Sermon for Trinity Sunday: "The Non-Negotables"

Reflection on Trinity Sunday

Preached at St. John’s Lancaster, 3 June 2012

Anglicans are Creedal Christians. I know that much ink has been spilled over the last few years in the American Church making the point that we are not “Confessional Christians,” but we do have a bare minimum that our Anglican Christian Faith calls us to believe. We believe the Creeds, and we say one or another of them at every worship service, at least here at St. John’s. For Baptisms and Offices we say the Apostles’ Creed, and for Eucharist we say the Nicene Creed. For the life of me, I can’t see much of a difference between being creedal and being confessional, unless it is that Creedal Christians vocalize their beliefs with regularity while Confessional Christians read theirs in a book on occasion. Both have something that you must believe if you are to be honestly counted among their number. It all seems pretty simple to me, but then I am not a very nuanced thinker.

Let me illustrate it this way. If I went on four legs, had a long neck, brown and orange spots, a short brushy tail, and little antennae looking things sticking out of my head, you would say that I was a giraffe. If I crawled on my belly, lived under a rock, and left a trail of slime wherever I went, you would say I was a slug. In the same way, if I believed that the Triune God created the world, and that the Father- the First Person of the Trinity, sent the Son, the Second Person of said Trinity to die and rise again for the redemption of all creation, and then sent the Third Person, the Spirit, to enable people to do wonderful things in said creation- If I confessed my sins, acknowledged Jesus as Lord and asked forgiveness, was baptized and said the creeds and received Communion, you would say I was a Christian. Now, if my attitudes and actions did not match the precepts of Jesus and the Bible, you might point out that I was not a very good Christian, but with that bare minimum of qualifications listed above, I would still qualify as a Christian.

We should note here that there are many animals which might be a bit like a giraffe, but are not giraffes. An elephant goes on four legs and has a short brushy tail, but it is not a giraffe. Without the neck it just can’t quite pass itself off as one. A snake lives under a rock and goes on its belly, but it is distinctly different from a slug. In the same way, there are many people who are devoutly religious, and who do many good things, and who help others, and who take their faith very seriously who are not Christians, because they do not believe in the Creeds. That is, they do not believe that God is Trinity in Unity, and that Jesus Christ is who the Bible says he is and did what the Bible says he did- and does. I’m not here to say they are not good people or great neighbors. I have lived by and worked with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others who I would and have trusted with my life and the lives of those I love. They are good people, and many I count as my friends, but they are not Christians, because they do not believe those basic articles of the Creeds.

Like Kathy Heim’s former rector, now Bishop of Atlanta, is fond of saying, “There’s not a lot you have to believe, but some things are non-negotiable.”

Now for a word about believing, about having faith. I believe that the earth’s atmosphere at sea level and for several hundred feet above sea level, under normal conditions, is breathable and will keep me alive. I am not a biologist or a doctor and I have no idea how it works, but I believe it. In the same way, I believe that when a stewardess tells me to put on an oxygen mask, I had better do it, even though I have never been in a malfunctioning aircraft at a high level where anyone told me I needed to take that action. Experience and understanding might enhance my belief, but the are not necessary to its existence. In the same way, I can believe in God, and trust him implicitly for my salvation, even though I don’t have all of life’s answers, even though I don’t understand everything there is to know about God, and even though my experience of him might not be as profound or personalized as I hope it might be some day.

And so how does all of this apply to my life?
A person who is a Christian does not have the liberty of making up their faith as they go, or taking a bit here and a bit there to meet what they perceive to be their own needs. Any person can do that, but at the point that they stop believing in the creeds, they cease to be Christian. If God is who he says he is, then it is pretty important that we submit to him and live our lives on his terms. We can ask questions and have doubts, but at the end of the day we must believe in the Trinity and in the Incarnation, which are the theological names for the items covered in the creeds. To not do so is to not be a Christian. It is by definition to be something else.

As a Christian, you can expect to have doubts, and questions that just don’t seem to get answered, and times when you feel very alone. Those things are normal. Some questions will never get answered in this life, and some doubts will persist, and sometimes feeling alone is something that we can’t escape. But all of those things are based on our own powers of feeling and perceiving and understanding, and our powers are very limited. So we are called by the Bible to push through our doubts and fears and feelings to embrace the facts of the Creeds- of who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus. You see, our faith is not based on feelings or limited human reason, as good and as helpful as those things might be. They are incapable of fully comprehending the greatness of God or his plan for our lives. And so we trust him, embracing “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”

In just a few moments, two of our siblings in Christ will be presented for Holy Baptism, and we will all be asked to stand and renew our own belief in the Faith we have received from Jesus Christ. As they begin this life of public following of God as Christians, I hope that all of us will be able to consider anew what it means to do the same, and commit ourselves to continue in the Faith of Christ Crucified. Come to this place, to this font, to this altar with all of your doubts and imperfect understanding, but come with your faith intact. God will meet you and give you the ability to believe. Realize that that belief does not depend on your ability to form it or embrace it. It is the gift of the Holy Ghost to all who come with yearning hearts. “Consider the mustard seed, which is the tiniest of all the seeds, and yet when it is sprouted it grows into a bush which is big enough for birds to nest in.”  The act of faith- your act of faith, which among other things includes your desire to trust in a loving God, is like that grain of mustard seed. Come today with what you have, and don’t worry about what you don’t have. God’s gift will grow in your heart and mind as you follow him in obedience, and repentance, and humility.

In the Name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. AMEN.