Long waiting
Is infuriating...
but
Is a space for creating
New ways
New seeing
New thinking
New being.
In this long waiting
Your Spirit, Abba,
Is present tense
To help us sense
The new.
In this long waiting
In this long lapse
Help us see
That the collapse
Of old things past
Makes space for creating
New ways
New seeing
New thinking
New being.
Nita Steiner
(Advent 2021)
As I age and continue to grow and change, I am increasingly aware that the more I know, the less I know. What I believe today will change tomorrow...
I grew up hearing and accepting that being sincere wasn't enough to "save" you; you had to have a specified experience of accepting Jesus into your heart by faith and then you could be assured of being saved. I was given a "house of cards" belief system that kept me imprisoned in a mindset that demanded perfection and certainty of belief. I'm not saying that I think everything about that was bad or wrong (there were great blessings for which I am grateful), but there were implied and spoken messages of condemnation for all those who didn't have such beliefs, and that presents a major problem for me now.
In his second letter to Timothy the apostle Paul commends him for his "sincere faith". So now when I reflect on my life and am tempted to be discouraged or disheartened over things I said and taught for many years that I don't agree with now, Paul's words to Timothy comfort me. From childhood my heart has been genuinely sincere about Jesus' God and his deep love and affection for all humans. I wonder if the only thing I have to offer him is sincerity and a humble heart that is wide open to him and to all that is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control.
I appreciate what Walter Brueggemann says: "In the end it is not *human righteousness but the abiding trustworthiness of Yahweh that matters decisively." This is the place of rest for me.
*human right-ness
The incarnation of God in the man Jesus convinces me that God really likes humans and wants us to be truly human (which includes the glory and the limitations implicit in being human).
As a college professor in an evangelical missionary school situated in the holiness movement, I enjoyed telling my stressed, fearful-of-failure students, "Take a deep breath; relax...most of what you will decide and do in life will be mistaken, and God is just fine with that!"
This message was badly needed. Although we said that God is love and that it's "by grace alone you are saved", the stronger subliminal message received by most of us was that if you behaved perfectly, did enough, sacrificed enough, denied yourself enough, etc., then God would approve and like you.
Many decades and much unlearning/relearning later, I now approach all of this from a different posture, aware that my God-given humanity and the God-given humanity of those around me is fraught with limitations and error. And that is not a bad thing!
In an age of being bombarded with endless close-ended opinions about what is "right" and "wrong", it's easy to feel the pressure to try to make sure I'm "right". But there is a comfort in realizing that I can never get it right, because 'to err is human'; or as the apostle Paul put it: "we see through a glass indirectly...we see in part..." Consequently we are making choices constantly without really having enough information or wisdom to be sure it's a 'correct' choice. Since this limitation is one of the beauties of being human, why not accept and enjoy it and come out from under the impossible burden of trying to be gods?? (I believe Jesus was happy to be fully human with all its limitations and invited us to be under that easy yoke with him.)
So what about the daily decisions we have to make about all kinds of issues?? Do they not matter at all? Should we not make any attempt at living well in our world?
I propose that if we accept that there are limitations to our knowledge, then we must accept that we take actions daily on high risk that we will be mistaken; we cannot escape ignorance and mistakes, hard as we try. However, we can make a choice about how we will err.
For example: giving to those in need...I've been questioned about freely handing cash to someone on the street asking for help. I don't know that person's situation or if they will use it in a wise way; but knowing that whatever I do is a risk in error (either the error of giving to questionable use, or the error of withholding from genuine need), I have decided that I will err on the side of giving. I have also decided to err on the side of inclusion of those who are labeled 'sinners' by religious systems rather than on the side of exclusion, and to err on the side of compassion/mercy rather than on the side of judgment.
Why? Because Jesus, who I claim to follow, was fully human with the ignorance and limitations of being human and he lived in this way (from what I can gather by reading his story).
There are few cases in our lifetime that we are close enough to and have enough intimate knowledge and understanding about that we can approach in a more nuanced way, but for the bulk of decisions I have to make over a lifetime, the default position of an open heart and open mind is a place of peace and joy and even carefreeness about the myriad life decisions we make.
"Faith is risk with a direction, and the direction I want to give myself to existentially is this: the (Creator) of the universe knows each of our names and cares and desires the flourishing of the whole, despite the fact that what God has to work with is people who don't know what they are doing. (Lk.23:34)" -Tripp Fuller
The following is a quote that I read years ago from Frank Viola. It expresses
so well how I feel about continually moving forward in knowing Jesus
which requires that we be willing to let go of how we have known Him in
the past.
In the following, Viola is referring to the encounter between Mary and Jesus in the garden after Jesus' resurrection:
He was moving forward, but she was clinging to
Him. Jesus was in effect saying to her: “Mary, stop holding on to me.
There’s a new way to know me that’s different from what you’ve
experienced thus far. Let me go. I must move on.”
Viola then speaks of the encounter between Jesus and the two disciples on the Emmaus road...he proceeds to say,
"These stories hold a critical insight. You cannot cling to the Christ you know today. He will vanish from your midst.
Jesus Christ is an elusive Lover. Seeking Him is a progressive
engagement that never ends...We all wish to cling to the Lord who we
know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ who has been revealed to
us today.
"But mark my words: He will come to us in a way we do not
expect—through people we’re prone to ignore and inclined to write off.
Perhaps they don’t talk our religious language. Perhaps they aren’t
theologically sophisticated. Perhaps they don’t use our vocabulary.
Perhaps they don’t share our insider knowledge nor parrot our religious
idioms.
"So we cling fast to the Lord we recognize—receiving only those who
talk our language, use our jargon and employ our catchphrases—and all
along we end up turning the Lord Jesus Christ away.
What, then, does Jesus do after we fail to receive Him when He comes
to us in an unexpected way? He moves on. And the revelation we have of
Him ceases to grow. Jesus Christ is richer, larger and more glorious
than any of us could ever imagine...
"There is something in our fallen nature that, like Peter, wishes to
build a monument around a spiritual encounter with God and remain there.
But the Lord will not have it. He will always break free from our frail
attempts to pin Him down, box Him up and hold Him in place. And He does
so by coming to us in new and unexpected ways."
It wasn't until I was willing to take seriously the thoughts and findings of people outside of my western evangelical charismatic classic theological mindset that I really began to awaken more fully to the beauty and goodness and bigness of God in Jesus...it can be (and will be) a wild ride into losing control over certainty to allow 'others' in but in time, very rewarding. Don't be afraid to listen to those you consider outsiders and people on the margins of society in your search. God bless you in the venture!
