of the Springfield Presbytery. These Presbyterian ministers who believed strongly in Christian

Transcription

1 No Creed But Christ Matthew 16:13-17 South Joplin Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) September 1, 2013 Rev. Jill Cameron Michel In 1804 in central Kentucky six ministers wrote and signed The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery. These Presbyterian ministers who believed strongly in Christian unity had a desire to sink into union with the Body of Christ at large. After all, they had tired of doctrines that clearly defined membership and participation in churches while also building walls of division between Christians of various persuasions. They had grown tired of long lists of beliefs to which people had to adhere in order to be part of a church or come to the communion table. Meanwhile, around the same time a Presbyterian minister made the journey from Ireland to Pennsylvania where he served a congregation until being disciplined by the Presbytery for refusing to use creeds as terms of communion. He would later be joined by his son who shared many of the same ideas and together they set out to create a Christian movement without creeds, but focused on the unity of all Christians. Despite some significant differences in understanding among these men, their commitment to unity was high and so in the early 1830 s the two movements they started Stone s Christians and the Campbells Disciples joined together into one. It is that one movement a movement known by statements such as No creed but Christ and In essentials, unity in non-essentials, liberty in all things, love it is that movement which we know today as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) the denomination of which we are a part.

2 And because the rejection of lengthy creeds is central to who we are after all, that was one of the major issues that caused both Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell to leave the Presbyterian Church that leaves us today as a church that asks only for a confession of faith which is based on the passage of scripture we read today. And that scripture said: 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? 14 And they said, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. 15 He said to them, But who do you say that I am? 16 Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That is the basis for the confession we make. That is the question the only question you are asked when you choose to unite in membership with this congregation or to be baptized here. It is a question about who you say Jesus is and we word it this way: Do you believe in Jesus as the Christ, the son of the Living God and do you seek to follow him as Savior and Lord? It is our central question our only question. So, perhaps we should take a little time to wonder together what the scripture was saying and what it means for us today as it continues to inform who we are as Disciples of Christ. So, we begin with this: Who is Jesus? After all, that question seems essential to understanding both the text we find in Matthew s gospel and the statement of faith we make in our churches today. It was a question Jesus himself was asking. Remember, that s where this conversation which we overhear in Matthew s gospel started with Jesus asking his disciples what others were saying about him who others thought he was. And although we might dismiss their answers or even call them wrong, let us remember that their answers were not without significance as John the Baptist and the prophets were significant figures. As Tod

3 Mundo reminds us John the Baptist was a prophet of recent vintage who spoke powerfully to lowly and great alike. Elijah confronted seemingly impossible odds in the name of Yahweh. Jeremiah preached a message of repentance to a people he knew wouldn't repent. The prophets spoke boldly the word of the Lord ( html). So, let us not forget that these were answers of significance. They showed that the people knew Jesus was someone important. But the disciples saw something more. They saw in Jesus more than a prophet, more than a leader of a movement. They saw in him someone who was uniquely connected to God. They saw in him someone who was more than they had experienced before. Remember, although we Christians today use the word Messiah simply to refer to Jesus, the biblical people knew this word to refer to kings. And yet, by the time of Jesus it was more than that. By the time of Jesus it carried an additional expectation of someone greater than their usual kings. The Messiah par excellence was someone who was uniquely related to God, who would bring deliverance and hope. [And] today's Christians follow Peter in seeing in Jesus something truly unique, someone whose relationship with God and teaching and example have never been, and will never be, equaled ( And that is the confession we continue to make today. As members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) we say that we understand Jesus as Messiah, as Christ meaning he is one who brings deliverance and hope; we understand him as Son of God not the only one who belongs to God, but one who is uniquely connected to God and who shows us God in intimate ways that we haven t seen otherwise. We also say that we understand Jesus as Savior as the one who is the bringer of wholeness and as Lord the one to whom we give our allegiance the one we choose to follow.

4 And that, my friends, is it. That is our question. That is our creed (if we even opt to call it that). And honestly, even that simple bit includes details we don t all agree on. There are different understandings, different interpretations, different experiences of what these words about Jesus mean. But the founders of our denomination were convicted of something we remain committed to today that to be Christian, we must embrace Jesus, we must understand him as central, unique, the one we choose to follow but that beyond that (and even within that) there is much room for conversation and study and work and growth together that even amidst disagreements on form and fashion of worship or when and how one should be baptized or exactly what Jesus said in this instance or that, when we are striving together to live with Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives, then we will remain committed to each other in spite of our differences. That s at least part of what it means to have no creed but Christ. And then there s something more. There s something else we don t want to miss in this idea of having Jesus as our only creed. See, creeds are statements of beliefs shared by faith communities. And often times we can get so caught up in the words of such statements that we forget their meaning, we forget to actually live them. But, when we have no creed but Christ, then our creed our belief statement becomes not about words but about relationship. See, that s really what it means to hold him as our only creed. It means that we won t just have well-rehearsed statements to make about Jesus, but that we will be in deep and committed relationship with him so much so that our lives are changed by it. If we have no creed but Christ, then we are to live as he lived. So, suddenly this simple statement, this central statement becomes bigger than we may have realized. And of course this means that we must pay attention to who Jesus is. And that s not always easy. After all, what is easier is for us to make Jesus into who we want him to be. For

5 many of us Jesus is the one who forgives all our sins, wraps his arms around us and makes us feel better while we also tell ourselves he is one who scowls at our enemies and names their sins as greater than our own. And yet, even if that is who we wish Jesus were, it is not faithful to who he is. Just read the gospels, friends. If we read them, what we find is that Jesus is often likely to be harder on those close to him and those who are part of the in crowd of his faith. All the while, he tends to be gentler with those who the religious folk were calling the big sinners you know that Biblical crowd: prostitutes, tax collectors, foreigners. Yes, these rather than the insiders were the ones Jesus was most often found forgiving, comforting and welcoming. If we read the gospels we see that Jesus is one who holds those who claim faith to a high standard, he is one who asks us to take greater responsibility not only for ourselves but for the care of those new to the faith or those without any faith convictions at all. If we read the gospels we see that Jesus wasn t spending most of his time hanging out with the acceptable people, with the respectable citizens but instead with the oppressed, the rejected, the marginalized, the questionable. What that means for us today is that Jesus wouldn t be spending most of his time making the white, middle and upper class folk feel good, but rather he would be hanging out with our marginalized, our oppressed, those we reject and asking us to do the same. And all of this makes our belief in no creed but Christ not quite as simple as it first seemed, doesn t it? What does this mean for who we are as people in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) today? It means that we are various in our understandings and our experiences, but when we come together because of our connection with Jesus, we are all welcome. It means that it will

6 be work because when we are following Jesus we aren t going to be asked to take the easy way or to surround ourselves with people who are just like us. It means we will sometimes have difficult conversations and those will often end with that difficult task of respecting someone else s understanding even when we don t agree and then coming to the table together to remember that we are all part of one body. And it means that we don t have to have all the answers, but we must be willing to seek answers together that we don t have to follow Jesus faithfully every minute, but be willing to strive to seek to always be following more closely. We are like Peter we are flawed we too make our confession faith in just the right manner one moment and then make a mess of things the next. But that s the thing to be a Christian and to be part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) you don t have to have it all right, you don t have to understand everything and have all the answers you simply (and not so simply) have to embrace Jesus and work each day to follow him more closely you simply have to set foot on the journey with Christ as your companion that in word and deed he becomes your only creed.