Monthly Archives: January 2026

Annual Meeting, Finances, Sermons, Stewardship

Sermon, Jan. 25

Today’s passage from the book of Isaiah comes from the time when the people of Judea were returning to their homeland, after about fifty years – two generations – of exile in Babylon. This chapter promises return, restoration, and renewal – God remembers you, and will help you rebuild your city and your nation! But there’s also this beautiful, challenging word: “It is too light a thing [to simply restore what was before]; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” A light to the nations – something that shines out, that blesses and beckons. God says: I’m not giving you back your homeland, your comfort, your sovereignty, just for you to “get back to normal” and relax. I have big plans for you. 

When I look at the Sunday texts to start working on a sermon, I often look back at what I preached three years ago, six years ago, sometimes farther – times when the same readings came before me, in our three-year cycle. These lectionary texts came up in late January of 2020… and they were perfect for my Annual Meeting sermon that year! The final pieces of our big renovation project had wrapped up in November 2019. Even a major renovation doesn’t really compare with conquest and exile – but there had been chaos and confusion and dislocation, and some struggle, and some grief. It seemed like a season when we could finally settle in and start to enjoy the fruit of our labors. I preached on this text: God speaking to us through Isaiah to say, It is too light a thing to just move back in, tidy up, and get back to how things were before. Your renewal has a purpose beyond yourselves. This is a season to discern what comes next. 

And then… Covid arrived, and we shut our doors from March of 2020 to Easter of 2021 – and worshipped outside for months more. We finally moved back into our newly-renovated spaces in mid-2021 – weary, confused, diminished. Much more like those Judean exiles than we had been 18 months earlier. 

Since then, God has restored and renewed us. It was too light a thing for us to just get back to how things were before, for those who’d come through the ordeal. God started sending us new people, and new possibilities. Later in the same chapter of Isaiah, the text talks about how the restored city will flourish so much that people will look around and say, “Where did all these children come from!?” Some days the 10AM service feels like that! … 

When I look around St. Dunstan’s, I love the different generations of members I see. Folks who were here before me – some long before me. Folks who joined early in my time here, who are becoming old-timers now. Folks who joined in the later pre-Covid years… and those who joined after, and even during, the lockdown years. In so many of our groups and activities – the Finance Committee and Vestry, the Matthew study group, the Public Narrative Training group you’ll hear about later, the Outreach Committee, youth group youth, staff and volunteers, the Good Futures Accelerator folks – it is a mix of all those people, folks who’ve been around for decades and folks who haven’t been here a year yet, committed to showing up and being church for each other and seeing where it all leads us. 

And it is so easy to start listing the ways that we seem to be called to be a light right now, to shine out and share goodness and grace and generosity. We’ve talked a lot about our youth groups recently, as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the current program. Isa shared in their annual report that there are forty youth currently connected with St. Dunstan’s, through worship, confirmation class, or youth group – and half of them are from the wider community. For years it’s been a true delight to get to work with the kids we’re raising up among us here, as they become tweens and teens. Now, somehow, something is shining out about what we’re doing here, blessing and beckoning. Bringing us new faces, new challenges, possibilities, and joys.  

We’re continuing our commitment to becoming not just an openly but an enthusiastically affirming parish for LGBTQ+ folks – which increasingly means not just celebration but support and solidarity. Deciding to put out our Pride signs in June last year was a little scary – but we also felt incredibly clear about shining our light in that way. Several of us are also working on a project to gather and train a group that can go out to other parishes in redder parts of the state and help normalize sharing church with nonbinary and transgender folks. 

I’m really enjoying sharing what we’ve learned here as part of the team for Roots and Wings, a program to help equip Episcopal clergy with tools for creating intergenerational worship. And a group energized by Public Narrative Training, led by new member Jake Schlachter, is eager to invite other motivated St Dunstan’s folk to join some kind of community response team, to train and prepare to stand by our immigrant neighbors when we’re needed. More on that later this morning! 

I can tell these are all the kinds of things God calls people to do, because they’re gracious and hopeful and at least a little bit scary. 

Let me say a word here about this year’s pledge drive – and our financial life in general. I want to make sure people realize what a big deal it is. A year ago right now, we had $276,000 in pledges in hand. We were hopeful that more would come in – it often does – so we adopted a budget anticipating $285,000. Even so, it was a deficit budget; we expected to spend about $7000 more than we would take in. This past fall, we looked at strong giving, and we looked at what we need, and we set an ambitious goal for our giving campaign: $300,000 in pledges. Y’all, that was a stretch goal. I didn’t really think we could do it. But we did. You did. We have $302,000 in pledges right now. We’re presenting a balanced budget today. 

That doesn’t mean our finances are all squared away for good, or that we won’t be stretched again in the future. We still have work to do on that front. But it’s a tremendous accomplishment and milestone. I’m staggered and delighted and humbled by people’s willingness to invest here – moeny, time, care, and much more. And I feel really confident that we, the givers, and God, the giver, hasn’t done this so we can settle down and relax. Being less anxious about money does matter – a scarcity mindset makes it harder to respond to needs and opportunities. But it would be too light a thing for us to have enough, just for our own comfort. God is equipping and sending us to be light. 

I think God is up to all kinds of things here, among us. And: we’re just a quirky little church (well, medium-sized church) trying to figure out what’s ours to do, and do it. 

In John’s Gospel, when he introduces John the Baptist, some religious officials come out from Jerusalem to see what he’s up to. They ask him, Who are you? And John says, “I am not the Messiah.” I AM NOT THE MESSIAH. I’m not the One Sent by God to save and restore and set everything right.

I’m not the Messiah. Such an important word for many clergy, but also for all kinds of folks who carry the weight of the world, who feel a lot of responsibility for other people and their community. I happen to know there are quite a few of you in the room. 

I’m not the Messiah. We’re not the Messiah. 

What does that mean for us right now in this moment? Three things come to mind for me. 

First,  we don’t have to do everything, or be all things to all people. Sometimes I see what another church or organization is doing and I feel a little FOMO – fear of missing out: it’s cool and I wish we could do that! Or I feel a little shame – that church is so much better at X than we are.  

I know that happens with y’all, too. You remember something from another church and think, Why don’t we do that here? And sometimes we can, and do! And sometimes it doesn’t fit – our priorities, our skills, our capacity, our calendar. And folks are disappointed. Some folks drift off elsewhere looking for that thing. But as people are constantly telling me, we do a LOT for a church of our size. We don’t have to do all the things; in fact, we can’t. We have to practice some discernment. We have to know what’s ours to do, and try to do that well. For me, that tends to come clearest by seeing where our shared energy and effort gathers and flows. Where two or three, or six or seven, gather together, readily and gladly, God is probably in the midst of them.

The second thing I am not the Messiah could mean to us is that we should anticipate seeking and working with partners, companions, and mentors. We’re part of a terrific new diocese, eager to support parishes. The Wisconsin Council of Churches is an amazing organization helping equip churches to do good together. There are other organizations and partners we can learn from and work with, on several of our emerging horizons. We don’t always need to build our own thing or reinvent the wheel. It can be work to find the right partners and develop relationships. It can be a different kind of work to adjust to other priorities, cultures, and habits, and let the common mission be more important than doing things our way. But the partnership, the togetherness, the capacity and connection have real value. 

Years ago I learned from friend of the parish Jonathan Melton that ____ always asked two questions about a new situation: What does the Gospel say about this? And, Whom can we ask for help? 

The third thing that I am not the Messiah means is that, well, we should expect God to be at work, among us and through us. That seem like it should be obvious, but we really do need to change our hearts to see where the Kingdom of God is coming near. Scholars of modern American Christianity sometimes talk about functional atheism – meaning, we talk as if we believe in God and expect God to be active in the world, but we do not act as if those things are true. Church consultant Gil Rendle explains, “While speaking of depending on God, the functional atheist actively depends on [their] own agency and the resources that can be produced.” Parker Palmer describes functional atheism as “the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me.” 

Churches and church folk absorb from the wider culture this mindset that human actions alone shape the future. Even me! Listen, becoming a priest is not a promotion for being the most faithful layperson. So, I can look at all the obvious signs of God at work among us, doing far more than we could have asked or imagined, and still look at a new idea or need and think, Oh no, we couldn’t possibly. I still measure what’s feasible by what we’ve been and done yesterday, and not by what God can help us be and do, today and tomorrow. 

We’re not the Messiah. We shouldn’t, and can’t, do all the things. But we’re called to be light. And we’re not alone. God’s got us, and we’ve got each other. Let’s see where this new year leads us. 

Here’s one of my favorite prayers from the prayer book; let us 

pray. O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were being cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by the One through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Sermon, Jan. 18

The great Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman has a wonderful book about the Psalms – the ancient songs of faith collected in the Old Testament book called the Book of Psalms or the Psalter. Brueggeman argues that you can break out the Psalms into three different types, or tones, or perspectives. First, there are the psalms of orientation, which express a sense of order and confidence: The world makes sense, I’m God’s favorite, things are great. Here’s an example from Psalm 16: “O God, you are my portion and my cup; it is you who uphold my lot. My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; indeed, I have a goodly heritage…  I have set you always before me; because you are at my right hand I shall not fall.” 

But life isn’t always like that, right? Which brings us to the psalms of disorientation – when the psalmist discovers that even with God at your right hand, you can still fall. Things are terrible; where are you, God? What gives? These psalms include lament, reproach, cries for help and anger at enemies. There are many such psalms; the most famous is probably Psalm 22, used in Holy Week. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest. Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel… Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.”

Among the psalms of disorientation are some known as the imprecatory psalms, which call down God’s wrath upon the poet’s enemies. Psalm 109 is a good example of the genre – 

“Let their days be few, and let others take their office. Let their children be fatherless, and their wives become widows. Let their children be waifs and beggars; let them be driven from the ruins of their homes. Let the creditor seize everything they have; let strangers plunder their gains…” … There’s a lot more. 

And then… there are psalms of reorientation, that describe life and faith after the crisis. God saved me; I’m sadder and wiser now; but I also know that I can trust in God at a deeper level. The chunk of Psalm 40 that we read today is a great example:  

I waited patiently for you, O God;  you stooped to me and heard my cry. You lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; you made my footing sure. Happy are they who trust in you! (Psalm 40)

Brueggeman maps out all this to help us pray the Psalms – because our lives tend to have moments when we’re deep in the pit, and moments when we look back at hard times from a place of renewal and gratitude. 

The church has a special relationship with the Psalms. It’s the only book of the Bible that’s fully included in the Book of Common Prayer. It’s the only book of the Bible that we read from at every service of public and private worship. Our liturgical tradition invites us not just to read (mark, learn, and inwardly digest) the Psalms but to pray them. 

And: I struggle with that sometimes! Often my mood doesn’t match the mood of the psalm appointed for the day. And there are specific psalms where I struggle to connect with the text prayerfully. But the Psalms teach us something really important about the breadth of what prayer is and can be. About the scope of thoughts and feelings we can bring to God in prayer. 

I want to talk about prayer, today.

I realize that I need to offer 100 words here on what prayer is, although that could be its own sermon. In general, prayer is any way of talking to God, or of listening for God. Prayer could be reading out loud from a book, alone or with others. Prayer could be talking or singing or journaling or knitting or painting. 

Prayer could be hiking or walking the dog or washing dishes or going to a protest. It’s not that everything is prayer. It’s more than anything can be prayer, if you do it with your heart and mind pointed towards God, open to the holy. Let me know if you want to borrow a book on prayer, or if we should gather to talk about ways to pray, sometime.

Last week we had our first-ever Stump the Pastor session after church, and a couple of people asked really important questions about prayer. I do not want those askers to feel singled out; these were both questions I’ve heard from others too, recently. And I do believe what our high school teachers told us: if you’re wondering about it, others are too. These were good, timely, important questions, and I’m taking another run at them today. 

First: What does it mean to pray for a political leader whom you believe to be causing profound harm? … 

Let’s start with what we’re doing when we pray for somebody – for anybody. Is praying for someone an expression of approval? I thought about my personal prayer list, in the Notes app on my phone. Some things on that list are situations I’m asking God to sustain, to keep the way they are. For my parents’ continued good health. For the continued flourishing of our youth program. For my college kid to have interesting classes again this term. 

But many things on my list are situations where I’m praying for change. For somebody to find a new, less toxic job. For somebody’s cancer treatment to be effective. For somebody to be able to move through grief. For a broken relationship to move towards resolution – one way or another. For someone’s heart to be profoundly changed, so that they stop causing harm. 

When I pray about something or someone, there are all kinds of things I might be asking or hoping for. I definitely don’t only pray for things and people I think are hunky-dory; far from it. 

Lots of our prayers are for change, of one kind or another. “Let their days be few, and let others take their office,” from Psalm 109, is a prayer. So is “Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore,” my favorite line from a hymn we’re singing today – a prayer for change in me, in us. 

Regarding praying for our political leaders, in particular… The Church of England, our mother church, was started BY a king, and founded as a national church. It’s not surprising that our way of faith developed with a strong bent towards praying for political and civic leaders. God save the king! The Episcopal church inherited some of that ethos, though we’re not a national church. 

Praying for leaders is Biblical, too. The Old Testament has a strong sense of leaders’ responsibility for the wellbeing and righteousness of the people. 1 Timothy calls Christians to “pray for kings and all in high positions, “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life” – a prayer for boring, stable, non-hostile governance. 

I found a website from the Church in Wales listing all the prayers they needed to update recently from Queen to King: “We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord God; and that it may please thee to keep and strengthen thy servant Charles our King that he may serve thee in righteousness and holiness of life…” 

“We pray thee to guide and direct all who govern the nations of the world, especially our Sovereign Lord, King Charles…, that we and all [people] may be justly and quietly governed.”

“Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, we humbly beseech thee to bless our Sovereign Lord, King Charles, and all who are set in authority under him, that they may order all things in wisdom, righteousness and peace, to the honour of thy holy Name and the good of thy Church and people.” These are prayers for the King; but they’re prayers for the King to be righteous, holy, wise, and just. And to do his job well. 

There are similar prayers in our Book of Common Prayer – like, “We pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world; That there may be justice and peace on the earth.”

In the Prayers of the People that we use right now, there aren’t spaces for specific names, but there have been times when our liturgy has had us praying for a Democratic president and a Republican governor, or vice versa, by name, in the same breath. 

Maybe our Prayers of the People needs a few more words, to remind our praying selves that when we pray for our leaders, our prayer is “that thy people may be justly and quietly governed.” 

It’s OK if there are people you just can’t bring yourself pray for. Truly. You can leave it to others. And – but – repentance and transformation are at the heart of the Gospel. It is the responsibility of the Church as a whole to pray faithfully for all people to turn from evil, and towards good; from cruelty, towards mercy; from greed and hunger for power, towards justice and righteousness. As a church, we will keep praying for our leaders – the ones we like and trust, and the ones we hate and fear. 

God save the king. 

The second good question from last Sunday was something like this: Isn’t prayer kind of passive, in the face of everything coming at us and our communities? … 

The question evokes leaders who, in the face of preventable tragedies and atrocities, offer “thoughts and prayers” for those affected. Prayer should never be an excuse for inaction about something on which you have the power to take action. 

Fury at those leaders who offer “thoughts and prayers” when they could offer real change is absolutely justified. I’m willing to call that blasphemy – a sin against the Holy Spirit. 

So, yes, there are people who use prayer as cover for pious passivity. But I’m not going to let those jerks ruin prayer for us. 

Prayer can also look passive in the face of the immoral use of violence. If people of faith praying at a vigil or protest are ignored, or mocked, or tear gassed, or arrested, that’s not the fault of the clergy or the moral order and convictions they represent. It’s the fault of the culture and movement and institutions that have decided that they just don’t care.

It is true, and can be frustrating, that historic Christianity (as opposed to white supremacist Christianity) has a difficult relationship with the use of violence. I took a whole class in seminary on Christian pacifism and just war theory. These are both huge bodies of writing and thought and policy and action. And a lot of it is an argument among Christians: between the pacifist position, that a follower of Jesus should never intentionally cause harm, and the “just war” position, that it’s incumbent upon Christians to be willing to use force in defense of the vulnerable. The course barely scratched the surface of these big issues, but I carried away a sense that pacifism is a fiercer and bolder position than I’d thought. Pacifism underlies the tools for nonviolent protest and organizing for change that have been so influential over the past century. 

Nonviolence is far from passive, and we don’t have to look back at Gandhi or King to see that in action. I watched a video this week from the Minneapolis suburb of Lyn Lake. Picture a cool little downtown corner, older buildings updated with current businesses, traffic flowing by; could be someplace in Madison. An SUV pulls up onto the curb in front of the corner building, under a neon pizza sign; several ICE agents get out. As the video begins, you can see maybe five or six people on the street. 

But within seconds, there are ten, then fifteen, then more, gathering around the agents, blocking the doors into nearby businesses, holding up cell phones to record, blowing whistles, chanting. Cars stop and honk their horns. People come out of the woodwork, rushing towards the scene – just ordinary people, who were just going about their days thirty seconds earlier. 

By the end of the video, there are fifty-plus people on the scene. It takes exactly one minute for that loud, obnoxious, angry, nonviolent crowd to convince the ICE agents to get back in the car and drive away – tossing a can of tear gas as a parting gift. 

If part of you is wondering, well, what if ICE was there to arrest somebody dangerous, one of those worst of the worst we hear about? … Well: the day before, that pizza shop hosted a fundraiser for local nonprofits helping those affected by the ICE presence in the Twin Cities, and raised $83,000. The co-owner of the shop told a reporter, “We probably put a target on ourselves… by helping people.”

Were any of those people praying? I don’t know. Probably. I would be. I will be. Praying for the dangerous moment to pass, unfulfilled. Praying for everybody to come out of this okay. Praying for clarity about what’s mine to do, and courage to do it. 

Nonviolence can be fierce; nonviolence can be effective. And nonviolence can be dangerous. 

Some of you may have seen a clip that’s been circulating of Rob Hirschfeld, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, speaking at a vigil the night after the murder of Renee Good. Bishop Rob spoke about Jon Daniels, a seminarian from New Hampshire who became a martyr of the Civil Rights movement. Then he said, “I have asked [my] clergy to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written. Because now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

When I heard that, I thought, “Yeah, he has a point. We should find a lawyer and make sure we’re up to date.” The reason I can – sort of, kind of – take Bishop Rob’s advice in stride is that I pray. 

What does prayer do? Does prayer act in, or on, the world? Does prayer move anything outside of me? I find it untenable to think of God like a slot machine: if you put in enough prayer-coins, you increase your odds of getting the outcome you want. Many of us also know well that praying really really hard for something doesn’t make it so. There’s no qualitative or quantitative degree of prayer that gets you what you want. Does our prayer change something in God, or in the world? I don’t know. I’m not prepared to say no, but those answers lie in the terrain of mystery. 

But I do know two things. I know that prayer changes something inside of me. It helps me pay attention. It helps me be available to opportunities to say and do what needs saying and doing. It helps me be more grounded, more clear, more brave – which is not to say that I’m notably grounded, clear, or brave; just more so than I am when I’m not praying regularly. 

Prayer does things inside of me. And prayer, when it’s shared, does things between and among people. 

On Tuesday evening, with some of you, I tuned in for the Zoom vigil held by the Episcopal Church’s Public Policy & Witness staff and the Episcopal diocese of Minnesota. It was “webinar”-style, where you can only see the leaders, not everybody else on the Zoom, and the “chat” function, the place over on the side where people can comment and share, was turned off as we began. 

It started out as a pretty ordinary Compline service, and I admit, I was thinking: is this it? We do this several times a week here. Then they got to the prayers, and they had some special prayers read in various languages, for people at risk of deportation, for people living in fear, and so on… those were good; I saved some of them. But still, it felt a little flat. I wasn’t feeling like I was part of something. I was just sitting at the desk in my college kid’s bedroom, staring at a screen, alone. 

And then they opened the chat for our prayer requests. And there was a wash, a waterfall, a fire hose of prayer. In Zoom meetings, once that chat column fills up with comments, you have to scroll down to see more. I scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, and still there was a little red box that told me, “99+ more comments below.” I didn’t read every word but I wanted to read enough to be in prayer with thousands of other Episcopalians across the country and the world – praying for many, many things, but also praying, over and over again, for peace; for justice; for safety; for courage. For those in power to be just and merciful. For those vulnerable to be protected. For those standing by to be faithful, and brave, and ready. Someone wrote, For all of us trying to carry on with our lives despite our fear and griefs. Someone wrote, Forgive my weariness and fear. Someone wrote, Show us how to be. 

I read, and scrolled, and scrolled, and wept, because I wasn’t alone in front of a screen anymore. I was part of a great fellowship of prayer. I am part of a great fellowship of prayer. 

So are you. So are you. 

A lot of us have friends, family, connections in the Twin Cities; what’s happening there feels close and urgent and weighty. But I know, too, that for many of you, there are struggles on the homefront that have you keeping the news at arms’ length. Somebody’s not well. Money is tight or a job is toxic. A relationship is failing, or loneliness or grief haunt your days. 

I want you to feel prayer wash over you and your needs and struggles, too. I want you to feel grounded in practices of prayer that console and guide and encourage you. 

Prayer is a frustratingly elusive topic. I can’t tell you, Just do this. Nonetheless: this is a time for us to lean into being a people of prayer. Among other things, I hasten to add! But prayer should be near the top of the list.

Episcopal priest and writer Jim Friedrich wrote recently, “Prayer is a refusal to consent to an unredeemed world, and for people of faith it is foundational for an ethical existence…. Prayer breaks the silence, awakens the passive, and cultivates action, both human and divine. So don’t despair, or give in, or give up. Look for the ones who are called into the righteous flow of prayer and action. And join them.”

Amen, amen. 

 

 

Baptism, Faith, Sermons

Sermon, Jan. 11, 2026

When we are preparing to do a baptism, sometimes somebody asks what it means – a perfectly reasonable question! And there are libraries full of writing about what baptism is and does and means. But the ultimate answer is that we baptize because Jesus told us to baptize. 

There’s something about what John was doing, in his ministry of baptism for repentance and amendment of life, that was important enough that Jesus himself chose to undergo it. And then when Jesus sends his followers out to preach the Gospel and start churches, he tells them to baptize people, by water and the holy spirit, in the name of the Trinity.

So, early on, baptism becomes the Christian rite of initiation, the way somebody is welcomed into the assembly of the faithful. And likewise early on, baptism becomes connected with reciting the core teachings of the church, as a way to remind us all what the church believes, and to make sure that those being baptized are prepared to be part of a body that believes that stuff.

In the baptismal liturgy of the Episcopal Church, we say something called the Apostles Creed. It’s a little shorter than the creed we use most Sundays, but pretty similar. The creed we use most Sundays in Eucharistic liturgy is called the Nicene Creed – though technically it’s the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. That’s because the Creed took more or less the form we use today at a church council in Constantinople in 381, but those were only minor changes to the Creed agreed upon by church leaders gathered in the city of Nicaea – now in Turkey – in the year 325. 

Our bishop, Matt Gunter, recently wrote a reflection on the Nicene Creed that begins with concise explanation of why the Council of Nicaea was held. 

He writes, “[Jesus’] followers were convinced that his death and resurrection had reconfigured everything, bringing salvation from sin, death, and decay with the promise of a hitherto unimagined transformation of [humanity] and the world. Finding language to express that in ways that enabled people to experience that salvation and transformation was important. Was Jesus some sort of divine being sent by God at the mysterious heart of all reality? Was he something more? They had the scriptures, they had the church’s language of prayer and worship, and they had the baptismal formulae that were already the seeds of a creed… With all of that, theologians of the church struggled for decades – centuries – to make sense of and find a satisfactory way to articulate who [Jesus] was and why he mattered. Some ways of articulating that were deemed unsatisfactory, misguided, or even dangerous. This struggle and the debates it provoked became more public and more intense once Christianity was declared legal… [in the year] 313. Things came to a head with a priest in the city of Alexandria named Arius, who taught that, while Jesus was in some sense divine, he was still a… creature of God, [and that God] would surely not deign to be identified with the messy, chaotic material world by taking on mortal flesh. But his bishop, Alexander, preached otherwise – that Jesus was indeed the [earthly] incarnation of… God…  This set up an intense controversy. The Council of Nicaea was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine to address disputes about how to understand the person of Jesus and, thus, God, creation, humanity, and salvation.”

Astute listeners may be thinking: Wow, 325! The Creed just had its 1700th birthday last year!  How did you celebrate?…

I celebrated by listening to a talk on the Creed by Kathryn Tanner, one of the greatest theologians of our church, back in November. I really liked what she had to say; it made the Creed more interesting and more alive, for me. And I thought, I should turn this into a sermon sometime! And – because the Creed is kind of front and center in the baptismal liturgy – today is your lucky day. 

There’s some tiny little text above the Creed in our Epiphany booklets – because I’ve long felt that the Creed needed some explaining. Among other things, it says, “Many faithful people wonder about, or question, parts of the Creed – or all of it! If you have questions, know you’re in good company, and let’s talk.” I don’t get a lot of those questions, to be honest, but here are some questions I think people might have about the Creed. 

Question one might be: Am I supposed to know what all of this means? Because I don’t. Begotten, not made? Light from light? Of one being with the Father? There are a lot of terms and phrases in the Creed that I’ve always vaguely assumed had some specific technical or theological meaning. Like “true god from from true god” and “eternally begotten”. I figured they meant something specific and I just didn’t know what. 

Tanner says: Nope. This is just what happens when you create an important theological document by committee. The Council of Nicaea gathered church leaders from across the Christian world to try to come to consensus about core issues of diversity and dispute – especially, though not only, questions about the divinity of Jesus. The resulting statement is called a Creed because of the Latin word credere, meaning, to believe; it’s a statement of the Church’s consensus beliefs on these big issues. 

I’m sure many of us have had the experience of trying to craft a document – a statement, a report, a resolution – with a group of people with different views. It can be a real pain, right? Often the result doesn’t end up saying exactly what you wanted it to say, or as much as you wanted it to say, because other people had other opinions and priorities. What you end up with says less than everybody hoped it would say, in order to say something that everybody is willing to say. 

That’s what the Nicene Creed is. Tanner said: The Creed is vague and underspecified so that a group of people with diverse and emphatic theological views could all come to the table and sign off on it. If it got any more specific, then people would have started storming out of the room. The Creed’s language is poetic and open-ended in order to allow a variety of understandings to come together under its umbrella. It’s the most they could say, together.

The Creed is vague and metaphorical on purpose. It’s not that we’re missing something. And Tanner says that open-endedness is good, because it spurs further theological thinking and debate, in the centuries and millennia that follow. We keep wondering what it all means, what can we work out and what’s simply beyond human comprehension. 

Christians are not united by very specific theological positions, because those early, defining ecumenical Councils didn’t arrive at very specific theological positions. If they had tried to do that, they would have failed. Rather, says Tanner, Christians are united through processes of wondering and arguing. And that’s a good thing. You could almost say that some freedom of thought and conscience and practice is one of the core values at the heart of historic Christianity. 

Question two: Is this a checklist of things I’m supposed to believe? 

The Creed was not written to be a test of right belief for ordinary church members. It was written to get a bunch of bishops vaguely on the same page in the fourth century. It was also not created to be recited in worship every Sunday. Marion Hatchett, one of the core figures behind our current Book of Common Prayer, writes that in the early centuries, the Eucharistic Prayer functioned as a creed – the statement of faith shared every time the church gathered, to which people responded with a great AMEN. 

The Nicene or Apostle’s Creed have been used in baptismal liturgies and on feast days for a long time, but saying a creed every week seems have developed over the past few centuries. I found a statement from the Liturgical Commission of our sister church, the Church of England, arguing that using the Creed regularly in worship helps hand down the faith to subsequent generations, encourage theological exploration, and affirm unity with churches around the world. Sure. The thing is: I’m pretty sure there are more effective ways to do all of those things. For most of us, most of the time, the Creed is just something we march through on our way to the next more interesting part. 

In her talk, Tanner described the Creed as being like the Pledge of Allegiance. When we say it together in church, there isn’t time or space – any more than there is at the beginning of a school day – to unpack what it means or ask questions. Instead, it functions as a declaration of shared allegiance: we’re committing to something together – something that this set of ancient words gestures towards. 

Ultimately: Why do we say the Creed together in our Eucharistic services? Basically, because the rubrics – the instructions in the Book of Common Prayer – say that we have to.  

And maybe there’s something significant lurking there. Because the weekly recitation reminds us what kind of church this is. We are part of a church rooted in the teachings and practices of the early centuries of Christianity – which is what the Creed means when it says “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”; that’s catholic with a small c, meaning, universal. As a church, we do the things that all churches did for the first millennium of Christianity. We have deep roots, even as we make many things new. And that rootedness is important, as ballast and belonging. 

Question three – or really more of a comment: The Creed doesn’t say the things that are important to me about church/God/faith. 

Tanner points out that the ecumenical councils were gathered around matters of division and dispute. The Creeds address and… somewhat settle… those core issues. But there were many, many things over which early Christianity was not divided. In his essay on the Creed, Bishop Matt lists some examples of matters on which the early church was pretty united: “The early church already took the teaching and example of Jesus seriously. They were contained in the scriptures, which were already read in worship every week. The church put love and compassion at the heart of its life and teaching. It organized social services for the poor, hungry, and needy. It founded hospitals. Its teaching reflected the example of Jesus in critiquing wealth, and violence. It advocated for hospitality to the stranger and foreigner. The dignity of traditionally marginalized groups like women, children, and the poor [and I would add, sexual & gender minorities] was honored in a way unprecedented in the ancient world… The church surely did not practice all of this perfectly, always, and everywhere. But none of the above was particularly controversial.”

I wish we had a Creed, a statement of faith, that reminded us of all that stuff week by week, The baptismal covenant, created for the most recent Book of Common Prayer, that we’ll say together in a few moments does some of this work, but I think there’s more we could say about the essentials of the Christian way, as our earliest faith-ancestors knew it and as we continue to strive to practice it today. 

Like: that there’s a Power greater than ourselves, that we call God, that works for good in the world, and that knows and loves us. 

That God came among us as Jesus, fully human and fully divine, and that something about his living and dying and rising among us extends salvation, rescue, healing, restoration, transformation, to us and the world. 

That Christians should try to live good lives. That much in our lives is unmanageable; that individually and together we get ourselves into messes that we need the help of a Higher Power to get out of. And that when we fall short of our intentions, we should repent, seek forgiveness from God and make amends with those we have harmed, and try to become people who will cause less harm in the future. 

That God doesn’t have a favorite kind of people, and neither should Christians. That we are obligated by our faith to welcome and honor and respond in love to everyone, regardless of gender, race, wealth or poverty, national origin or immigration status, health, illness or disability, criminal record, and so on. 

That God loves Creation and so should we. 

That we are called to help restore what is broken in the human and natural world, in the diverse ways given to each of us. To grapple with the the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, in the words of the baptismal liturgy. 

That living like this is hard, and so it’s best for us to do it together, provoking one another to love and good deeds, in that line from the letter to the Hebrews that I love so much. Supporting one another; sharing resources with each other, and pooling our resources to do good for others. 

That being beloved by God, and living rightly in God’s ways, doesn’t mean we’ll always be wealthy or happy or safe. That there are things that are more important that death, things worth dying for. That we’re called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and that there’s no greater love than laying down life for a friend. 

That Love is as strong as death, and stronger. 

That more can be mended than we know, and that one day, God will wipe away all tears. 

Although churches always live out these convictions imperfectly, that’s a project to which I’m wiling to pledge my allegiance.

That’s an endeavor into which I’m glad to welcome Asher and Ezra today. 

We’ll continue with the baptismal liturgy. 

Some sources:

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/gs-misc-1408-the-use-of-the-nicene-creed.pdf

https://www.diowis.org/bishop-teachings/nicenecreed1700anniversary