What we believe matters.

 

Christian spirituality is, at its very core, a belief system, a system of faith which is based upon certain assertions about truth and about reality.

 

From the very earliest days of the Christian tradition, our ancestors have sought to discuss, and debate, and wrestle towards a clear and common understanding of what the content of the Christian faith should be – what the correct beliefs are about God, about who Jesus was, about what his life, death and resurrection actually meant, about who the Holy Spirit is, and what the Church should teach and believe in order to remain faithful to what we consider to be truth.

 

The term that is usually associated with this “content” of correct theology, or right beliefs, is orthodoxy.  The word is based on the Greek word orthos which meant right, true or straight and the word doxa which meant opinion or praise.  To be orthodox was to hold the right opinion or follow the true beliefs.  The question that our answers – and that all of us – should strive to explore, when it comes to truth, is what is the orthodox, or right, or correct belief about some dimension of spirituality or theology?

 

Copious amounts of ink have been spilled, countless volumes of theology have been written, innumerable sermons have been preached, and vast numbers of discussions and debates have been shared, literally for millennia, about what does or does not constitute “orthodox” belief.  And while terms like “orthodox” can sometimes be dismissed or even demeaned in the modern world, we should hold fast to the fact that – in every field of human thought and exploration, truth is worth pursuing.  Seeking to find and articulate truth, and pass it from one generation to the next, is important.  What we believe matters.

 

One of the ways that our ancestors sought to define the nature of right belief was in creeds and confessions of faith.  Perhaps the two most historic and famous of these summations of orthodox belief are the statements of faith that most of us know as the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed.  In our worship services, it is a common practice to include one of these creeds, or some similar statement of belief, into a portion of our service, as we will do in a few moments.

 

Such statements are not meant to be weapons that we use as some form of litmus test to identify “true believers” – but rather, they can serve as an invitation into a centuries-old conversation, a dialogue, about what we believe.

But there are problems.  Not only have the creeds sometimes been used as weapons, but they also need to be pondered for what they do not say as much as for what they do.  That is, any creed, any confession, any articulation of faith is incomplete, for they are invitations into a mystery that is ever and always beyond words; they always reflect issues and debates in the time and culture in which they are written; and it can be good for us to realize that – sometimes – what they exclude needs to be pondered as well as what is included.

 

I often find myself pondering this when it comes to the Apostles’ Creed, which we will be invited to confess together later in today’s service.  There is much that is good, and beautiful, and intriguing, and mysterious about this ancient formulation of faith.  Every phrase within it is the result of vast amounts of thought and discussion, and worthy of reflection.

 

But my biggest concern with it is what is not there, rather than what is.  And what is not there falls between two phrases of the Creed, both of which seem perfectly straightforward.  In the second part of the creed, we state, “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead.”

 

Fair enough.  But did you notice what was completely skipped over?

 

What was skipped over was anything that happened between being born of the Virgin Mary and suffering crucifixion and death at the hands of Pontius Pilate.

 

And that, I believe, is a problem.

Because in this beautiful, enduring, profoundly orthodox articulation of the right beliefs of Christian faith, there is no mention of the teachings that Jesus shared, no invitation to abide by the commands that he gave, no focus on the actions by which he lived.  And because of that exclusion of any reference to the content of his life and teaching, there is very little space, in this articulation of the right beliefs of our faith, for what right actions are supposed to accompany our profession of faith.

 

And a good thing, too – because the right actions that Jesus commended are really, really difficult to live by.

 

A corresponding word for orthodoxy, or right belief, is orthopraxy, or right action.  The famous Scottish preacher and commentator, Alexander MacLaren, once asked an important question that we all do well to ponder – that is, “what is the good of all your orthodoxy unless the orthodoxy of creed issues in orthopraxy of conduct?”

 

And for anyone who finds the idea of orthodoxy challenging or uncomfortable, well, just wait until you truly consider how difficult orthopraxy is.

 

Today’s suggested reading from the Gospel of Luke outlines some of those profoundly difficult actions, those challenging behaviours that Christ both commended and commanded.

 

Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hurt you.  Be merciful.  Lend, expecting nothing in return.  Do not judge.  Forgive.  Don’t bother pointing out the inappropriate or objectionable behaviour in another person until you, yourself, are perfect.

 

Think, if only for a moment, about what such “right action” would actually look like in our own lives.   The person who is causing us such difficulty and pain – love them, do not judge them, do good to them, forgive them, in spite of how they are behaving.   It is interesting, at least in passing, to realize that Jesus never said “do not have enemies” as if the presence of those with whom we disagree is a sign of failure; to the contrary, he assumed that there would be those with whom we have disputes and conflicts – he certainly did – but those with whom we most vehemently disagree were the very ones who would reveal our ability to truly love.  Loving those who love us is no great accomplishment – but love for enemies is a sign of real strength, and truly of right action.

 

And think what such “right action” would actually look like in this world in which we live.  Where enemies are not fought, but loved; where conflicts between peoples and nations do not lead them towards violence and war, but towards an increase in love for each other; where envy and enmity and jealousy and rivalry and bitterness and resentment are set aside so that rivals can better care for the needs of each other; where those who cause hurt and offense receive, in return, expressions of  love, acts of kindness and goodness in return for their behaviour; where political parties and cultural groups and entire nations spend no time pointing out the flaws and faults in other groups, but instead pay more attention to their own flaws, their own faults, their own failings – striving to overcome their own moral and ethical blindness in relation to their own actions while extending mercy, grace and forgiveness to the other rather than spending all of their time trying to remove the specks of moral imperfection in the lives of those with whom they disagree.

 

How would our lives be different, how would the church be different, how would this world be different, if we sought the path of orthopraxy, of right action, of Christian obedience as well as the path of orthodoxy, of right belief, of Christian faith?

 

Our own tradition, this Presbyterian Church of ours, needs to be particularly mindful, and perhaps particularly aware, of the fact that there are parts of our own history that have sometimes undermined the challenging nature of Christian behaviour, of right action.  We are, after all, a part of the reformed tradition, a stream of the Christian movement which has not always been entirely comfortable with the place of right actions – or what our ancestors sometimes called “works” — in the life of faith.  Our Reformed ancestors, with good reason, stressed that we could not save ourselves through our good works, but needed to place our trust in the One who called us to believe in him.  Good works, the Reformers suggested, could never be a sufficient substitute for the work that Christ had accomplished on the cross – which is no doubt true.  God’s saving love was an expression of grace, and grace alone, and was not, nor should it ever, be seen as deserved or warranted by our good works, our right actions.  But good works, right actions, Christian obedience, was never meant to be a substitute for faith – they were meant to go together.   Orthodoxy was meant to shape orthopraxy.  Right beliefs were meant to inspire right actions.  And faith without works, as the letter of James stated, reflected a dead faith.

 

So, a challenge lies before us.  If we say that we believe that Christ is Lord such an assertion carries with it the responsibility to act in accordance with how he commands us to act.  We cannot claim that he is the Lord of our lives if we fail to respond, with obedience, to the challenging, transforming way of life that he sets before those who make the decision to follow him.

 

And transforming it is.  To follow him will transform our lives.  To follow him will transform our priorities.  To follow him will transform our relationships.  To follow him will transform our world.

 

We can start as small as we like.  Take one phrase from today’s reading, and simply dedicate yourself to living it.  Love your enemies – this week, be mindful of who it is that you find difficult to love, and start with them.  Or do not judge – this week, be mindful of who it is that you find yourself judging or condemning, and start with them.  It will not be easy, but as the life of Christ clearly demonstrated, it wasn’t easy for him either.

 

It is a challenging call, this call to love, to forgive, to be merciful, to avoid judging others, to forgive, to act in the ways of Christ.  Challenging, indeed.

 

But when we begin to act as he commanded us to act, we begin to realize that his way is, truly, the greatest hope for our lives, and for this world.

 

And that is good news.

 

Amen.