Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

August 10, 2008 - Proper 14 (A)

The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks

Romans 10:5-15

 In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The other day I was listening to a radio show about community planning.  Specifically the benefit of creating communities whereby your place of work is in close proximity to your home.  Because as common sense might tell you – a pleasant commute between the two is a major factor in ensuring a lower stress level and higher contentment level at both locations. So as I was listening to this, I said a little prayer of thanksgiving – because I love my place of work and I love my commute!  It’s an easy and relaxing drive for me to get to St. Philip’s and I have a few different routes to choose from – depending on my mood and how quickly, or not, I want to get here.   And, something else that I really like is that no matter which way I go – I always pass by a healthy handful of churches.  I’m sure you would not be surprised to learn, I like churches.  It is meaningful to me to drive by so many houses of prayer on my way to this house of prayer. It fills me with a sense of connection and some curiosity.  Connection because even though these churches represent different denominations and different belief systems, we are connected to them; we are all faith communities.  And curious because this always begs the question, then, if we are different communities, with different beliefs – does that mean we have different faith, differing levels of faith? Is there a correlation between specific statements of belief and a quantity of faith? Exactly what is the relationship between beliefs and faith?  Well these questions are major themes in both of the New Testament readings this morning – and they are questions that play a large part in our own individual faith journeys – the faith journey of this worshipping congregation – and these questions are central, I believe, to issues being faced within our Anglican Communion.

As Episcopalians, I think, we take quite a bit of flack for being “too” open (whatever that may mean) in our doctrine.  I’ve heard and read more than a few people complain that we as a religion are “wishy-washy.” Oh, you Episcopalians – anything goes with you guys!  God is love – after that you don’t know what you believe. For example, the Doctrine of Transubstantiation – the belief that the wafers and wine change and become the body and blood of Christ.  Yes you can believe that, if you want to.  There are only two sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist, instituted by Christ – yes that is true – but you can also believe that there are seven.  I’m not going to list them.  That can be homework.  We’re catholic.  Nope, we’re Protestant.  Well, we’re both.  I could go on.  But you see my point, and maybe you’ve wondered about this yourself.  Because while we hold that certain beliefs are truth, we also hold that truths aren’t always black and white, yes or no.  Discerning truth is done in community and individually – through studying scripture, by taking into consideration the traditions and teachings of the church, and by making use of our own God-given abilities to contextualize, reason, and wrestle with the questions.  That means, for Episcopalians, that attaining definitive clarity on some issues is rarely easy and that inevitably, there will be disagreement on certain subjects.

Well this is something that many laity, priests, and bishops are asking the Communion to address.  At our once-per-decade Lambeth Conference that just concluded, there was continued discussion on the proposition before the bishops that we adopt an Anglican Covenant – a document to be developed and accepted by all our members that outlines the theological principles which hold the Communion together.  Some believe this would make clear once and for all what the Anglican Communion is, what it is that we believe, and hence what exactly we condone or condemn.  Others see this as a first step down a slippery slope towards a confessional document, a way to theologically test authentic membership.  Well, personally, I was relieved to hear our Presiding Bishop during a webcast on Thursday, share her takeaway on this topic. “There was great willingness,” she said, “to think about a covenant that spoke positively about what we do share as members of the communion. There was really no interest in producing a covenant that defined who could be excluded.”  I take those words to signify that a majority of just under 700 bishops from 37 of the 38 Anglican provinces, of which only about 20% are from our Episcopal Church, hear the words of Paul as I hear them this morning: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.  For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

In this morning’s epistle, Paul is addressing people clamoring for some clarity of doctrine.  Unlike his letters to the Corinthians or Thessalonians, he is not writing to a church that he founded.  He was not the leader of this particular group – and, scholars tell us, that this wasn’t one cohesive group at all.  In Romans, Paul writes to the members of a loosely knit together group of household communities, founded by various leaders from Jerusalem.  And these leaders and these communities are looking at each other and at their varied beliefs trying to figure out which one is right - who amongst them are the true followers of the law and who, subsequently, may be considered righteous.  With seemingly different types of faith how is it possible that they are all saved?  Paul answers with the statement of faith we make every Sunday – it is possible because Christ lived, died and was resurrected so that we may bear fruit for God.  And through this radically transformative act, any previously held definition of our relationship to and with God – our understanding that there was something we had to do to satisfy God, to be considered by God to be righteous – well, that died.  Now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

For Paul, righteousness is not defined as a label that God bestows based on following rules.  Righteousness is not about adhering to a document of doctrinal beliefs.  Righteousness is to be experienced by Christ’s followers as an active power of God – a power that reaches out to change the world first through Christ, then with the Spirit bestowed by God on all faith communities.  Which is why he believes it is not a fruit of the Spirit for this community to be worrying over the letter of the law.  Instead the energy of the faith community is to be spent inviting, calling, and nurturing any and all who have come to sit at their table.  So this is why  I am heartened by our Presiding Bishop’s words.  I lean towards the side of being leery that our Communion needs to adopt a covenant of our creation.  Our being in relationship with one another – cooperation between all of these faith communities, despite differing beliefs – is living into God’s covenant.  If our Communion of 80 million members representing churches from 160 countries with I’m sure more various belief statements that I can really conceive of, if we can work together on behalf of the world, can stay together as a body of Christ in the world – I see that as a powerful testimony of faith of our deep and abiding trust in God’s established covenant. 

And that is what I hope my relationship between my beliefs and my faith is all about: God’s covenant with us.  God showing us, God reminding us time and again that God has an empowering faith in who we are and in what we can do.  For me, that’s what Jesus wants Peter to get.  Peter sinks not because of a lack of belief or faith in God; Peter doubts God’s faith in him.  “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from Christ,” Paul writes.  Well, this morning we hear Jesus say, step out of the boat.  No matter what you may believe regarding the feasibility of actually walking on water, Jesus tells Peter, you are capable of the miraculous. But it is too fearful a thing for Peter in that moment to trust those hands of God.  His beliefs are his own stumbling block to having faith in what God is calling him to do.

I hope our Communion answers God’s call to remain in community.  As bearing faithful witness in the world of the trust that God works with and through us, despite our many flaws and doubts.  I hope all of us individually and as a worshipping community are listening for and responding to whatever boat Jesus is calling us to step out of – even if it seems impossible based on what we may believe.  “The way to faith is the way of faith” writes the Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel.  Statements, concepts, doctrines and dogmas – whatever we write down on paper – does not, ultimately, convey what it is we believe.  It is through being disciples of Christ, through our living, our active response to God that we proclaim who we are and whose we are.  In the words of Paul that is how it is made known to all of the world according to the command of the eternal God, what it is to bring about the obedience of faith – to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever!  Amen.

Sources Consulted:

Heschel, Abraham J.  God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judiasm.  New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976.

Thomas, Owen C. and Ellen K. Wondra, eds. Introduction to Theology, 3^rd ed.  Morehouse Publishing, 2002.

© 2006, Saint Philip's Episcopal Church
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 218, Durham, NC 27702
Telephone 919-682-5708, Fax 919-683-1857

Webmasters: Jack Mitchell, David Smith