Building Bridges Through Honest Scholarship, Well Reasoned Faith, and Love

The Rt. Rev'd Michael Nazir-Ali

Today, twelve of us from St. John's travelled to Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania to hear Bishop Nazir-Ali speak about who Jesus is.  As always, I was deeply impressed by the humility and scholarship of this man of God.  His willingness to seriously consider the beliefs of others very different from himself as he develops and shares his own faith always impresses me, and calls me to learn from others.  As he reviewed the beliefs of devout and serious scholars from Islamic, Hindu, and secularist traditions about our Lord, I could not but remember the admonition in Proverbs 27:17 that "Iron sharpeneth iron."  His review of the scholarly debate between the Cappodocian Fathers and early Islamic scholars was balanced, respectful, and profound, and at the end of the day he called us all to reaffirm the creedal faith of our Holy Mother the Church that God is One: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

I was particularly moved by his admonition that we all be willing to move from our traditional methodologies of living the Christian Faith into a new era wherein we would allow the light of Christ to shine forth through our lives by knowing when to give thanks for light in the professions of others, even when that light is incomplete or misunderstood.  He modeled for us a methodology of true dialogue.  In an age in which dialogue is seen by so many as merely an exchange of ideas, he defined dialogue is its historic sense as careful scholarly debate designed to find truth- the truth of God for all people.  He exhibited a rare ability to find the good and the true in others, and to call them to develop a deeper understanding of that truth in a way which would lead us all to God together.

Thank you Bishop, for helping me to see opportunities where so many see only difficulty and division.  thank you for giving me a concrete model whereby people of good will might seek truth together.  Thank you for acknowledging honestly the very real differences between the great belief systems of the world, and for preserving the unique proclamation of the Church that Jesus is indeed our Saviour and our Lord.

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.

Wisdom from Margaret

When I logged on this morning, I found the most wonderful message from daughter Ashley. The subject line read simply "Wisdom from Margaret" (our beautiful three year old grand-daughter in "the California.") The message read, "I love Jesus because Jesus loves me." What a wonderful way it was to start the day. Life gets so very complicated some days, and as the Scriptures say, "Out of the mouths of babes thou has perfected praise!"

Good news came to us yesterday afternoon. Bishop Salmon, retired of South Carolina and currently Dean of the Seminary at Nashotah House, will be able to attend son-in-law Matthew's ordination in Advent in "the California." He is a godly man, filled with the wisdom and good humor or our Lord, and has had such an important role in the formation of Matthew for holy orders.

Tuesday afternoon, I had occasion to stop by Ohio Christian University in search of an organist for our parish. Things there went quicker than I had anticipated, and on my way to Columbus to the University Medical Center, I determined that it would be a shame to complete such a beautiful day without some small sporting diversion. So I swung by the boat ramps at A.W. Marion State Park and cast a leadwing coachman into the edge of a weedbed bordering a hole where I had done pretty well in years past. While I was working on my roll cast, I noticed a hiker coming down the trail. He looked familiar, and as he came closer, I realized it was Sergeant Major Osbourne, with whom i had served some years back. We laughed and talked about the old days, our kids, and life out of uniform. He was in the woods plotting hardwood locations for a study about the impact of exurbanization on reforestation patterns. It seems that the breakup of the large farms into smaller holdings over the past forty or fifty years has led to substantially fewer field and woodlot fires, with the unintended consequence that softwoods are replacing hardwoods in many parts of the region- something to do with faster regeneration rates among the lesser desirable woods and insufficient light for the early hardwood growth (I think.) It is much more complex than that, but I suppose that is a layman's misunderstood generalization of the type that makes up most political ads. In any event, I think I learned something, and it was great to catch up with an old friend who did much throughout his career in the Army and in the Fire Service to care for his soldiers and firefighters and their families. May God bless the SGM for his godliness, his decency, his concern for the environment, and his love of the people among whom he has worked.

Focusing on What is Important

Last night, I attended a meeting of the William Reece Chapter of the Allied Masonic Degrees, a research society and convivial fellowship group. Much of the discussion centered around some wonderful artifacts owned by a member of the group, which he brought for show and tell, and the propensity of many in our fraternity to engage in wild and unsubstantiated rumors, not to mention the occasional "conspiracy theories" and even the occasional goofy religious concoction (my choice of words.) It was an enjoyable evening, and was over before we seemed to get started. As I drove home, I began to generalize the discussions and lessons of the evening to my faith, and to my citizenship, and to life in general. Distraction seems so often to be the normal state of human affairs. My wife once threated to get me a sweatshirt which on the front said "I have ADHD" and on the back "Oh look! A chicken!" I sometimes think there are many folks who could honestly wear such a shirt. It all seems rather humorous and harmless enough, but is it? What of that one who takes aside a young Mason, or a young Christian, or a recent graduate from basic training or boot camp, who has just completed a life altering experience in degree or baptism or training, and leads them to believe that which is marginal at best and distracting at the worst. The elder Mason who leads a young man to believe that the true secret of Freemasonry is the identity of the Merovingian line of Kings or the location of some archaeological artifact, or the Bishop who counsels a new Christian that their persuit of a deepening personal relationship with Jesus Christ is "the western heresy," or the NCO who plys a young boot with alcohol and the club scene to the degree that he or she forgets his responsibility to serve the common good of humanity as a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, coastie, or agency rat of what President and Brother Theodore Roosevelt called "The Greatest Republic Upon Which The Sun Ever Shone"; I would argue that that person falls within the paramaters of that group which our Lord said would be better off drowned in the depths of the sea. To cause one who is full of idealism and passion for good to be distracted and to turn from that motivation and dedication is indeed a sin against God and against man. I pray that I will always be on guard not to be among that number. Rather let me concentrate on the basics of my beliefs. With a firm reliance upon Almighty God, with a clear and reasonable mind, and with a genuine concern for truth and for all whom God has made, I pray that my love of liberty, of personal responsibility, and godly charity might be an encouragement and a model for many. So Mote it Be.