Over recent months a group of Christchurch church leaders (Te Raranga) have been working on an ecumenical service to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. The service was held last night at 5 pm, 15 June and I had the honour of preaching. I had decided that this week's blogpost would be the sermon's text ... and then a flurry of comments to last week's post came in. My sermon may or may not settle any disputes therein!
Sermon Trinity
Sunday 15 June 2025 1700 Anniversary of the Council of Nicaea
Ecumenical Service
in the Transitional Cathedral, Christchurch
Recording of service here
Readings: John 17:20-23 (read in Te Reo), Ephesians 4:1-6
Greetings to all! Thank you to Te Raranga for organising the
service. Thank you to the cathedral staff, volunteers, musicians and choir for
hosting the service.
We have come together for Kotahitanga (our unity), Whakapono
(our formation in the faith) and Taonga (celebration of a precious gift).
Who is this person or being – Jesus Christ - who prays,
according to our Gospel of John reading:
“so that they may be one, as we
are one” (kia kotahi ai ratou, me taua nei hoki he Kotahi)
and also talks about God the Father
“so that the world may believe
that you have sent me.” (kia whakapono ai te ao, nau ahau I tono mai)?
John’s Gospel stands out within the New Testament writings for
presenting the man Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus the Christ sent from God who is
simultaneously the Son of God in a relationship of identity and union with God
the Father.
What were the first Christians to make of this presentation,
this revelation of who Jesus is, in relation to us, his colleagues in humanity,
and in relation to God, his colleague (co-equal, co-participant) in divinity?
That question rumbled its way through the 2nd and
3rd centuries of the Christian era.
Nick Page, writing in Premier Christianity, offers a
slightly racy version of what happened at the beginning of the fourth century: [https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/an-idiots-guide-to-the-council-of-niceas-big-posh-creed-of-compromise/19332.article
]
“We start in Alexandria, Egypt in
AD 318. … … a priest called Arius has had a thought: if Jesus is the Son of God
then, logically, he has to be younger than the Father. That, after all, is the
key thing about sons: they tend to be a lot younger than their dads. And didn’t
Paul describe Jesus as “the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians
1:15)? If that is true, Arius reasoned, there must have been a time before Jesus
was born.
A highly effective communicator,
Arius began to spread his ideas, not only through preaching but simple songs.
According to his opponents, he even coined a slogan:
“there was, when he was not” (ie
there was a time before Jesus).”
“Arius was not suggesting Jesus
wasn’t God; just, perhaps, that he wasn’t quite as ‘goddy’ as God was. And
while many welcomed his ideas, many more found them alarming.
If Arius was right, then would it
not imply that the Son was inferior – or subordinate – to the Father? What does
that do to the Trinity?
John’s Gospel said that Jesus was
the Word, eternally present with the Father, through whom all things were
created (1:1-3), but Arius’ theories struck at the very heart of Jesus’
divinity.”
“The argument flared into a
bitter, factional dispute. Arius was condemned and dismissed from his post. But
other parts of the Eastern Church supported him. The anger grew so bad that,
eventually, emperor Constantine I intervened.
In AD 325, he announced that he
would call the first-ever ecumenical – ie ‘worldwide’ –
Council of Bishops.
It would meet towards the end of
May, in the city of Nicaea (modern Iznik in Turkey). Together, the bishops
would come up with a logical, clear, universally acceptable definition of Jesus
Christ.”
So, between 250 and 300 bishops attended, most from the
east; only a few from the west. And the emperor, Constantine, presided over the
council or synod – the first ecumenical or worldwide council of the church of
God. Kotahitanga at Nicaea!
Incidentally, the Council of Nicaea did make some decisions
other than creedal ones, especially in regard to canons governing our life as
church, some of which are still observed today.
But, tonight, 1700 years later, I will concentrate our
attention on the creedal character of the council.
Now most, if not all of us here have been to synods,
conferences and councils of the church where we have done our human best to
keep all present in the same tent of roughly common conviction, crafting
amendments to motions so some kind of healthy compromise is reached.
A bit of that happened but a full compromise between Arians
and others was not the work of this council. Nicaea was decisive.
The creed at that council said:
“We believe in one God, the
Father almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible; and
continued for a few paragraphs in words we are familiar with …
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the
substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true
God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all
things came into being, both things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because
of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered,
and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to
judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
So far so good to those of us familiar with the later
version of this creed which is known as The Nicene Creed. But then we hit this,
which is both decisive and exclusive:
“The catholic and apostolic
Church anathematises [ie condemns] those who say, “There was when he was not,”
and, “He was not before he was begotten,” and that he came to be from nothing,
or those who claim that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or substance,
(or created,) or alterable, or mutable.”
Here then is the key innovation at Nicaea. A stake in the
ground for the Whakapono of the church.
God the Son, according to the creed, is “of one substance”
(the Greek is the famous word, homoousion) with the Father. Here
substance could be “being” or “nature.”
Nick Page again: “Jesus is both
distinct from the Father, but also the same. He is equal in the Trinity, true
God from true God. … Begotten, yes, but not made. Not created.”
Thus, a specific line in what we call orthodox Christianity
– the orthodoxy of both eastern and western Christianity was established.
Theological disputes would rumble on through more centuries
and further ecumenical councils, especially around precision of language about
Jesus as both human & divine.
What we now call the Nicene Creed developed through
expanding river, then future councils shaped and smoothed from it the
distinctive Taonga which is the Nicene Creed.
So, tonight we neither recite the original Nicene Creed, nor
do we curse any Arians present in our midst.
What are we celebrating after 1700 years? What role could
and should the Nicene Creed as we know it play in the life of the church of God
in 2025?
Ephesians 4:1-6, after all, speaks challengingly to us as we
celebrate an ecumenical council of the church, because Paul talks to us as
church and urges that we are
“making every effort to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Our three themes tonight are: Kotahitanga.
Whakapono. Taonga.
[i.e. we reflect on the Creed as a unifying confession, a
tool for spiritual formation, and a precious gift from the church of the past
to the church of the future.]
Kotahitanga: we may or may not ever resolve the differences
between church denominations; but we can and must live into and develop what we
have in common, what binds us together as followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of
the living God. Nicaea highlights what we do believe together. Let’s bind
ourselves afresh to the Nicene Creed (understanding unresolved differences
between east and west) and at least in this way, make every effort to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Whakapono: it is easy to recite the creed as a matter of
rote, words we say with out lips while our minds dwell on what we are going to
have for lunch or for supper. But the content of the creed is the content of
our faith. It is the most concise window we have into who the God is whom we
adore, pray to, follow and listen to. Let what we believe form us as followers
of Christ. Let’s live faithfully in the faith the creed summarises for us.
Taonga: it has been a fashion in some recent decades to
diminish the importance of the Nicene Creed. Theologians question whether we
can still believe such things about God. Liturgists planning worship may see
the Apostles’ Creed – it has fewer words - as a route to a shorter service. In
some forms of free form worship, saying the creed is a funny old thing to do in
contemporary culture, so it is quietly dropped.
Might we have a new appreciation, for the creed as a taonga,
a gift from the past to hold us to the true faith, to focus our minds on the
true meaning of the revelation of God the Trinity in Scripture?
Might we see the creed not as words we have to say but a
window into the truth of who God is?
Might we say or sing the creed as words of worship to the
true and living God?
Might the creed be a celebration of who we are in Christ?
