting love.

But it is a love which is backed up by the power of God, meaning it can be resisted, delayed, grieved and disappointed. But ultimately it cannot be defeated. For it is a love that has endured all things for us and overcome it all in resurrection. It is a love that can be patient and waits without exhausting itself. God’s love does not have to compete with anything else in his world. For it is Almighty. He is the Father Almighty.

And because of that we can live without fear. In Jesus we can know that in all we face we are loved, and that in all we face, he can and will bring us through, for if God is for us, nothing can be against us. God has given himself completely to us in fatherly love and because of his power, nothing can ever be able to snatch us from him or ever separate us from the love of God.

Bible in One Year 2022: Reflection 17

Video of reflection here

Audio of reflection here

Today we’re considering days 104-110. This covers the latter part of the book of Deuteronomy, and a chunk of Luke’s Gospel focussing on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the early part of what we call Holy Week.

And today I want to begin with a question. What do you think God wants for you? Does God want you to thrive?

I imagine if I asked that in church our immediate response would be yeh, of course.

But how convinced are we really? From the primal Eden story we recognise that part of the human condition is a suspicion that God is holding out on us. That God is keeping stuff back from us. Even today there are those who would say we need to shake off the shackles that belief in God supposedly imposes on us.

And that a question that pops up during the reading this week, particularly on Day 110 – in both Deuteronomy and Luke.

Deuteronomy is that last of the 5 books sometimes called The Pentateuch (which simply means 5 Books). In Judaism this would be called The Torah, which is often translated as Law, but can also mean teaching, direction, guidance, way. In Deuteronomy we read of Moses delivering a series of sermons to the Children of Israel shortly before he hands over the leadership of the people to Joshua, before he dies and before the people cross over into the Promised Land. He repeats the story of how they got that far.

But as the Pentateuch draws to a close it’s like it returns to that primal Eden story, to that primal questioning, suspicion, the question of what does God want for us. As Moses prepares to hand the people leave the people with God and Joshua he says to them, What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in Heaven so that you have to ask who will ascend to Heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it. Nor is it found across the sea so that you have to ask who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us, so that we may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction… I set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.

He’s reminding them once more that God is not just in the business of bossing them around, keeping them in their place. God is for them. God is on our side. God wants what is best for us. But we do have to choose it.

The other comes from the mouth of Jesus, as he approaches Jerusalem, and looks out over the city. He weeps over it, saying if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.

There it is again. God’s longing for us, but the need to recognise it, receive it, live in it. The choices we make matter.

The notion that God wants us to thrive and prosper seems to be the sole property of dodgy health and wealth teachers on religious broadcasting channels, promising huge financial rewards for those who ‘plant a seed’ that is send them money. And they can sound so convincing, partly cos you have to be pretty charismatic to get yourself on the telly in the first place, and they can find a couple of Bible verses to back it up. But it offers a very limited, superficial idea of prosperity and blessing.

Because it doesn’t mean that if we just do the right thing everything will just go so brilliantly. We’ll be rich and healthy and so on. Some can read Moses’ words like that.

It is possible to assume if we are in a tougher period we’ve stepped out of line. And when people like me come along and talk about how our choices matter it might reinforce that notion. But the world is more interconnected and mysterious than that. We are people of grace, not karma. The same rain falls on the good and bad alike.  Sometimes bad people prosper. Sometimes good people struggle, not despite their goodness, but because of it, and because of their commitment to it. It takes faith to believe that God wants life, peace, prosperity for us, that God wants us to thrive.

Nonetheless we don’t always recognise the things that make for peace. We don’t always make choices that lead to human flourishing. We do fall for the suspicious voice which whispers that God is holding out on us. There are circumstances where yes, we made a bad choice and the outcome was, predictably, bad. If I decided to put this month’s entire stipend on a three-legged donkey in the 2.15 from Newmarket, it’s a bad choice that is unlikely to end well.

God has shown his commitment to us in Jesus. He has shown he is God with us, God for us, a God who wants us to discover life in abundance. He has also shown us that simply doing the right thing doesn’t guarantee the easy life. We see that in Jesus too. But he also shows us that if we keep trusting, God will be faithful and will bring his plans to fruition. Let’s not leave that message to the name it, claim it style charlatans. May we not just be people who hear and appreciate what Jesus calls us towards. May we live it. May we be people who choose life.

Father God

Thank you that you love us and that you are always for us. Forgive us when we lose sight of that, when we get lost in paths of our own choosing. Sustain us in those times when life is hard, not despite, but because we seek to the faithful to you. Keep us trusting that you want what is best for us, if God is for us nothing can be against us and may we be people who choose the things that make for lasting life, peace and prosperity. Amen.

Credo 1: I Believe

Reading: John 14: 1-11

Video of the sermon is here from 37:20

Audio of the sermon is here

It’s Easter Sunday, sometime in the early-to-mid 3^rd Century. A group of believers have spent the entire night in a vigil of prayer, scripture reading and instruction. When the rooster crows at dawn, they are led out to a pool of flowing water. They remove their clothes. The women let down their hair and remove their jewellery. They renounce Satan and are anointed from head to foot in oil. Then they are led, naked, into the water.

They are asked a question: Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty?

They reply I believe, then they’re plunged beneath the water and raised up again.

They are asked a second question: Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and Mary the virgin and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was dead and buried and rose on the third day, fully alive from the dead and ascended in the heavens and sits at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the living and the dead?

Again they reply, I believe and they are plunged beneath the water and lifted up again.

They are asked a third question: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, and the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?

Again they reply I believe and they are immersed a third time.

Then they’re led back out of the water, anointed with oil once more, clothed, blessed and led into the community where, for the first time, they share in the communion, before being commissioned to go out into the world to serve God and grow in faith.

This segment of The Apostolic Tradition a treatise which dates to the early centuries of the church and was rediscovered in the 19^th Century, offers a fascinating insight into their life and practice.

Some of the tradition we handle a little differently. Chantal I’m sure is glad that we don’t baptise naked, at dawn, after an all-night study session and that we only immerse those whom we baptise once.

Other bits we have kept. The immersion in water, on profession of faith. Our baptistry is at the entrance of the church for a reason. It might make more practical sense to start inside the church and go out, wet, into the foyer, on the side closer to the changing rooms. But there is a theological reason why we start outside the worship area and emerge from the water into this space. For baptism is about the start of the Christian life, entry into the faith community.

But this excerpt is fascinating for another reason. It suggests that possibly from as early as 230AD, something recognisable as the roots of the Apostles’ Creed was already established as part of the baptismal ceremony. It was rooted in a pledge of allegiance to the God of the Gospel, revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was designed, in an age when people had no Bibles of their own, and the majority probably couldn’t have read them anyway, that even the last literate would be able to retain some of the Christian story.

The Apostles’ Creed is going to form the basis of what we’ll be considering on Sundays for the next little while. I recorded a little video giving some of the background to this series, which you can find on our YouTube channel if you haven’t already seen it. I won’t repeat that.

The word Creed is taken from the first line in Latin: Credo in deum. I believe in God. Hence the series title Credo. This morning I want to focus on that one word: Credo – I Believe.

I think it’s fair to say, to explore something like The Apostles’ Creed and to affirm I Believe together is quite countercultural. I’m pretty sure in part that’s why I have been reluctant to do it. It smacks of, dare I say it, organised religion, which is popularly seen as spirituality’s less attractive sibling.

We live in an age where belief has fallen on hard times. Doubt and scepticism are trendier alternatives.  Not just of faith or religion. We’re sceptical of anything handed down to us.

And not without reason. The mere existence and necessity of something like Fact-Checker on BBC news reports is a sad indictment on how truthfulness seems to have come to be viewed as optional or negotiable, rather than essential part of our discourse.

Yet life is founded on trust. For good or ill, all of us are trusting stuff all the time. History, geography, medicine… you name it. We cannot verify everything. The sources we trust may differ. But at some point we’re all trusting that others are telling us the truth. Our social life is held together by trust. Human beings are not always trustworthy, but we need it.

We come into the world totally dependent, bringing nothing to the party but life. We have to trust to survive. And so it is with the new life of faith.  

Another reason it is countercultural is that the West really idolises the individual. We talk about personal faith and I don’t dispute the importance of that. But whilst faith might be personal it has never been individual. A creed allows us to test the story in which we are putting our trust against that which has sustained people down the centuries. It stops us sliding into a consumer-like faith built merely around what it suits us to believe or we’d like to be true. It’s there to stop us creating a God in our image.

Which brings us to another reason people are suspicious of creeds – because they may struggle to fully accept every word in the creed. There is this sense of can I with integrity declare I believe all this stuff?

Both those words, I believe, are not without their problems.

Something I think has got lost in baptism down the years is that it can become what a good friend has described to me as a testimony with a towel. It is about expressing our own individual faith.

And whilst I don’t believe there is anything special about that water, or that there is anything ‘magical’ about what Sue, Chantal and I just did in that pool, baptism is much more than that.

It’s about being born into a family. It is about joining ourselves to a community. That’s why we start outside and then emerge from the water into the church. Chantal this morning was declaring her faith in God, her trust in Jesus and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. She is emerging from the water into a new life, but one that will be lived within the church and, in particular, within this local church family.

We are baptised into a story that bigger than us.

Something similar can be said of the creed. It’s not something we do very often, if ever, but when believers say the creed we join our voices to a communal voice that it is greater than us all. The I in the creed is not me, Andrew Jackson, or you [insert name here]. It is the body of Christ.

When Christians say the creed we are saying this is the story we declare together. It stresses our unity. It says we belong together as people shaped by that story of a God who longs for relationship, who created a world, has become one of us, taking on flesh and blood within that world and who is engaged in the work of redeeming that world.

But its not just the word I  which has to be explained. It’s the word Believe. In our age that is a mental thing. It is giving our assent to something.

I’m reminded of a story in which Brian McLaren interviewed a bookstore manager and asked him what were the most popular non-fiction books. At the top was the How to Get Rich Quick type book, which perhaps is not that surprising. But after that came books on spirituality and, in particular, Buddhism. He asked why books about Buddhism should be so popular compared with, say, Christianity. The answer was that Christianity often presents itself as a system of belief, whereas Buddhism presents itself as a way of life.

I have to admit, that’s one of the reasons I wrestled with whether to do this. I’m not interested in intellectually looking at a load of ideas.

Jesus calls us to a particular way of life. He says come, follow me, not sign here at the bottom of this list of theological points.

Credo is much more than a mental exercise, an intellectual agreement with a point. That makes it mostly about us.

Credo turns that around. Probably a better way of saying it is I have confidence in God, the Father Almighty. Or I trust in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The focus is not on me and what I believe. It’s on the God in whom I put my trust.

It’s not just saying I believe that there is a God, or that there was a man called Jesus. True faith places its confidence in not what belief you or I, but in the faithfulness of God.

Which kind of leads me to a word for those who may, as we work through this stuff wondering can I with integrity say that?

There’s a lovely verse towards the end of our Bibles in a tiny book called Jude. It says be merciful to those who doubt. That means be merciful to one another, but also to ourselves. As we make our way through these words, there may be bits and pieces where we struggle to say hand on heart we’re convinced of this. If you were in a church that said these words week in, week out, there may be moments when you say some of the words crossing your fingers.

The central point is not your or my belief, but the one in whom we trust.

And God is faithful, even when we are not.

God is faithful, even when we can’t get it.

But true belief will be expressed in our response. Jesus says the wise don’t just hear what he says. They don’t even think yes, that makes sense. They do it. They live it.

That’s why it sits so well with baptism. Baptism is about putting away an old way of life and stepping into a new one. It’s about allowing a different story to shape who you are and who you will become going forward.

Today Chantal was baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The same is true of every one of you who have been baptised.

Baptism isn’t for those who have made it, who have got it sussed. It’s for those who know that on their own they’re never going to make it, they’ll never get it sussed and so place their trust in the God who has revealed himself in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A God who created our world, loves our world, sustains are world and is redeeming our world, reconciling us and all things to himself.

Faith can stay in the head. We’re not simply asked to check our brains at the door. Trust leads to a response. Trust takes the risk of acting on what we believe. It lives with the I cannot tell parts, because through trial and experience it reaches the ‘but this I know’ moments. Trust leads to experience, which deepens trust, not in our faith, but in God’s faithfulness.

If these words are to make a difference to us, they will need to make the short journey from the head to the heart. It’s one thing to believe God exists; but have you met him? It’s one thing to believe God forgives, have you trusted him for that forgiveness. It’s one thing to believe that God is reliable, but do we ever lean on him?

My prayer for these next few weeks is yes, that we will learn something more about the God in whom we trust. But that we will come to know him, to encounter him for ourselves and deeper our knowledge of and trust in that God. That it won’t merely be about getting our head around ideas about God, but opening ourselves to receive all he wants to bring us. Immersing ourselves in the story of God and his love. Yes, we are committing ourselves to that God, but we are committing ourselves to one who has already committed himself to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and who will not abandon us, who has promised he will be with us always.

Credo: An Introduction

This is the trailer for a series based on The Apostles’ Creed.

Video of the trailer can be found here

Audio can be found here

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand

of God the Father almighty.

From there he will come

to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Hi.

I hope you are well. Thanks to Sue for allowing me this space to share some stuff with you. It’s just a heads up about a couple of things happening next week which I’m quite excited about.

Firstly, and most importantly, next Sunday we have Chantal’s baptism. Of all the things I get to do as a minister, celebrating the new life Jesus brings to someone who trusts in him has to be right up there among the greatest privileges. I really look forward to it and encourage you to pray for our sister, Chantal, over the next week and indeed in the weeks ahead, and come along next Sunday to support her.

Also next week I am starting a new teaching series with you. It is based around the Apostles’ Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed is the simplest, oldest, most ecumenical statement of the Christian story. Although the version we have today wasn’t finalised until the 7^th century, it was pretty much in place by the 4^th century, and very similar statements can be traced back at least as far as the mid 2^nd century, possibly even earlier. One tradition even dates it all the way back to the first apostles of the church. It can be split into 12 articles or lines and each apostle was said to have contributed one line. A bit doubtful, not nonetheless it is a good summary of what the book of Jude describes as the ‘faith, once for all, entrusted to God’s people.’

This series is something I’ve thought about doing for years, but, well, whilst the mind has been willing, but the spirit has always been less convinced. I’m conscious it can easily descend into an exercise in proof texting, pulling out bits of the Bible to show why we believe these things. Which isn’t bad and can be interesting, but it only really gets us so far.  I’m aware of my own weakness in examining stuff as an intellectual exercise without it reaching the heart. People of faith have always been prone to acting like those who would scurry round the burning bush photographing it from every angle, when really what God wants us to do is take off our sandals and worship.

Creeds can be divisive, are often the products of councils which took place many centuries ago, and reflect debates people were having many centuries ago but which don’t mean that much now. They were designed to show who was in and who was out. And there was potential for that to be influenced by who had the power at that moment.  

The apostles’ creed was different. It wasn’t the product of any council. It developed in a more organic way and came from the grass roots of the church rather than some hierarchy. It was largely based around the beliefs new Christians affirmed at their baptism. Which is one of the reasons it’s appropriate we start this at a baptismal service.

Many of the debates which get some of my friends and colleagues so worked up just leave me cold.   There was a time I believed that if we just got our theology right, the behaviour would follow. There is some truth in that. But over time I have become aware that such a transition is far from automatic. Knowledge can puff up, but I am more interested in the love which builds up. Christianity is a relationship, not a creed. I’m more interested in following Jesus as a way of life, than in understanding and ticking a list of propositions.

Nonetheless, John tells us the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. It’s possible to be all truth and no grace. That was much of what Jesus encountered amongst the religious leaders of his day. That was, to some extent where I came from, who I was.

But it is equally possible when you make the kind of journey I’ve made, to be all grace and have no foundation to build on. This is the tradition which has been passed down to us through the centuries. It is the story which has shaped our faith for the vast majority of the 2000 years. But it is still relevant today. And that is why as we turn to it I want to focus on the so what questions. What difference does it make if I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.

I believe the stories we tell ourselves can shape us. They become part of who we are. If we tell ourselves we are useless, unworthy, stupid of whatever, it will have very different effect than if we accept we are loved, accepted, enough…

So much of the sorrow and pain so many of us feel is because the things we come to believe about ourselves and how we view the world are twisted and distorted in all sorts of ways. And people of faith are not immune to that.

So starting from next week, 19 June, we will begin to explore the tradition which has been passed down to us through the generations. It’ll take us through July and I will pick it up again when I return after having August off. I will also lead some Zoom studies on Wednesday evenings based around what we have been looking at. My prayer is it won’t just be an interesting exploration of ideas, though I hope it will indeed be interesting. But that it may deepen us in our understanding and knowledge of God, taking us deeper into that relationship with him so that we see him more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly in the days ahead.

Grace and peace be with you.

The Prodigal Son

Scripture: Luke 15: 11-32

Sue Whalley delivered this sermon at Harrow Baptist, NW London on Sunday 12 June.

Video of the sermon is here from around 27 mins 30.

Audio of the sermon is here.