The Apostles’ Creed, First Article

in Light of  theShooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, S.C.

 

I would like to initially interrupt our sermon series on our review of Luther’s Small Catechism. And yet, what I want to address is so closely related to our study, particularly in reference to the 10 Commandments and this week’s topic of The Apostles’ Creed, 1st Article.

Unless you have been away from a T.V., you are aware of the situation that has unfolded in Charleston, S.C. Nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church murder while in Bible study. The suspect being a white racist/supremacist. An individual who sought to divide blacks and whites by inciting a race war.

We cannot but vaguely imagine such a situation occurring in our community. Someone who might seek to divide our community. People who see themselves in the light of a privileged position. Certainly we would not imagine such a terror taking place here in our midst. After all, we don’t have that problem here. It is not part of our culture here. We are much more sensitive and sensible here. I hope that is us. I hope we are not excluding and dividing ourselves from others based on anything.

However, the real center of this story, that hides behind the images of African-American, church, and violence, is a false sense of religiosity. People who think they have a God-given authority, who usurp God’s authority, who seek to take the place of God in who is in, and who is out. As we heard three weeks ago in the reflection on the 1st – 3rd Commandments and our relationship to God, individuals like Dylann Roof have arranged their priorities, their wills, feelings over God’s. The Second Table of the Law has no bearing on their lives. Their image of God is not that of The Apostles’ Creed.

There are individuals who misconstrue the image of God as a God who chooses one over another, who reigns with viciousness, who abuses his power, and then they seek to represent that image in their own lives. Or perhaps, it’s just a lack of God in their lives.

The image I prefer to portray is the image that my own father, and mother, set before me. The image they drew directly from Scriptures. God as the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen. God who not only created, but who takes an active part in continuing to create and support life in me and in the world. And not just for me, but for all people, of every race, of every creed, and of every lifestyle.

It is not only my physical needs and body, but also my mind and reasoning abilities. That means we have God’s gift to think and to talk and to listen to others, and, to try and understand who they are as God has called them. And he does this for all people, of ever race, of every creed, and of every lifestyle.

My own father demonstrated God for me. There are no vivid memories of us playing catch, but what I do remember is this. He would invite me to ride on the tractor with him as he went about the work of constantly providing for his family and the world. I got to participate in the activity of “dad.” I had my times of childhood play, but I enjoyed as much working with “dad” in the field and in the barn as I did watching the clouds go by.

Later in the evening, when he took his rest, his evening Sabbath, I’d climb into his lap and rest in his arms. There was no greater comfort and joy.

There are no two events I treasure more than working with my father and resting in his arms. God is like that.

God invites us to join him in the fields, in the barns, to participate in his work of creation and nurturing and providing for the family and the world. God loves to watch us at play, but he loves it when we want to join him in “his business.” And when the Sabbath comes, he invites us to join him in his bosom, on his lap, the church where we can rest and hear him tells us, “I love you.” And that is where my father took seriously his God-given position as father, making sure I was in church and Sunday School.

This is what the first article of The Apostles’ Creed is all about. God is Creator/Sustainer of all that we are and have. As Luther’s explanation to the First Article says, “…all this is done out of pure, fatherly and divine goodness and mercy” and  “for all of this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.”

This is the God that not only we rely upon, these are the arms that Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, rests in this morning. Trusting and leaning, as the gospel song says, “on the everlasting arms.” Let us join them in their shock, suffering and loss, there in the arms of God the Father Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of all, who says, “I love you” and in the tumult, declares, “Peace! Be still!.” 

This is most certainly true.

Amen.

 

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