2 Lent Year A

2 Lent Year A
March 12, 2017

    We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth… We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God…

    You and I are going to recite these words together in a few minutes, and I know some of you are getting together and studying about this creed, known as the Nicene Creed on Sunday mornings.  This creed is the statement of our beliefs, our statement of faith.  The word Creed comes from the latin for believe; the sense of believing that we “do” when we recite the creed is not a superficial believing, but the kind of believing that for us gives us so much more than just information  It’s the kind of believing that we do at a very deep and personal level.  It’s the kind of believing that actually forms and shapes us.  The creed isn’t simply a statement of faith, but I would say it is also something that we pray, and as such it’s words are powerful and deeply meaningful.  We know that we cannot truly define who God the Father is, who Jesus is, or who the Spirit is; the Trinity defies all defining; but we have to do something; we have to have a way to talk about the Trinity, and particularly about Jesus.  It is an imperfect formula at best.  But it has served the church since the council of Nicea in 325 AD.  So, it’s a pretty important part of our worship and our teaching.

    Deep in my heart, I have always been glad that this creed, at least in the translation we use on Sundays starts “We Believe”.  For me, that helps take some of the pressure off.  I know that if I were to take a poll about what each of us actually thought some of these words meant, we would probably have as many different explanations as there are people sitting here.  And, honestly, that’s ok. 

    What do you think to yourself when we say, “We Believe”?  I have to admit, some days, I think, “I’m not so sure what I believe… “ I know others may be thinking the aren’t sure IF they believe… one of the reasons the WE is so powerful to me, is that on those days when maybe my own believing is a bit shaky… maybe I can be carried by YOUR believing.  We believe is one of the gifts of community.  Our faith is not just something that we do as individuals; it is something that we do and experience as a community; we depend upon each other to have support, ideas, and just to experience together in worship the grace that helps us to reconcile ourselves to God, to each other and to our neighbors…

    On Ash Wednesday, one of the things I talked about was vulnerability… that the ashes we received on our heads were perhaps a way for us to realize our own vulnerability as well as each others; perhaps ashes were a sign to us to be kinder, gentler, more loving with ourselves and with each other because God was certainly kind, gentle and loving, even when we didn’t feel it or perhaps deserve it…

    I read something this week that suggested that in order to believe one must be willing to be vulnerable…  God I hate being vulnerable.  But it rings true for me… .In order to believe, I must be willing to be vulnerable.  I began thinking about how I got to the Episcopal church.  My family was not a church going family.  We were superstitiously Catholic at best, like many ethnic families were in our neighborhood.  Toward the end of my Navy years, in my mid twenties, I experienced some pretty serious life altering events which led me to come to the conclusion that I should probably stop drinking and change how I was living my life.  I did the things that were absolutely necessary in order to get sober.  As I worked on myself and on my life, I realized that I needed something else.  It would take me a while to figure it out, but what I needed was Jesus… and just as much as I needed Jesus, I needed a community that would help me figure out my place in the kingdom, and would help me to learn and grow in relationship to them and to God.  I also had to figure out this whole vulnerability thing.  I had to let my community get to know me, but also, I had to be willing to give some things up in order to make room for belief in God, in Jesus and in the Spirit… in some ways, making room for Jesus was the hardest part.  I could sort of believe in a far off God that didn’t really give a hoot about my daily life; but… God so loved the world that He gave his only Son… oh boy.  This was different.  This was personal.  This was all about relationship and it was all about relationship with me… and like other loving relationships it was going to mean that I had to be vulnerable… in ways I didn’t really like; because now, God was getting personal and getting all up in my business with this whole Jesus thing.  In Jesus, there was a person to whom I could relate; a person whose story intersected with mine; a person who I came to learn went all the way to death in order to save me from it… and I learned how much God really loved; not something I really knew about as a kid….but God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son… gave his Son not to condemn, but to save the whole world…. The whole world… not just the parts that you or I like… but the whole world.  That’s a pretty big deal to say the least.  And for each of us to believe it, to act on it… we have to give up something of ourselves, we have to be vulnerable…

    Nicodemus wanted to believe… and he did believe some.  He was a good man trying to do the right thing… but he couldn’t quite let go of part of himself… I think in order to believe, we have to give up something of ourselves so that there is a place for God to be… and sometimes we get really caught up in protecting our inner selves so much that we forget that vulnerability isn’t bad… but it’s a pathway for us to get to know God, Jesus and the Spirit just a little more… Nicodemus was a smart man… and perhaps his smarts kept him from believing more; he couldn’t get past what he thought was SUPPOSED to be true, so that he could actually experience was was actually TRUE.  We are so much like him… the good news is that we don’t have to believe all at once, whatever that might mean, and we don’t have to believe all the same, and we can rest on each other’s believing when we aren’t quite up to it…  however, I hope that we are all willing to keep working at it; to keep trying to give up some of ourselves so that we can be vulnerable, so that in those tender and vulnerable places we might deepen our relationship with God’s perfect gift of Jesus who came so that we might be closer to God…. God so loved the world… how do we so love God?  What might we be asked to give up to make more room for Jesus?