Herein are some reflexions that served as my "sermon" for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. I consider these essential, but not exhaustive, first principles in making an approach to Christianity.
Romans 6: 3-11 Matt. 5: 20-26
I believe in God...
...though He is not an impersonal and uninterested creator, neither is He the demander of submission and obedience, nor the wrathful Omnipotent just waiting to secure His pound of flesh against that which He loathes. Neither is He a petty tyrant with a list of unreasonable demands, nor an unpredictable tester of persons desirous to see how easily we fall from our precarious perch at the edge of the cliff.
Rather do I believe in the Father of the prodigal son. I am not that son, though I am like him in every meaningful way. The important thing is not my condition, but rather the response to my return.
I believe in God.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
Though it is a nice, usually public ceremony initiating and acknowledging membership in Christ's Church, that is not the end of the matter.
Rather do I believe that in addition, the Epistle to the Romans means what it says when we read: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." In accordance with this, I believe the teaching of the Articles of Religion that "[t]he baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ."
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
I believe that the injunction to be reconciled begins within myself...
...though it is easy to blame and criticise, to shake one's head and angrily declare what is wrong with the world and those who live in it. It takes not a second thought to tear down and demand change of those whose theology, lifestyles, choices, manners, or culture differs from our own.
Rather do I believe that the true measure of orthodoxy is calculated in the heart, not by the intellect. I believe that the source of what we hold against our brother is deeply rooted in that which we know that we hold against ourselves first.
I believe that the injunction to be reconciled begins within myself.
In spite of everything, I believe in hope...
...though many have been driven to despair and atheism by the image of God as a brutal tyrant by those who insist that the Old Testament directives to the Israelites commanding the extermination of whole peoples be taken historically and literally. There are some portions of contemporary American religious practice that are all too eager to declare what God is "for" or "against", thus making of Him nothing more than a useful tool exploitable for our own fears and suspicions.
Rather, do we hear from Isaiah that which will be true in the next life, if not in this one: "He that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain...For I will not contend forever, neither will I always be wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.... I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners." (Is. 57: 13, 16, 18)
In spite of everything, I believe in hope.
