Lancaster First United Methodist Church
May 30, 2010
Psalm 8 & Romans 5:1-5
Rev. Robert McDowell

“The Language of Faith”

When you live with an educator, you tend to start speaking like an educator. “Honey, we haven’t talked for a while. Please tell me more about the ‘No Child Left Behind’ legislation, please. I just love when you talk about the NCLB.”

Without even thinking about it, she slips foreign jargon into our conversations. Phrases like, “fixed schemata,” “grade level indicators,” “differentiated instruction,” “data-driven decision-making.”

Christians use religious jargon all the time, even without thinking about it. For example, we might say, “Following the worship service, you can greet the pastor in the narthex.” And the person we’re speaking with wonders why we just can’t say, the front entrance of the church instead.

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 a new 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.

Some would say that since we are living in an increasingly unchurched culture, that we should refrain or at least minimize our use of religious words and make things simpler and more understandable. We often hear this same request when it comes to doctors talking with their patients or attorneys speaking with their clients.

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 an 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.’”

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 riding on a commercial airliner 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. And I must say, it’s not that bad. It at least gets us going in the right direction.

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, you and I 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.

When our daughter, Naomi, was only about 4 or 5 years old, I took her to the Dayton airport with me to pick up my brother who was flying in from out of state for Thanksgiving. The flight ended up being delayed a long time and it got kind of boring waiting there.

During that long wait, I remember taking her over to one of the large windows to look at the different planes on the runway. And as we were looking out the window, she totally surprised me when she started repeating these words. And remember, she was only 4 or 5 years old at the time.

“On the night when Jesus was betrayed, he took break, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take and eat. This is my body broken for you.”

And without missing a beat, she kept on going. “And then he took the cup, and after he blessed it, he gave it to his disciples and said, ‘This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins, and as often as you drink it, remember me.”

Over and over again, she repeated these words from the communion ritual as we waited in the airport. She had heard these religious phrases so many times both in worship services and as she would accompany me in my nursing home visits of church members which often ended in the offering of Holy Communion, that these words had now become her language of faith.

This past Monday was the 272nd anniversary of when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had his heart warming experience at a prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street in London, England.

In his journal for that day, Wesley writes, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

For Wesley, an Anglican Priest, who knew all the religious jargon and was steeped in the language of faith, his heart warming experience changed not only his life, but also ignited a movement that continues to this day.

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.

What appropriate faith language can we use to express our gratitude for what the triune God has done for us? Is there any faith language that can help us offer praise and worship to this one who is known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

There are many churchy phrases to choose from. But here’s a good one.

“Thanks be to God!”



Thoughts for the Week
1. The Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday is John 16:12-15. As you reflect on this reading, take note of the three persons of the Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What are their roles? How are they the same?

2. When someone who does not have a religious background visits our church, what religious words might be confusing to them? How might our church help them to understand the meaning of “the language of faith?”