18^th June, 2006 – Pentecost 2

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 ; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17; Mark 4:26 -34; 

Last week we spoke of the Trinity and how the debate about “who Jesus is” gave rise to a debate about God and how Jesus fitted in – was he God or not? What happens to the one God of Jewish faith if Jesus is also understood as being God? and thus the doctrine of the Trinity was born and given expression to in the Nicene Creed, which sought to define God in Christian understanding.

In the thought that led to the Nicene creed, for Jesus to be seen as saviour of the world upholding and emphasing Jesus’ divinity was seen as the way forward. Today I would come at it from a different angle. I would like us to think about emphasising the humanity of Jesus and approaching our understanding of God and our Christian faith from that perspective. And I would hope we could do this without denying Jesus’ oneness with God or his capacity to be saviour of the world.

You may remember that I said if I was writing a creed it might go something like this:

I believe in the one who is God, the source of all things

I see in the human Jesus the model of the unbroken image of God

I experience a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.

“I see in the human Jesus the model of the unbroken image of God.” How does this fit with Jesus as saviour of the world,  or as described in the reading from 2 Corinthians 5:14 and 15, as the one who died for all.

 Traditionally we would say that we are unable to bridge the gap between ourselves and God. Nothing that we can do can get us there. What we say is that Jesus became our substitute,  he paid the price that we should have paid for our sin and in so doing he bridges the gap between us and God – certainly that is an image used in the NT. The theory goes that only God has what it takes to pay the price – thus Jesus must be God and so along the pathway to the divine Trinity. The idea is that somehow the price of our sin has to be paid for – someone has to do time for us. Only the divine Jesus is good enough. For many people this emphasis on penal substitution is not all that satisfying. Whilst it is a biblical image, it is not the only image in the bible and it does not have the same dominance in biblical teaching as it has gained in Christian understanding.

I wonder if we can’t affirm the truth that only God can make it possible for us to have a relationship with him in a different way and at the same time being true to the biblical witness.

 If it were simply about justice none of us would be entitled to a relationship with God, but for God mercy is more important than justice – that is grace. If we think of the woman caught in adultery one could argue that justice meant she was no longer worthy but Jesus reveals the truth that mercy is a greater motivator in the heart of God. But let us not think that God is not concerned for justice because Jesus’ response to those who would stone the woman, by saying that “those who would stone the woman may cast the first stone”  was about justice – if you benefit from God’s mercy why should not this woman. That is justice! Yes having relationship with God comes at a cost to God – he puts aside his right, his right to have our absolute devotion and obedience, he put it aside for relationship – relationship is stronger than rights – surely it is the right of the creator of the universe to have our absolute devotion.

Yes, Jesus is saviour of the world, he died for all, in the sense that he showed us the way.

Imagine a scene – there are a group of six people who live in a community in a country ruled by religious fanatics, fanatics who will not allow any word to be spoken against their religion or their exercise of it. These rulers have ears and eyes everywhere and people who do not conform pay tough penalties, at worst they are executed and some simply disappear.

There is a man of the same faith, devout but not fanatical – maybe he looks something like this.   His name is Hamal, which translated into English means “lamb.” Hamal has a safe house from which he takes those who are threatened out of the country. 5 people are in his house at this time ready to escape. One is a big, fat, foul mouthed, at times somewhat violent, drunken owner of an illegal bar, who one night with a bravery boosted by alcohol bags the fanatical leaders and says if he had the chance he would slit their throats. In a sober moment in the next day when the bravery has dissipated and fear sets in he knows his life is at an end if he doesn’t disappear himself and so he heads to the house of Hamal.

Another is a woman who has a passion for giving girls an education, who believes that they should be able to aspire to positions of leadership and that one day there will be the opportunity if they have been given an education. But in this society girls are not worthy of education, and yet her underground school thrived until a brother of one of her students betrayed them. Fortunately for this woman she was not at the school at the time it was raided and she too had to head for the house of Hamal.

There was a thief who didn’t need to be a thief but had got used to living that life - he was smart and no-one had ever seen him or caught him in the act, until one day he got a bit sloppy in the market place and he was seen stealing, of all things, a melon, but even for that he could have his hands cut off, and now that he had been seen he was a marked man and he too found his way to Hamal’s house.

There was a prostitute, who despite the total ban on prostitution, still, with many others plied the trade – one of her clients was one of the fanatical leaders who, unlike some of the others, didn’t practice what he preached. The prostitute displeased her client and he threatened to out her – if caught she would stoned to death. A friend had heard of Hamal’s place and so she too disappeared off the streets, but not into the hands of the fanatics.

The last was a rebel soldier who fought against the regime, partly because he despised it, partly because he had developed something of a blood-lust and enjoyed the sport of knocking off some of the government agents, but recently he had had a real coup when he managed to shoot the second most powerful man in the regime as he was driven along a remote road. Problem was he became a wanted man with a price on his head and a friend turned him in and he narrowly escaped capture but there weren’t too many places to run and no-one to trust – he too ended up with Hamal.

 Hamal’s escape route is through the remote mountains along an abandoned route and across a chasm over an old rope bridge,  no longer used or maintained. On the way along the abandoned route the little band realises they are being followed – they see the lights some distance behind. Again, the soldier had been betrayed by friends.

 Hamal judges the distance the lights are behind them and is sure they have time to make it and he too will have to cross the bridge and come back into the country another way. Only problem is that this time the old rope bridge is held in place by one strand of one rope attached to wooden pole almost rotten through and it is clear that to put any weight on it the bridge will collapse into the chasm. They have no equipment, nothing to tie the remaining pieces of rope around and the Hamal says the only way we can do this is if we all hold the rope and brace ourselves against the small stones scattered around and allow and the heaviest  of our number to go first, because it will need all of us to hold him. The heaviest is the loud-mouthed drunk. The prostitute says, “Why him he is a drunken lout and he only has himself to blame for his predicament? If he had just kept his mouth shut.” The thief thought the same but he was the second heaviest so he kept his mouth shut. Hamal said, “I want you all to be saved, this is not a time to make judgments about character or who most deserves to go first.” So the drunk headed across the bridge, scared but grateful that he was being saved, grateful for the bravery of Hamal and that he showed no favour – of course there was no guarantee that he or any holding the rope will get to the other side – as they follow Hamal in holding the rope, there is a real likelihood that they will lose their footing, they won’t be able to take the strain and that all will end up in the chasm. The bar owner makes it across and Hamal tells the thief to get onto the bridge, and the soldier this time says, “he really did commit a crime, it was just for his own good, because he is a lazy bastard – why should he get this chance at life.” Hamal, acknowledging the thief’s crime, repeated what he said before, and reminded the soldier that he really didn’t deserve the risk being taken or him, that he had taken the lives of others without so much as a thought for them. The thief went, also grateful for the reprieve he had received, vowing that for Hamal he would live a life of devotion. The remaining 4 hold the rope, with more difficulty this time. Now it is the teacher’s turn, she is an older woman and she says, “No let these go before me, they are young and have more to live for.” Hamal says you are a good woman and your life is as valuable as these, and they are stronger than you, and everyone is more likely to get across if you go first.” So off she went, knowing she was indeed a fortunate woman and when she got to safety she would not forget her purpose in this country and she would not give up. Then it was the soldier’s turn and he bounded across as lightly as possible because he wondered if Hamal and the prostitute would have the strength to hold the bridge. But he knew Hamal was right and his life was not unblemished and motives for killing sullied, but now he would, by other means, seek the freedom of his country and never agin would he undervalue a person’s life.

Now it was time for the prostitute, and as she stepped onto the bridge she suddenly realised that Hamal would be left behind with no-one to hold the bridge, and the prostitute said, “Hamal you need to go I am strong enough to hold the bridge – you don’t deserve to die, whereas I have done much to deserve my punishment, and if you get away you can do so much more good.” Hamal said to her, “you couldn’t hold the bridge, but even if you could, when you came to my house I promised to save you, and even if I die there will now be 5 more people to carry on my work.” So with sadness she went, but with the determination that she would continue Hamal’s work through her life. Hamal is on his own almost exhausted and struggling to hold, but does so until the prostitute crosses – Hamal now, of course, cannot cross the bridge, he lets the rope go and allows the bridge to fall away and he is left to die, a lamb to the slaughter at the hands of the fanatics, the lights of their agents almost upon him. Hamal is the saviour of the group, he has shown the way, he has sacrificed his life for them, there was no reason why he should have been the one to stay, no reason why he should have died – he had done nothing wrong, he was devoted in his faith, he lived a good and compassionate life.

I think we can understand Jesus in this way as the saviour of the world  – He has shown the way, he has sacrificed his life in order that others may see the way, reach safety in the presence of God through no merit of their own but because of the courage, the humanity, the love of Jesus. There was no reason why he should have given his life, but he had to show the way. Jesus becomes the template, the example, the way by which the world will be saved – we still haven’t got it..

Jesus is Lord yes, because in showing the way, he has shown what it is to be truly human, what it is to be in the image of God – his humanity is merged with God and reveals God.  Jesus is Lord because he is the one who is the bearer of God, by living his life in the image of God he is worthy of our allegiance – it is as we take up the way of Christ in our lives that we enter into the place where our lives are being remoulded into the image of God. Paul says: “…if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation: everything  old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” Surely to be in Christ is to live in his way, to seek to live by his example, to set our lives to his wavelength.

In the verses following those we have read, Paul speaks of God who has reconciled himself to the world through Christ. Surely that means that Christ was the one who showed us who God is – God the merciful. As we are Christ-followers we are committed to that message of reconciliation - to living it out ourselves, becoming rope holders, bridge-makers that other may cross into the presence of God. Jesus shows us the God of mercy who does not count our trespasses enough to exclude us from his presence.

Then Paul says in verse 20 “so we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

So now we are being asked to follow where Christ has gone – he was the first, and now we ourselves are to be Christ bearers, God-bearers, people through whom Christ shows the way.

11^th June, 2006 – Trinity

Isaiah 6: 1-8 ; John 3:1-17

 Today is Trinity Sunday and yet I wonder how many of us are really true Trinitarians. We may speak of one God in three persons… but what do we mean by that? We may say “well God in three persons is like ice, water and steam – three ways in which God reveals himself.”  And we think we have got it, sort of, when we use that analogy. But that simple analogy would have had us branded heretics in another era.

 Why I don’t think we are truly Trinitarians is because either we don’t really understand what it means – we can speak of it but asked to explain it we really have no idea. That is not a criticism. A majority of Christians throughout history I would imagine fit into this category.  Or maybe we think we do have some sort of understanding but we actually can’t put it into words – we have a scholarly and at some point intuitive understanding but cannot express accurately what the Trinity is. Again no criticism – theological scholars have grappled and debated and even come to blows for centuries about how one expresses what we mean when we talk about Trinity.

Given this inability to articulate Trinity, it is interesting that belief in the Trinity is what defines Christianity even though “Trinity” itself seems impossible to define. That the Trinity is not definable doesn’t particularly worry me because as an image it reminds us that God cannot be constrained by definition. Yet that is exactly what the doctrine of the Trinity was seeking to do:  define God. Maybe it is that which should worry us.

I think we also need to understand the history of Trinity and that the defining of God which culminated in the doctrine of Trinity was motivated by a political agenda not a theological agenda. That maybe should worry us also.

So let’s take a quick squiz at the origins of the Trinity.

What was happening in the church through the second, third and into the fourth century was a discussion about who Jesus was – people were calling him “Lord” a title for God, Son of God, Word of God – they were giving him a divine status. But what did that mean if you believed in the God of Israel “The Lord our God, the Lord is one?”

If God is one then who is this Jesus character, where does he fit in? By the fourth century it was pretty well accepted that Jesus had a divine status, but there were all sorts of ways of believing this was so, ranging between strict monotheism, which the ice, water, steam image sought to uphold in that Jesus was simply one manifestation of God, but a view generally regarded as heresy because Jesus didn’t really have a separate identity. If Jesus was simply a manifestation of God, what did that say about the reality of his humanity – was it really a sham?

The other end of the spectrum was bordering on polytheism in which Jesus was understood as a minor god, and an extension of this was the thought that the God of creation in the OT was a minor god and the God of the NT was the supreme God – so really into polytheism. In much of this early debate the Holy Spirit didn’t get much of a look in – that was a debate that followed through after sorting Jesus out.

So where does the political agenda fit in? Well in the early fourth century Constantine became emperor and it is said that he had a vision, won a battle under the sign of the cross, and he took on Christianity and instituted it as the official religion of the empire. There is evidence that he maintained pagan ways himself and indeed was only baptised on his deathbed, and some argue that his sponsoring of Christianity was fundamentally a political decision rather than one arising out of a vision and that he saw that the establishment of this particular religion (a religion which was on the rise and attracting people across a whole cultural and social spectrum throughout the empire) he saw that this could in fact be a means of bringing cohesion to the empire, an empire which at that time appeared to be breaking up.

Clearly he hadn’t done his research well enough, only having a superficial understanding of Christianity without realizing the foment and dissent that was in fact the Christian church.

With the establishment of the church there came benefits, tax-breaks, land entitlements, the recognition of clerical offices, even some civil authority, status in society. But question was: “who represents the church.” As some Christian communities and groups were recognised others complained that they too should be recognised, or that they indeed represented the true Christian faith, not those who had been recognised by Constantine. The fragmentation of the Christian community was a result of differing understandings of God and how Jesus fitted in.

So to achieve the cohesion he sought and for the purpose of clarity in civil administration, Constantine said, “lets sort this out, lets work out a definition of God, with which everyone can be happy and which will in turn define the church as recognised by the Empire.”

So, in 325 AD, a council was called at a place called Nicaea – at which a whole lot of bishops and others of various persuasions, gathered. There was a guy called Arius who had what one could consider to be either a polytheistic view or one which did not honour the divinity of Jesus. This was an understanding in which Jesus could be seen to have some sort of semi-divine status but he was not the One God, but the first creation of God. Arius held this view because he believed it was true to the faith that God is one. The slogan of those who followed Arius was: “There was a time when he (Jesus) was not.”

The opposition at the Council of Nicaea said that with this understanding, Arius was struggling to say that in Jesus the one, true God was reconciling the world to himself, or that through Jesus the one and only Spirit of God is still to be experienced.

So at the Council of Nicaea, Eusebius of Caesarea suggested the adoption of the creed his church was using and it went like this:

We believe in one God, the Father, All-sovereign, the maker of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, Son only-begotten, Firstborn of all creation, begotten of the Father before all the ages, through whom all things were made; who was made flesh for our salvation and lived among men and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Well there you are Jesus is quite something: “Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life,”

 We believe also in the one Holy Spirit. (As you can see, a bit of an afterthought).

Well, that wasn’t any good – that “Firstborn” word, for a start, had to come out – Arius could probably make a case that this creed fitted his understanding and you might think Jesus’ status was pretty exalted, but in this creed it was not high enough. This doesn’t make a strong enough link between Jesus and the Father.

So now Constantine is sitting there thinking, “When are we going to get to the end of this? Come on, get on with it” and he says “Look I have heard that you what you want, surely this is easy to solve what about adding the word ‘Homoousias’  – in fact I like it so let’s put it in and that should fix it.” “Homoousias” means one substance. So with Constantine’s intervention the council felt somewhat pressured, but Constantine’s idea seemed OK at the time.  So Eusebius’ creed was added to:

We believe in one God, the Father, All-sovereign, the maker of all things visible and invisible;

No change!

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made; things on heaven and things on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and became man, suffered, and rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens, is coming to judge the living and the dead;

 Well that fixed it – Jesus is one substance with Father – can’t get any higher than that!

 Oh!

 And in the Holy Spirit

(Even more of an afterthought it would seem)

Then there was a postscript added:

And those that say “There was when he was not,” and, “Before he was begotten he was not,” and that “He came into being from what-is-not,”

Or those that allege, that the son of God is

“Of another substance or essence”

or “created”

or “changeable”

or “alterable”

these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematises.

Just to be sure that everyone knew that if they believed Arius they would be cursed of God, excommunicated, they wouldn’t belong to the true church, the church recognised by the empire.

But actually when they thought about it, no-one was happy with Constantine’s suggestion, certainly not the supporters of Arius. But the rest felt the individuality of Jesus had been wiped out – the one substance meant he was really just a manifestation of God. Jesus was lost in God.

As a result the Arians rather than being stamped out gained greater support and through political intrigue almost regained the upper hand because Constantine’s was attracted to their views. But the opposition, although not happy with the final outcome of Nicaea preferred that to the alternative and over the next 150 years tinkered with the creed of Nicaea and came up with what we have today which adds something of Jesus’ human life  – “made flesh of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary… crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried etc, etc It also has a bit more to say about the Holy Spirit and acknowledges the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by which, without anathematising, notes there is only one church – the one which holds to this view of God. The Council of Chalcedon in 481 approved this revised edition as the creed of Nicaea.

I think we can learn a few lessons from this history.

For me, today, Trinity reminds me that as much as we try we need to remember we can relate to God but we cannot define God. Today, as we think of the circumstances that brought the doctrine of the Trinity to birth we need to ask ourselves if it is a doctrine necessary for current circumstances, circumstances in which religion still plays a huge part in world affairs and in which once again it may be necessary to ponder upon and recast what we believe in a pluralistic world that we might draw all people together and into place and way of life that God calls us to. If I were to write a creed today it might go something like this:

I believe in the one who is God, the source of all things

I see in the human Jesus the model of the unbroken image of God

I experience a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit

I think I would want to emphasise the humanity of Jesus whose life was such that it truly was in the image of God and so his being became one with God’s. Through his life he revealed that we too, simply by the grace of God, can become one in being with God.

I think we also learn that the unity of the church is important, but there are pitfalls and it is possible to lumber ourselves with a decision that no-one is happy with. We might well ponder this as The Uniting Church 11^th Assembly meets in July, where the issue of sexuality is our 21^st century version of the Trinity debates of the 3^rd and 4^th centuries with similar things at stake. When we say that the church is following the world rather than leading, let us be reminded that this central doctrine of the church, the Trinity, was the response to the political issues of the time. Possibly no-one will be entirely happy with the outcome of the Assembly, but we need to remember that the Camel created by a committee can sometimes carry us a long way through dry terrain.

 The doctrine of the Trinity was not perfect and should not be regarded as so. We can understand the issues that surrounded its formulation and the intent of those who grappled with those issues, but in the end I do not think we should caught up in the concerns that faced their world, but rather seek to develop an understanding of God which will addresses our world.