Back in the day, Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri required each of its “camel” students pass through a uniquely fiendish “eye of the needle” before being allowed to graduate. Because of the toll it took on so many otherwise brilliant students, that torture device, I am delighted to report, was eventually discontinued… 

… the year AFTER I fulfilled it. 

This delightful “iron lady” was called CREDO. The Latin word credo, of course, translates to, “I believe” in English. The credo graduation project required each student to write a 20-page paper (not 19. Not 21. 20. Exactly) describing his or her beliefs on all imaginable elements of the Christian faith and doctrine. It was to cover your beliefs about God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, grace, the sacraments, Christian history and tradition, United Methodist polity, and the role of the pastor in the church and the world, among other things. Oh yes, and with plenty of academic citations and footnotes to support our position.

Each student then had to orally DEFEND her or his credo in front of a seminary faculty committee. 

I will admit, it was an entirely stress-soaked, nerve-wracking experience for all concerned. I remember long nights of writes, re-writes, re-rewrites, and dark, serious doubts about how I was ever going to complete this assignment. My first draft was about 30 pages long and I recall swearing it was impossible to remove a single word from that magnum opus without destroying the whole thing. 

As I moaned and wailed to my credo advisor about the unjustly rigorous nature of this requirement, he listened sagely over steepled fingers, then offered a life-saving suggestion. He said it might help crystalize my writing (not to mention my thinking) if I were to organize everything around one central THEME. 

Sadly, he was not generous enough to then go ahead and tell me WHAT my theme should be. But his suggestion eventually helped break loose the ice dam that was forming in my brain. 

After several long, pondering walks around campus, cups of black coffee, deep dives into the Bible, various academic texts, and conversations with classmates, the theme came to me: CONNECTION!

Of course! CONNECTION! 

God’s original creation design was an unending, life-giving CONNECTION between God’s self and the image-bearing beings God made. Then they blew it by using their freedom in a rash manner and broke that connection. After millenia of sending messengers and prophets to restore that divine/human connection, God undertook the great Incarnation Enterprise and BECAME the connection. The connection between heaven and earth… between life and death… between sin and forgiveness… between the past and the future… between God and humanity.

The Trinity (always a tricky one to parse out), was made real in the very CONNECTEDNESS of Father, Son, and Spirit – or Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, if you will.

Sin, I reasoned – deploying my chosen theme into every theological nook and cranny possible – was more of a STATE than a specific ACT. It is the state of being dis-connected from God, from others, and from our purpose for being (with much gratitude and citation credit here to my main man, Paul Tillich). Those heinous acts which we call sins (plural) flow FROM that disconnected state. 

GRACE then, I wrote, is the totally unmerited REconnection we experience with God, others, and purpose.

I am delighted to say that I passed both the written and oral parts of the credo requirement and as a result, was able to graduate with most of my classmates.

For me though, the remarkable byproduct of the entire credo process was the way it continued to color my ministry for the 18 years that followed. I found that my preaching style was aimed at connecting people and their real lives to the truths of the Bible. I kept trying to design ways to connect congregants with each other through special events, classes, and mission outreach projects. I wanted to connect the church with its immediate neighbors. I wanted to connect the folks OUTSIDE the church to the power of God’s word and the life of this church. And where families were broken because of divorce, financial calamity, abuse, addiction, or something else entirely, I wanted to be an agent of connection to help mend that brokenness. 

The thing that started out – in my mind – as just one more academic hurdle in a long line of academic hurdles, became a vital signpost on the path of discipleship. 

And when I think about it for a minute or two, it still is. So, many belated thanks to you Prof. Randolph and Prof. Chun. 

My goal for tomorrow is to explore another theme that I believe I could have… maybe even SHOULD have… adopted in place of the theme of CONNECTION.

Abundant blessings;