Margaret's Bench -- April 2008
Every Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
in Port Townsend, we stand and say the Nicene Creed together. It
is my least favorite part of the service.
Written in the fourth century by a collection of bishops whose
job it was to clarify the tenets of the Christian faith and
refute contemporary heresies, the Nicene Creed starts out “We
believe in one God,” then digs in to describe Christianity’s
triune deity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the wrap-up
before “Amen,” the Creed also brings in the universal church,
baptism, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the
world to come as the basic elements of the Christian faith.
In my book
Stumbling Toward God, I recounted my struggles with the
Nicene Creed when I first returned to church in the mid 1990’s,
the slow process of interpreting its words so that I could say
it truthfully, and my discomfort at saying a corporate statement
of faith in unison every Sunday at all. Though I came to like,
love, or at least tolerate most of the prayers in the Episcopal
Book of Common Prayer, my discomfort with saying the Creed every
Sunday never went away.
The Nicene Creed is not a bad piece of writing, overall. It has
held up remarkably well for eighteen hundred years. Given their
era and political situation, I think the bishops did okay. I
just wouldn’t put it quite that way myself. And yes, I do think
that words matter.
This year, on the first weekend after Easter, I joined the women
of St. Stephen’s Episcopal church, Longview, Washington, for
their women’s retreat at the Ocean Park Retreat Center and Camp
on Washington’s Pacific coast. We shared stories and good food,
and we had ourselves some wild weather. On Saturday afternoon, a
group of the women wrote this creed:
We believe in a mother father God of
wonder
Creator of mountains and all hills
Fruit trees and all cedars
Wild animals and creatures of the ocean
Creeping things and flying birds.
We believe in God’s son Jesus
The giver of life, maker of life-bearers
Who formed us in our mothers’ wombs
And called us to nurture, guide, and support one
another.
We believe in the Holy Spirit who opens our hearts
And leads us into community
Where we care for one another
and learn to trust
and find healing in our lives.
At the retreat’s closing service on March 30, we read that creed
aloud, and I had no trouble saying its words. They were not a
box to fit my faith in, but an expression of shared faith in
community. I could say that creed right off without translation
or laborious interpretation, and I could also take its words
lightly. On another day we’d probably state our faith a little
differently. That feels fine.
Next Sunday, I’ll stand with my friends at St. Paul’s for the
Nicene Creed. Though the words will be the same, I doubt if the
moment will be as uncomfortable as it’s been on other Sundays.
Instead of wrestling with the bishops’ phrasings, I might be
thinking something like this:
“Okay, that’s one way to put it. Not exactly the words I’d use,
but I can see where they’re coming from and where they’re trying
to go. Wish I’d been there to help the guys piece it together
and try it out for the first time.”
In terms of my own faith journey, that’s
progress.
-- Margaret
Notes
Scriptures used in writing the creed and other prayers at the
retreat include Isaiah 49:1-6; Romans 5:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16,
and Psalm 148, which is also this month’s passage for
Lectio + Haiku.
To read other prayers written at the St. Stephen’s Women’s
Retreat, see the Easter page.
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