Convictions #3
Genesis 32: 22-29
Matthew 13: 44-53
“Then the man said to Jacob you shall be called Israel,
for you have striven (wrestled ) with God … and have prevailed.”
God. It’s a very small word for a very big idea. People make war over god. People make peace in god’s name. People unite and divide over interpretations of god. People bless and curse about god. So many great and terrible actions. No wonder many people have switched off and said I don’t believe in God.
The late Bruce Prewer wrote this prose-prayer:
God. G.o.d. These three letters with which we name you are a pathetic inadequacy…. How can one three-letter word serve to point to the secret of the glory which science is exploring within the human brain and philosophers ponder within the phenomenon of self-consciousness?…How shall we, who are of the church, use this frail word ‘God’ to declare the incomparable glory of saving, healing love …in Christ Jesus?
For centuries God was assumed as the first cause and the final explanation of life. It was there Age of Faith. By the nineteenth century scientists were exploring and explaining, delving and burrowing into the mystery of life. It seemed to make God redundant to some.
• •
A parable was told by the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? — Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst … “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. …..Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
It is a famous parable, and Nietzsche intuited something was happening to the ancient belief in God. In 1966 Time Magazine published a famous cover. A red background with black lettering asked Is God Dead?
In 1966 churches were full and the West was nominally Christian. But, over the past 50 years many people have become functionally atheist, that is God has no place in their thinking, decisions or relationships.
But, the world faiths are growing , not declining. And the biggest growth in Christianity. The average Christian today is aged in her mid-30’s and is a black African. Someone said God moved South to where God was wanted!!
• •
I have been wrestling with the mystery of God for most of my adult life.
Growing up in a non church-going family with Christmas and occasional Easter attendances shaped my first eighteen years. The experience of conversion , and a mystical encounter with the Divine kickstarted my journey into God. Then, came a time of exploring various churches – first Pentecostal, then Anglican, and after a gap the Uniting Church.
I was gripped by this Reality which I couldn’t see, touch or handle and yet I became increasingly aware of the importance and vitality of God – even as I knew that many didn’t believe. Certainly at that point I had a supernatural understanding, that the universe is sandwiched into two realities, this world and the next. I was convinced that God was a greater Reality than this present world believed.
However, along with the strong supernaturalism of the Pentecostals came strong dogmatism and fundamentalism. That wasn’t to my taste at all, because I had Questions, which were looking for answers, or at the least a conversation.
Two books that helped this wrestling are scored in my memory. One was “On Being a Christian” by Hans Kung. It was a blockbuster of a book and much I didn’t understand – but I got the idea that Christianity was a much bigger and diverse ‘thing’ than what I had been told.
The other was by a Methodist preacher, Leslie Weatherhead. It had the startling title “The Christian Agnostic” and helped me understand that Christianity was not about unquestionable loyalty to traditional doctrines. Christian faith, beliefs and doubts had to “ feel its way about , and live with questions marks and doubt” (TiS 691) I found a second-hand copy in Ballarat a year ago, and reread with interest a Christian who feels a bit quaint in his writing. But, I amen-end, this conviction:
“ I believe that Christianity is a way of life, not a theological system with which one must be in intellectual agreement. I feel that Christ would admit into discipleship anyone who sincerely desired to follow him, and allow that disciple to make his creed out of his experience; to listen, to consider, to pray, to follow and ultimately to believe only those convictions about which the experience of fellowship made him sure. This is how a man ( or woman) falls in love.” (pxi)
• •
Jesus usually taught though parables, little mind-bomb nuggets often astounding his audience. He lived in a world which thoroughly believed in God. But his teaching was non-dogmatic, not a hint of a creed, but an invitation to explore this Mystery.
His parables spoke of the kingdom of God being like – hidden treasure, seeking the finest pearls, catching a haul of fish, yeast in flour, a mustard seed, seeds sown into a field .. ( see Matthew 13). Seek first the kingdom of God, he urged, make this wrestling with God a priority in your life and everything will fall into place.
Well, it didn’t but the story of Jesus is a rich window into God’s mystery. It also needed to be wrestled with and through several years of biblical studies and theology I began to do so. But the reality of all that kicked in when I was ordained and moved Whyalla. It was a workingman’s town, not given to easy believing. But the four congregations were comprised of believers, seekers and doubters. I wrestled with God and them as we sought to build a new way of being and becoming church.
That set a theme for the next three decades in encouraging living, exploring congregations who were all buffeted and blown by the changing culture. What does it mean to be a Christian? How can we re-form the church, when a lot of folk just want what they knew?
Instead of exploration and wrestling I noticed some church leaders circle the wagons of orthodoxy teaching believing in God, Jesus, Bible, Truth , Correct Doctrine as if that would wash away the questions.
My own experience was that I had left the Pentecostals because they didn’t encourage exploring the questions. After a time I met an Anglican priest who encouraged me and I discovered that faith and doubt were flip-sides of the same coin. Joining the Uniting Church I found that it didn’t believe that it was the true church – which was a relief!
• •
In the years since I have been wrestling with the mystery of God – both for myself, and encouraging individuals and congregations to actively do so. It seems to me that without this wrestling churches simply lose vitality.
In the past it was possible to grow in numbers simply by being there for the major milestones of life – birth and baptisms, young adults and weddings, death and funerals. But, those days have long past and once again, as if for the first time, congregations have to take responsibility for exploring the mystery of God, following the way of Jesus and building a community in Christ together.
That’s’s why I have encouraged discussion groups to explore the Bible and other books. It’s why I will often speak of books which have encouraged or challenged me. It’s why I see Christianity as a love affair, rather than doctrinaire.
Someone asked me is that challenging to your faith? And the answer is yes, for God is a mystery and the ways we understand and imagine God is different to to earlier ages.
This conversation, and prayers, this wrestling with God through listening to others, learning from different perspectives and disciplines, different faiths and those of no faith is a life-long struggle.
Few believe today in the old idea of God above, the old man with a beard as portrayed in Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel painting. I like the question asked of an atheist : “Tell me,“about the god you don’t believe in. I probably don’t believe in that god either.”