Every now and then, a book comes along that really grips your attention early on in the reading, and even though you are not yet very far into it, you know you are going to be pushed, stretched, and challenged in your thinking and your approach to life. This afternoon, I have dived again into N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Even though at this point I am barely 20 pages into it, I know that I am going to have to do some hard thinking about some deeply-held, long-ingrained thoughts I have had on these subjects. Not to say that I am going to change my thinking, not to say that I am going to 'drink the Kool-Aid' simply because this is a highly regarded book in contemporary Christian thought. No, quite simply, it is going to an exhaustingly refreshing exercise in faith and thought, and the idea of this has gotten me thinking about where we are as a church, and as a congregation.
And why is this? Well, I firmly believe that we in the church these days are far too often on one extreme or the other - we want to reinvent the wheel (now) and totally throw things into chaos as we reject the traditions of our heritage; or, on the other hand, we want so desperately to make sure that things do not change that we fight tooth and nail to keep things the same as they have always been. When we are faced with some thought-provoking things such as Bishop Wright's book, our first instinct more often than not is to recoil into what we know, what is safe, and what is secure. I don't know yet where this book is leading me (although I have read a number of reviews), but I know that the day that I refuse to allow my beliefs, my thoughts, and my understandings to be challenged or that I refuse to re-examine why it is that I believe what I believe, then I have decided that I have no more to learn.
The day that any of us, individually or as the church, have God, the triune God of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, completely figured out, is the day we start to put ourselves in mortal danger. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday this week, along with Heritage Sunday, let us be sure that one of the heritages that we leave to those coming after us is a heritage of never being afraid of being challenged in who we are and what we think. For it is when we are confronted with that which we are unfamiliar, and that which makes us uncomfortable, that we learn the most about who we are and how deeply we believe what we believe.
See You Sunday!
Lamar
And why is this? Well, I firmly believe that we in the church these days are far too often on one extreme or the other - we want to reinvent the wheel (now) and totally throw things into chaos as we reject the traditions of our heritage; or, on the other hand, we want so desperately to make sure that things do not change that we fight tooth and nail to keep things the same as they have always been. When we are faced with some thought-provoking things such as Bishop Wright's book, our first instinct more often than not is to recoil into what we know, what is safe, and what is secure. I don't know yet where this book is leading me (although I have read a number of reviews), but I know that the day that I refuse to allow my beliefs, my thoughts, and my understandings to be challenged or that I refuse to re-examine why it is that I believe what I believe, then I have decided that I have no more to learn.
The day that any of us, individually or as the church, have God, the triune God of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, completely figured out, is the day we start to put ourselves in mortal danger. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday this week, along with Heritage Sunday, let us be sure that one of the heritages that we leave to those coming after us is a heritage of never being afraid of being challenged in who we are and what we think. For it is when we are confronted with that which we are unfamiliar, and that which makes us uncomfortable, that we learn the most about who we are and how deeply we believe what we believe.
See You Sunday!
Lamar
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