Questions
Recently I preached a sermon by that name and I have given it more thought just this week. It seems to me that questions are as useful to the spiritual life as answers, perhaps more so. Too often we Christians give the sort of answers that could be printed on bumper stickers. Some of the facts of our faith are that simple. However, when we go through life we gain question about living. Henri Nouwen reminds us that the kind of questions we ask will determine the kind of answers we get. If we ask psychological or sociological questions those are the kind of answers we get. It is the same with scientific answers. As much as I value theology, if we ask "head trip" kinds of questions, we will often get answers that are intellectual but spiritually unsatisfying.
We need all of the disciplines above to be sure in our world and understood in their proper role they are beneficial. Spiritually, however, they can be unsatisfying. We can get many answers to questions of faith from the disciplines of human thought, but they are not ultimate answers. They are, at best, approximate. To try and make biblical faith fit into scientific categories, for instance, is to compare "apples and oranges". They ask different questions, and use different methods. To put faith in the Bible, as many Protestants do, as the book that has every answer and we don't need science and the other disciplines, is to abuse the book. The Bible is the Word of God and it is a book that does point us to the ultimate source of answers, but there are questions of science that it does not answer we the same definitive answers it gives, say, for who the living Jesus was and is.
How do we get to ultimate answers. Well, we don't if you mean the "head trip" kind of knowledge. We do if we see our answer as a living relationship between ourselves and the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. I would argue that theology does, and should arise out of our worship and service of God. That involves hearing the Word in worship and private reading. It involves communal life through the church and its sacraments and it also involves being open to the Spirit to lead us. Rather than see the faith as a body of beliefs we have and defend, but never grow into, limits our sanctification into what God wants us to be. This involves living interaction with the Bible, the Church, and our own individual lives. We grow in grace. We grow in understanding, but we, in the best of worlds, realize that we have not, and cannot know a God that is beyond all knowing. The adventure of the Christian life is asking God what God wants of us and being open to the answers that are found in the Word of God, the Great Tradition of the Church in its Confessions, the living community of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in individual prayer and worship. Instead of looking at faith as something on which we have "cornered the market", let us be humble enough to grow into Christ likeness. So what is the ultimate question? "Lord Jesus, what would you have me do with my life". Well that is one, maybe you can come up with others. Let us grow into the Mystery!
Shalom In The Risen Christ!
Jim
Recently I preached a sermon by that name and I have given it more thought just this week. It seems to me that questions are as useful to the spiritual life as answers, perhaps more so. Too often we Christians give the sort of answers that could be printed on bumper stickers. Some of the facts of our faith are that simple. However, when we go through life we gain question about living. Henri Nouwen reminds us that the kind of questions we ask will determine the kind of answers we get. If we ask psychological or sociological questions those are the kind of answers we get. It is the same with scientific answers. As much as I value theology, if we ask "head trip" kinds of questions, we will often get answers that are intellectual but spiritually unsatisfying.
We need all of the disciplines above to be sure in our world and understood in their proper role they are beneficial. Spiritually, however, they can be unsatisfying. We can get many answers to questions of faith from the disciplines of human thought, but they are not ultimate answers. They are, at best, approximate. To try and make biblical faith fit into scientific categories, for instance, is to compare "apples and oranges". They ask different questions, and use different methods. To put faith in the Bible, as many Protestants do, as the book that has every answer and we don't need science and the other disciplines, is to abuse the book. The Bible is the Word of God and it is a book that does point us to the ultimate source of answers, but there are questions of science that it does not answer we the same definitive answers it gives, say, for who the living Jesus was and is.
How do we get to ultimate answers. Well, we don't if you mean the "head trip" kind of knowledge. We do if we see our answer as a living relationship between ourselves and the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. I would argue that theology does, and should arise out of our worship and service of God. That involves hearing the Word in worship and private reading. It involves communal life through the church and its sacraments and it also involves being open to the Spirit to lead us. Rather than see the faith as a body of beliefs we have and defend, but never grow into, limits our sanctification into what God wants us to be. This involves living interaction with the Bible, the Church, and our own individual lives. We grow in grace. We grow in understanding, but we, in the best of worlds, realize that we have not, and cannot know a God that is beyond all knowing. The adventure of the Christian life is asking God what God wants of us and being open to the answers that are found in the Word of God, the Great Tradition of the Church in its Confessions, the living community of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in individual prayer and worship. Instead of looking at faith as something on which we have "cornered the market", let us be humble enough to grow into Christ likeness. So what is the ultimate question? "Lord Jesus, what would you have me do with my life". Well that is one, maybe you can come up with others. Let us grow into the Mystery!
Shalom In The Risen Christ!
Jim
posted by Theoblogger at
4:49 PM
