Faith Venture

I have these memory flashbacks. They are as clear as if I were still there. A small group of 7th graders in a church study class. Maybe 5–6 of us. I remember the teacher. He was maybe high school or just out of high school. His mother was the teacher, and he was subbing.

He explained the lesson of the day. Seeing is believing. I am 12 years old. I still remember my first thought. “We’re talking about God. You can’t see God. This is a crazy lesson. It doesn’t make sense.”

Maybe I was already on the contemplative path. I don’t know. But I still think of that at times.

I quoted Augustine of Hippo earlier this month. He talked of not needing to read to learn about God, but only needing to go outside and witness the majesty of nature. I know that experience works for many people.

The words of the Apostle John have always resonated with me. God is spirit, worship him in spirit and truth. I do not have God in my head. I have experienced. And maybe this morning when I paused to watch the five Great Egrets and a Great Blue Heron on one of the ponds I pass while exercising, maybe there was a tiny experience of God.

I don’t know. Was believing in the seeing? Or, was it my experience of God what led me to see and appreciate the beauty of a moment in nature?

I’m listening to a man on a podcast who has written several important books on science, scientists, and research. He tries to report on verifiable scientific research. He has made a couple (maybe not many) wrong hypotheses in his career. That happens, as long as you go with the research and change your hypothesis.

I’ll never become a scholar of Greek. I don’t have enough time or energy left. But, I did get a couple of books because I curious about New Testament Greek grammar.

Grammar is how we think. I’m reading a book right now on the way of the Samurai warriors in Japan. It explains a bit about Japanese grammar. Fascinating how the grammar explains my experience working with Japanese companies and people over the past 40 years.

Back to Greek. I’ve read enough scholarship debating phrases and words in the Greek New Testament that I wondered about the grammar. Greek grammar is different from English and translating from Greek to English presents many challenges. Enough so that when we begin drawing lines in the sand over the interpretation of a word or phrase or line of reasoning, we should pause.

We should look at those interpretations as hypotheses, as in science. And then when evidence comes forth, we must consider that perhaps we held a wrong interpretation.

I’m not saying that we can’t know about God and the story of Jesus and the early movement of Jesus-followers. But I think that sometimes we argue over things that lead us astray. And maybe we’re both wrong.

And God is saying, “Children, children, stop with the bickering. What did my son teach you? Love one another as I have loved you.”

I was a quiet kid. Even up through high school and university. People thought I was intelligent. Then I grew up and became verbal. I proved them wrong!

Ignatius of Loyola said, “It is better to be silent and be, than to talk and not be.… Those who possess the word of Jesus are truly able to hear even his very silence, that they may be perfect and may both act as they speak, and be recognized by their silence. There is nothing which is hid from God, but our very secrets are near to him. Let us therefore do all things as those who have him dwelling in us, that we may be his temples, and he may be in us as our God.”

Jesus told us that it is pagans who try to impress their gods with many words. He told us that doesn’t work with the One God.

It doesn’t work with people, either.

I’m with Ignatius on this one.

“You don’t need a better computer to become a writer. You don’t need a better guitar to become a musician. You don’t need a better camera to become a photographer. What you need is to get to work,” says James Clear in his 3-2-1 newsletter.

Remember the guy who was talking with Jesus and told him he would follow Jesus after he had buried his father? He didn’t mean that afternoon. He meant that someday his father would die and he would inherit and then he could follow Jesus.

And Jesus did not give a kind reply. Basically it was, make your decision and go.

And there were others who had some lame excuse. And Jesus had no sympathy.

Similarly for us. We don’t need to wait for something new, something different, some equipment.

Being a disciple means starting now to model yourself after your master. From where you are. With what you have.

There was an advertisement on TV and in popular magazines in the late 60s showing an independent, fashionably dressed, slender woman smoking a distinctive brand of cigarettes with the tag line, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” (Even writing that makes me cringe…)

I grew up in a traditional family in a traditional Midwest America village. Mom thought the way things are are the way they should be—mostly. How I became to be not a traditional Midwesterner, I have no idea. Must be travel and education and my reading of the Gospels.

I was introduced to “women’s liberation” by my second year at university. I met a young woman in one of my classes who proudly told me she was going to become a lawyer. Noticing the look on my face, she challenged, “Don’t you think women should be lawyers?” I replied, “I don’t think anyone should become a lawyer.” But I was not shocked by the idea that a woman could be anything she wanted.

That was 1967. Yesterday, I listened to a panel of women at a technology conference talking about their success and overcoming male reluctance toward giving them a chance. There was the head of the National Basketball Players Association, a Formula 1 racing driver and team leader, and an official in the National Football League. Later, a woman spoke who is now on the Board of Directors of a tech company as a result of completing a program at Hewlett Packard Enterprise that mentor women executives on how to be a board member.

My first thought was, wow, these are some intelligent, hard-working, educated people. Then my heart broke with the thought that in 54 years (actually far more) these people were celebrated as a rarity.

54 years ago I’d have thought that by 2021 people would be judged only by their character, not by gender, race, religion, skin color. Further, that the Christian church has more often been an obstacle rather than an expressway.

I am thankful for companies, churches, and people I meet who are doing the right thing—helping all people learn how to excel and giving them opportunities to prove their worth. And even the small bits I’ve played over the years. Obviously, it’s not enough.

I am still thinking about becoming a disciple. If you are on that path, consider these thoughts.

• Hear and forget.
• See and remember.
• Do and understand.

This morning while I was out for my brisk walk around the ponds I listened to the story of Dr. Gary Parker, chief medical officer and oral & maxilofacial surgeon aboard the hospital ship Africa Mercy. He, and hundreds others, live out discipleship bringing hope and grace to thousands of people in west Africa.

Makes me wonder what I’m doing. How about you?

There are two people. One is a disciple who is following a master. The other a student in a school learning stuff.

The disciple and the student do the same things; the disciple does things differently.

Which are you?

I saw news recently again about leaders in American Christianity wishing to flex their power muscles trying to coerce people into agreeing with their policy or opinion.

This, of course, is not something relegated only to American Christians. The intertwined histories of the Church and kings for a thousand years of European history contain great stories of power and the lust for it.

And not only America and Europe and not only Christianity.

But, back to Christianity—a religion purporting to follow the teachings of Jesus. And just what were his teachings on this very subject?

On the night before he stood before the power of Rome and essentially told it that it could destroy his body but not the Spirit and not the movement, Jesus had a bunch of his top lieutenants at dinner.

Jesus taught them, then he took off his “dress clothes” and proceeded to wash their feet. He performed the task of a servant. He told them that this is the role of a leader.

Jesus gave his followers an example of leadership—it is all about the Will to Serve not the Will to Power.

Slavery dominated US politics in the 19th century. In a subtle way, it also was present at the drafting of the US Constitution. After the armed forces defending slavery were defeated, slaves in Texas were informed by US troops that they had been freed. That was on a June 19. So, we have Juneteenth.

We have a holiday to remember the contributions and life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This seems to be a fitting additional day of remembrance.

Although our holiday to remember people who fought in our wars seems more like a day to have a cookout and officially start summer activities than a day of remembrance. Sometimes the meanings of holidays become lost.

The problem is—we are still fighting for equality and justice. Politics in the US is still dominated by vestiges of that long ago fight. We just can’t get along.

The early church faced those problems. It took the Apostle Paul going to the headquarters and facing down Peter and James to get equal standing for different races within the church.

If you read what Paul actually wrote rather than what some white man told you he wrote, you’ll see that his ekklesia (communities) were expected to mix genders, races, economic status, slave or free. It took overcoming some prejudices even in those times.

We still have a way to go. But we’re improving.