Startling comfort

Throughout its history, in times of turmoil and change and especially challenge, the church has come together to write and speak what it believes, and we call them confessions. These aren’t confessions in the sense of admitting to a crime, but confessions of faith in which we remember and say why and how we are followers of Jesus in a new time and under different circumstances than we have been before.

For most Christians the familiar confessions are the Apostles' or Nicene Creed, which a lot of us were forced (or bribed with stickers and candy) to memorize in Sunday school. But there are others: during World War II, German churches wrote a confession called the Theological Declaration of Barmen, rejecting the idea that the Church was subject to the state and proclaiming that Jesus Christ alone as Lord, above any nation or leader. Churches wrestling with apartheid in South Africa wrote the Belhar Confession in 1986 rejecting the segregation of people on theological grounds, and claiming that unity in Christ is both a gift and obligation of the church.

At worship on September 11, 2011, the congregation at the church I attend read together the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s Brief Statement of Faith. The Brief Statement was written at a moment of healing, when two parts of our denomination that had been long divided were reunited – not perfectly, but hopefully. It begins, “In life and in death, we belong to God,” which is perhaps the most complete statement of faith I know, and certainly a fitting way to center ourselves on that particular day. 

I was thinking about confessions this week in part because we used the Brief Statement last week, and also because a dear friend of mine is joining a church near her home, and as part of the membership process she was asked to write her statement of faith, which she posted on her blog. She wrote beautifully of the permeability of faith – how it changes through different stages of life, but is tied together with wonder and mystery.

It is a startling comfort in times of turmoil and tribulation to reconnect with our confessions, both the individual and the corporate ones. Never a litmus test of belief, confessions are a gift from and for the community of faith – a reminder of the pioneers who have walked the journey before us, and the great cloud of witnesses to which we belong even when we can’t see our own hands in front of our faces.

Moreover, they give us a lee in the storm. God is bigger than whatever we are facing. The pioneers and witnesses stand before and behind us. In life and in death we belong to God, even when the economy tanks and you can’t find a job and the approval rate of Congress is at an all time low and you burned the toast at breakfast.

Today I dug out the statement of faith I wrote in seminary, something that was given as an assignment but came rushing out of me in a spirit of defiance and truth and nearly fell on the page in one finished lump. And when I re-read it, it came as a startling comfort to know that, even still:

 In the midst of a world at war,

amidst a creation straining toward light,

amidst a people divided against themselves, 

amidst broken homes, broken families, broken bodies, broken hearts:

I believe

I believe

I believe in God.

I believe in the one God who made swaths of brilliant stars in the empty darkness of space,

crafted the orange-tipped wings of a million butterflies

painted the emerald moss clinging to frozen tundra.

I believe in the one God who created from the ruddy earth beings in the image of God,

Creative, blessed, eager, amazing children of the most high

imprinted with the likeness of the giver of life

and born into a covenant of love,

but who in the darkness of sin have forgotten and forsaken

their true selves and their Creator

and are thirsty

and wandering lost,

yearning for renewed and new life

amidst disillusionment, despair, and death.

In infinite imagination and unquenchable love,

our God self enfleshed,

and was born penniless and pitiable ––

one simple, finite life on the ruddy earth

that we might return to the God of perpetually new and everlasting life.

Jesus the Christ recalibrated the rules,

calling the powers to servanthood,

the divided to kinship,

and the nations to justice.

Jesus the Christ restored the rejected

touching the ones called unclean,

healing the ones called unfit, 

loving the ones called unwelcome.

Jesus the Christ enacted the impossible

fully God, fully human,

the Creator of the universe under the tyranny of Rome,

forgiving even his executioners,

laid cold as stone in a tomb

and at the turn of the tide was preposterously raised from the dead to glorious fullness of life.

I believe

I believe

I believe in God.

I believe in the God who through power over even the sting of death

shows us that love does conquer all

and that even the worst we can do is not enough

to separate us from the love of God.

I believe in the God who through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ

has sliced clean through the sticky web of sin

that within a world that still groans in bondage

we might live again and forever as children of God.

I believe in the God who through the sweet communion of the Holy Spirit

gives us freedom from fear

that we might fiercely and unswervingly love one another

even at the cost of our own lives

and with joy proclaim to the world

that what was broken can be healed

what was lost, found

what was dead, made new.

Through the wholly inspired and holy authoritative Word of God in Scripture,

the testimony of the great cloud of witnesses to the work of the great God,

we hear, discover, recognize, discern and remember

the presence and prompting of God among us.

In the washing of the water and the sharing of the bread and cup

we see, taste, touch, feel, smell and know that God is good

and that God’s grace abounds

as we are reborn, renewed and reclothed in sacrament.

I believe in the God who calls women and men, boys and girls, young and wise, kind and strong to bring their foibles and folly and be the church

to live as God’s family and welcome others to the table,

a table set with china and chopsticks, cheese and chocolate,

and enough chairs for everyone.

In thanksgiving and hope,

I believe

I believe

I believe in God.