The week is over; Friday barely had time to get here and I’m already sitting in an airport preparing for a flight to Atlanta. It’s a radical experience to go from a highly academic environment to a cultural canvas of diversity and secularization in less than twenty minutes. Christological interpretations, intertextuality, eschatological inferences, and feminist Biblical interpretations disappear into the mental drain attached to the basement of my brain. I see only people, now. Different shades, colors, accents, haircuts, garb, dress, and religions float around me and I’m not invited to invade their space. So where do I take this Gospel I’ve been shown?
How does Duke theology fit into the context of everyday life? What is a Scriptural process in engaging the culture around me? In the midst of this confusion and a passive concern for the world, the only truth I confidently pursue is the heart of the Gospel manifested in my own life. “Remember your baptism;” my friend’s admonition to never forget my changed identity repeats itself through my mind. If we have faith and passion concerning the theology about God, then we must translate that same faith into anticipation for what God continuously initiates within God’s Creation.
The ongoing revelation of God to humanity finds expression as God so chooses. Therefore, Christians must remain ever vigilant in mind and spirit to observe the intimations of the Spirit within their surroundings. By doing so, one practices a type of involvement with the culture that identifies with the heart of Christ by constantly seeking for a way to approach the world. At times I wish I could simply know the mind of Christ and act accordingly, but then I face the possibility of lacking the necessary courage to act as Christ.
In my Church History precept we discussed the eschatological reality of being a part of the resurrected body of Christ. We are hidden with Christ, and made sharers in His death so that we may also share in His life. By this same power we are new creations, constantly exhibiting the truth of the Gospel in the face of doubt and resistance. Faith allows us to act; it brings our grace to fruition. The same grace of salvation, brought to pass by a saving faith, continually clashes with our sinful nature. This forces us to constantly shift our conviction from doubt to faith, trying to live every minute with purpose. Every conversation, action, deed, thought, and so forth possesses the infinite potential found in the ordained purpose of God. As a Christian I often feel as if the interaction with the world rests on my initiative or good planning, but God prepares the hearts of the people to respond to God’s call. We are agents of God’s Will, members of Christ’s body. We are not our own; we are bought with a price. I need not live afraid of what I’ve missed; rather, I should live with an intense focus on the present, every mindful of what God has done, is doing, and will do around me. With this in mind, being a passive-aggressive Christian doesn’t sound quite as bad.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sitting
I’ve been sitting for the past five hours. During those hours I’ve incorporated a variety of busy work to convince myself I really haven’t been sitting. I read half of a book, prayed, walked to a different chair, sat down, ate lunch, walked to the library, sat down, read some more, got out my lap top, and started typing my journal entry, still seated. I’m not accustomed to sitting; the stillness grinds on my mind and my thoughts disappear into fragmentary laments and ponderings over irrelevant concerns. I desire action.
I met with Dr. Jo Bailey Wells a little over a week ago. I came into her office, sat down, and in her disarming British accent she proceeded to inform me on how to productively sit and wait, in this case on the timing of God. Since my recent interest in the Anglican Church I’ve begun to remedy my ignorance of that centuries-old tradition. While simultaneously facing doubts over ordination, my usual thirst for action became a quest for meaning and a future. I wanted to fix the problem, read a book, study Anglican history, smoke English tobacco, and talk theology with my ecumenical pals; Dr. Wells told me to sit.
“Just push the boat out, Brad; test the waters. Even row a little if you like…but just enjoy where you are.” So I am. For some reason I can imagine sitting in a boat (where at least I’m moving, or rocking, to and fro in imaginary symbolism) as more fruitful than sitting in class chairs, church pews, or my home recliner. At this point the shore lies a meter off my bow with my back turned to the horizon, but I’m sitting. From time to time I reach out to grab the oars, pretending as if a quick pull or stroke will yank the horizon into view and cast the shoreline into memory. I know it won’t, however, so I sit.
Perhaps it’s my Baptist background, but so much in me cries out to reach out and do. It’s my job, my life, my soul, my call, my career, my family, my wife, my purpose. All these realities compound my inability to let God take me where God wills. I want to offer my own sacrament of exhaustion and hard work alongside the body of the Christ. Just sit, God seems to whisper. Wait. These whispers sometimes seem less than a whisper, like a hollow breeze that mimics a whisper. Before you’ve heard the voice the breeze is gone and the trees are still again, sitting on their roots and looking down at you walking along in such an awful, worried hurry.
It’s time to get up for now; I’ll walk about a hundred meters then sit down in my Hebrew class. But I’m not worried for now. I’m going to sit, and listen, and write out this journey. The word of God comes and goes, leaving us with impressions of the Spirit, while we sit and wonder if in these tarnished images God still sees Himself.
I met with Dr. Jo Bailey Wells a little over a week ago. I came into her office, sat down, and in her disarming British accent she proceeded to inform me on how to productively sit and wait, in this case on the timing of God. Since my recent interest in the Anglican Church I’ve begun to remedy my ignorance of that centuries-old tradition. While simultaneously facing doubts over ordination, my usual thirst for action became a quest for meaning and a future. I wanted to fix the problem, read a book, study Anglican history, smoke English tobacco, and talk theology with my ecumenical pals; Dr. Wells told me to sit.
“Just push the boat out, Brad; test the waters. Even row a little if you like…but just enjoy where you are.” So I am. For some reason I can imagine sitting in a boat (where at least I’m moving, or rocking, to and fro in imaginary symbolism) as more fruitful than sitting in class chairs, church pews, or my home recliner. At this point the shore lies a meter off my bow with my back turned to the horizon, but I’m sitting. From time to time I reach out to grab the oars, pretending as if a quick pull or stroke will yank the horizon into view and cast the shoreline into memory. I know it won’t, however, so I sit.
Perhaps it’s my Baptist background, but so much in me cries out to reach out and do. It’s my job, my life, my soul, my call, my career, my family, my wife, my purpose. All these realities compound my inability to let God take me where God wills. I want to offer my own sacrament of exhaustion and hard work alongside the body of the Christ. Just sit, God seems to whisper. Wait. These whispers sometimes seem less than a whisper, like a hollow breeze that mimics a whisper. Before you’ve heard the voice the breeze is gone and the trees are still again, sitting on their roots and looking down at you walking along in such an awful, worried hurry.
It’s time to get up for now; I’ll walk about a hundred meters then sit down in my Hebrew class. But I’m not worried for now. I’m going to sit, and listen, and write out this journey. The word of God comes and goes, leaving us with impressions of the Spirit, while we sit and wonder if in these tarnished images God still sees Himself.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Without Faith
What constitutes a person’s faith? Less than a year ago I probably would have possessed a succinct conclusion regarding that question. At this time in my life, however, I struggle to understand what composes my own faith. Is faith simply a set of beliefs, a type of intellectual acceptance of certain facts and figures? Jesus plus the Cross minus my sins equals salvation? Or is it more of a world view? Creationists versus evolutionists, those who read the Bible as history versus those who read it all as formational literature, conservatives versus liberals, and many more controversies illumine stark contrasts between people of faith, even in the Church. What makes me Christian? Is it because I believe in six days of Creation, a literal Flood, prophets who sent bears to maul mocking youths, Israelites who smashed infants and murdered women because God told them to, or is it because I somehow manage to justify and explain all these things in my head? In truth, I believe faith is none of the above.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. What proves that certainty? Is there some type of action required of me, or do I only need to feel certain? Much of the confusion I’m feeling regarding this question comes as a result of a tough question that was put to me earlier this week. If a person claims to follow Christ but his life clearly implies the opposite, then what are we to conclude regarding his faith? It is not our job to judge, but it is our job to learn from each other in the Church how to conduct ourselves in a way that honors Christ. So if a person follows Christ in action, but not in word, what comes of her?
Whenever I wrestle with these thoughts, one idea always bleeds through the mental jargon. It isn’t complicated; it doesn’t require belief, or acceptance, or explanation. It’s just to love. And I do not mean to suggest that this idea to love reserves itself only for those I already love. The thought is more of an imperative, like a command from God, a whisper from the Holy Spirit. Just love. In every second of my day each person that I encounter, every enemy and/or friend I come across, is to be loved. I think this is faith. I don’t need faith to have the idea, nor do I have to believe in love or that I’m supposed to love. I am simply to love, and that action is faith given flesh. This is Gospel.
So when things are confusing, when Hebrew texts don’t exactly line up when any English translation in existence simply because Hebrew and English can’t be precisely translated into the other, when dozens of assumptions I’ve held about my beliefs can no longer be reconciled to my faith, then I will love. At moments like these, a person discovers the presence or absence of their faith. Somewhere in these tangled thoughts lies the foundation of being a pastor/priest, a person of faith.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. What proves that certainty? Is there some type of action required of me, or do I only need to feel certain? Much of the confusion I’m feeling regarding this question comes as a result of a tough question that was put to me earlier this week. If a person claims to follow Christ but his life clearly implies the opposite, then what are we to conclude regarding his faith? It is not our job to judge, but it is our job to learn from each other in the Church how to conduct ourselves in a way that honors Christ. So if a person follows Christ in action, but not in word, what comes of her?
Whenever I wrestle with these thoughts, one idea always bleeds through the mental jargon. It isn’t complicated; it doesn’t require belief, or acceptance, or explanation. It’s just to love. And I do not mean to suggest that this idea to love reserves itself only for those I already love. The thought is more of an imperative, like a command from God, a whisper from the Holy Spirit. Just love. In every second of my day each person that I encounter, every enemy and/or friend I come across, is to be loved. I think this is faith. I don’t need faith to have the idea, nor do I have to believe in love or that I’m supposed to love. I am simply to love, and that action is faith given flesh. This is Gospel.
So when things are confusing, when Hebrew texts don’t exactly line up when any English translation in existence simply because Hebrew and English can’t be precisely translated into the other, when dozens of assumptions I’ve held about my beliefs can no longer be reconciled to my faith, then I will love. At moments like these, a person discovers the presence or absence of their faith. Somewhere in these tangled thoughts lies the foundation of being a pastor/priest, a person of faith.
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