Faith
Photo Courtesy of Ben Gosden
Some days…I grow weary of cookie cutter faith.
If a grave could not hold God, what makes us think a neat little box of our own making will do it? We would rather spend our energies proclaiming how God rubber stamps our political/social/ideological views and we miss the face of Christ in the stranger we pass by. You see, that stranger is longing for just a few moments from a Good Samaritan. But the only faith we can seem to articulate is meant for bumper stickers and sound bytes. How is it, again, that faith can somehow fit so neatly in a sentence or two? Would someone please remind me how to speak of God in 30 words or less in light of the madness of the world we live in?
Some days…I am bored with “churchy” talk.
It doesn’t matter if we sit in cathedrals and sing 300-year old hymns or if we gather in a storefront and pretend like what we’re doing is somehow new or contemporary — we think faith means severing all ties to the world around us. We say following Jesus means pretending like we don’t live outside the church six days a week. We want to act as though one hour a week (or maybe two if we count our Sunday School/Small Group/Community Group/Life Group/etc.) is the totality of our discipleship. We tell people serving on committees or volunteering to sustain our building or programs is what it means to follow Jesus. We forget that life happens outside of the “praise” we offer in worship. We avoid the tough questions and the messy circumstances because we don’t want to “turn people off” or somehow make others question God. We pray that life doesn’t get too complicated for people so they’ll continue attending and going through the motions of “church.” But life happens. It turns worlds upside down much like Jesus turns tables over in temples where we worship idols of wealth, self-help, and politics masked as faith. Where’s the bumper sticker when you lose a baby? Where’s the clever sermon series that speaks to the horrors of cancer or addiction? What pithy phrase do we dare offer when we learn of abuse or prejudice?
Some days…I get tired of the church’s navel gazing.
I grow weary of conversations where institutional survival is the main topic. Decline drives us to insanity some days. Maybe it’s not decline in size, but decline in influence and prestige? I don’t know. All I know is we absolutely cannot stand the fact that we are not what we once were. It scares us to death to think of a world where we are not the center of attention or the major power broker at the table. If only there were one more program, one more campaign, one more slogan that could “save” us. Never mind the fact that “the Church is of God and it will last until the end of time.” We’re not signing on that dotted line unless it means we remain at the top of the social mountain. Is it possible to be the Church for the sake of the world even if we’re not the church of the nation?
Some days…I want to count myself with the doubters.
Knowing it all can reveal the fact that we really know nothing when it comes to the living God. A faith built on answers leaves no room for mystery. It doesn’t grant permission for struggle. It fails to admit that we might not know everything when it comes to God. I want to struggle with my faith or else how am I supposed to grow? I want to doubt or else how am I to truly appreciate when I am in the presence of mystery? Let other people “know it all” and have the answers. I know it makes things like preaching and teaching difficult. But if faith were simply advice we sought “buy-in” for, then is that really faith at all? Surely there’s more than meets the eye?
Some days I want to write as a writer who happens to be Christian instead of a “Christian writer.”
“Christian writers” too often fear offending others or, God forbid, their narrow doctrine or worldview. Christian writers prefer a Christian world of their own making that’s “safe for the family” and pretends like messy things like death or poverty or cursing or prejudice do not exist. This Christian world emphasizes self-sufficiency and raising well-behaved kids. It has no time for people who struggle because they can’t pay their bills, find adequate healthcare, or who’s lives refuse to fit in the mold called “The American Dream.”
Writers who are Christian want to engage the world around them. They want to open themselves to the world instead of closing themselves off to it in fear. They refuse to be shackled by the narrow world of “church” because they know God is alive and well in the most unexpected places. They know the power at work in our everyday lives and they know how to tell a compelling story. They know God rarely fits into a formula or plan of action. And they trust that a story’s power can speak, by grace of the God, even when they do not have the answers. It’s reckless, yet freeing. It’s exhausting and messy, yet life-giving and strangely beautiful.
Some days…I want to be that kind of writer. I want to be that kind of pastor.
The Rev. Ben Gosden is associate pastor of Mulberry Street UMC in Macon, GA. He blogs at Covered in the Master's Dust.