CREDO IN UNUM DEUM . . . The ancient Latin beginning of the creed that we recite during the Holy Eucharist every Sunday is the text for my reflection this morning. CREDO can be interpreted to mean ‘I believe’ all these propositions. But alternatively it means ‘I give my heart.’ Propositions are just ideas in your mind; practical fidelity alone can reveal and shape meaning.
We’re in the midst of wedding season here in Lindsey Chapel. During this season the chapel is filled with excited wedding parties and happy guests.
Did you know that most couples married here are not members of Emmanuel Church? They ask to be married here because the beauty of the chapel and the Newbury Street location attracts them. The spiritual seekers among them are drawn by Emmanuel’s openness — welcome, wherever you are on your spiritual journey. They take us at our word on that, and we try to be faithful to their seeking souls.
Some of these young people have Christian backgrounds and they are intent on saying their vows before God in Christ. Others have an inchoate spirituality that — because this is the most meaningful event of their lives — they want to connect with the rich tradition represented here in limestone and alabaster and stained glass to express their own uttermost truth.
I love to accompany these young people, to meet them where they are, discovering and helping to bring to expression how the Spirit moves in and through their best love yet.
Many choose the traditional Prayer Book service, with its polished language that compresses the experience of many generations in elegant economy. Others modify the language and the ritual to express the best truth they know. I loved the wedding last summer that ended with the newlyweds jumping a broom as they left the altar. When I followed out behind them, confident that with all eyes on the beautiful bride and handsome groom no one was watching me, I jumped over the broom myself, in quiet respect for that ritual tradition of American slaves from the time when they were not allowed to be married in church.
The truth is that although a priest witnesses a marriage, the couple performs it. Their exchange of vows and the symbol of giving and receiving of rings is the marriage. They are the ministers of the sacrament — their words and gestures are the outward signs of its inward grace.
That is why, with any couple that comes here to be married by me, the only non-negotiable requirement is that they say what they mean, and mean what they say.
For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health . . . Of course they cannot yet know all that these promises will mean to them — or require of them — in the future. Who among mortals can know what joys and struggles and sorrows they may face?
On the wedding day they necessarily say more than they know. The important thing is their sincere commitment to give their hearts and lives into each other’s keeping.
It has occurred to me that what we do in Holy Eucharist is similar.
It is similar in how people find their way here. Some who come here to worship have Christian backgrounds — not necessarily Episcopalian — and they are intent to connect or reconnect with the communion of saints in giving thanks and praise to God in Christ. Some others are seekers who may have an inchoate spirituality that they want to connect with the rich tradition represented here — in limestone, alabaster, wood and glass, but much more in the people who are Emmanuel Church — to find expression of their own ineffable truth.
Moreover, it is similar in that all who participate are ministers of this sacrament. Although the Holy Eucharist is led by the few folks at the altar and the organist and choir, each of us and all of us together shape its meaning by what we say or refrain from, and the actions we perform or refrain from.
You should know that there is a lively monthly discussion group that meets here in Emmanuel to explore faith. We talk about articles or poems or films that help frame the questions. Yesterday, the discussion was about a sermon the Rev. Jim Weiss composed a few years back and gave again earlier in the summer on what he calls ‘a culture of irony’ among us here. I would say it is a ‘subculture of irony’ that represents some but by no means all Emmanuelites.
Basically, the ‘culture of irony’ is encapsulated in Jim’s famous joke made in a Mardi Gras party five years ago: some Emmanuelites recite the Creed with their fingers crossed.
Ditto for the other prayers said in corporate worship, and the scriptures we read aloud. Irony extends to the texts of the cantatas, saturated as they are with Bach’s conviction that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the fountain of salvation of the whole world. Many who thrill to the artistry of the music reject the meaning of the texts, vehemently or with a shrug.
This is a shadow side of Emmanuel’s liberal openness. That ‘welcome wherever you are on your spiritual journey’ originally meant to express a wide embrace and enshrine spiritual freedom. But it can become passive complacency. The welcoming ‘wherever’ slides into indifferent ‘whatever’ and worship elides into performance. Spiritual seeking cools, and meaning slips away.
But there is so much more here! When I arrived here two years ago, I fell in love with Emmanuel — not so much with the irony, but with the complexity of the organization and the spiritual richness lying about here at every turn. Underneath any cool surface irony, spiritual hunger for meaning and authentic connection burns hot. Among the Emmanuelites are quiet mystics and buttoned-down visionaries, poets, artists, healers, seekers after truth and beauty ancient and new. I believe all who are here today are among these, or can be.
The Nicene Creed that we say together is a summary statement of the Christian faith composed in the fourth century in a time when the Jewish Christian faith was expanding throughout the Greek and Roman cultural world. New questions arose, posed in Greek philosophical terms. Arguments broke out — the current Anglican Communion brouhaha is one of many — and resolution had to be reached so people could be on the same page. It was a crisis of meaning making in community.
So this creed was composed and later revised by church councils, and was accepted by most Christians as a statement of fundamental beliefs. There are other creeds but this one is the most widely accepted among the ecumenical churches, which is why we use it. Keep in mind there never has been a time when all Christians everywhere agreed with all that was said there, and also keep in mind that it is shaped out in the thought patterns of one of our many predecessor cultures. So the meaning of the creed may not be transparent to modern people. Nevertheless, we accept it as one symbol of the thought of the community. It prompts us to ponder what Christians throughout the centuries have experienced of God in Christ.
One or two — well, maybe a few more Emmanuelites have told me that they ‘don’t get the creed at all.’ They can’t join in saying ‘we believe . . . ’ when the concepts articulated there seem opaque at best. I love their stubborn insistence on meaning!
However, I think they try to read the creed literally, as though it were a science report or a news article, rather than the philosophical theology it is. The creed really isn’t a set of clear and unambiguous scientific propositions or a late breaking news clip. It never was. Insofar as it is offered to the intellect as information, it is in concepts that the people who composed it held in common. Frankly, they were tired of arguing about the precise relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — some had come to blows over it — and they wanted to come together in some agreement. So the Nicene Creed is a fourth century historic document representing unity in community. Of course it doesn’t exhaust the inexpressible and finally incomprehensible mystery of the triune God!
CREDO — the traditional Latin beginning words of the Nicene Creed translated ‘I believe’ — can be interpreted to mean ‘I accept all these propositions.’ But alternatively — and this is the interpretation I offer you to consider — it means ‘I give my heart.’
CREDO: I give my heart to the holy mystery that I encounter in this tradition. I give my heart to what is represented in this sacred space and murmured about in these ancient prayers and sacraments. When you give your heart to God, you make a commitment to abide, to practice attention to the Holy One in season and out. You give your heart for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health to love and to cherish all the days of your life and in the life to come. Again, to give your heart means: with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you. What your commitment means, what it will mean, you’ll know in time. Concepts are just ideas in your mind, but practical fidelity will reveal and shape the meaning.
So when you say the Nicene Creed, please don’t cross your fingers. Don’t get stuck in irony; ‘cool’ can only get you so far. Bear in mind that welcome wherever you are isn’t finished when you enter the door. It continues: on your spiritual journey. Merely arriving here isn’t the end point of your spiritual development! The journey goes on in and through the church and in and through your whole life/world.
CREDO: if you give your heart, you will journey ever deeper into the mystery of the living God. If you enter in, go deep, commit your heart, then as St. Paul famously promised, one day you will know fully, even as you are fully known.