“Why do we have to say the Nicene Creed every Sunday? It really doesn’t describe what I believe.” I have been asked this question several times, in every location where I have served. So, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you how I connect with this creed.
My connection begins at the beginning: WE. That word, in that place, for me, is a statement in itself. We reminds me that I am not on this believing journey alone. Rather, I am in the company of fellow travelers, pilgrims on a journey of discovery that we share. We implies connectedness and, moreover, a commitment to that connectedness.
When I regard my worshipping community on any given Sunday, whether from the pew as a congregant or from the front of the church as the celebrant, I feel spiritual embrace – a profound sense that we are in this together, that our individual life journeys have brought each of us to a specific place at a specific time. Our individual reasons for being there are as varied and as different as we are. Yet, there we are.
And there is another word in the creed that indicates for me not what we believe, but how we believe. That small, and you might think insignificant, word is in. The Nicene Creed does not state, “We believe that….” This is very important to me. When I recite the creed, what I am thinking is not of a list of tenets of theological doctrine and dogma. Rather, I am professing, with gratitude, my being in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, and in the fellowship of the Church. In this spiritual place is how I believe. Being in this spiritual place enables me to believe. This is the spiritual place from which my believing comes.
If there were only one true and right way for Christians to express their beliefs, and if this expression had to be in creedal form, then we would see excluded from the faith many groups, denominations, and individuals. Creedal statements associated with Christianity abound. One of my favorites is one I use every time I do a chapel service for a school or school class of young children, or when I do a service focusing on children for a congregation. It came to me as the CHILDREN’S CREED. It is my pleasure to share it with you:
I believe in God above;
I believe in Jesus’ love.
I believe the Spirit, too,
Comes to teach me what to do.
I believe that I can be
Kind and loving, Lord, like thee.
My hope is that together we can be in a spiritual place where believing brings us joy and grace and peace.
Bev+