Keep to the Old Roads

“...if and when the time ever came, it would be the presence of God rather than his absence that I would write about, of death and dark and despair as not the last reality 

but only the next to the last.”  Frederick Buechner

Several years ago, I had coffee on Saturday mornings with a man from our congregation I’ll call Jeff. Though Jeff had been a Christian most of his life, he was new to the Presbyterian world. He had a vibrant faith, was intrigued by theology, gifted in organization, and had the aptitude for being an elder and so we spent about a year of Saturday mornings talking through some of the distinctives of Presbyterianism before he joined our Session of elders.

About twice a month we would use one of the creeds during our worship service. We often recited the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, the opening to the Heidelberg Catechism (my favorite), or a question or two related to the sermon topic from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. 

This was familiar to those of us who grew up in more liturgy-minded congregations, but it was totally foreign to Jeff. One Saturday morning, he told me that reciting the creeds had become one of his favorite moments of the Sunday service. He had been in non-denominational churches that didn’t use creeds and were often a little suspicious of them. He said there was something refreshing about standing up in a chaotic world and declaring, “I believe.” 

Jeff was not the first new member to express a fondness for the creeds. Our congregation had become a sort of refuge for people who were hurt in their previous church setting but still held on to their faith. I believe part of the power of the creeds is the connection they give to a much larger story. People have been declaring the claims of the Apostles’ Creed on Sunday mornings for over fifteen-hundred years. 

The creeds we recited each week served as reminders that no matter how dysfunctional their own congregation might have been, or ours currently was, Jesus’ Church has endured for centuries. This too, will pass.  

(To be clear: our congregation had suffered and caused its own share of church-hurt. Thanks be to God we also experienced a lot of healing through the gospel of Jesus which made us a safe place for others. The church-refugees came from various denominations and backgrounds which made for a fun, and often challenging, diversity in our church life.)  

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

The creeds were written in specific times and places. They didn’t fall from the sky. So, they have some cultural trappings of their time. The harsh language about the Pope or the Catholic church for instance, sounds a bit strong to our modern ears (I typically leave out references to those “damnable papists” in our Sunday services). But that is because many of the reformed creeds were written during or shortly following the reformation. Differentiating themselves from the catholic doctrine of the time period was the very purpose of their existence.

While the historical and cultural influences of the creeds are interesting and important for context, a creed typically attempts to summarize what we believe to be true in all places and at all times. When we say, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” we are declaring faith in a God who is there regardless of what is happening in the present moment. 

God is there whether there is a Democrat or a Republican in the White House. God is there whether I have terminal cancer or I am physically whole. God is there whether it is Tuesday in the office or Friday night under the lights at the football game or Sunday morning in the sanctuary.  

This is what Psalm 46 is getting at when it says “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult…[even though] the nations are in an uproar, [and] kingdoms totter…” 

God is there. Stable. Solid. Unchanging. Even when the nations are in an uproar. 

During a recent adult class, we were lamenting some of the current struggles of churches in America as well as the tension in public discourse, politics, school boards, and neighborhoods. I affirmed that all of these things are true. Many churches are struggling. And there is lots of tension in our public discourse. 

I also reminded them that followers of Jesus were reciting the Apostles’ Creed during WWI and WWII and the Civil War and during the bubonic plague and the European wars of religion. It is hard to argue that our times are any worse than those times. 

One astute member of the class said, “Yes, but that is what bothers me. People said the Apostles’ Creed and prayed the Lord’s Prayer and all those terrible things still happened. God didn’t stop them.”

She is right, of course. Following Jesus has never insulated the church or its members from the storms of the world. 

We don’t follow Jesus in order to avoid suffering. We follow Jesus because suffering is unavoidable. 

Stop reading for a moment and google the 1940 Tacoma Bridge Collapse (Galloping Gertie) and watch one of the old videos of the bridge wobbling back and forth before plunging into the water. 

This is what life feels like most of the time, does it not? 

Jeff needed something solid to grab onto when church, work, the culture, in other words, life, was wobbling out of control. He is not alone. We all do. Standing with fellow believers each Sunday morning and reading an ancient creed out loud provided a solid steppingstone to stand on.   

I want to spend the next several months on a weekly journey through the Apostles' Creed. 

The Creed is by no means perfect. It leaves out much - Jesus is born, suffers, and is crucified and buried all in one sentence. The Gospels seem to indicate that Jesus' life and teaching was fairly important to what he was up to. The Creed, however, has been used by Christians of all kinds and in all places for centuries. It has served as a summary of the "faith that was once and for all handed on to the saints" (Jude 1:3). It has stood the test of time. There is ancient wisdom here, if we are willing to find it.

This exercise is first for me. As the primary caregiver for my father, a husband to Katie, dad to Addie, Jackson and Isaac, and a pastor of two congregations, Galloping Gertie is a fairly accurate picture of how my life feels a lot of the time. Like watching the video of the bridge collapse, I often wonder when the girders holding my life together might finally snap.

But this is also for you. And anyone else you know who needs some solid footing. 

Three Images to Guide Us Going Forward

(1) A House on a Rock 

Three images have been on my mind. The first is found at the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. 

24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”  (Mt 7:24-27)

These are familiar words. But I wonder how often we pay them any heed. Notice the rain and the winds crash into both houses. The storm comes regardless. The house built on the rock stands. The house built on sand crashes. 

Jesus’ metaphor links “these words of mine” and “putting them into practice” with the rock. It is not a complicated image. Following Jesus is solid ground. And yet we continuously return again and again to sinking sand, thinking it will hold. Politics is sinking sand. Financial stability is sinking sand. Success in your career or in relationships is sinking sand. Your health is sinking sand.  

When Jesus says, "hear these words and put them into practice," he is specifically referencing the teachings he just gave in Matthew 5-7. But I am going to extend the metaphor to include “the faith that was once and for all handed on to the saints,” which is what the Apostles’ Creed attempts to summarize. The central tenants of our faith, what C.S. Lewis called “mere Christianity,” is the solid rock. 

The trick will be the second half of Jesus’ claim - putting this faith into practice. Eugene Peterson was fond of saying that everything in the Bible can be lived. “The end of all Christian belief and obedience, witness and teaching, marriage and family, leisure and work life, preaching and pastoral work is the living of everything we know about God: life, life, and more life.”

I want to explore what it means to "live everything we know about God," to “practice” the Creed. Not belief as mere mental assent to the propositions but belief as a full life immersion. I believe…therefore….    

(2) Keep to the Old Roads

The second image comes from a song by Andrew Peterson called You’ll Find Your Way. Peterson wrote the song about his son as far as I can tell. In the song, he is looking forward into the future when his son will leave home. He realizes what all parents eventually come to realize: ultimately, we have no control over what happens to our children. His advice for his son is to “keep to the old roads.” Come what may, the old roads will lead him back home. You should stop reading and listen to it. Hearing it is more powerful than reading it.

(Warning - if you listen and you have a child who has recently left home for college or work or if you have a high schooler beginning to think in that direction the song hits heavy.)

Here are the lyrics.  

When I look at you, boy

I can see the road that lies ahead

I can see the love and the sorrow

Bright fields of joy

Dark nights awake in a stormy bed

I want to go with you, but I can’t follow

So keep to the old roads

Keep to the old roads

And you’ll find your way

Your first kiss, your first crush

The first time you know you’re not enough

The first time there’s no one there to hold you

The first time you pack it all up

And drive alone across America

Please remember the words that I told you

Keep to the old roads

Keep to the old roads

And you’ll find your way

You’ll find your way

If love is what you’re looking for

The old roads lead to an open door

And you’ll find your way

You’ll find your way

Back home

And I know you'll be scared when you take up that cross

And I know it'll hurt, 'cause I know what it costs

And I love you so much and it's so hard to watch

But you're gonna grow up and you're gonna get lost

Just go back, go back

Go back, go back to the ancient paths

Lash your heart to the ancient mast

And hold on, boy, whatever you do

To the hope that's taken hold of you

And you'll find your way

You'll find your way

If love is what you’re looking for

The old roads lead to an open door

And you’ll find your way

You’ll find your way

Back home

This is what the Creed offers. The old road that leads home. Not tradition for tradition's sake but because these truths provide ballast. They are the ancient mast we need to lash our hearts to. 

(3) Death and dark and despair are not the last reality but only the next to the last.

The third image comes from a quote from Frederick Buechner. I have been working my way through his memoirs this year and recently reread Now and Then. Buechner tells his story of becoming a writer and a minister. He also spent almost a decade as a teacher of religion in a boarding school in New Hampshire. In his early years as a teacher, he didn’t do a lot of writing because of his work commitments but he makes this observation about what he would write about when he picked up again: 

My frustration was, rather, in discovering that although many modern writers have succeeded in exploring the depths of human darkness and despair and alienation in a world where God seems largely absent, there are relatively few who have tried to tackle the reality of whatever salvation means...Sin is easier to write about than grace, I suppose, because the territory is so familiar and because, too, it is of the nature of grace, when we receive it, to turn our eyes not inward, where most often writers' eyes turn, but outward, where there is a whole world of needs to serve far greater than the need simply for another book. I was too occupied with my job to think much about the next novel I myself might write, but it occurred to me that, if and when the time ever came, it would be the presence of God rather than his absence that I would write about, of death and dark and despair as not the last reality but only the next to the last. 

When I read that final line, it felt like I had found the manifesto for my writing that I didn’t know I was looking for. I don’t want to bypass the death, darkness or despair that is real and present and very much a part of life. But I also want to remind you that they are not the last reality. God is. Life is. Goodness and love and joy and new creation is where we are headed and is currently on offer, even if only in glimpses, in the here and now. 

David Powlison used to say, “There are good reasons to be anxious. But there are better reasons to trust.” I want to use the ancient wisdom of the Creed to remind myself and, by extension, to remind you of what those better reasons are.  

I want to stand in the midst of the chaos of the world and declare, "I believe."