Abba - The Creator
Here we are at the beginning of our next series called “the Creed.” I wanted us to take a deep dive into the set of beliefs we share as a church and what we believe as Christians. When we take a look at the Apostle’s Creed, we are really looking at the basics of what we believe as Christians.
I was raised in the church, I feel like I always knew about Jesus, I was always in church. I feel like I always knew about the church. But ultimately, I never really heard about the basics, the bare bones of my faith. If someone asked me to sum the Christian faith up in 100 words or less, I would have failed. This is so hard because when we are called upon to share our faith with other people, we will probably have about 100 words to do so.
Beyond that, we need to know what we personally believe in simple terms. Why? Because when times are hard and believing the best in the world feels impossible, high concepts won’t be of use to us. These basics allow us the guidelines for the rest of our lives. It gives us the freedom to own what we believe without needing to know the ins and outs of deep theology.
Every week of this series, we are going to focus on different phrases of the Creed. This week, we have just a snippet-- how we know God in the most basic sense:
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”
This one little phrase teaches how we know God in the most broad and intimate way. It shows us how we view all of creation and also how we view our own existence. It’s one sentence and it does a lot of heavy lifting.
Our passage this week shows us how we can see the posture God has towards creation.
The main thing I want you to take with you this week is the understanding that we serve a God who creates, cares, and sustains all things. This God is not far away, but close and compassionate.
So where do we get the Apostle’s Creed? The roots of this creed go to something called the Old Roman Symbol. Around the 4th century, there arose a bunch of heresies within the church. A heresy is a teaching that distracts folks from the true nature of God, Jesus, or how to know God. Leaders of the church, in order to help folks not be confused or persuaded by these heresies would make tools. The Old Roman Symbol was created to go against a heretic name Arias, who had a run-in with Saint Nicholas-- yes, that Saint Nicholas, but you’ll have to wait until another day to hear that story.
This particular creed was handed down from church to church all the way up to the 15th century. There was a need for people to have a sort of “back pocket,” description of their faith. This was a tool of devotion. This was a way for people to share the foundations of their faith with other people. This creed was created during times when followers of Christ wouldn’t know how to read and couldn’t grow in their faith without some sort of guidance from someone who did know how to read. This creed gave people agency and ownership of what their faith meant and why it mattered.
For those of us who identify as United Methodists, obviously this creed doesn’t explain all of what we believe. There is nothing in here about how we order the church, partner with schools, or even how to worship. The Creed is a jumping off point, it’s the playing field on which we get to live out our lives. Today after church we will be doing our first new member class and we will be talking about our specific identity of who we are as United Methodists and more specifically who we are as Shepherd’s Community but we will not deviate from this creed.
If you’ve been with us more than a few times since I’ve been your pastor, you’ve heard me talk about how these Creeds we recite together are in many ways aspirational. I wanted to talk about doubt because I don’t think I ever heard a pastor tell me it was ok to not be 100% convinced about all of the wonderful things I learned in church or read in the bible. These creeds are not necessarily a way for us to keep people who don’t believe out or corral all those who believe into a rigid dogma that looks more like bondage than it does freedom that Christ gives.
There will be Sundays that you come to church and you just don’t buy this Creed. You won’t know if you’re 100% in to what we claim as a church community. I never heard it from the pulpit so I want you to hear it today-- it is ok to doubt. God is not afraid of your doubt. Keep being here, keep showing up, and know that you are prayed for when you doubt and when you don’t. You are extravagantly loved by God when you doubt and when you don’t.
What is it that we believe in God the Father?
We believe that this God is almighty, meaning all powerful and we believe that this God created all of heaven and all of earth.
But when it comes to the practical things-- the day to day, we believe that God is our Abba. Good news everyone-- we get to learn some Aramaic today. Aramaic was the language of Jesus. This is the actual language Jesus used when teaching, hanging out with his buddies, and how he ordered his morning coffee. All of the disciples would have called their own dads Abba as a kid.
Now, this was not the language one would pray in. When Jesus learned the prayers it would have been in Hebrew. When you went to temple, you didn’t understand what the priest was saying on your behalf. There was no sort of relationship in worship during that time, it was transactional.
And yet in our passage today, we are hearing that we get to have a very different relationship with the God of the universe. This is like our English word for “daddy,” or “dad.” Instead of a far-off God who never sees or cares about what happens here on earth, we serve a God who is up close and personal.
The other implication of understanding God as a father is the belief that we are members of a family. All who are led by God’s spirit are the sons and daughters of God. We are not just subjects of some all powerful King or Queen but rather we are known to God as God’s very own children.
The implications of this relationship really cannot be overstated. For parents, is there any sort of comparison between the relationship of a government official and a parent? Of course not. This intrinsic love that a parent has for their children is attributed to the God of all creation. That means all of creation was made by one who loves all of us in a way similar to that of a parent. This great love from a parent to a child requires all of us to see other children of God as siblings.
But this puts all of us into a different relationship with the rest of the world, doesn’t it? It makes all of us family. Siblings, one to another. This requires all of us to see our place in the world as something beyond just an individual, we are a part of a collective whole. This should change how we behave in traffic, right? When we get cut-off, it’s our sibling who we are honking at.
As children of God we are recipients of an inheritance as well. Our passage today shows us that the work of Jesus Christ is something we can make a claim in. When my father passed away, I received all sorts of incredible things-- my grandfather’s tool chest, my father’s hockey stick, and my dad’s wedding band. These are mine now, because they were given to me by my father. I didn’t earn these things, I didn't buy them-- and yet they are mine. Wholly and completely.
We didn’t earn God’s favor. We didn’t earn the right to pray to God like we talk to a friend-- and yet that belongs to us. We pray in this way because of what has been given freely to us. We experience forgiveness from the God of the Universe, not because of our own merit but because of God’s great and extravagant love for us. Given to us as an inheritance.
Our passage today also tells us to see ourselves as the namesake of the God of the universe. In other parts of the bible it says that we are ambassadors of the Heavenly Kingdom. We are the tangible sign of God’s work in our world through the actions we take, the way we love others and the way that we think. Isn’t that compelling? Our very viewpoints are a tangible sign of God’s love to all of creation.
So when we stand together and recite this creed we are saying a lot about God, but we are also saying a whole lot about ourselves. When we claim God as father we claim our place in the Divine family, inheriting a namesake and a place in the Kingdom that is more than just a family friend.
When we recite the creed, we are saying that we believe God created everything we see and everything that we don’t. Heaven is that stand-in word for all manner of things that we do not comprehend. These are the things that make us anxious because we do not know them. These are the things that that fill us with awe because we do not know them.
When we say we believe that God created the Heavens, we are saying that even if we do not comprehend, we know the One who not only comprehends but also created. So right there-- right there in our creed we acknowledge that mystery exists and that we do not shy away from it. And when we look into the night sky, we see the handiwork of the same God who calls us son and daughter.
When we say that God created the Earth, we acknowledge that what we see around us on this planet is the handiwork of our God. That compels us then to see all of creation as a part of what God is doing in this world. This matters because we can sometimes be tempted to view our faith as something only pointed towards heaven. I look forward to the day when my soul is reunited with God in eternity-- but when I claim God created the Earth, I claim that this world matters to God. These ten acres matter to God-- our rivers, lakes, streams, wildlife-- all of those things matter to God.
So why does it matter that all of these things matter to God? Well, it doesn’t! This creed doesn’t matter, in fact none of what we do on Sunday morning matters unless our lives are changed by it.
Now, that isn’t all the way true-- if we confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts that Christ is Lord, we will be saved. Amen, hallelujah. But I believe that we as the church-- we as the followers of Christ are called to so much more than just survival. We are called to life and to life unto the fullest. We are called to freedom and hope! We are called to be a new creation.
So when we confess this creed. When we call God our parent and call our God the creator of all things, we have to be changed by that. We talked about this in our gratitude series-- our intellectual beliefs have to have shoes on in order for them to matter.
So we must be a church-- we must be followers of Jesus that see the people around us as siblings. We have to be folks who see creation as something crafted by God. We must be people who know mystery is a part of life and celebrate it as a gift.
That will cause us to see our neighborhood as a place that we care about. It will open our eyes to what God is showing us and calling us toward in our neighborhood. We will begin to see the issues that students have to overcome at Medulla Elementary School as issues we have to overcome. It will show us that the problems of South Lakeland and Mulberry are in fact our own problems as well. It will cause us to see the construction happening all around us as places in need of welcome.
John Wesley was the founder of Methodism. He was an Anglican priest his whole life and Anglicans worked in a parish model. The parish model was a bit like sales territories or even county lines. A priest would be given a specific area that they were assigned to minister to. They weren’t given a church, they were given a territory. So everything that happened in that area was their business. They had to care about those things.
John Wesley once said “I consider the whole world to be my parish.” All of creation was his parish-- what a radical idea! The problems of our neighbors become our problems and our neighbors number somewhere around 7 billion.
So my challenge for all of us this week is to truly believe our creed. May we challenge ourselves to see God as our Father with the sort of love and care that a parent can have. May we push the boundaries of how we see that love pointed towards our successes, mistakes, and everything in between.
I want to challenge all of us to begin to see everyone in the world around us as siblings. May we be pushed to see the struggles and heartaches of the world around us as our own struggles and heartaches.
May we lean into mystery and appreciation for the creation we are all a part of.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s pray
Father Almighty God-- may we know you are all of those things. You are our parent, looking at your children with tenderness and compassion.
You are almighty-- creator of heaven and earth-mystery, rivers, mountains, valleys, and yes, even us.
And you are God. The Divine presence we encounter in your Holy Scriptures and in our daily lives.
Open our eyes to see that you are calling us right now to our parish-- which is the whole world.
Amen.
