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It’s never too late.

I have to begin today by begging your forgiveness, because I am so sorry, but I missed it.  This is so embarrassing—it’s only been seventeen hundred years!  That’s right: I’m talking about the anniversary of the first council of Nicea, which is where we get the Nicene Creed. 

 

I know you already know all about the Council of Nicea, the first ecumenical council of early Christianity, held in the year 325 and called by the Roman Emperor Constantine because all these Christians were splitting into factions over that biggest of controversies: abortion. 

 

No, of course that wasn’t it; why would anyone be talking about women’s health?  The controversy was gay marriage.  Ha, of course not.  It was women’s ordination.  Okay obviously not; worldwide Christianity still hasn’t figured that out. 

 

So what was the Council of Nicea actually about?  The big controversy in the year 325 was about Jesus: was he human or divine or weirdly somehow both?  Arius, an African bishop, was teaching that Jesus was not divine.   

 

Reverend Stephen Njure, a Catholic Church historian at Moi University in western Kenya, gave this illuminating defense of the Council of Nicea:

“Why it was held is because an African cleric like myself raised issues that needed to be addressed concerning the doctrine of the Holy Trinity…That is Arius. Arius came up with a heresy that necessitated the council.”[1]

 

Therefore, Njure said, this 1700th anniversary “has everything to do with us, since one of​ us prompted its being, because of our need for clarity of faith.” Njure pointed out that discussion around ideas can help the church formulate its doctrine and teachings, even if some ideas are determined to be heresy, like Arianism, saying that Jesus is not fully divine but is a created being. 

 

The really big deal heresies got names—so see if you can NAME!  THAT!  HERESY! 

Name that heresy: the God of the Old Testament is a different god than the God of the New Testament—Marcionism

Name that heresy: Jesus only appeared to be human—Docetism

Name that heresy: Jesus didn’t have a human mind or soul but only a human body—Apollinarianism

Name that heresy: there are three modes of God—Modalism

 

All of these ideas were discussed as part of trying to understand God and how God works in the world and what is the place of the Father in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit, and how did we get a doctrine of the Trinity. 

 

Okay maybe the seventeen hundredth anniversary of the Council of Nicea was not on your calendar; maybe you missed it too.  But scholars and theologians around the world are gathering for conferences in Africa, the World Council of Churches will gather in Turkey in November. 

 

Our own Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Reverend Elizabeth Eaton, reflected on the significance of this ancient council in a column she wrote back in March:

“At 325 years, the church was still relatively young and fluid. …Constantine had recently become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He wanted to unify the church and solidify the relationship between church and state. The competing theories about the nature of God, particularly Arianism, was frustrating Constantine’s vision of a united church and a united empire. So he summoned the bishops to sort it out.

 

“The Trinity is a complex idea to start with, but putting 300 bishops with strongly held beliefs in a room was bound to cause conflict. One (apocryphal) story was that St. Nicholas punched out Arius, the author of Arianism. Our congregational meetings, synod assemblies and churchwide assembles seem tame by comparison.”[2]

 

Out of this council came the Nicene Creed, which could have been a common understanding of Christian belief…until some unauthorized words were added into the Nicene Creed.  The creed originally said “We believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father.”  Christians in the West added “who proceeds from the Father and the Son,” the Latin word filioque.  The Western church insisted on this addition while the Eastern church rejected it. 

 

And what I learned at our local synod assembly last weekend is that when you have a resolution in discussion, if there are suggested amendments to be made, you gotta make those amendments and get those changes to pass before voting on the entire resolution—you can’t pass a resolution and then change the language. That’s just unfair. 

 

So the Nicene Creed continued with its divisive language and several hundred years after that first Council of Nicea, in the year 1054, the Roman Catholic Church in the west and the Eastern Orthodox churches split in what we have called the Great Schism.  And our respective traditions have remained separate ever since, with different church structures and faith practices and different relationships with countries and rulers. 

 

It strikes me that it was Constantine, the Roman Emperor, who called on church leaders to attend to their faith business.  When has religion ever not been in relationship with politics?  It always has been.  Because we’re talking about people and about power!  To me the presence of power and even political power does not invalidate religion; it does mean, as a person of faith, please do ask the good questions. 

 

Pay attention to Jesus’s parables—he talks a lot about power and how people use their power.  Jesus was not naïve; more than once, he broke up fights among the disciples about who should be in charge. 

 

And as much as he taught the disciples, Jesus still had more to say than they could possibly comprehend—so he promised the Holy Spirit, an Advocate, to continue teaching them and reminding them what they’ve learned.  I don’t know about you, but I sometimes gotta learn things several times before it sinks in. 

 

For me, growing up and using language like “separation of church and state” made me think that my faith couldn’t inform my political beliefs, which isn’t true.  As people of faith, we absolutely should act in the public realm because of our faith in God.  Next month, the ELCA churchwide assembly will vote to approve a new social statement titled “Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-being of All.”[3] 

 

We’re still gathering in these big forums—if not in an ecumenical council like Nicea, then certainly in international conferences and various assemblies, and even around our dinner tables—to discuss our faith in God and how God’s power is still present in the world and how we might use our power to benefit God’s creation.  Because we are in relationship with all creation, even the parts of creation we wish we could ignore or push against or even claim a Great Schism as our righteous excuse for avoiding relationship. 

 

Presiding Bishop Eaton writes this:

“For 40 years Lutherans and Orthodox have been in dialogue about the Nicene Creed. The “Joint Statement on the Filioque” was approved by the Joint Commission on Theological Dialogue in May 2024. This controversy was found to be no longer church-dividing. 

 

“So what? What relevance does an ancient argument between academics have to do with the real world? Here’s what. If an over 1,000-year-old argument that bitterly divided the church can be resolved, then there is hope that the most complex issues that split the church can be engaged and overcome through careful listening and dialogue. We don’t have to be divided. Division is a human invention, not divine.”[4]

 

There has always been disagreement and conflict, even among people of faith.  Jesus doesn’t end our conflicts but shows us a way through conflict, keeping love at the center and trusting in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Trinity is at work in us and among us. 

 

Another of the disagreements that came out of the Council of Nicea was about deciding a date for the annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection.  Maybe you noticed that the Western church has a different date for Easter than the Eastern, or Orthodox, church—this has to do with how the dates are figured based on a lunar cycle.  Only occasionally do those dates align, and this year was one such year.  Our worldwide celebration of Christ’s resurrection was even bigger, and you know what, y’all: I missed that too.  My bad. 

 

But I still believe that God is bigger than my mistakes.  It’s never too late to learn.  It’s never too late to resolve disagreements.  It’s simply never too late. 


Amen. 

Pastor Cheryl

 


 

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