Stirring Waters

There is something riding the crest of a cosmic wave, echoing throughout the ages and shrouded in mystery. Call it the voice of God, the appeal of conscience, or “the intelligence of the victim.” Whatever you may choose to call it, it haunts me as a spectral presence—inviting, nudging, insisting. Where could I go to get away from your spirit?  Where could I go to escape your presence? . . . [E]ven then the darkness isn’t too dark for you! (Psalm 139: 7, 12a) Karen Armstrong (The Case for God) reminds us that “religion is hard work.” Asking questions is part of the work and one of the ways to stir up the waters. What if the Bible is NOT the word of God, but a witness to how faithful people have participated in a sacred process of humanizing the world? What if God is NOT some external, existent being who controls life, but an insistent presence within that calls us to concern for others and care for the creation? What if Yeshua is NOT some divine God masquerading as a human being, but a very human person who, out of a sense of connection with a sacred calling, sought to re-orient the world from systems of dominance to communities of mutual responsibility? What if the Holy Spirit is NOT some force to ensure that God’s will is done, but a motivating and healing presence that animates us to find our own sacred calling? Can spirituality be sustained in the absence of community? Can faith survive without a vital, sustaining, and animating, dare I say, inspiring network of relationships? Is it true, after all, that no man, no woman, is an island? How shall I worship a God who can’t be seen or heard or even imaged, yet sensed a divine presence as real as the whisper of the wind? Am I willing to commit myself to follow in the footsteps of a man whose mission was tragically ended with his execution for treason? Will I join my hypocrisy, brokenness, unfulfilled promises, and other faults, with those of others seeking a religious community? Do I rejoice when fellowship breaks out and the repository of stories that began with the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament witness to a vital faith, alive through the ages? Do these stories become my pole star for navigating life? Am I up to the challenge of interpreting and integrating those stories, as my witness to a living faith that reaches out to heal a broken world? Yes, religion requires a great deal of intense effort, and a lot of hard work In a post-certain age, we can be no more certain about the church than we can about family, democracy, spirituality, or God. And yet, people still go to church. People go to church to remember, to travel back to hope, and to return to a place of Presence. That is why people call for the old hymns—those hymns are place-holders for memories. The church is a story enacted, a story of remembrance—“This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Perhaps this is the place to begin with story. Not a once-upon-a-time story, but a story that begs to be re-told today in ways that resonate with the story-teller’s context, enhanced by the story-teller’s flair. And you and I are the story-tellers!