In response to another request, here is a reflection on the Christian faith statement known as the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed is an ancient expression from the early Church that came about in response to various false teachings (heresies) about who Jesus was, and what he, and his life, meant. Although it is old, this creed was not formulated by the Twelve Apostles who were among the first followers called by Jesus. In fact, the version we now have today was first developed in Gaul (France) in the Fifth Century.

As people in the spiritually and religiously bankrupt Roman Empire came into contact with the teachings of and about this Jesus, known as the Christ, many wanted to join the believers. In order to sort out and prepare those who were serious about becoming Christian, the Church developed a process whereby one could understand this new faith and its implications. It was (and is) called the catechumenate.  After extensive instruction and scrutiny by the community and before receiving Baptism, the catechumens were asked a series of questions about the core tenets of the faith.

These questions were based on teachings of the early Church Fathers. They explored God as Father and Creator, Jesus as God-Man, Son and Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Sanctifier. Then they moved on into the nature of Church and of the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, bodily resurrection, and life in all its fullness with God. The response to these questions formed the first Christian creeds.

There is one line in the Apostles Creed that is difficult for us who live centuries after its origins. “He (Jesus) descended into hell.” What could this possibly mean? First of all, this line was not in the Roman Creed that preceded the Apostles Creed. Secondly, this is a bad translation. The more accurate form is “He descended to the place of the dead.” 

To say that Jesus descended to the dead can mean three things: he emptied himself completely unto death; he was buried in a grave; and / or he went to the abode of those who had died prior to him. Jesus did not go to hell. Hell, as later taught, didn’t exist in Jewish or Greek religious thought of the First Century.  Sheol (Hebrew) or Hades (Greek) were the names given to where people thought they went after they died. This place was like a dark, timeless waiting area.

The Eastern Orthodox Church has a rich tradition of teaching deep theological and spiritual truths through the use of icons. An icon is a symbolic contemplation on realities of faith that results a profound image in which every detail matters, every aspect speaks. In Orthodox teaching, Jesus’ “three days” after death included a journey to the realm of the dead, where the souls of those who had gone before were. This movement by Jesus is captured in countless icons.

Since the dead were supposed to have gone down somewhere. This journey by Jesus was imagined as a descent. The third descent of Jesus: first from his place with Abba-God into our humanity, second from life to death, and finally to the place of the dead. He went to those who had died to announce to them the Good News (gospel) of God’s stronger-than-death love, to free them from the confines of their old ways of understanding, and to shatter forever death as a “dead-end.” Whatever Jesus accomplished by his faithful living, now through his death is available to all people of all times and places – including us. No matter what realm we find ourselves in!

This continues a series of reflections on topics suggested by readers. With the rise of the modern emphasis on the individual, community has become misunderstood and devalued. What is community? Why is community? How does community happen?

Community blends valuing the individual with our human need for belonging. It’s not either one or the other; it’s both. We all need people with whom we are able to feel “at home.” Unfortunately this doesn’t always occur within our families. In community we come together, not because we are required to, but because we want to. And we want to, due to the fact that here we feel like we are needed, that we are important, that we can help other people to feel good and happy about themselves. In community we, all of us, and our lives, make a positive difference. It’s simply good to be together.

Just by showing up, being together, and sharing who we are – which is at the heart of any community – life is better. We may do things together, but this is secondary to getting to know, and to care about, one another. We learn to do things with, not for one another. What we choose to do flows from who we are and what we discover we are called to do. Each and every member helps us in some way to decide how we will develop together. If our community meetings become stale or boring, there can be a number of causes.

The first place to look is our context. What is going on in our lives right now? Are things peaceful and stable, or is our life tense and uncertain? It is very difficult to be inspired or creative if our world is turned upside down. Another area to examine is our attitude toward one another and toward our community. Are we open to continually discover each other, or have we stopped at a place where we feel comfortable? We are all constantly changing. We are all brand new each moment. Do we treasure each other enough to seek more deeply what we do not yet know? Or, it could just be that we’ve found it easier to plan community events without getting input from all the members.

Community is about personal relationships. We grow in our knowledge of each other’s preferences and needs through spending time and interacting with one another. Personal relationships thrive on honesty and truthfulness in sharing – always in the context of love. We can say we love someone, but if we cannot be truthful with them, this is not love, but a superficial emotion – sentimentality. If we feel we must be truthful with someone, but we express this truth in an uncaring or unloving way, this is using truth as a weapon. In both cases hurt and harm come to people.

The secret is to learn, through practice, how to say what needs to be said in a way that is both honest and caring. When we love someone we can do this, even when it is not very easy to do. When mutual love is the basis for our interrelating our community becomes stronger, and a strong community can weather harsh storms. As with so much in life, it begins with love.

We who are enlightened Christians give a high place to love among the possible responses to almost any person or situation. We believe that Jesus came among us, called us to follow him, and gave all his life-energy out of love. He taught us that the very essence of God is love. Jesus commands us to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Yet there seem to be countless times when love appears to fall short of what is truly needed. We sense that our love doesn’t change things, or make them better. This can feel paralyzing.

Love, in classic thought, is defined as desiring what is truly good for someone, and doing what one can to bring that good about. A wise person used to say, “If someone has a toothache, it does little good to say, ‘I hope you feel better soon,’ or ‘I’ll pray your tooth is healed.’ You can love that person a lot, but if you don’t do what you can to make sure they get to a good dentist, have you really helped them?” The question is, “What, concretely, do they need to be well, or free, or more fully alive?”

The parable in the Gospel of Luke known as the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) pictures a victim of assault and robbery on the busy highway between Jerusalem and Jericho – a “high-crime” area. Two professional clergy-types, good people, see the bleeding victim, and choose to pass on by without so much as a, “God bless you,” or “I’ll pray for you.” They have God’s business to attend to, and besides, coming in contact with blood would make them ritually unclean, not to mention that it might stain their holy robes.

Along comes a businessman, who happens to be a Samaritan (hated enemy of those who claimed to be true and faithful Israelites), who sees the wounded person, is filled with compassion, stops and cares for him. The Samaritan cleans and bandages the man’s wounds, puts him on his donkey, takes him to a nearby inn, spends the day treating him, and gives the innkeeper money to see to the stranger’s needs.

This is love. It doesn’t matter that the victim is unknown to the Samaritan. The Samaritan sees, acts, and stays with the other. He does what is needed, going above and beyond simple first-aid. Even though he had business elsewhere! 

There are innumerable situations and persons in need in our world today. No one can do all that is required to help or improve them. But this is not an excuse to do nothing. We can care, and pray, and do what little we can in our tiny corner of the planet. If we cry out to God to make things better, we need to be prepared for God to call us to do something (but not everything) ourselves. Love starts with seeing, and flows into action.

This is the second in a series of reflections based on requests from readers. Today it’s a question about living one’s faith. It seems to me that it could be helpful to begin by looking at how faith is described in the Bible. Hint: It’s not about believing in religious authorities, nor about believing (or even understanding) any teachings. Faith is always about God.

Abram and Sarai left their home, family, people, country, and gods out of some sense of invitation or call. This call, though they sensed it in their hearts, came to them from something or SomeOne outside of them. They didn’t invent it out of a desire for adventure, or for a change of scenery. There was an urgency to respond, to act, to follow this invitation – that their lives would be incomplete, or unfulfilled if they chose to not act on it. 

Why? The Bible indicates that Abram and Sarai left the security of what they had known up to that point in their life to go into the unknown because they trusted Whoever or whatever was drawing them in that direction. Trust is the first component of faith. Abram and Sarai were faithful.

We place our trust in what we sense, feel, or have experience of as being reliable. This could be a person or persons, our own intuition, or even a reality that is unknown, yet solid and compelling. Trust is not certainty. It always involves some risk. But whatever risk  is there seems worth it. Faith is primarily unconditional trust in the absolute reliability of God.

Of course, this trust does not and cannot guarantee that things will happen, or turn out, the way we would like them to. Trust implies that, whatever happens, there is opportunity that some good will come out of our response. Faith asks for our wholehearted “yes” to God. What we do, and how we do it, flows from this deep trust, especially in the face of the unknowable.

A second component of faith as depicted in the Bible is a growing and intimate relationship with God. Let’s look at Moses. Moses, according to the biblical narrative, had fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian. He married and tended the flocks of his father-in-law. One day he noticed a bush in the wilderness that seemed to be on fire, yet it wasn’t burning. Moses went to see what it was and God, a god Moses didn’t know, encountered him there, and called him to set his people free from their slavery.

Moses was reluctant and tried to talk God out of this mission. God insisted. When God insists, it’s better to go along with what God asks. Moses did lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Obviously he had the skills necessary to do this. God knew this. Over the years Moses had repeated encounters with God and their relationship deepened and grew. Through these personal meetings, Moses’s faith became stronger.

We can have, grow, and develop our relationship with God through spending time together regularly, listening and talking, in prayer. Through these personal conversations with God we can come to know what God’s desires are for us and for all creation. Out of this intimacy we can live and act more and more as God desires.

A third component is highlighted in the Gospel of John – believing is seeing. In English we have the saying seeing is believing. It’s as if we need to experience something with our senses before we can consider trusting. John’s Gospel turns this around. When we believe we see. But what do we see? Through growing trust in, and evolving intimacy with God, we can begin to see reality from God’s perspective – which is very different from ours. We can see God present with, in, and through our very humanity.

God’s perspective of all-inclusive love and compassion moves us to act only out of love and compassion. When we trust, come to know God through prayer, and see through God’s eyes more fully, our actions help to establish God’s Reign here on earth. Believe it!

We’re already more than a third of the way through the season of Lent. Today is the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. By the way, the word Lent, in English, comes from the Old English word for Spring – that time of year marked by the emerging of new life all around. This is a time of birth and rebirth, a season of growth, renewal, and with renewal a renewed energy of hope. Life goes on, despite all the best efforts of winter, and ours, to suppress it.

In the Christian tradition, there is evidence that the institution of a prolonged time of fasting and other practices to prepare believers for the great Feast of Easter began during the time of the apostles. In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea established the 40 day period of fasting and penance, based on the great fasts described in the Bible of Elijah, Moses and Jesus, as the standard way for persons who were seeking to enter the Body of Christ through Baptism.

To become members of the Church these petitioners needed to prepare themselves, and the whole Church accompanied them in the penitential actions. Nowadays Lent is practiced, in some form, by all the mainline Christian churches. In the East it is referred to as the time of “bright sadness” – the necessary period of repentance in anticipation of the joyful celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection.

For those of us who follow the path through Lent year after year with the same practices and liturgical readings it can become routine. It can lose its savor for us. Lent is not about “beating ourselves up” because we’re sinners. It’s just a fact that we sin, that we act unlovingly, untruthfully, self-centeredly. Lent is an opportunity for us to fine-tune our life to be more in line with the Gospel. But this takes intentional action.

We need to discover and to choose practices that help us to counter those aspects of our life that are hindering us from being more fully the person God desires us to be. The Church maintains that prayer, fasting and acts of charity are surefire means to confront and to overcome our spiritual bad habits. But these can become just another part of background noise of our lives if we don’t take time to regularly remember why we’re doing them.

At Easter we are invited to recall, relive and to celebrate our own Baptism. We have been immersed, plunged into the mystery of Life beyond death. We have already sacramentally tasted and shared in the Resurrection of Jesus. It is God’s enduring love, embodied in Jesus, that impels us to desire and to act toward becoming our true selves. So, we engage ourselves each day of Lent in those practices that we have found actually help us to grow in this way.

This morning, in our Men’s Spirituality Group, the always evolving conversation came around to the Scripture readings for these first days of Lent. Both the prophet Isaiah and Jesus are railing against hypocrites and hypocrisy. This pushed me to do some study on the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic terms used in the Bible that are translated as hypocrite.

One of the men, who enjoys exploring words, came up with the meaning for hypocrite as “actor.” Yes, and there’s more. It’s true that the Greek words upo (low, below, behind, beneath) and crites (interpret, judge, explain) combined to describe those who performed in classical Greek drama. Each character was represented by a huge mask.

The audience never sees the real person. Even if there were multiple characters in the play and only one actor, he would come on stage with the different masks, at the right moment, according to the script. He would deliver his lines from behind the mask. The actor on stage was always “two-faced” (his own beneath the mask’s).

We know the usual meaning of hypocrite – someone who says one thing, but does the opposite – contradicting their message and diluting the authority of their voice. Someone who pretends to be someone or something one is not – hiding one’s real self, covering his / her true identity, presenting themselves as a very different character. 

When Jesus was calling out the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites he may have used a Greek, a Hebrew, or an Aramaic term. Any of the three is possible. Or, maybe Jesus used implications from all three??? The Hebrew word, chaneph, is strong = corrupt, soiled by sin (unclean), godless. The Aramaic combines two words that together mean “face-taker” (similar to the Greek sense) – one who isn’t what he / she seems.

Jesus accused these religious leaders of misleading the people through their pretense. They outwardly displayed righteousness (as in doing the right thing, putting on a show) while being, at heart, insincere and downright deceitful. They were more concerned with appearances than with genuine faith and obedience to God. They tended to wedge their reading of the Law between the people and God, putting the Law above the living God. They substituted external practice for having a personal relationship with God.

The irony is that the true meaning of righteousness in the Scriptures is to be in right relationship with God, others and self. It is very close to the biblical concept of justice, treating others as God treats us. Righteousness goes far beyond simply doing what looks right. It seems that Jesus could be inviting us to live out of our truest, deepest selves this Lent. This is how we can honor God.

How many people are essentially helpless and vulnerable?  These human beings cannot “make it on their own,” They can’t because they don’t have the basic capacity or skills necessary to even begin to navigate life in our world. If they don’t have others to care for them and to protect them, they can’t survive. These people are completely unable to produce anything tangible or to directly contribute to the economy of their village or country. To some, maybe to too many, they are useless, a burden, a waste of resources. Perhaps they are among those to whom Jesus referred when he spoke about the littlest and the least.

It is easy to question why they exist. What is their purpose? What could possibly be the meaning of their lives? Of what value are these totally dependent human beings? This is utilitarian thinking, not Gospel-thinking. 

In primitive societies, and in times of raw survival, these folks are near the top of the list to be eliminated – for the good of the others. Let them die, so we can live. They are too old, too frail, too broken, or too disabled to be of any practical good. We can’t waste our precious, limited, vital supplies on them. It’s sad, but we must let them go.  

Tragically, there have been times and places, even in recent history, in order to try to create a society of the strongest, the best, the brightest, anyone considered to be less than optimally human was disposed of. In modern parlance they were categorized as “losers.” This pigeonholing of people exalts some and tears others down. And losers, even those who get the silver medal, are worthless. This way of designating human beings offers a twisted rationale for dismissing, or directly or indirectly killing, those whom the “winners” label as such.

It is incomprehensible that some modern countries today, especially those that live with super-abundance, still think so primitively. They continue to see some people as less than human, and therefore not deserving of being treated with dignity, respect, or even basic care. As always, the true reason is fear. Fear of what? That there won’t be enough to go around? Absurd!

Fear that these “defective” creatures are truly human? But they’re different than us, so they can’t be like us. Having a “THEM” to fear is a great distraction from what really is the agenda behind it: Those with more, merit more. Those with less can do without. If they can’t, too bad.

The United States Congress is made up of people who have plenty in terms of comfort and financial security – all they need and much more. Yet the majority of its elected representatives, at the request of the administration, is looking for ways to legitimize cutting all kinds of funding that is meant to support and assist the most needy among us. They back up their civilized cruelty with tissue paper rationalizations. There is no thought about how their decisions are going to devastate human lives.

Pearl Buck, American writer and novelist, once said,  “The test of any civilization is in how it treats its most vulnerable.” Sadly, we continue (humanity continues) to fail this test. Jesus once said, “Whatever you do to the littlest and least you are doing to me.” Our response, too often, is, “So what?”