Creed – A Quiet Walk

Galatians 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (NRSV)

This was the way of life taught by Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew. While Micah is not mentioned in the 4 Gospels, this is the way Jesus of Nazareth lived his life. These 4 lines encompass the totality of the decalogue, and the Pentateuch. So simple yet so difficult, the practice of these words leads to terror and death. Yet it also leads us into a new way of life, a new way to live. This life turns us away from everything we have been taught and onto a path the Divine has been trying to guide us on to since the very beginning.

But all history has shown us to be an egotistical, greedy, power hungry, and selfish creation. Even though we occasionally uncover a hidden part of our soul and the better part of us awakens to remind us we can be the people the spirit asks us to be. Sadly, we always, and I do mean always, fall back into our evil ways.

Forgotten Baptismal Creed: The first creed

For you are all children of God in the Spirit.
There is no Jew or Greek;
There is no slave or free;
There is no male or female.
For you are all one in the Spirit.

(Stephen J. Patterson, The Forgotten Creed: Christianity’s Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism, 2018)

In the first years after the crucifixion this baptismal creed gave guidance to the first few believers that a new way of life was possible. They tried to live the path of Jesus, and they understood that differences did not matter. Otherness did not matter. That each of us are children of the Spirit. Paul didn’t write it but he did try to teach it. Sadly, within 100 to 150 years the culture of Roman and the fear of being different had taken over and again we failed to live up to the teachings of Jesus and Paul, and the hope expressed in this simple baptismal creed and the words of the prophet Micah.