The Heart of Belief

Last Sunday in my Easter sermon I quoted the theologian Richard Niebuhr who said, "What you come to believe, what you come to love, will lead you to the future; and by those beliefs and loves you will build the future." 

Building the future is a major focus of our life this year at All Saints’.  This past month our strategic planning committee submitted a report to the Vestry about the need to adopt a new mission statement and a vision for where we hope to be during the coming 18 to 24 months.  The committee also proposed several goals to lead us into the future.

The proposed mission statement says, “All Saints’ Memorial Church is a welcoming multicultural Episcopal congregation that strives to grow in the love of God and respond to the spiritual and human needs of our neighboring communities.”

The vision for the future is: “All Saints’ Memorial Church is a visible and known beacon that engages people in their spiritual journeys and nurtures their minds and souls.”

The strategic plan then lists five goals and strategies to achieve them. Here are the goals and an abbreviated list of programs and activities to realize them:

The first goal is to  “Grow in the love of God.” 

The second goal is to “Respond to spiritual needs of our younger adults and our neighboring communities.”

The third goal is to “Respond to human needs of neighboring communities.”  

A fourth goal is to “Undertake one new capital improvement project each year.” 

Finally, a fifth goal is to “Develop a clergy succession plan.” 

The Vestry has received the strategic plan and will have a retreat in the near future to discuss it in detail and develop priorities and timelines for its implementation.

Bringing life where death reigned is the message of Easter.  It is what the resurrection of Jesus Christ is all about.  The resurrection is not a one-time event that occurs on Easter Sunday once a year.  Nor is it the 50 days of the Easter season leading up to the feast of the Ascension and then Pentecost.  Resurrection life is continuous and we are aware of it every time we share in the celebration of Holy Eucharist. 

We heard in the Acts of the Apostles that Peter said, “ The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus … as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." The risen Christ as leader a Savior, God incarnate, is compassionate giving repentance and forgiveness of sins.

True believing is a matter of the heart.  In this sense believing is more than a matter of intellectual assent.  If we only dwell on thinking about what we believe and fail act on it we are missing the mark.  To believe in something is more than an objective reality. It is not an object like an i-phone that you can tinker with and download all sorts of apps.  There is no app for the resurrection.  When the risen Jesus stood among the disciples he “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’"

Breath and heart are closely related.  Breathing is the Spirit in action. Believing as a matter of the heart means in biblical terms forgiving, for respecting the dignity of every human being, and for actively living the resurrected life as part of the Christian community.

Frederick Buechner, theologian and writer, has written about belief and how we see Jesus with our hearts.  He said, “I believe we have glimpsed the truth of Jesus in the faces and lives of people we know who have loved him and served him…. I believe we have glimpsed him in the pages of the Gospels when by some miracle of grace those pages come alive for us and it is as if we ourselves are the ones he is speaking to when he says, ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ I believe we have caught sight of him in works of art that have been created to honor him…. I believe we have seen him once in our own churches, especially when … he is present in the silence of waiting and listening. 

‘To see him with the heart is to know that in the long run his kind of life is the only life worth living. To see him with the heart is not only to believe in him but little by little to become bearers to each other of his healing life until we become finally healed and whole and alive within ourselves. To see him with the heart is to take heart, to grow true hearts, brave hearts, at last. That is my dearest hope and prayer.”

It is now up to all of us to take heart and become bearers of Christ’s healing life both among ourselves and among all the people throughout the wider community.  It is by what we come to love that we are led to the future; and by that love we shall build the future of All Saints' Memorial Church in response to the human and spiritual needs of the people we meet.  Amen.