Now, you’ll know I am a bit of a geek; and, as this is a special day for Star Wars fans, I suppose I should begin by saying: May the 4th be with you!

You know, you can always tell when an Episcopalian is watching a Star Wars movie.  It’s true.  When a Jedi says “May the force be with you,” we automatically respond with “And also with you!” 

Sadly, we could use some Jedi knights about now, because it would seem that the Empire is striking back.  I mean, if it is a day that ends in Y, it is a day when the news has some inhumane, unjust, or illegal act committed by our nation’s leaders. 

There was the continued illegal deportations without the due process of law guaranteed to all persons (citizen or not) by our Constitution.  This included a 2 year old, a 4 year old with metastatic cancer, and their mother. 

There was the middle of the night raid on an Oklahoma home occupied by a woman and her two daughters – all citizens of the US.  They had just moved in when law enforcement bashed in, took everything they had, including the cash needed to buy groceries, traumatizing everyone.  It was a case of mistaken identity.  No apologies nor a return of their valuables has yet happened.  These are things we expect to hear about in countries ruled by dictators, not here in the US. 

Now it seems one cannot even be a pastor praying without getting arrested.

That’s right, Bishop Barber, who is the founder of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School, where he also teaches, and a leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, was standing with ecumenical colleagues in the rotunda of the Capitol building offering prayers.  His stole said “Jesus was a poor man,” and he was there with a few others on what is known as Moral Mondays, to pray about the budget bill that is being proposed. 

The bill eliminates funding of many programs for the poor and vulnerable, cuts medicare/medicade and social security, and so much more.  These pastors were praying for a change in heart.  They had no weapons, and did not try to obstruct anything or any one. They did however repeatedly pray this “Against the conspiracy of cruelty, we plead the power of your mercy.” The police removed reporters from the area, and then arrested them.  Certainly, if there is one thing we need in this world are prayers to turn the hearts of those who are persecuting others. 

Which is why the story we heard in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles is timely, because some of our nation’s leaders need to get knocked off their high horse, to stop their persecution of others.  That is what we heard happened to a guy named Saul traveling to Damascus. 

Saul from Tarsus is persecuting the followers of Jesus.  In fact, in the previous chapters to what we heard today, Saul stands and guards the coats of the folks stoning our first martyr – the Deacon Stephen, and then, because well, that wasn’t enough blood letting, seeks out more folks he can persecute.  Acts 8:3 says “…Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”  Sounds very familiar to us today, does it not?

Jesus quite literally stops Saul in his tracks.  He is given new work to do – bringing others into relationship with Christ.  This type of story is so life changing, so incredible, it leaves such an impression.  It is a story of transformation.  And even today, when people experience a major transformation or conversion, it is often referred to as a “road to Damascus experience.”

But, while it is often thought that this was a conversion story of Saul to Christianity – that is not true at all.  Saul, who after this encounter is known to us as St. Paul, was born, lived and died a Jew…just as Jesus was a Jew.  “The Way,” as the followers of Jesus were called, was not Christianity, but a movement within Judaism that, through Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ, broadened out beyond the bounds of the Jewish faith.  Yet sadly, Saul was not alone in persecuting the earliest followers of Jesus.

For centuries, the believers were considered traitors to the Empire.  They were persecuted ruthlessly, particularly under Diocletian.  Then Constantine came along, converted, and Christianity (as it was then called because, by the efforts of Saul turned Paul, it had by that time moved beyond the bounds of the Jewish faith), became a part of the mainstream. 

Constantine saw that this new Christian thing (it was only just over 300 years old), had a lot of divisions. And knowing that could bring down not only the faith, but cause a lot of problems for his realm, he called the leaders of the faith together in that first ecumenical council and charged them to come to an agreement.  They did.  So, good, right?

But, we didn’t learn the lessons of our own persecution.  We did it to others – to Jews & Muslims during the Crusades, and to other Christian groups over doctrinal differences through the centuries since.  Which is why what we did yesterday here in New Jersey was amazing and so important.

The year 2025 marks the 1700^th anniversary of that First Ecumenical Council of 325 Constantine called, and the Nicene Creed which was initially drafted at it.  The Episcopal Dioceses of Newark and New Jersey, working with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, the Lutheran (ELCA), Presbyterian, and other Western denominations, as well as the Ukrainian Orthodox and others from the Eastern Church, joined together in a celebration of this historic moment in the universal church.  This idea for this celebration came from his Eminance, Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of the Diocese of Newark.  Sadly, Cardinal Tobin was unable to be present with us because, well, there is this other thing going on in Rome now.  The service itself was historic – East and West together, reciting a common creed (which hadn’t been done in centuries). 

While that is exciting to church history nerds like myself, the reason I am talking about it today is because it can be instructive for us now.  As I said to a reporter from the Roman Catholic Archdioese of Trenton, there are so many divisions around our country and the world.  The church has also been historically divided, in particular between the Eastern & Western churches, about a number of doctrinal beliefs.  To unite together, across the different churches within the East and the West, and to say “We believe in one God…” focuses our attention on what unites us, and truly that is far greater than what divides us. 

In his homily yesterday, his Eminence, Metropolitan Anthony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, touched on the importance of what we were doing.  He said “This shared inheritance reminds us that our divisions, though painful, do not erase our common roots.  We are all the children of one church that gathered in Nicaea.  The Nicene Creed remains a bridge across time and tradition – a theological thread that binds together the ancient and the modern, the East and the West. It is a sacred thread that calls us even now to reexamine our divisions with humility, courage, and hope.”

Which brings us back to Saul, who after his transformation was called Paul.  St. Paul, knowing how destructive divisions can be, continually wrote about the many being one in Christ.  We are many, and we have different ways of living our faith, different gifts of the spirit, as St. Paul would later write about, but we are united as one body in Christ Jesus – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Creator of all.  I suppose if he had been writing in Latin, rather than in Greek, his epistles to the early church would include E Pluribus Unum – “out of many, one.”  If that sounds familiar, it’s because it appears on the money you use every day – a motto for the US.

The question becomes, why does it matter?

Today our nation is facing a crisis of conscious, which is also centered on whether another foundational document, the Constitution, will remain something that unites us, or be tossed into the ash heap of history as an irrelevant set of ideals of a bygone era.  It is not a perfect thing, this Constitution.  It still does not include equality of women, for example, and it took a long time for others to be included.  It is sometimes also used to stop progress by those who adhere to the idea that we must remain permanently entrenched in the thoughts of white men who lived in a time of legal slavery. 

Yet the core ideals of liberty, justice, and truth by far outweigh the weaknesses inherent in its construction.  United by this Constitution, we the people continue to declare a desire to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.  We believe so strongly in the importance of democratic freedoms that we have, rightly or wrongly, tried to spread this throughout the world. 

One might rightly argue, that is a secular thing, this Constitution.  What has the church to do with the state? 

This is a true thing indeed. 

However, there is a parallel here.  The Constitution’s principles, even if we haven’t always abided by them, are about freedom, dignity, and equality.  It was written by people of faith – followers of Jesus.  In fact, 31 of the 55 original signers were Episcopalians (formally, before our split with England, Anglicans – members of the Church of England). Our Constitution makes a statement about what we believe, and we know by our motto, that we need to be united as a people to ensure that the Constitution’s values are upheld. 

So, the question for us as citizens is – will we live that out?  Will we, as the many, come together as one, to stand for the ideals we professed in that foundational document, or will we set it aside, and allow those ideals to die?  In the final days of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy” “A republic,” replied Doctor Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

For Christians, we have a different, but similar calling, and a different statement of belief.  And we might rightly consider if we are working together to ensure our faith is a lived reality, or are we standing by while others persecute children of God, or worse, participating in that persecution either explicitly by our own acts, or implicitly by our silence.

As his Eminence, Metropolitan Anthony, also said in his homily, “Let us be clear my dearly beloved to profess the creed is to confess Jesus Christ with our lips, but it is also to Incarnate him within our lives. A Christian who says “I believe in one God” must live as though they do –  by serving the poor, forgiving the enemy, welcoming the stranger, and radiating the light of Christ.  In a world darkened by hatred and confusion, the creed then becomes not merely a theological formula, but a spiritual constitution – a daily manifesto of Christian life.”

Let the people say “Amen.”

Today our country is divided, and it is hoped that the Constitution will withstand this time of crisis, and we the people will unite together to ensure that all will remain free. 

As followers of Jesus, we are united across time and space by what we believe too.  And in our willingness to be one body in Christ, united together with him, we become his agents of transformation a beacon of hope for a despairing world.

When we live the faith we profess, we will be a voice for the voiceless, and repairers of the breach.

When live the faith we profess, we will be a living reminder for those who live in fear, here in our nation and around the world, that while empires come and go, there is no earthly power that can ever extinguish his eternal light.

When we live the faith we profess, we may not knock anyone off an actual horse, but we will always stand in the path of those who seek to harm any of God’s children, and that will be what saves us all.

May the force that is Christ Jesus be with us.

Amen.

To view the service commemorating the 1700th Anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council & the Nicene Creed, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xcsb1ZPV-0

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

April 4, 2025

The Third Sunday of Easter – Year C