When you live with an educator, you tend
to start picking up on education lingo. Phrases like, “fixed schemata,” “grade level indicators,” “differentiated
instruction,” “data-driven decision-making” are household terms to me.
Christians use religious jargon all the time,
even without thinking about it. For
example, I remember explaining to a church member that they were to share their
announcement from the “lectern.” “What’s
a ‘lectern,’ they asked?”
“It’s
the churchy word that means, ‘the podium on the opposite side of the pulpit.’”
Here’s another example. “Well, just make sure you put those trays
back in the... sacristy. You do
know where the sacristy is, don’t you?”
You nod your head pretending that you know where the sacristy is
even though the word “sacristy,” sounds more like an artificial sweetener than the
name for a specific room in the church.
You’re talking to someone who’s a member
of another church in town and in comparing churches, you assume this person
will know what you mean when you say, “I’m
curious. How many people can fit inside
your nave?” The person looks at you with a shocked
expression wondering why you think he has a large belly button.
“No,
no. You must have misunderstood me. How many people fit inside your nave,
the place where you worship on Sunday morning?
We call that the nave.”
We throw around so much religious language
without even thinking about it. Words
like, “chancel,” “stoles,” “cherubs,” “altar,” “acolytes,” “liturgist,”
“hymnal,” “font,” and the list goes on and on. We have a religious word for everything.
So we say, “Would you please say that again, and this time, pretend that I’m a 2nd
grader so that I can understand what you’re saying to me?”
There is a lot of truth when we say that
the church should find ways of speaking our faith language in a way that can be
understood. There is no doubt in my mind
that we in the church often take for granted that people will understand our
faith language or pick it up easily without too much help.
I guess it was sometime around the early
90s when I read about a high school that was in the midst of a debate on
whether or not the students would be permitted to say an opening prayer at the
graduation ceremony. The school board
had recently voted to not allow a prayer to be said at the graduation ceremony
for fear of violating the separation of church and state.
But some of the graduating seniors put
pressure on the school board to change their decision and to allow them to say
a prayer at their graduation ceremony.
And because of their persistence on the matter, the school board backed
down and said, “OK. We’ve decided that you can say a prayer at
your graduation ceremony.”
The national news media got
wind of this controversy and on the day of the graduation ceremony, some
reporters showed up to do a story on how the senior class was able to convince
the school board to change their minds.
But to the surprise of the parents, the
school board, those in attendance at the graduation, and members of the news
media, when it was time for one of the seniors to offer a prayer during the
ceremony, nobody stepped forward to the podium to pray at the designated time. After about a minute of awkward silence, the
ceremony continued on without a spoken prayer.
When the graduation ceremony was over, one
of the reporters asked a graduating senior, “Why
didn’t one of your classmates stand up to give the opening prayer during the
ceremony? The school board gave you
permission to say a prayer and it was listed in the program. What happened?”
This graduating senior said, “Well, that was our plan. Someone was going to stand and give the
prayer. The problem was, none of us knew
that the word ‘incoyvation’ was another word for ‘prayer.’” The reporter said, “I believe you mean,’ invocation.’
Not’ incoyvation.’ ‘Invocation,
is a religious word that refers to a prayer that is given in a public ceremony.’”
After hearing a story like that, there
might be some of us who would say that we should do away with religious jargon
all together. And there are people who
don’t see any value in understanding theological doctrines and religious
words. “What’s the point,” they may ask.
“Why make something that should be
easy to understand, like the Christian faith, so complicated?”
George Buttrick was a well
known Presbyterian preacher. Several
years ago, Buttrick was on a plane and writing intently on a legal pad.
His seat mate interrupted him, saying, “I hate to disturb you, but you certainly
seem to be working awfully hard on something.”
Buttrick replied, “Yes, I’m a
preacher and I’m working on this Sunday’s sermon.”
“Oh, religion,” the man
said. “Well I don’t really like to have everything so complex and
theoretical. ‘Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you’ – the Golden Rule, that’s my religion,” this
man said.
“Oh,
I see,” said Buttrick. “And what is it that you do?”
“Well, I’m a professor at a university.
I teach astronomy.”
“Oh, astronomy,” Buttrick
said. “Well, I don’t like to have it all so complex and theoretical. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ – that’s my astronomy.”
Sometimes,
we have a “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”
approach in our attempts to describe God. Let’s dummy things down, we reason. Who is
God? No big deal, right? Webster’s dictionary gives us the answer.
Who is God? Definition #1 – the supreme reality. Definition #2 – The Creator and Ruler of the
Universe.
That’s a good start. But it doesn’t get us to a more complete
picture of the God of the Christian faith.
If we would stop short on that answer alone, we would be settling for a “twinkle, twinkle, little star” language
of faith.
Today is Trinity Sunday which the church
celebrates around this time each year.
It’s a Sunday for the church to reflect on who God is. It’s a Sunday to do exactly what the Psalmist
does when he says in Psalm 8,
“When I
look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you
have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals
that you care for them?”
When I was between 13 and 18
years old, a buddy of mine and I would often lie on our backs on the hood of
his car and on a clear summer night, look up at the sky and just think about
God. Sometimes we would ask each other
questions like, “How did God create all
of this?” But mostly we would just
be still, and not say a word.
Have you ever noticed how easy it can be
to think you know someone when you really don’t? This happens a lot whenever I meet with the
family and have them tell me about their loved one in planning for the funeral
service. Even if I knew that person really
well through the church, I still often discover that there was so much more
about that person that I never even knew.
By hearing the family share, I get a more complete picture of this
person’s life.
If
that’s true among people, that there is so much more that we can know about
each other, just imagine how much more we can know about the creator of the
universe.
In our scripture reading from Romans, the
Apostle Paul really wants us to know more about who God is. Yes, God is the creator and ruler of the
universe, but believe it or not, God is so much more. Paul says that through Jesus Christ, God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been
given to us.
When the early church began to use the
term, “Trinity,” they were referring to the good news which the Apostle Paul is
expressing in this scripture and which is described in many other passages of
scripture as well.
And here’s the best news of all: Because God sent his only Son Jesus to
overcome sin and death through his suffering, death, and resurrection, and has also
given us the Holy Spirit, we can have peace with God.
But
that’s not all. Paul also says that God
will take the sufferings we face in life, and turn those sufferings into
endurance, and from endurance, God will produce character, and from character
God will produce hope, and this hope will never disappoint us.
Here, in just this one passage of scripture,
we can see why the early church came up with the word, “Trinity” to describe
the heart and the essence of who the one true God is. In addition to the dictionary’s definition of
God as the supreme reality and the creator of the universe, the early
Christians saw a unifying interworking of God as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. One God, yet known as three
persons.
And so when we use the word, “Trinity,”
today as part of our language of faith, we do so, not for the purpose of
sounding churchy or religious, but so that we can be reminded of what God has
done for us and continues to do in us.
So if someone should ask you what you mean
when you use the word, “Trinity,” you can tell them about the Father who
created the world, who sent his son, Jesus, to redeem the world, and who has
sent us the Holy Spirit so that we can transform the world.
That’s so much more exciting than simply
saying that God is the supreme reality.
Tell them about the Trinity and the good news of what God has done for
us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As we become more and more familiar with
the language of faith, we discover the good news of who God is.
Just imagine - the God who made the moon
and the stars, the Father; is the one who became flesh and died on the cross
for our sins, the Son; and is also the one who continues to pour out his love
upon us and warm our hearts; the Spirit.
John Wesley was an 18th century
Priest in the Church of England. This Tuesday is the anniversary of when he
felt his heart strangely warmed while at a prayer meeting.
Here was a man who knew the language of
faith better than anyone. We might find it interesting that even though Wesley
was a proponent of education and had himself received a classical education,
that he was also quick to recognize that regardless of our educational
backgrounds, God uses each of us, to share the good news of our faith with
those around us.
In fact, many of Wesley’s lay preachers
had very limited education. On one
occasion, one of these lay preachers preached from Luke 19:21 which says, “Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere
man.” “An austere man.” The word, “austere”
in the context of this scripture reading refers to someone who is severe,
strict, and very stern.
This lay preacher, who had never heard of
the word “austere,” before, mistakenly thought that this Bible verse was
referring to “an oyster man.”
And so, he proceeded to preach
a sermon about the work of people who retrieve oysters from the sea bed even
though it had absolutely nothing to do with what that scripture reading was
trying to convey.
And so he began his oyster sermon this
way,
“The
diver plunges down from the surface, cut off from his natural environment, into
bone-chilling water. He gropes in the
dark, cutting his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. Now he has the oyster, and kicks back up to
the surface, up to the warmth and light and air, clutching in his torn and
bleeding hands the object of his search.
So Christ descended from the glory of heaven into the squalor of earth,
into sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up
with Him to the glory of heaven, his torn and bleeding hands a sign of the
value he has placed on the object of his quest.”
Because of his passionate
preaching on Jesus as our “oyster man,” twelve people ended up giving their
lives to Jesus Christ that evening.
Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about the inappropriateness of
this lay preacher who didn’t know the difference between the word “austere” and
the word “oyster.”
Wesley replied, “It doesn’t matter. What matters
is that the Lord got a dozen oysters tonight.”
Trinity Sunday is a day on the church
calendar that reminds us that we have been given this wonderful vocabulary of
faith. We get to use fancy words like “trinity,” and “gospel,” and
“invocation,” and “sacristy,” and “nave,” not just so that we can sound
“churchy,” but to be able to help us have a better understanding of the good
news of our faith.
Trinity. What a wonderful churchy word!
It’s a shorthand way of helping us to
remember that God, the heavenly father who created the world, and who sent his
son, Jesus, to redeem the world, has also sent us the Holy Spirit so that we
can transform the world.
I can only think of one churchy phrase for
us to say in response to that really, really good news. And that churchy phrase
is,
Thanks be to God!
The
Language of Faith
Small Group Questions
Psalm 8 & Romans
5:1-5
May 22, 2016
Christianity has a lot
of “church” sounding words. We have words like, vestibule, sacristy,
invocation, lectern, etc. The word, “trinity” is another churchy word that
simply refers to the Christian understanding that God is known in three persons
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Rather than try to dissect
and analyze the doctrine of the trinity, share when you have experienced God as
a loving parent (Father) or as a rescuing/redeeming presence (Son), or as a
present help offering guidance and strength (Holy Spirit.)
Psalm 8 invites us to
slow down and join him in reflecting on who God is. “When I look at your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have
established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that
you care for them?”
Share a time when you felt
God’s presence through nature and how that experienced gave you a deeper
appreciation for who God is.
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