ON GOING TO CHURCH AND NOT

The quote below is from At Home in the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Rosemary Radford Ruether.  The book is out of print, but I have ordered a used copy. Rmj at Adventus quoted the words at his blog, and I borrowed them.

Merton: I do wonder at times if the Church is real at all. I believe it, you know. But I wonder if I am nuts to do so. Am I part of a great big hoax? I don’t explain myself as well as I would like to: there is a real sense of and confidence in an underlying reality, the presence of Christ in the world which I don’t doubt for an instant. But is that presence where we are all saying it is? We are all pointing (in various directions), and my dreadful feeling is that we are all pointing wrong.

Yes, I suspect we are getting it wrong.  This past April, I stopped going to church altogether, because of pain due to a bad back which limited my activity.  I've been a lifelong churchgoer, though I changed denominations, but I found I didn't miss church attendance, which surprised me greatly.

Looking back now, I remember thinking about church, "What are we doing, and why are we doing this?"  Now I'm wondering if it was habit more than anything else that kept me going for so long.  Also, when I was involved in several ministries in my church, it all seemed to make more sense, but, as my health deteriorated, and I gradually eased out of ministry, I began questioning. As long as I was busy in the church, it seemed fine.

I read the Scripture passages for the day from the Lectionary and say my prayers at home; I'm immensely grateful for the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.  The 1979 version in modern English retains some of the grandeur and flavor of Thomas Cranmer's beautiful but simple language in the older version and includes at least some prayers in the old language.  My faith in the teachings of Jesus as a way to live my life remains firm, as does my faith in God, although my concept of who God is and how God relates to me is much less certain.  My one true certainty is God is love, or God is not my God.

Having said that, I have no idea how to get church right, except a vague idea that perhaps the Christian church ought to be poor and on the fringes of society and not so much about elaborate buildings.  It appears churches may get to such a place by force, as attendance drops and funding dries up.  I still believe Christian community is important, but I am open to the idea that community can take many forms outside the traditional gathering in a building.

In no way do I mean to disparage my parish church community; the rector is a fine man, and the members of the parish are good people who obviously live the Gospel as best they can.  I doubt that I'd find a better church anywhere nearby, and I'm certainly not looking.

I'm enormously grateful for my religious upbringing; the family I grew up in, with the exception of my maternal grandmother, was not especially devout, though my mother attended church regularly. Somehow the Christian teachings in my schools stayed with me for a great part of my life, though my practice and theology evolved over the years.  Being brought up in the church through religious schooling seems not to be what it once was.  All my grown grandchildren who attended Catholic schools from an early age do not regularly attend church. Their families were not especially devout, but, either the teachings in the schools have changed, or they just didn't persuade my grandchildren that church attendance was important.

All that being said, if I could, I'd very likely attend church during Advent, the season of waiting and expectancy for the coming of the Kingdom of God, which is right now and not yet.  I will very much miss my favorite service of the entire church year, the Christmas Eve service, when we celebrate the coming of Emmanuel, God with us, in the form of a baby, born of a woman in a humble shelter for animals.

Now, I take my community where I find it, and I found my sermon for the First Sunday in Advent at Adventus, by my friend Rmj.

Advent is about preparing for the coming, again.  Christmas is about the coming that has already happened.  Advent reminds us to wake up, look around, see a world that needs what is coming, what has come, and who came, and what happened after that.  We start over again, to end in four weeks with what we anticipated this time; and still we are surprised by it.  Christmas is about the same thing every year, and every year we need to see again that what we waited for, what we are waiting for, is already here.

WHAT ABOUT MY CHRISTIANITY?

In his post titled "More Songs About Buildings and Food", Rmj, who blogs at Adventus, asks a question at the very end.

What is, or should be, the core concern of Christians?

Is it all right if I quote the Scriptures? :-) Below is my answer:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

He [Jesus] said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 37-40)

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

For me, the only way to begin to live the teachings I quoted is "in Christ". Some days, the only way I get out of bed in the morning is "in Christ" - Christ working in me. For me, that is salvation, which I need every single day. Thanks, Rmj, for making me think about my faith.  To my surprise, answering the question was not difficult, because my response came easily.  It was almost as though I was waiting for the question.

The passages I quoted are touchstones that work for me, day by day, to keep me focused on being not only a speaker of the words, but also a doer of the words I quoted.  Also, I like to keep things simple, for I am a simple person with a simple mind.  "In Christ" is where I find strength and courage (salvation), especially in difficult times (literally, on occasion), to put one foot in front of the other to keep going.

Rmj quoted my response at the beginning of another post, along with very kind words.  Whoa!  And then he asked another question.  After thanking him, I left the following comment:

You ask: ...what if, instead of coming into the presence of God for a spiritual recharge or refill, we came into the presence of the living God with fear and trembling? ...the existential awe that creates an awfulness (in the old sense of the world, being filled with awe) at the nature of God, an awe that would put the world in perspective.

What if? Might it be with an attitude of the heart like the imagery of the twenty-four elders in the passage from the Book of Revelation (one of my favorites)?

...the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives for ever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,
‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.' (Rev. 4:10-11)

Then you ask: Would that be a religionless Christianity?

I don't know, but I believe such an attitude of the heart has little to do with a person's membership in a particular Christian denomination.
Those of you who read what I've written may wonder how well I live up to the fine words and ideals and how often I worship God with all my heart.  My answer is easy: Not very well, and not as often as I should.  Still, I believe I do better living my life "in Christ" - not better than anyone else - but better than I would otherwise.

Rmj, thanks again for the nudge to ponder and write a bit about the present state of my faith.

Image from Mouse Runner.

JOHN ADAMS TO THOMAS JEFFERSON ON POWER

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws."

John Adams, letter to Jefferson, 1816

H/T to Rmj at Adventus, who also quotes Reinhold Niebuhr:

In any event we have to deal with a vast religious-political movement which generates more extravagant forms of political injustice and cruelty out of the pretensions of innocency than we have ever known in human history.

Rmj notes that Niebuhr wrote the words in 1959, and says, "Good to know there's been some progress....."

How sad to see it spelled out plainly that, on certain issues, such as economic justice and equality, we have not come a long way, baby. Rmj's entire post is surely worth a read.

OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH

Thus far, I haven't said much about Bin Laden's death. At The Lead, I said, "May the Lord have mercy upon him." I add now that God is just, and God is merciful, and I'll leave it to God to sort out Bin Laden's fate.

With all due respect and sympathy to all those who have suffered or died due to Bin Laden's evil schemes, I cannot find it within myself to take joy in the death of another human being. I wanted Bin Laden stopped from doing harm, and now he's stopped. For that I feel relief.

Several posts by bloggers speak wise words about Bin Laden's end. Mark Harris, at Preludium, Penny's post titled A Note About the Death, and Rmj at Adventus. Rmj picked up commentary from around and about and added his own.

As a sign that I am entirely human and capable of taking the low road, I said the following at Penny's blog:

Still, I take a certain satisfaction in the timing. For all George Bush's bluster, Osama bin Laden was not killed on his watch but on the watch of a president who has been labeled a terrorist by certain citizens of this country. Not exactly a Christian sentiment on my part, eh?

What I did not add at Penny's blog is the rest of what I wanted to say: "Up yours, all you Americans who call our president a terrorist!"

AROUND AND ABOUT AT THE BLOGS

In the past few day, I've noted posts by other bloggers in Bloggerland, which I believe are well worth reading.

For a quote from Kant apropos of the Anglican Covenant, see Themethatisme's post at Conscientisation.

And why Theme chose a name for his blog which is impossible to spell is beyond my understanding.

About the state of the union, see Rmj's post titled "Angels and Demons" at Adventus.

Rmj and I go back to the beginning of his blogging days some years ago, more than four, because his blog is older than mine. In a certain sense, although I am a good many years older than he is, he is one of my blog parents, because he taught me a good bit about how to blog. Nowadays he doesn't write often, but he writes well.

And last, but most certainly not least, on the proper way to use Scriptural texts in the midst of controversy, see Tobias Haller's post titled "No New Revelation" at In a Godward Direction.

I left a comment at Conscientisation and Adventus, but all I could think of to say at In a Godward Direction was, "Yes!" which seemed singularly unimaginative, so I left my wisdom unspoken.

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY

 

 

 

Thanks or blame to Doug.

"WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"

Read Rmj's latest post at Adventus on the words of the new guvna of Alabama, Robert Bentley, as to who are his "brothers and sisters".