In One God
The Apostles’ Creed 1.1; Isaiah 45:1-8
October 4, 2009
The word is all around us right now. Go to any bookstore and you can’t help but see the big letters “GOD” on more than a few books, even the same style and font. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are at the root of one side of the debate, The God Delusion and God Is Not Great, but even in the United Church, Gretta Vosper’s provocative volume, With or Without God, begs another aspect of the precariousness of the perception of God. Now there has emerged a cottage industry in whipping out books to counter this trend with “God Is Great,” “God Is Back” themes. Forty years ago the “God Is Dead” movement invaded our consciousness, so once again is talking about the badness of God politically correct?
So when we stand on this World Communion Sunday to recite the Apostles’ Creed together, it may seem a little bit odd and naive, even somewhat surreal, yet reassuring in the current intellectual headwinds. We don’t say the Apostles’ Creed much anymore, few United Churches do, yet no doubt it was to be included in our Voices United hymnal - even though it is a bit of an oxymoron for a non-creedal church to recite creeds.
The United Church and a number of others similar to us reject the use of creeds as a test of faith - an almost academic checklist to make certain you will assent to the correct doctrines of the church. We believe that the journey of faith is more open than that, so we do not make specific demands upon an individual’s beliefs. In other words, we have discarded the concept of heresy, and yes, at times people can emerge with pretty unorthodox ideas and still be considered a member of our congregation. That’s why we can be with God or without God in many of our pews.
At the 40th General Council of the United Church of Canada held this August in Kelowna, BC, there was a motion to declare the Twenty Articles of Faith, a kind of Apostles’ Creed of beliefs and doctrines written in 1908, to be an “historical document.” That meant it was history, worthy to be honoured, but no longer to be paid any attention. It did not work as the General Council voted in the end not to reduce the number of theological statements, but to increase them, adding a few other historical documents.
While this may appear to be somewhat cavalier, it is very important that we retain this non-creedal and open attitude towards our Christian tradition for it forces you and me again and again to reexamine our faith and understanding carefully, even at times under fire. The alternative probably happened earlier this morning - how many of you simply recited the Creed by rote or just read the words as words to be read? One of our human tendencies is to get so used to something that we lose touch with what it really is. It is beneficial that we begin again from the beginning, as if for the first time.
In the beginning, so to speak, are the seemingly straightforward, naive words, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth” or the Nicene Creed version “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” In the first place, these statements are intended to be used in worship, originally in baptism, not as required contracts to sign on the dotted line. I believe in God is therefore a declaration and act of love and commitment.
All the controversy occurs when we rigidly try to understand the words as an intellectual assessment of what is truth. Obviously, lots of people do not agree that the existence of God is an intellectual truth, and others have serious objections to the way God operates. To say “I believe in God” is strong language for those who do not want to believe now.
Others will say “I believe in God” as a preliminary statement of what they would like to believe, but are still believing in too many other important things to commit themselves totally to God. That’s what the Nicene Creed is hinting at, “We believe in one God.” Sure, we are all monotheists, but most of live out our lives believing in and serving quite a few other gods.
God is the Father Almighty in both creeds, a description which has become a loaded one. God has long been considered the Almighty, and that is Job’s problem today when the Almighty God does not seem to be able to do anything right. In fact, who would ever want a God who is not the Almighty? The answer is: that’s what most of us choose, a less than Almighty God, and the advantage to that choice is that such a less mighty god is easier to handle and control. In Isaiah 45:6-7 God forcefully spells out what this almighty stuff means: “I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I bring prosperity and create disaster. I, the Lord, do all these things.” To use an earlier theologian’s phrase, God is the Ground and Source of All Being.
And we try to hold God’s feet to the fire with that one. We expect God to do everything, especially matters concerning ourselves, but there are some things that the Almighty cannot do, and as Augustine pointed in the fourth century, God is almighty precisely because God cannot do these things. God cannot die; God cannot lie, be deceived, act unjustly; it is impossible for God to sin, yet God does whatever God wills, rightly and justly wills - that’s real omnipotence.
Yes, both of these ancient creeds, issuing forth from solidly patriarchal eras, do not shy from calling God Father, and we know that God is more than just male. But the ancients were fighting another battle back then that at times we have seemed to have forgotten. Our God is a God who intends herself for human beings and for creation, a God whose justice is not a prescribed sentence of so many years in prison for such and such a crime, but one who shows fatherly and motherly concern for truth and reconciliation between wounded human beings. If we demand a God without gender, a Holy It, you will quickly treat everyone else as an It whose only purpose is to serve you. You will be the only human being in the world.
Creator, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen - and we have been given dominion over all that God has created. Not exactly, for we do not have absolute dominion over storms and earthquakes and lightning and plummeting asteroids into our atmosphere. But if you believe in God, the Parent Almighty, then as sons and daughters we will do our chores, take care of what have been given to us, not out of rote duty, but because of the loving relationship we share with that One God in whom we believe.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan