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Dear Friends, One of the interesting things about teaching is that you learn some tricks! I'm sure that all teachers would have favorites ones. In part, it depends on the subjects you teach, or have taught. One of my subjects - albeit some time ago now - was Philosophy, where many thinkers are concerned with the notion of 'truth'. Now, you might think, that is an easy idea to get across. Something is either true, or it is not. Something is either, right or it wrong. Well, and this is also in the best traditions of teaching, the answer is really: 'yes and no'. 'Yes', there is such a thing as truth. But 'No', it may not always be as easy to get to as we would like. This is where the trick comes in. To make the point, I would place an object on my desk in front of the class, sometimes a board rubber, wood, on one side, and felt on the other. I would stand it, end-up, and then ask two different students sitting on opposite sides to the 'prop', to describe what they saw. One, of course, would describe the shiny, pine wooded handle. The other would describe the felt underside, used to clean the board. And hey presto! The point is made. That there can be more than one truth - or perhaps different aspects of the same truth; and that an understanding of truth depends upon what you see, and where you sit. In other words, every individual, by virtue of their background, prejudice, experience, values, senses and so much more, will have a different take on, a different understanding of, what they are engaging with.... So truth may be 'one', but our understanding of it rarely is. Again, other examples, quickly illustrate this point. After this Service, you will each remember different things. Different parts will speak (hopefully) to you in different ways. There is a 'truth' to what happens here, but each of us, will see it in profoundly personal and different ways. The same applies to our sense of God. I can tell you, that I believe in God. I can tell you what God means to me. You, of course, could do the same. But I would be amazed if all agreed, in either our descriptions or definitions of the Divine. God is simply too big. We are simply too small. And all of us are different, in our tastes, temperaments, background and so forth. We may be able to sense the Divine, feel the Divine, encounter the Divine in the person of Jesus, evidence the Divine in values, experience, nature and his human example, but to comprehend God, we would have to be God. And yet, in human creeds we seek to do exactly that. We seek to comprehend God! My contention is simple, creeds can never define God! And, therefore, as a precondition for church membership, fellowship, or worship, they are entirely inappropriate. Collective creeds privilege man over God, and assume - with a breathtaking arrogance - that God can be second guessed! Of course, the desire to write things down, to give weight to words over faith is all too human. Religious legalism has always been a feature of human history. It arguably reached its zenith in the ever-more obscure rules and regulation of the Pharisees of the time of St. Paul, as if God could ever be found in law, when faith was required. All this legalism swept away by Jesus. He reduces it all, to the Great Commandment and an act of faith: to love God, with everything you are, and to love neighbour as self. But I do wonder, whether ever since, and bit by bit, so many of our denominations have been trying to bring it all back, to build it all up again: catechism by catechism, doctrine by doctrine, creed by creed. I sometimes think that we need to be reminded that we can never reach God by logic, catechism, doctrine, or creed, but by faith alone. And that is why our readings are important, for they show us, that our Unitarian and Free Christian faith is a free faith, but also that, freedom must be balanced with responsibility. Henri de Tourville, in his 'Letters of Direction', calls on us to follow our own light. Effectively to seek our own relationship with God, and in so doing we seek the Way of Jesus. The Way, that looked for and found oneness with God, but not with the suffocating religious niceties of the day. Tourville, cautions us against those who claim to 'know', cautions us against, simply seeking agreement with others, as if God can be encountered through a majority vote, when it is a personal spiritual journey that is necessary; and that may lead to agreement with creedal statements, but it should never be conditional upon them! Faith is relational - and personal! As Torville, wrote: "We must therefore free ourselves absolutely of this anxious desire to be at one with other souls, however virtuous or wise they may be; just as we must never expect them to see through our eyes. We must follow our own light as though we alone in the world, save as regards charity to others. In purely private matters, we must never be deflected in our path." Unitarians would, of course, agree, but there is a 'but' and it is important! In following the solitary path of Jesus, we must recall that we are not he. We need to balance our free faith with responsibility, lest we lose our way. We are called to a free faith, a non-creedal faith, a relational faith, a personal and ever-deepening faith, but also to a balanced faith, a settled-faith and - in the best sense of the word - a moderated faith. And this is where, our reading from Galatians 5:13-18, comes in. St. Paul got it first time! Yes, we are called to do what's right and not what's popular. Yes, it is the spirit and not the letter. And yes, creeds risk thickets of thorns, where sun-lit fields of God could be, but we still need compass, exercising faith within community. As St. Paul says: "It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life, just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to whatever you to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love, that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence. Love others as you love yourself." And this brings us back to creeds! Creeds limit freedom, discourage spiritual growth, and undermine the community needed for faith. God will never be defined by the words of man. Of course, Individual creeds can be useful as we reflect on faith, but they can never be a substitute for that belief in God: which is felt in the heart, which stirs the soul, and which inspires the mind. Jesus, the Master, cut through all the legalism, and philosophies of his day, with the radical simplicity of the Great Commandment, and with his call to: 'follow'. No creeds, no doctrines. Simply, the call to follow his Way of sacrificial love; to love God and neighbour as self - and his call requires no creedal responses save one: the word 'Yes' spoken by each of us, in the heart. Amen.
The Reverend Christopher Wilson, MA |