Fourth Sunday of Easter (2007): “Why the Creed is Like Playing the Blues”

Fourth Sunday of Easter (2007): “Why the Creed is Like Playing the Blues”
Acts 9:36-43
; Psalm 23
; Revelation 7:9-17; 
John 10:22-30
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons on April 19th, 2007

In 1971, Chester Burnett, better known as Chicago bluesman Howlin' Wolf, got on a plane with his guitarist Hubert Sumlin, and went to London England.

They went to London so they could do a recording with some blues-inspired English musicians, like Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, and Steve Winwood. Ringo Starr even sat in on one session. Guitar hero Eric Clapton sat in on all the sessions, and he’s the one that makes for the best story coming out of that London recording studio.

***

But first a word about the blues.

The blues is a relatively simple form; It's built around a chord progression only consists of three chords, a 1, a 4, and a 5 chord. These three chords are played in a repeating, 12 bar pattern, that has only a handful of variations. The blues is a relatively fixed form, without a great deal of variation within it. The form has rules, and if you want to play the blues, you stick close to the form. The form serves a regulative function: 12 bars, and three chords played in a particular order: you've got something close to the blues.

The strict rule of the blues, rather than being a hindrance to creativity, actually serves as a way of grounding creative work. It allows for a great deal of variation, even vastly different kinds of expressions, while remaining recognizable as the blues: you can have the Texas style of Stevie Ray Vaughn; the folk-rock style of Creedence Clearwater Revival; the psychedelic blues of Jimi Hendrix; you can have Eric Clapton on an acoustic guitar, playing in the style of Big Bill Broonzy.

All different styles; all recognizable as the blues, if you look at the simple underlying pattern: 3 particular chords, 12 bars.

**

This brings me back to Eric Clapton, and that London recording studio. Eric Clapton was a hot guitarist in 1971. But there he was, in a studio with a living legend, Howlin' Wolf. Eric Clapton thought he was hot stuff, but this old, grizzled, bluesman with failing kidneys kept grabbing Clapton's fingers while he played his guitar, saying "don't do it that way, you're doin' it wrong, c'mon, can't you play it right?"

The blues might be simple: 3 particular chords, 12 bars; with that you know it's the blues; but the simple rule doesn't mean it's easy to play.

Eric Clapton almost gave up. He almost left the studio. But Howlin' Wolf eventually picked up his own guitar, and played it himself. And we get to reap the benefit of an excellent recording of a Chicago bluesman playing "the Red Rooster" with a bunch of hot-shot young Englishmen.

***

I hope you have a question in your minds. What on earth or heaven does this have to do with the gospel? It has to do with one line, six words from our gospel: Jesus says: "The Father and I are one."

This was part of a significant debate in the early centuries of the church. How does Jesus relate to the Father? Here Jesus says that he and the Father are one, Jesus recognizing a kind of equality with the Father. But earlier on in the gospel of John Jesus said that the Father is greater than he is.

So which is it? Is Jesus equal to the Father? Or is the father greater than Jesus? How do you make a decision as to which is a faithful description of Jesus' relationship to the Father?

What Christians have done, since the earliest of times, is to understand scripture according to the Rule of Faith. There are fragments of Rules of Faith in the New Testament, there are fragments of rules of faith in the earliest Christian writings apart from the New Testament. Rules of faith serve a regulative function within Christian reflection on God and Jesus; they even help us understand scripture, because in rules of faith we already have the kernel of the gospel. Both the rules and the Scriptures proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.

Just as we look back at the blues, and recognize it by the simple pattern of 3 particular chords and 12 bars, we recognize faithful Christian reflection according to the rule of faith. Just as anyone who wants to play the blues first learns the simple rule of the blues, in the same way the rule of faith, the creed we are about to say together, forms the foundation upon which we build what we say about God and Christ, allowing for a tremendous amount of creative reflection while remaining recognizably Christian.

***

The greatest of our Rules of Faith, the Nicene Creed that we will say in a moment, will help us with our current problem presented to us in John. Is Jesus equal and one with the Father? Or is Jesus inferior to the Father?

The creed, in its preservation of that driving force that arises out of Scripture, salvation in Christ, leads us to affirm that Jesus is one with the Father. If it is God that saves, and we proclaim that Jesus is saviour, then Jesus is equal, and one with the Father. At the same time, however, by affirming that Jesus became fully human, we can say that according to his humanity Jesus is less than the Father. By way of the creed we preserve the fullness of the proclamation of Scripture, because both Scripture and the creed arise from the same driving force: salvation in Christ.

Now I hope I didn't just lose too many of you. But I didn't say that this was going to be easy, did I! The blues was irritatingly hard for Eric Clapton to play in that recording studio with Howlin' Wolf that day in 1971, even if the form is simple. The creeds are simple, too, right? They're not that hard to say, and what they say is extremely important: salvation in Christ.

Even if the creeds are easy to say, I will grant that many find the creeds difficult to understand. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore them. Our creeds are the form upon which we build Christian reflection, and we need to be reminded of the form, despite the fact that the reflection, the life, the play, might all be difficult.

Just as you recognize the blues by the simple form, three particular chords, 12 bars; you recognize Christian reflection by fidelity to the form set out in the creeds. There's nothing to stop a musician from departing from the form of the blues; it's just that the farther you depart from the form, the harder it becomes to recognize the music as the blues. Similarly, the farther theological reflection departs from the creeds, the more difficult it becomes to recognize that reflection as Christian reflection.

This is no light subject, either, by the way; there is a lot at stake. What's at stake is the core of the Christian proclamation as it is found in Scripture: God saves us; he saves us in the person Jesus Christ; this salvation is total, and comprises the entirety of the human person, by his very taking on of our humanity in the incarnation; by the resurrection of his body we come to new life in the Spirit.

This is our proclamation; these are the words we live by; these are the words through which we play the Christian life. And for this: thanks be to God.