02-07-23 Alpha Sunday.

Galatians 2:1-9 Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. ² I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. ³ And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile. ⁴ Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really^[b]—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. ⁵ But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.⁶ And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) ⁷ Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. ⁸ For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles.⁹ In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews.

Why are we looking at a reading of Paul’s presentation to the head honchos of the Jerusalem church and what does it have to do with Alpha?

I’m not going to take too much time this morning because we already have had multiple people sharing already, but I simply want to both introduce our next series and talk about why alpha works …and… explain this morning’s text by telling you the one thing that links them all together and why it’s relevant for today.

Here we go.

As I have followed several discussions online recently and indeed in this church, I have come to believe that we are sort of in a 4th Century moment, and maybe you are too. A 4th century moment is what I call the moment where you become so overwhelmed with many different ideas, arguments, interpretations and quite frankly, chaos that you need to pull back and just re-ask the question, “Wait, what is this?”

That is the question that links Paul’s presentation, The Nicean Creed, and the alpha course.

For Paul:

Paul approached the Jerusalem council at a time when the very early church is beginning to transition from the first to the second generation of followers, from a sect within Judaism to its own entirely different faith, and from a few folks huddled in a room to a network of churches. Paul is going to play a key part in the next phase of the Churches growth, so he meets with the honchos and basically says: “This is it, this is my gospel, this is the common denominator in all my spiritual equations, and before I go on mission, I’m just making sure you guys get the same answer.

For Them

Fast forward 350 years. The church has been around for a bit, Christianity has come into contact with many other cultures and philosophies, and (sorry to disappoint you) they have affected the Church’s practice and structures in certain areas. Again this church is looking very different to the Church 300 years ago, and with those increased influences come a lot of ideas until a few leaders say, hey, we need to meet up and just define again ‘What is this’ in its raw form? Someone suggests a place called Nicea. Notice also that this is occurring during a time of geopolitical upheaval as Rome is looking a little more brittle than it ever used to.

For us

Today, there is a lot going on in the world, there’s a lot going on in people’s lives and honestly, there’s a lot of chatter, and ideas about what Christianity is, who Jesus is, and what the church is, and Alpha works because it’s a place where we go: “this is it.” Now over a 12-week course, there are going to be inevitable shades and nuances but essentially Alpha combines two powerful sentences in a communal setting. Those sentences are:

1. This is the Christian faith. (video)
2. What do you think about that? (group discussion)
   
   

That is why you should keep an eye out for the next Alpha course. But that is also what I want to do over the coming semester looking at the nicene creed. We’re going to go through and shamelessly proclaim: this is it. This is what the bible actually says about this. Then we’re going to ask what do you think about that? We may even ask what are we going to do about that?

I said that I would say why it is relevant. But to do so, I’ll need a banknote! I promise you’ll get it back. In the same way, we look at this banknote and we know exactly what is it. It’s $50. It’s not 39, it’s not 49.95, it’s not 51 it’s $50 and we cannot force it to be anything different. BUT depending on the context or shop, that I walk into, it can bear different fruit. Bunnings, Clothing store, or service station. In this sense, it is a piece of compressed economic potential.

A creed is like the entire gospel packaged into something you can fit in your wallet. Or the back of your bible or most importantly, it’ll fit in your BRAIN, or memory. Creeds are compressed spiritual potential. That’s handy because when you know who you are and who you’re not you can walk into different contexts, and yield different fruit. You can walk into contexts of temptation, and leverage victory, into shopfronts of conflict and purchase peace, you can step onto trains of trial and gain wisdom and patience. Paul found he could walk into a pagan city with the simple message of the gospel….and a church would spring up.

Life is difficult but it is easier to navigate that difficulty when you know who you really are and we can only understand who we really are in relation to God.

I want to finish now by reading the creed itself:

We believe in one God,
      the Father almighty,
      maker of heaven and earth,
      of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
      the only Son of God,
      begotten from the Father before all ages,
           God from God,
           Light from Light,
           true God from true God,
      begotten, not made;
      of the same essence as the Father.
      Through him all things were made.
      For us and for our salvation
           he came down from heaven;
           he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
           and was made human.
           He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
           he suffered and was buried.
           The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
           He ascended to heaven
           and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
           He will come again with glory
           to judge the living and the dead.
           His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
      the Lord, the giver of life.
      He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
      and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
      He spoke through the prophets.
      We believe in one holy universal and apostolic church.
      We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
      We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,
      and to life in the world to come. Amen.

That is who we are. That is what we believe. You in?