Easter Day

‘Thanks be to God.’

This penitential season ends with a celebration and affirmation – and it’s high time to step through and beyond these 40 days of creeds, and enjoy the triumphant music of Easter Day Alleluias. Remember my father’s wisdom: “Do you believe all that stuff? I go for the music!”

Remember that I warned you at the beginning of a three-legged stool of believing, belonging, and behaving? It’s time for some balance. We’re planning communion next week, a potluck lunch that day, and a bigger fun’raiser Saturday May 7. You belong here, fine points of creeds aside.

I’m hoping that you can still affirm some beliefs! We are no longer a purely confessional church, though, as our Calvinist roots were. Creeds are not tests that include or exclude you like fences. Remember that I suggested the image of a spring or a salt lick, that you could approach or avoid as you would – but that I hope has met a thirst or appetite of yours.

It’s a good closing prayer, often offered in critical moments, and can be even shorter than this closing line of the creed. You say to your God ‘you know all that stuff I was thinking about and looking for and trying to do? Just for now, just for me, here – I’m going to let go and let God.’

‘Thanks.’

Even better – write your own affirmation of faith. What do you believe, this Easter Day, and how would you say it, and with whom? What words work for you – or will you simply show it and live it, with the conversation continuing in your head for a while yet? Read more...

Saturday, April 23, E minus 1

In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.

Surely, if we can’t talk about life and death, and life beyond death, here, then where can we speak of it? Death has become the ultimate obscenity, and we are all in denial of our mortality. Health care costs in the final months of life skyrocket, because we prefer medical assault to dignified death, since we have no vision beyond a ‘light at the end of a tunnel’.

What do we expect of church, if not ritual and meaning around life, and death, and life beyond death? We can proclaim, exclaim, celebrate, weep, and even use old words at a ritual moment – but our cognitive dissonance catches up with us since our modern and postmodern worldviews don’t accommodate pre-modern diction and concepts.

Take a moment now, and remember a funeral that mattered to you, and some lives of those you loved, and their deaths. Did you say goodbye? Did the conversation consider afterward, and through your ongoing bereavement? Do you imagine them in the company of others, or ultimately in your company?

Many people think that the church prefers death to life – and should pay attention to the real question of whether there is life before death. But is it really a morbid fixation to wonder occasionally how we will construe and construct meaning from our own dying experiences? Is it really vain speculation to imagine a world beyond this one, fulfilled, including us all?

Will Easter remain a festival of immortality, of blithe spirits passing through this life and death unscathed and untouched- or one of death and resurrection, that moves us with passion and compassion, and changes our perceptions and our choices about this world and this life, in hope of another world and a life beyond death? Read more...

Good Friday, April 22, E minus 2

to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.

Surely evangelism, proclaiming Jesus, is a basic task of the church. We may be embarrassed by the excesses of our more aggressive evangelical neighbours, but if you really think this is good news, why would you not share it with others? We can’t compete with slicker clubs and nonprofits on doing good and having fun – we have to rely on proclaiming Jesus.

What do we expect of church, if not Jesus talk? One Anglican friend suggests that liberal churches who won’t talk Jesus are like a hardware store that won’t talk tools. You say you want a hammer? Let’s talk about the process of nail implementation, and a technology that might help…

Take a moment now, and remember a time when you loved Jesus, and Jesus made sense to you. Was it a Sunday School moment, or a choir song? Did the sacrifice of this passion week move you once? When did you lose focus on your image of Jesus?

Many people think that the church sells a personality cult built around a superhero. They worry that Jesus as our judge is an authoritarian leader of a hierarchical organization. Few people understand Jesus as a figure of hope, the measure of their vision of ultimate promise and purpose.

Remember singing the old hymns and praying the simple prayers, to Jesus. Is the vaguely impersonal divinity without gender or human face enough to sustain your prayer life? Perhaps we need to take seriously Marcus Borg’s book title, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

Will Easter be another equivocation festival, or an acclamation that ‘Christ is risen’ with a renewed energy to ‘proclaim Jesus’? Read more...

Thursday, April 21, E minus 3

to seek justice and resist evil,

Surely the business of church is related to seeking justice and resisting evil. We used to ask baptizing people to ‘renounce the Devil and all his works’. Why is church so often now assumed to be unjust and evil? Do we cause wars, or do greed, ambition and pride clothed in religious language do so?

What do we expect of church, if not moral guidance? What ever happened to our denomination, which opposed capital punishment till it was abolished and was identified with social justice, greater equality for all people? Perhaps we lost credibility through our anti-gambling and anti-alcohol campaigns – but are those causes so wrong?

Take a moment now, and remember a time you’ve been proud of a stand that your church has taken, seeking justice and resisting evil. Was it about equality for gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual and queer people? How about Jubilee petitions to forgive third world debt?

Many people think that the church to often speaks beyond its expertise. Our amateur economics, naïve politics, and clumsy psychobabble cost us credibility in the public square. On the other hand, when experts in science and social science introduce terms like ‘acceptable risk’, they’ve tumbled into the realms of ethics and morality outside their expertise!

Remember how we claimed our religious identity, committing to be good boys and nice girls, and imagining doing our duty and standing up for the little guy against the big bullies. What remains of that original vision and direction – are we still ‘seeking justice and resisting evil’?

Will Easter be a morally ambiguous moment of waffling on every issue – or a celebration of being a people who ‘seek justice and resist evil’? Read more...

Wednesday, April 20, E minus 4

to love and serve others,

Surely we expect of religion that it motivates people to care for others. That’s the Golden Rule, recognized in every religion. Does this religion lead to better behavior in relation to neighbours who need us? Who is your neighbor, and what do you owe that neighbour?

What do we expect of church, if not good works of helping other people, in health care and education and social service? We used to rely on those fundamental commitments ‘to love and serve others’ - but we’ve slipped to the other commitment to ‘me first’ – and hardly noticed the change.

Take a moment now, and remember a moment when you’ve cared for a neighbour, and loved and served them, and not simply yourself. Did you get any satisfaction from such service? Did you ever make a difference in another’s life and another’s need?

Many people think that the church is an organization that profits from others’ needs. We are accused of being parasites who need the needy to survive. Shouldn’t we be trying to run ourselves out of business, and eradicating need? Who says that food banks should be a growth industry?

Remember how you started out in this religious thing. How do you love and serve others? Who needs you? What do you need in helping and serving? What if it’s not all about maximizing our own assets and income, and includes some other measurements of ‘success’?

Will Easter be a moment of success and self-serving satisfaction – or will it be a day that shows how we love and serve others? Read more...

Tuesday, April 19, E minus 5

to live with respect in Creation,

Surely the next thing that the world asks of ‘church’, our duty and task: ecology. Are we part of the problem, or part of the solution? Are we making the world better or worse, conserving or exploiting resources? Do we love the world and our environment, or do we degrade and pollute it?

The same culture that caused the most environmental damage in history, is a culture that claims a Christian religious identification. Does the one lead to the other necessarily, or accidentally? What if we paused, and made choices to ‘live with respect in Creation’?

Take a moment now, and remember a moment when you have relished God’s good creation. We often speak of the Canadian spirituality of ‘rocks, trees, and water’ – can you recall a time when you have experienced God’s gifts of creation and been moved to respect it?

Many people think that the church is the source of our sins of pollution and abuse of creation. Because we imagine ourselves caretakers of creation, to use it (and abuse it) for our own purposes, we are licensed to make choices that are hardly consistent with ‘live with respect in Creation”.

Remember how we started out: do you believe all that stuff? Do you love all that God made, and stand in awe and respect in the face of the wonders of creation? How did we get distracted to other priorities, to satisfying our appetites and others at the expense of the ‘ecumene’, the inhabited world?

Will Easter be a moment of ecological renewal for you, or a recurrence of the pattern of consumption and degeneration? Read more...

Monday, April 18, E minus 6

to celebrate God’s presence,

Surely our first duty and task is this: ‘to celebrate God’s presence.’ It all starts with prayer and worship, awe and wonder, the first person affirmation of ‘thanks be to God’! How do you celebrate God’s presence? Do church worship services do it for you – and if not, why not? Then what?

What’s the first thing people expect of ‘church’: celebration! If we’re not singing and dancing, if we’re not having fun, then what kind of God are we worshiping? If we experience the presence of God, the rest is commentary. When is the last time you ‘celebrated God’s presence?’

Take a moment now, to remember an experience of awe and wonder. When did you simply celebrate God’s presence, in the wonder of creation, and the incredible fecundity of nature? How did you respond, with your heart and emotions and full humanity?

Many people think that church is an organization dedicated to the proposition that somebody, somewhere, is having fun: and it has got to be stopped! If that’s your church, then perhaps you are not yet ‘celebrating God’s presence’ as we set out to do – God forbid you stay there.

Remember our starting point, ‘believing, belonging, behaving’. The power of sharing a song has far less to do with believing than with belonging and behaving. With whom do you share a song and a celebration – what is the soundtrack of your life, and who hums along with you?

Will Easter be a celebration for you? Is God present in this week with you? Come on, imagine what that might be like! Read more...

Palm Sunday, April 17

This last Sunday of Lent, our final study theme is ‘Compassion’, and we finish workshops on ‘Living with Grief’. I often challenge you just before the offering, as we begin the last segment of our worship service: “This is the ‘What are we going to do about it’ part.”

I think this back half of “A New Creed” is stronger than the first half – and event stronger than the laundry-list finishes of the older ones. See if you agree with me by Easter, next Sunday.

A New Creed (2)

We are called to be the Church:


to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,


to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,


to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.


In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.


We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.

Wednesday at 9am, join us for ‘Easter Awakening’, a tradition here for decades of innovative worship and a speaker, this year from the Yellow Brick House women’s shelter.

Thursday at 6:30pm, come along to a Maundy Thursday communion service led by youth, a newer tradition here.

Friday, it’s breakfast again at 9 or 9:30am, a worship service at 10:30am – then a youth rock musical at 4pm, telling the story again in symbol and sound. We’re getting ready to celebrate Easter – with you?

‘We are called to be the Church.’ We are human, and male and female, but we have added an identity in baptism: we are members of the Church.  Our identities are formed from all our identifications – including this one: church.

We’ll reflect on that for six days.  Regardless of what we think, or believe: what will we do to ‘be the church’?  Even if we don’t know, we’ll celebrate the affirmation on Easter Day, what should be the first and final prayer of our lives:

‘Thanks be to God.’

  Read more...

Saturday, April 16, Eminus 7

We trust in God.


“We trust in God.” Of course we do. A faith statement this gentle and vague is hardly going to shake our complacent comfort! As I complained at the beginning, God must be so pleased that we still trust her. Can she trust us yet? How democratic is our construction of the faith – is it all based on polling numbers, of who can check off which box in a survey, with little attention given? Or do we weigh some voices more than others. Why?

There’s a hoary old preaching anecdote about the man walking a tightrope across the Niagara Falls gorge. He asks ‘do you believe that I can cross the gorge on that tightrope with somebody on my shoulders?’ Sure. Then he asks ‘will you climb up on my shoulders and come across with me?’ That’s the difference between cognitive assent to claims of knowledge or belief, and trust or faith to participate in action and relationship.

Who do you trust in your life? Why? Who trusts you? Should they? Repeating this affirmation in worship really works for people. We get it. Religion connects us like ligaments (re-ligio) rather than screwing us together in some mechanical metaphor. Informed, uncoerced consent is part of the key for our generation – influence and choice, not command and control. In the end, we trust and risk error, or we mistrust and risk error.

Tomorrow we start Holy Week, with the story of the ‘triumphant entry’ into Jerusalem. The triumph triggers the tragedy, the narrative runs from the ‘thrill of victory’ to ‘the agony of defeat’. Have you trusted in some security that has failed you? Me too. Can you trust again?

It’s an odd echo, this creed line, of the inscription on United States money: “In God We Trust”. What does it mean, and how is it shown? Will we contradict our words by our actions? Of course – this is Holy Week, and the story of the passion is full of examples.


“We trust in God.” As we’ve responded so often in this Lenten season: “Oh, Yeah?” “Yeah!” Read more...

Friday, April 15, Eminus 8

who works in us and others
by the Spirit.

“Who works in us” is a great start to an affirmation of our job as Christians. “Christ in nobis”, not just “Christ pro nobis”, is always a liberal leaning: Christ in us, not just Christ for us. Sure, Jesus saves – but Satan will score on the rebound, without the rest of this hockey team. Our life and work matters to Jesus’ life and work, giving us meaning, purpose, or inspiration.


“And others” should stand alone as a positive affirmation about ‘the other’. People of other denominations, of other faiths or none, can work with Christ in partnerships, common purpose, and not relegated to ‘no salvation outside (our) church’ so offensive in our culture and age. The wee risk is ‘anonymous baptism’, saying to the Sikh ‘that’s Christ working in you’.

“By the Spirit” elides us into the third person of the Trinitarian God in one prepositional phrase. What is this Spirit? Why the capital letter? So it’s not our spirit or Jesus’ spirit? Is it just a booster rocket for Jesus’ fueling of Christians and others? Is this enough? How does your sense of Spirit, from earlier creeds and weeks this season, work with these three words?

Now we’ve asserted the active presence and intervening work of God creating, Jesus reconciling, and Jesus working in us and others by the Spirit. Does this give you ways to talk about what God’s up to? What needs doing, in between creation, through evolution to ultimate ends and purposes and possibilities? How is God doing it or helping do it? And we?

The work of the church, of course, will be next week’s second half of this creed, which is not only narcissistic about us as the point around which it all turns, but also chauvinistic in claiming the importance of the church. What about our basic human vocation, Tillich’s ‘Courage to Be’ and all that?

Celebrate this statement of our human nature and destiny, not simply passively saved, but participants claiming Christ in us by the Spirit. Then wonder what way of being in the world, and what kinds of doing, show it. Read more...

Thursday, April 14, E minus 9

to reconcile and make new,


“To reconcile and make new” is a succinct summary of ‘the saving significance of Jesus’, as one United Church study framed the issuers of ‘soteriology’. What is wrong, or not yet right, that needs Jesus? How does Christ change our circumstances, or anybody else’s? Does this get at it?

I’m more of a fan of this bit than I may seem. Like the progressive liberal theologians in the Living the Questions video series, we don’t try to redeem the language of salvation and atonement. We just assert two new terms, and hope that people will develop a semantic field for them, rich enough to convey all that the earlier doctrines and terminology had attempted to do.

“Reconcile” is a verb that works with nouns which are missing here. That’s poetic, but what does it imply to you? Does Jesus reconcile heaven and earth, or broken relationships among individuals? Can I imagine the human condition as being alienated and apart, and seeking reconciliation – to whom or to what? How does that beat ‘sin and salvation’?


“Make new” is an even simpler construction. Jesus is not simply mending creation, binding and repairing what’s broken and wounded – but renewing, just as the earlier assertion said that God was actively creating. We’ve claimed the ‘new heaven and new earth’ platform of Isaiah and Revelation. Perhaps our greatest risk is reducing this renewal to a human experience of elation and happy feelings, separate from God’s shalom.

Today’s your day to chew on ‘the person and work of Jesus’. What’s his job, and how’s he doing at it? Tomorrow we’ll turn to our job. I’ve never liked ‘what would Jesus do?’ (WWJD) as a piety of trying to be like Jesus. I’ve barely aspired to ask ‘what would a fan of Jesus do’ and try that! How can I cooperate with what ‘the Word made flesh’ does, if I haven’t thought about what that ‘saving significance’ means – in my terms or yours?

Is it possible to reconcile all that dissonance in your mind? Is it enough, or do we also look for reconciliation in the world and beyond? Read more...

Wednesday, April 13, E minus 10

who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,

“Who has come in Jesus” is a lot shorter than the way the other creeds spoke of him, eh? It doesn’t make us say all that birth, suffering, and resurrection stuff. It leaves us in our comfort zone. Is that all good? It’s also pretty much Gospel of John, not the other gospels, this ‘come’ stuff.


“The Word made flesh” confirms that we’re echoing John’s gospel about Jesus, as even United Church folks know it from Christmas services. The capitalization of ‘word’ is another signal – look for which other terms are capitalized in this creed – and which proper nouns from other creeds are missing in this one. It’s one way of echoing last week’s ‘incarnation’ theme.

People do tell me they appreciate being relieved of mouthing the words of immaculate conception and virginity of Mary in church. Similarly, we’re grateful not to have to say the crucified, dead, and buried language. We prefer to master our subjective assent, our conscious understanding of propositions, before reciting with others we suspect mean something else.

I’m a bit surprised that we assert such an elevated ‘high’ Christology, when our piety is usually a pretty ‘low’ threshold of saying Jesus was a great teacher and prophet, without making bigger metaphysical claims. John’s gospel does have all the ‘flesh’ side of the polarities with Word and Spirit, though, and we can probably work from there. Do we?

This love of ‘logos’ or ‘Word’ versions of Christology seems to me most popular among those who love words, intellectuals and philosophers. Our avoidance of the narrative verbs of other summaries of Jesus works in our subculture – but I think we’ve paid to much to stay in our sweet spot.

Was your Jesus born? Did he heal and exorcize? Did he suffer, was he crucified, dead and buried? Does this succinct poetic clause convey it all? Read more...

Tuesday, April 11, E minus 11

A New Creed

who has created and is creating,

“Who has created” is strong poetry, and framed as a subordinate amplification or clarification of the word ‘God’. Compared to the tradition, it’s a bit weak in confirming if this is one of many gods, who happens to have created some stuff or folks, or God, who created it all.

“And is creating” extends the past perfect construction of ‘created’, and implies a living God, actively processing creation beyond its original or current state. Do we pause to wonder what active process of divinity is ‘creating’, and what is better named as ‘redeeming’ and ‘sustaining’?

People tell me that repeating this line of the creed opens them to a sense of a living God, who’s not finished yet. They still suffer from that ‘divine clockmaker’ of the 19th century, who made the machine, started it, and left! Do you recognize those friends of mine, whose God stands way back now?

You might want to chase the ‘creation centered spirituality’ of Matthew Fox and his book Original Blessing, if you enjoyed him in the study videos this season. He plays out the implications of denying a linear creation, then fall, then redemption, in favour of a great creative process of life.

We should also credit the ‘process theologians’ for influencing this shift of verb tense and vision. John Cobb from the videos is a popular teacher in that tradition, and very disciplined in his use of language based on his deeper theology. He writes interesting stuff on medical ethics from this perspective and point of view. What’s creating – morbidity and mortality?

In this season of spring, and into our summer celebrations of ‘rocks, trees, and water’, this formulation of ‘who has created and is creating’ may stick with you. Let me know what you make of it this year. Annie Dillard’s classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek might work for you if you like this line. She writes of the incredible fecundity – and unrelenting mortality – of creatures. Read more...

Monday, April 11, E minus 12

A New Creed


We are not alone
We live in God’s world


We believe in God:

‘We are not alone’. So the primary religious need is a sense of isolated alienation, I guess. Perhaps that is so. God knows our society has reduced us to ciphers and statistics, objective factoids. We’ve lost our sense of rootedness and connectedness. It’s not bad – is it enough?


‘We live in God’s world’. We may say it’s God’s, but do we mean it’s ours? This offers the potential for us to recognize the awesome creation that is not our construction, nor reducible to our experience, but something before us and beyond us. And yet, why do I feel like we’re not sure it is?


‘We believe in God’. God must be so proud, we’ve voted in favour of her. (That’s sarcasm, folks.) I guess this cultural expression assumes the alternative, that others say that they don’t ‘believe in God’. But does this formulation do anything more than distinguish us from those others?

We use this creed in worship regularly and routinely, and it does express our faith – but does it inform our faith? I think not. Certainly, religious language has both functions, expressing and informing – and this does half the job very well. However, the other part matters, eh?

This creed expresses a liberal theological method, from Schleiermacher to Bultmann and Tillich, reflecting on our own experience and our own feelings. ‘Them’s my people’, and I do theology this way too. But I do know that our way is not the only way, and that we have contributions to make, but limits, too.

Nevertheless, I celebrate the succinct poetry that places us in context, as if that mattered, and invites others to place themselves in context, in relation to us. That’s a modest, and a bold project, after so many centuries of Christendom and Constantinian Christianity. Say it a few times, with me! Read more...

5th Sunday in Lent, April 10

This Sunday, worship and study is focused once more on the theme of ‘incarnation’. Does it make more sense, after a week of reflection? We’ll begin a final week of our Lenten study, with the theme of ‘compassion’.

We’re over the hump, and the rest of the way is really downhill. We’re going to begin reading together ‘A New Creed’, a product of the United Church of Canada from 1968 (and amended twice already).

This is a beloved affirmation of faith in our denomination, one that many of us can say together in worship, and experience the corporate sense of doxology, of singing from the same page, of saying ‘we’ and meaning it.

Now that you’ve waded through the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed, you’ll recognize the dramatic change of shape and emphasis. I call it the creed of a narcissistic generation and culture – them’s my people!

Here’s the first half, that we’ll read through a few words a day this week – then next week, Holy Week, we’ll complete that creed, and you can say it with us in worship on Easter Day!

A New Creed (1)


We are not alone
We live in God’s world


We believe in God:


who has created and is creating,


who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,


who works in us and others
by the Spirit.


We trust in God.

I call this ‘the narcissists’ creed’.  After a couple of millennia of credal traditions, talking about the god we worship – we start with ourselves, instead of God – though we do credit her with creating our world. Even as we continue to talk of God, creator, redeemer, and spirit, it’s all about us.

God must, in the end, be so gratified that we deign to trust in her.  Is that enough?  Is that too much?  There is much in this creed to celebrate – its openness to an interfaith ecumene – but also much to confess with chagrin. It’s all about our experience – and hardly about that which we experience. 

 
Read more...

Saturday, April 9, E minus 13

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Oh, Yeah? Here we go with ‘bread for today, pie in the sky when we die’ utopian fantasies, the ‘opiate of the masses’. Let’s stop projecting the lifestyles of the rich and famous, denied to real people in this life, and calling it ‘the world to come’ – and live in this world.


Yeah! This is an invitation to imagine a better world, not to reduce it to a program of short-term goals. But comparing this world to the one we envision is a powerful way to share orientation through good and bad times. This isn’t where we go, but what comes – watch for it arriving!

Of course, you can stick with Marx’s challenge to religion. How did that work out in the 20th century, with ‘5 year plans’ and political tyrannies? Christians have lots to confess – but ideological alternatives do too. Can you permit yourself to imagine ‘the life of the world to come’?


No, really – you can live in a disenchanted, disillusioned world, and name who and what is wrong with some acuity. But can you describe what’s ultimately true, and good, and beautiful, without visualizing a City of God, a garden, river, tree, with all people and nations sharing it with you?

This is not news – people have been painting visions of a future hope for a long time. Sometimes we’ve exaggerated how close we’ve come, smugly claiming for our culture and generation an ‘over-realized eschatology’ – but having a vision is part of sharing hope. Is our cynical age any happier?


Instead of responding to the millenialist ‘second coming’ scenarios of apocalypse, or stuck on what’s wrong, ugly and untrue – indulge yourself with visualizing a world right, beautiful and true. How will you say that better than this creed? With what wider ‘we’ can you say and see it?

Incarnation affirms that we know goodness, beauty and truth through the material world and our whole ecology. Surely our hope should not be abstracted and disembodied. Populate your world to come – in the flesh! Read more...

Friday, April 8, E minus 14

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

Oh Yeah? This sure sounds like ‘night of the living dead’, bodies rising from graves. ‘Look for’ sounds like anticipating a future event, and ‘the dead’ means it’s not just Jesus’ body, but ours that will rise. This doesn’t sound like ‘coming into the light’ souls floating from bodies to heaven, eh?

Yeah! The vision of a fully populated resurrection, at the end of time and space, beats some individualized focus. I want company in my hope, and a coordinated arrival, despite our staggered departure dates, works for me. This begs the question of body and soul, and does not have to be ghoulish.


Of course, you can get stuck in modern crises of science and religion, and parody the medieval metaphysics of a three-tiered universe. It’s certainly easier to accept the constructions of ‘near-death experiences’ to dream of a spark of soul floating off from the body it was only wearing a while. But try the novelty of repeating this phrase ‘look for the resurrection of the dead’.


No, really – go ahead and avoid death with derision. It’s harder for us to talk death than sex now, the new taboos. At the moment of one’s own mortality, or close bereavement, evasion gets harder. Will a visualization of a light at the end of a tunnel suffice for you?


This is not news – we are not the first generation to be mortal, just the most successful at postponing and distancing death. We don’t talk of Easter resurrection to give more weight to Jesus’ teachings, but in the face of our common fate – we all die. Was everybody stupid or naïve once – or wise?

Instead of getting caught up in the mechanics, and exaggerating the cognitive dissonance of our modern worldview in a postmodern world carrying baggage of a medieval theology and ancient creeds – what hope do you look for? How will you say it better than this, with what wider ‘we’?


Incarnation: This is not just speculative philosophy. It’s about your relation to your body and others around you – are they included in your hope, or mere background accessories that some ethereal ‘you’ wears and uses? Read more...

Thursday, April 7, E minus 15

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Oh, Yeah? How did the ‘forgiveness of sins’ become instrumentally controlled by baptism? Why just ‘one’ baptism, and not whatever ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ assurance we choose to affirm? Is this about that ‘original sin’ that means babies are evil and damned unless they are baptized?

Yeah! Real martyrs and real backsliders in North Africa knew lots about the limits of self-serving expressions of ‘Oops, I’m sorry’, and the erosion of trust among fallible mortal believers. Hear that ‘one’ claim again, against pure relativism of each one doing ‘what is right in his own eyes’.

Of course, you can claim the privilege of subjective perspective: ‘you do your thing, and I do mine, and if by chance we meet, well that’s beautiful.’ Sure, we worship the non-judgmental cultural mantras of ‘there’s no right or wrong’ – but we feel the power of naming and forgiving what’s not yet right.


No, really – go ahead and deride the linkage of baptism and sin – but it’s not about sins, but the state of sin. We’re all born into an unfair world, no longer all good creation, not yet the promised fulfillment, and baptism is a choice to reject this in-between world and forgive the no-more and not-yet.

This is not news – we have sweat and wept the differences of what’s ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ in our confessions of sin and confessions of faith. Cheap quick baptisms of shared ideas or practices won’t hold up – we came by this ‘one’ baptism ‘forgiveness of sins’ at some cost. Listen to it.

Instead of claiming too much – or too little – for humanity and for the church’s attempt to help us be all were meant to be and made to do – consider you own place and purpose amidst it all. Instead of evading evil, or denying complicity – try facing up to it all, and contributing your share. How will you say it better than this creed, and with what wider ‘we’?


Incarnation: there is not only a naming of sins here – but an assertion that the baptized might incarnate a sign of hope and promise. Why not you? Read more...

Wednesday, April 6, E minus 16

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Oh, Yeah? The ‘holy catholic church’ of the Apostles’ Creed is now ‘one’, ‘holy’, and ‘apostolic’? The one I see is not one, is too often wholly unholy, and still too imperialistic with outdated privileged power. Why keep ramping up the claims, when the human reality will always contradict the vision?

Yeah! This clarification and amplification has some value for me. The repetition of ‘one’ reminds me of the ‘one’ God and ‘one’ Lord Jesus Christ, ‘we’ holy as God is. Our diversity or catholicity only makes sense within some unity. ‘Apostolic’ reminds me it’s for the world, not just for us to keep.

Of course, you can try to believe and behave alone – and belong only to universal humanity. But if you’re really working at it, honestly, diligently, you’re going to look for some company and some help. Call it church – then set some tests or goal for that company: one, holy, catholic, apostolic.

No, really – you can condemn the church – but you’ll have to convince me that you’ve got something less bad in human community to offer. Divisive, sectarian, irreverent, exclusive, homogeneous ethnic enclaves without a vision to offer something to the world – that’s not enough for me.

This is not news – as soon as we started to say ‘us’, we needed to affirm what made it so. It can’t simply be shared subjective assent to propositions or peculiar customs or behaviours – we’ve claimed these criteria: unity, holiness, catholicity or diversity, and missional or apostolic ‘us’. Ain’t it?


Instead of taking easy cheap shots at how the human visible church falls short of the ideal vision – consider how you are contributing to narrowing the gap, or widening it. Instead of blaming, try confessing against these broad standards. How will you say it better than this, with what wider ‘we’?


Incarnation: How is the visible church, in the flesh, an expression of the one, holy catholic and apostolic church – and how is it not that incarnation? Read more...

Tuesday, April 5, E minus 17

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

Oh, Yeah? You’re piling words on words now. I ask again: are we worshiping three gods, or one? How does this Spirit speak through what Prophets? Why not through others? Is this Spirit finished speaking, or shall we stay tuned? How did ‘she’ become ‘he’?

Yeah! These are not too many words to balance the Creator and Christ. This gets to the heart of what’s at stake – worship and praise, and the claims of inspired prophecy and revelation. How do we relate to the Spirit, and how do we receive the teaching and guidance of God?


Of course, you can broadcast worship and praise without much focus on to whom or to what you are addressing yourself. God surely gets it. However, if you spend any time at all addressing your deity, you’ll begin to focus and refine your communication – won’t you?

No, really – if you haven’t given this much thought, what makes you so sure you’re smarter than the entire council of Nicaea, summarizing three centuries of hard faithful efforts to praise God with as many others as possible? What progressive delusion of cultural superiority is that?

This is not news – we’ve been worshiping ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ for a long time. This in-house affirmation of who and what we worship and glorify, and through what revelation we claim to have had epiphanies of that creation, redemption, and presence, isn’t apologetic talk for strangers. Is it?

Instead of acquiescing to the prevailing vague moralistic deism, and subjecting this Spirit to that spirit of rational enlightenment – try to express the Spirit in your life, and how you know truth, and beauty, and goodness with a sense of divine authority. How will you say it better than this creed? Who can you say it with – how wide is your ‘we’?

Incarnation: How do we ‘worship and glorify’ – through what visual images do we ‘talk with God’? How to we hear ‘through the Prophets’ – through what voices do we hear the word? Read more...

Monday, April 4, E minus 18

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Oh, Yeah? We’re all spiritual, and my spirit can meet yours – if you don’t claim so much for yours! Must we confuse this spirit with your Father and your Son – what’s the point of all that? Can’t we just share a vague assurance of the great spirit and our spirit shared with any human?

Yeah! We needed a bit of clarification on the bald statement of Apostles Creed. When I pray, this is the Spirit and the Lord that moves in and through and beyond me. The quibble about relations to Father and Son does not make an iota of difference to me!

Of course, that ‘iota’ is a joke. In Greek, the difference between the Spirit proceeding from the father, or from the father and the son, amounts to one wee letter – and resulted in centuries of eat-west division and conflict. The Anglicans conceded the point 20 years ago – we still just don’t get it.

No, really – have you ever give this a moment of thought? Without glibly equating my spirit, the great spirit, and the Holy Spirit, we might draw distinctions that have meaningful distinctions, and argue with our ecumenical or interfaith peers without arguing against them, seeking truth.

This is not news – the teacher, guide, comforter, wisdom at creation, wind and water, feminine divinity, giver of life – it’s a claim of the faithful, which may remain nonsensical to outsiders. However, as long as Christians prayed in the Spirit, they knew this same truth. Didn’t they?

Instead of dismissing another’s formulation, try your own positive formulation of to whom and through whom, to what and through what understanding of God, you live and move and have your being. How will you say it better than this creed? Who will you say it with, as a wider ‘we’?

Incarnation: How is this Holy Spirit, the giver of life, incarnate in the flesh now? Is incarnation limited to Jesus, generalized to all creation, or what? Read more...

4th Sunday of Lent, April 3

As we begin this fifth week of Lent, we complete the move from the minimal Apostles Creed to the longer Nicene Creed. When Constantine claimed Christianity, we moved from a minority marginal movement to Christendom, backed with the power of the Roman empire. One set of heresies became ‘orthodox’, and the Nicene council nailed them down.

Compared to the closing shopping list of the Apostles Creed, this one is missing one element. The Spirit is elaborated, the church elaborated, the communion of saints missing, forgiveness of sins tied to baptism, resurrection softened, and hope shifted. Is that better for you?

Nicene Creed (2)

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The coming week is about ‘Incarnation’ in our study. How does this tail end of the Nicene Creed reflect the incarnation of spirit in flesh? Is Jesus the only incarnation, or is that a wider claim about creation and humanity?

We finished a week of framing our conversation around ‘creative transformation’, and ‘being souls’.  We began a week of study on ‘incarnation’ – not just Jesus as the incarnation of divinity in humanity, but also the way the Holy Spirit moves in and through and around us all.

The pattern of notes this week continues the opening exchange of ‘Oh, Yeah?’ and ‘Yeah!’ challenges and affirmations.  It continues the dialogue with ‘of course’, ‘no, really’, ‘this is not new’, ‘instead’ and ‘incarnation’.   

We’re creating a virtual community of discourse here – no substitute for a real incarnational conversation between real humans, finding their own voices and listening others out of silence.  Who can you say ‘we’ with?

  Read more...

Saturday, April 2, E minus 19

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

Oh, Yeah? Here comes the second coming, and the judgments of the living and the dead. We, and our friends, join Jesus, and everybody else doesn’t. And then we get the original ‘happy ever after’ heaven.

Yeah! This world is not fair, and the evil prosper, while the righteous suffer – so it’s a relief to imagine a come-uppance. What would that reign of God, ultimately, look like? How would it compare to this world? This doesn’t say.

Instead of fighting against millennialism and survivalists, the lineal script of the end of the world, perhaps we should relish these earlier expressions of hope for a shape and direction of history. Just try repeating it a few times.

Certainly, this is a core framing of a narrative version of the meaning and end for each and all of us. However, it will survive separation from our historical timelines. What is the schedule – and where are we in it now?

Instead of anticipating the second coming in passive fatalism, we might do better to live well now, and avoid complicity and collusion with the people and tendencies which will not ultimately survive.

Focus on the promise, not the threat, and you’ll find a perspective that changes the here-and-now. Are we yet fit citizens of the reign of God to come, or do we need some work in this world? Me too.

Imagine what the promise would look like, and who and what would shape that ultimate future. Is there something we can take along? Something we would rather leave behind? Read more...

Friday, April 1, E minus 20

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.

Oh, Yeah? In accordance with what ‘Scriptures’? What happened to the ‘descended to the dead’? You people are wearing me, trying to back-date the justification of your resurrection and amplification of Jesus’ status.

Yeah! The shape of the scripture does not change – this is ‘typology’, the shape of things that have been, and are, and will be. Christ is part of the typology of judgment – and of mercy.

Instead of reducing creeds to childish predictions, why not resonate with the patterning of the typology that says God is consistent. Why not simply echo the assertions of this construction of the faith, and imagine its import?

Certainly, there’s a reading of this clause that balances the high claims of the preceding words. It’s uncomfortable for liberals who keep Jesus in a modest scale – but it offers something deeper and higher. Can you see it?

Instead of focusing on the judgment, what if we kept imagining this higher version of Jesus? What’s the pattern in scripture that anticipates a messianic figure ‘at the right hand’ of God?

Centre your faith on a final judgment, with God and Jesus sorting sheep from goats, and you’ll find yourself comfortably surrounded in popular piety even if you haven’t worked any of the implications out…

Instead, imagine what Jesus contributes to the vision of judgment, and how he links this world with the world to come. How does mercy and grace interact with judgment and consequences? Read more...