Maasai People of East Africa, The Maasai Creed.
The Maasai Creed is one of the most beautiful expressions of Christian faith ever written. It is a testament to the fact that the message of Christianity need not remain trapped within the Greek and Latin forms which dominate the religion.
Simple, yet elegant, it is rich in images memorable for their delicate cultural sensitivity as well as their unclouded precision. What is indispensable becomes transparent and real in such a way that one can almost feel the warm breeze of being “on safari” with Jesus Christ.
The disfiguring linguistic accretion of centuries, clinging to the Christian religion like leprosy, is cleansed to uncover once again the radiance of the gospel in all its timelessness. He is surely the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).
In solemnly professing the Maasai Creed, I am moved to affirm what is most important to my heart. As Bernard Lonergan, S.J. (1904-1984) wrote, “love speaks to love, and its speech is powerful.” When I am fearless to trust that the God of my religion is both big enough and able to contain the world in His embrace, I need not fight for the positioning of the favored by clinging to the superfluous. I can let God be God since I believe, “He ascended into the skies. He is Lord.”
The Maasai Creed
We believe in the one High God of love who created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe in the world. We have known this God in darkness, and we now know God in the light. God promised in his book the Bible that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.
We believe that God made good on his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man by the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari, doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry about their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live by the rules of love and share the bread together, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.
