 Pastor’s
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Throughout April, we’ve been reflecting on
what it means to “be church.” Part of it is about what we believe that draws
us together, and another part of it is how our beliefs call us into
community and to treat one another with honor and respect.
Coincidentally, I just found an article I had saved from an issue of
“RUMORS” (on-line publicatin for “Christians with a sense of humor”), that
speaks to the belief issue. While I don’t agree (!) with author Jim Taylor
on every single point, I think his essay offers some great food for thought.
I’m excited about
the “emerging paradigm” that theologian and professor Mardus Borg describes.
Borg has written several books and many articles on the subject. If I dare
summarize, the “emerging paradigm” is the freedom NOT to believe many of the
dusty doctrines that have been part of church tradition for so long that
most people can’t remember why they were once cnsidered crucial, let alone
find them meaningful today.
Borg suggests that the
Christian church is splitting into two streams - those who cling to those
old doctrines the way a drowning person clings to a sodden lifejacket, and
those who have decided they can swim for shore better without the
lifejacket. But I’m noticing that it seems a lot easier for people to
describe the outdated beliefs they discarded than to define what they still
believe. So let me take a very brief try at what I believe.
First, God is God. I can
no more define God than I can levitate. Whatever I am capable of thinking,
God alredy is. I like the Hindu description of their supreme being Brahman:
“tat tvam asi,” - “that thou art.” Besides, it’s not up to me to difine God.
Whatever words or images or analogies I might invent, God is more.
Second, of all the Christian doctrines that have filtered down through the
centuries, I believe most deeply in Incarnation. Incarnation is the core of
the Chrismas story, the idea that God chooses to be embodied in mortal
flesh. I believe that’s God’s mode of operation, God’s way of communicating.
Most traditional theology
limits God to a single Incarnation, in the person of the infant Jesus, the
Messiah (Hebrew) or the Christ (Greek). But I’m not willing to limit God.
So, to borrow words from the late Clarke MacDonald, on of my mentors, I
believe that Jesus is the window through which I can see as much of God as
humans can comprehend.
Indeed, I’ll go further -
whenever anyone attributes qualities to God that are not also evident in
Jesus, I’m skeptical. That belief doesn’t preclude the possibility that God
has also chosen to be embodied in Krishna or Buddha, in Mother Teresa or
Mahatma Gandhi, in Oscar Romero or the Dalai Lama. Or in me, or you, or
anything else. Could God choose to be embodied in a sparrow or a lily?
Why not? I refuse to treat God as the private property of any one faith or
of any one species. I cannot instruct God where and how to relate to the
universe. If God choose to be a field mouse or a grey whale, that’s up to
God, not to me.
But even the possibility
requires me to treat field mice and whales, sparrows and lilies, with
respect, in case I’m dealing not with an inferiour being but with God
embodied.
Finally, I believe that
when we who are embodied die, we are gathered back into God. And, God is
somehow richer for our experience.
What do you believe?
Blessings, Pastor Sharyl
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