Scott’s Column: Stating the Faith, Part 2

Continuing from last week’s column.

You bestow upon us your Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

Experiences of wonder, awe, and beauty are most often the moments where we encounter God’s Spirit.  We can cultivate the spiritual practices that help to open our eyes and attune us for these encounters.  Thus the importance of paying attention as a spiritual practice.

Consider one of my favorite poems of my favorite poet, Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things:”

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Spirit does so many things to us and for us–inspires, comforts, calls, advocates, convicts, empowers, excites, encourages, etc.  Also the Spirit gives us the gifts that are ours to share for God’s ministry in mission to the world.

Jurgen Moltmann declares, “In the community of Christ we experience God’s Spirit as a power of life which makes us live.  This is an infectious livingness which shows itself in affirmed life and new courage for living.”

My spiritual experiences are central and vital to my faith, and why I could never lose my faith altogether. I’ve had those deep moments where I felt the presence of Holy.  Here is one:

In college I had a profound experience at the Vatican, which was definitely odd for a then Southern Baptist kid. We had spent two weeks in Israel on a study tour, an experience full of much learning and eye-opening, but I was disappointed that in Israel I never had any revelatory spiritual experience. We spent four days in Rome at the end of the trip, and on Sunday morning I went to worship at St. Peter’s. It was a baptismal service, with probably fifty Italian babies in their beautiful gowns being baptized by Pope John Paul II. Though the service was in Italian, I knew enough of the liturgy to understand most of it, except the sermon. And then I took communion. In that moment I saw in my mind’s eye again the place we had been just a few days before where Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock upon which the church will be founded. And other images from my time in Israel played across my mind. Plus the images of all the apostles and saints surrounding me in that moment.  For a small town Oklahoma Southern Baptist boy, the revelation was a richer understanding of the church universal and the meaning of communion. And one source of my later ecumenism.

You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

In the church, we are forming a way of life, of seeing the world, through story and play, worship and service, entertaining multiple voices and perspectives.  All with the aim of liberated, transformed lives in service to God’s vision of the world. In the church, God grants us a place to feel at home, to belong. A safe space for searching and doubting, experimenting and asking questions. Where we can put our faith into action and discover something to commit to and be passionate about.

One of the tasks of the church is to help undo dis-eased imaginations. So I am committed to be anti-racist, welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ people, accessible to all disabilities and abilities, engaged for mental health and well-being, healing the harms we’ve done to the Earth, and combating Christian nationalism.

I believe that the church’s priority is passing along our faith to our children. To care for our children also means we are drawn into relationships of wonder, affection, and delight, relationships of resonance and fullness, the obvious antidote to human experiences of alienation.

As Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon wrote, “Christians are intentionally made by an adventuresome church.”

This age of polycrisis we are now so clearly living through presents opportunities for the church, because we have values, qualities, and skills that can help humanity in this moment.  Our rich traditions, our spiritual practices, our commitments to care and community, our service to others, our work for justice and peace, even the beauty of our artistry, are among our gifts for the world. We must work intentionally to cultivate caring, supportive, vibrant communities of witness.

You promise to all who trust you forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in your realm which has no end.

In sixth grade I first read C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, which has helped to shape my religious imagination ever since.  The final book, The Last Battle, concludes with these stirring words that have guided my spiritual quest:

But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

What wonderful adventures await?

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto you. Amen.