When I was a
young adult I used to be a part of a mission team working with Scripture union
called Theos. As a part of that work we used to go around various country and
city shows. I was a part of what was called the Bus Team as we did our work
from an old red double decker bus. My main work was writing and performing
puppet shows that retold some bible stories in new ways. The bus also had an
upstairs coffee shop where we would sit and talk to young people who would come
for a free coffee. Overall, it was a helpful, caring ministry and I felt that
we were able to help those in need of some care. One year I remember that the
Theos bus was at the Royal Melbourne Show and we were doing our normal thing.
Along with our running the coffee shop and talking to people we also provided a
retreat for some of the carnival people who were often really struggling. And
it is here that I hit a bit of a faith challenge. As a part of our training for
the even we were instructed that one of the most important things that we were
doing was to try to convert people to Christian faith – to ‘save’ them. As a
part of the ‘saving’ we were told to hand out leaflets which included what are
known as the four spiritual laws. For those who have not heard of them they are
…
- God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
- Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he
cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.
- Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin.
Through him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.
- We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and
Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.
It was a simple set of laws but it really
stuck in my throat and I could not say them, let alone impose them on some
poor, vulnerable soul seeking hope. So, I didn’t and shortly afterwards I
decided (even though they did some wonderful, compassionate work) that I could
no longer be a part of Theos. In fact, it was that event that actually led me
to feel that if I was going to stay in the faith, I needed to learn more. So I
ended up at Bible college. Not to study for ministry originally, but to learn
and decide whether there were other ways of looking at the faith that were
life-giving, rather than rule and guilt driven. Bible college did not give me a
new set of rules or a definite plan to go by, but the journey opened up
spirituality for me in ways for which I am eternally grateful. In fact, my
first lecturer began by telling the class that if they were looking for a whole
lot of answers they had come to the wrong place. Instead he promised a whole
new set of questions and a life of faith that is about embracing the mystery
and complexity of the Divine and about facing life’s deepest and most important
questions.
For me this
was a transition from a simple law-driven faith, to an adult religion. For some
of us, the transition to adult spirituality is different, maybe brought on by a
sudden life crisis. Perhaps we followed all the rules of religion but still
suffered some tragic loss, and the old stuff about God having a plan and not
giving us more than we can handle don’t work anymore. So we’re forced to
wrestle with our old certainties, and if we’re lucky, we come out the other
side a bit humbler and less certain about knowing everything.
And others
made different choices. Some choose to continue to worship a god of human
proportions—one who shares our prejudices and opinions on political
issues—rather than an infinite and unknowable Divine. Others reject their
childhood faiths in disgust, considering themselves “too smart” for religion. The
trouble is that if too many people abandon their tradition then it is left to
those who would distort them for their own purposes. One of the challenges for
the modern church is to welcome those who do reject the old faith, to ask them
to stay and reinterpret, and dig and find the deeper things in the faith that
will give us all life. As a church we can become a place where we acknowledge
that we don’t know everything, but that we are keeping our hearts open to
mystery and to difficult questions.
I personally
want a form of religion doesn’t teach simplistic or implausible answers but
pushes us to ask the right questions. Not just “what does it mean to be happy
or successful?” But “what does it mean to lead a truly ethical life? To be part
of a community? To serve something greater than one’s self?”
I think that
many of us are seeking this kind of religion. The invitation is to be a church community
that embraces a wise, loving, open version of our faith. We need to not be
afraid to be Christian people whose spiritual depth is matched by intellectual
depth; who understand that faith at its best is a form of protest against the often
self-absorption, materialism, triviality and cruelty of modern life; who
challenge this way of being by living a loving life, and who are comfortable
uttering the phrase “I don’t know.”
And to
finish I would like to share a poem with you by Edwina Gately.
God ran away
when we imprisoned her
and put her in a box named Church.
God would have none of our labels
and our limitations and she said:
“I will escape and paint myself
in a simpler, poorer soil
where those who see, will
see,
and those who hear, will
hear.
I will become a God-
believable,
because I am free, and go where I will.
My goodness will be found
in my freedom and that
freedom
I offer to all- regardless
of color, sex or status,
regardless of power or
money.
Ah, I am God because I am
free,
and all those who would be
free
will find me, roaming,
wandering, singing.
Come, walk with me- come,
dance with me!
I created you to sing- to
dance- to love…”
If you cannot sing, nor dance, nor love,
because they put you also
in a box,
know that your God
broke free and ran away.
So, send your Spirit then, to dance with Her.
Dance, sing with the God
whom they cannot tame or
chain.
Dance within, though they chain
your very guts to the great
stone walls…
Dance, beloved, Ah, Dance!
~Edwina
Gateley
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