I love the last section of this book so much, I have recommended it to many of my clergy and church leader friends to give them a sample of what the under-30 crowd is thinking about life and faith and church, along with some of us over-30’s. As much as we want certainty, the institutional church will wither and die if it continues to insist on rigid boundaries and absolute black and white answers to questions that are too big for our minds and hearts to fully understand.
It seems that today many in the church keep telling us that we have to live inside a box – that rules were not meant to be broken. But relationships grow and change, and if we’re honest and willing to see it all through, living a little grey will help us to grow and give us a stronger foundation on which to go forward into the world. This book feels special to me because, like Rachel, I find that the more I think I know, the more I have to learn. I have found that questions just make the box bigger, instead of finding me outside it bounds. I hope that my willingness to change and adapt is seen as a strength and not a weakness. But how do we know when it’s time to hold ground and when it’s time to update our thinking?
For me, there are not hard and fast rules, as long as I continue to live according to my understanding of who God has called me to be. Love God, love neighbor, love self – and all for the glory of God. It is impossible for human beings to find 100% agreement on every idea regarding faith, family and life. But when we are at our best, we find a middle ground. We figure out how to make a life together and we do it out of love for God and love for each other. Relationships with our spouses, our family members, our friends and our enemies are often defined by what we are willing to give up in order that others might find joy and/or peace. When challenged, we find that many things that we thought were really important are, in reality, just things, or ideas, or habits of doing things a particular way. And when push comes to shove, we often have to choose between competing ideas. But through it all, we have to practice love.
[Jesus said,] “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:34-35 (The Message)This is the high bar that is set for all of us. And God’s gives us the ability to choose how to live out that love in our own lives. My life looks very different from most of yours, and that’s a good thing. But it is my hope and prayer that our choices will draw us closer together and not put up walls that will keep us from supporting one another as we live our faith in the world today.
I wanted to weep for the ugliness that good Christian people can be capable of when they feel that there theological foundations are being challenged… for the hateful things that people can say and do… for the ways that we take sides and shut people out if they don’t fit into the rolls that we have defined as right and wrong. And all of this was percolating in my head when I heard for the first time the song, “The Proof of Your Love” by For King and Country (obviously, I don’t listen to Christian radio very much). The song is a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 and in the middle is a monologue quote from verses 1-3 in The Message translation by Eugene Peterson.
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.“Do this… don’t do that…” Rachel’s stories remind me that it’s easy to pick and choose what we want to live out every day. But that was the whole problem in Corinth and the reason that Paul writes his letter in the first place. Paul wanted to make it plain that everything we do must be motivated by love, before anything else. If love isn’t at the root of it all, then it’s just a house of cards.
Many blessings to all who struggle with questions and doubts. But we always have to remember that it’s not really God that we doubt, just what we believe about God. And in this journey, we are never alone. May we continue to seek God and one another in love.
Peace, Deb
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