The Stakes aren't High Enough
I’ve been reading books on writing screen plays, and watching master classes on the same. There is uniform agreement that a good story, a compelling story that invites us in to be part of it, has four characteristics. 1. A character the viewer cares about. 2. who has to reach some kind of goal the viewer understands. 3. The goal must be or become critical, the stakes must be high. 4. Increasingly insurmountable obstacles must come in the way of the character reaching the goal. The drama is driven by our increasing anticipation of success or failure for a character we have come to care about.
I’ve taken a couple of shots at conceptualizing screen plays and my friends in the business have said each time: “the stakes aren’t high enough to be interesting.” So I’m back to work.
What about the United Methodist Church? We’ve had a lot of drama in the last few years, but a notable lack viewer interest and an even greater lack of those who want to join our story. So I wonder if maybe its because the stakes aren’t high enough. Maybe its because the story we are telling isn't compelling.
The classic Methodist story is of a band of Christians “fleeing the wrath to come.” That’s a compelling goal, however you define “wrath.” Its the core story of horror films, alien invasions, apocalyptic nightmares, serial killers, and so on. Lots to work with and always plenty of obstacles both personal and corporate. But we quit telling that story more than a generation ago. I barely remember those sermons from when I was a child.
And the reason is simple: we don’t actually believe in “the wrath to come” any more. We aren’t “sinners in the hands of an angry God” (to mix our 18th century evangelists.) We're maladjusted souls trying to get to a spiritual chiropractor without leaving our easy chairs.
There is, of course, a newer Methodist goal, “making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world.” As presented its pretty boring since its all about process and not about a goal. But if we parse “transformation of the world” into specific social action goals it may appear more compelling. And indeed I’ve heard over and over from UM leaders that the only compelling message for millennials is the invitation to get involved in changing society.
Thus stated the stakes appear high. Imagine a hard-pressed group of Christians fighting injustice against long odds. But lets look at what this is like in the actual congregational narrative. Start a food bank. Support a homeless shelter once a month. Start an after school daycare program. Tutor underprivileged children. Meals on wheels. AA support group. All kinds of support groups. Go to a rally, maybe many rallies.
All these things are worthy goals, and good for their constituents, but the potential obstacles are few and easily overcome. They hardly live up to the dramatic promise of the gospel narrative and scarcely set the congregation apart from the Rotary club. Except that its easier to join the church than the Rotary and it takes less commitment. So much for “the stakes are high.” There is a difference between a slogan and a goal, and a modern audience can’t be fooled.
So maybe a return to the apocalyptic wrath of God that faces all humanity in the future and every soul at death? That only works if people outside the church actually believe it could happen to them, and as we can easily see, most simply don’t. Escaping from an unbelievable threat doesn’t draw people in. Not that the right kind of preacher can’t whip up the necessary short term fear in the detritus of the old Christian culture, but with Southern Baptists and other classical evangelicals declining it appears those stakes don’t work so well either. Even if we go back to the roots of Methodism it would be surprising if anyone came to the show.
One answer to this problem has been to recast the “wrath to come” in terms of the “loss of meaning.” It assumes that while modern Americans don’t fear hell or long for heaven, they do fear meaninglessness and long for meaning. And we might have a story to tell except that instead of telling the story of the church as a community of those seeking meaning amidst near insurmountable obstacles, we’ve defined the church as the source of meaning readily available by simply walking through the doors.
Do you want to be saved? Come to our fellowship hour and worship service and we’ll fill your life with meaning, mostly with, but depending on our theological flavor possibly without, Jesus. Any crisis during the week that keep you from feeling the warm glow of a meaningful life? Well we have either a support group or an activity that will solve that problem. And Sunday after Sunday we promise you’ll walk away from the music, sermons, and prayers saying, “that was so meaningful.” When the church is the goal it doesn’t really have much of a story to tell, because anyone can reach the goal by walking through the door, or even just going to the website. No obstacle, no drama, because we’ve worked hard to remove the obstacles.
Another answer, which I associate with the new Methodist evangelicalism, is to make the goal of the church the preservation of orthodox Christianity against the corrosive forces of modernity. Preaching the gospel may be the long term goal, but first the church has to fend off the modernity that is destroying God’s plan for human social life, diluting the fear of God, and undermining the authority of God’s Word, on which attaining salvation depends.
For those who actually fear the loss orthodox Christianity, and for those whose identity and meaning are tied to it, this is a compelling goal. And the obstacles in contemporary society are apparent. So some are attracted to join this story and face the inevitable obstacles to reach their goal. But there are a couple of problems as well.
First, this isn’t a universal human story, its strictly for people who are already Christian of a particular sort. Even in terms of getting a new Christian audience the drama must first convince potential participants that the goal is something other than saving the old, deeply oppressive powers of historical Christendom. And its not apparent that the story of defending a non-modern understanding of God’s plan for the world is different from preserving a pre-modern Christianity.
Second, when we look at the wealth and political influence of those busy saving Biblical authority and a Christian worldview its hard to believe they are facing any serious obstacles. Its hard to root for a hero who already has all three branches of the US government, a major cable network, and country music on his side. Modernity may seem like an overwhelming threat from inside orthodoxy, but at least in the US from outside modernity looks more like a potential victim than a threat.
The doppleganger narrative in contemporary Methodism comes from those who believe the church should fully embrace the goals of progressive modernity. They aren’t rescuing the church from modernity, much less fleeing the wrath to come. They are fleeing the old oppressive structures that constrained humanity in order to build a brave new world in which every individual reaches his or her full self-realization. Inclusive is the appellation that describes this vision, and inclusion is the name of its mission, which faces obstacles aplenty in the institutional United Methodist church.
But is building an inclusive church a compelling goal to anyone outside the church? That this goal animates the fiercest emotions of those inside the church is without question. But it doesn’t seem to have excited much interest outside the church for two reasons. First, because in this case the church trails society in terms of inclusion, and secondly because so many other churches are already inclusive. The goal is in plain site, so the viewers aren’t convinced that the stakes are high for themselves or anyone else.
After all, the core of the drama from inside is the wrenching emotional choice of leaving the family, the same drama claimed by the new evangelicals. Unfortunately this is a family drama which, like most family dramas, has yet to present such compelling characters that people want to watch the pilot, much less it into their house for a full season. There is a reason reality TV has to be “scripted,” and the UMC is just doing bad improv.
I’ve sketched what I see as the hapless efforts of United Methodists to create a compelling narrative. Yet a bigger problem looms over our efforts at evangelism. How do you make a story compelling when you claim to know the end? When week after week you announce, without even a spoiler alert, “the good guy wins!” And even worse when you produce this ending with the worst possible dramatic move, the deus ex machina.
So let’s go back to the gospel narrative about saving the world from sin. Jesus begins his ministry in a world and among a people being ground down by political oppression, legalism and hypocrisy, and a gathering storm of demons manifest in disease and spiritual dissolution. And his goal? No less than to save the world from these forces. And the obstacles? With every sermon, with every miracle, they become greater. All the powers and principalities of the world eventually array themselves against him. Satan, Rome, Religion, the Mob. All turn on him him. Its a great story leading to an inevitable crisis, whose denouement remains in question to this day.
Wait an minute. Its denouement remains in question to this day? What about the resurrection?
The resurrection is not the end of the story. Seen as dramatic narratives the main character of the gospels isn’t Jesus, its God. Its God who has a mission, a goal, of saving humanity. That goal is entrusted to the Son of God, who gradually gathers in to himself a group of co-conspiritors, an Ocean’s 11 of flawed characters committed to the greatest theft of all time - stealing back the soul of humanity from Sin and Death.
As Jesus’ confrontations with the powers of the world become starker and more dangerous these co-conspiritors are drawn further into the mission, and into its inevitable danger. And then, five pages before the end of the script, we have a climactic confrontation in which the Son of God is crucified. We hold our breath, it seems like its all over, and then resurrection. He’s back. Happy ending!
Except its not. Its still five pages before the end of the script, or maybe five minutes before midnight. The clock is still ticking down toward the final judgment when those who belong to Sin and Death are irrevocably snatched away. No matter the dramatic perspective of the gospel writer (and all four are quite different) they all show us that the final crisis wasn't the Son of God facing death, nor is the real resolution the resurrection.
The real crisis is whether Jesus' co-conspiritors will take up the mission and carry it on.
If this were Star Wars we would stand at the moment when Obi Wan Kenobi is killed by Darth Vadar. That crisis isn’t the end of the story. Obi Wan doesn’t reach his end, he becomes a different kind of character, and now we focus on Luke Skywalker and the gang of co-conspiritors, the apostles of the rebellion who must now struggle against all odds to carry out the mission into which they’ve been drawn.
The gospels are no different because they were the model. The resurrection isn’t the end of the story. It is the transformation of the Son of God into a different kind of participant in the story. And it is the transition to the apostles, or more properly the apostolic church, into the role of the main character carrying forward the mission of God. The drama is now an ensemble piece, in which the plot will be driven by both the internal conflicts of the characters and the external forces of evil. Its actually a very interesting story. Its a story people might actually “get into.”
And it is ongoing. It hasn’t reached its final crisis, although it has faced many setbacks and turns of plot. Indeed at this stage we’re not really sure what that final crisis will look like. There are vague prophecies in cryptic language that suggest an apocalyptic end awaits, but before the characters can be sunk in either despair or self-congratulation the enemy attacks again and they remember “you will not know the day or the hour,” “and this is a call for faith.”
But I think we’ve screwed up our telling of the story, and that’s why no one is so much into it any more.
If the goal of the church is to say “Christ is Risen!” and then move on by living in the light of that eternal victory then the disconnect between our claim and the world of lived reality is so wide as to make our religion not a drama but a farce. “Jesus Christ is Lord!” we claim as genocide becomes the pastime of nations. “He lives within my heart” we sing before moving beyond the church doors to our daily lives of exploiting the poor and calling death down on the enemies of our national security.
Our claims are ludicrous in light of human experience. And you can’t blithely dismiss criticism by looking for silver linings and rainbows. You can’t excuse the execrable behavior of Christians by saying “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” and “please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” The world won't accept a half-baked Christian culture of excuses and rationalizations.
But the problem isn’t just the dubiousness of our claims in face of the experiential evidence. The problem is that we’ve misunderstood the goal of “being my witnesses to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth.”
Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” We live by faith, not by sight. The mission handed on to us by Jesus Christ isn’t to make an unprovable and indeed dubious claim about God’s sovereignty manifest in human life. It is to make a claim about the possibility of human hope engendered by an encounter with Christ. “Jesus is the Christ” isn’t a statement of fact provable in the court of rational judgment or even emotional intuition. It is the endpoint of a trajectory, a narrative, along which we as Christians live our human lives. It is a claim about how we orient our lives within the world, not the nature of our lives or of the world itself.
We as a church do have a compelling narrative goal. To bring people into lives of hope; the hope we have in God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. And we face obstacles both within and without. From within there are the doubts we ourselves have about whether we can reach our goal or should even try. These are legitimate doubts given our daily experience. And from without there are the challenges from a world whose structures of power and oppression will be destroyed if such faith ever become prevalent.
When we tell our story as a story of hope and doubt, of standing in the indelible shadow of the cross while seeing our way forward by the flickering light of our half blind eyes, our story becomes compelling. Its a story anyone can understand. And it is located within the Biblical narrative of the apostles living as witnesses between the resurrection of Christ and his coming again.
If our witness to Christ is an act of hope in the midst of doubt our conflicts within the body become a comprehensible part of our claim rather than damning evidence against it. Placed in the context of this narrative of hope and doubt our audience will readily understand how, fueled emotionally by our hidden doubts we create internal obstacles toward reaching our goal. And they will understand how we, like they, are affected by all those forces that would deny all meaning except that of power and domination, or that thrive on self-loathing and fear.
If our witness to Christ is an act of hope in the face of all the forces opposed to our hope, then our setbacks and failures become comprehensible. Our disagreements over strategy and short term purpose make sense, and become signs of our seriousness and comittment.
In short our story becomes a story worth joining because of the loftiness of the goal and thus the worthiness of the challenges that are so clearly manifest. But to tell this story we will need to do the hardest thing for United Methodists, whether we are confident of the orthodoxy of our faith or in the righteousness of our cause. We will have to admit that we don’t yet know how and whether we will succeed in our mission, and that doubt and fear are central drivers of the plot of the story.
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole,
a plow.
And a whisper will be heard
in the place where the ruined
house once stood.(Yehuda Amichi)
We can invite the world into a story whose goal is grand: to face the powers and principalities of the world with God’s love, and to witness to the truth at the heart of the universe. We must admit to the world that our story full of obstacles and doubts. Yet when we doubt but persevere, as John calls the seven churches to do, our doubts become the furrowed soil where many seeds of faith may be planted to await within the Body of Christ their resurrection.
I’ve taken a couple of shots at conceptualizing screen plays and my friends in the business have said each time: “the stakes aren’t high enough to be interesting.” So I’m back to work.
What about the United Methodist Church? We’ve had a lot of drama in the last few years, but a notable lack viewer interest and an even greater lack of those who want to join our story. So I wonder if maybe its because the stakes aren’t high enough. Maybe its because the story we are telling isn't compelling.
The classic Methodist story is of a band of Christians “fleeing the wrath to come.” That’s a compelling goal, however you define “wrath.” Its the core story of horror films, alien invasions, apocalyptic nightmares, serial killers, and so on. Lots to work with and always plenty of obstacles both personal and corporate. But we quit telling that story more than a generation ago. I barely remember those sermons from when I was a child.
And the reason is simple: we don’t actually believe in “the wrath to come” any more. We aren’t “sinners in the hands of an angry God” (to mix our 18th century evangelists.) We're maladjusted souls trying to get to a spiritual chiropractor without leaving our easy chairs.
There is, of course, a newer Methodist goal, “making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world.” As presented its pretty boring since its all about process and not about a goal. But if we parse “transformation of the world” into specific social action goals it may appear more compelling. And indeed I’ve heard over and over from UM leaders that the only compelling message for millennials is the invitation to get involved in changing society.
Thus stated the stakes appear high. Imagine a hard-pressed group of Christians fighting injustice against long odds. But lets look at what this is like in the actual congregational narrative. Start a food bank. Support a homeless shelter once a month. Start an after school daycare program. Tutor underprivileged children. Meals on wheels. AA support group. All kinds of support groups. Go to a rally, maybe many rallies.
All these things are worthy goals, and good for their constituents, but the potential obstacles are few and easily overcome. They hardly live up to the dramatic promise of the gospel narrative and scarcely set the congregation apart from the Rotary club. Except that its easier to join the church than the Rotary and it takes less commitment. So much for “the stakes are high.” There is a difference between a slogan and a goal, and a modern audience can’t be fooled.
So maybe a return to the apocalyptic wrath of God that faces all humanity in the future and every soul at death? That only works if people outside the church actually believe it could happen to them, and as we can easily see, most simply don’t. Escaping from an unbelievable threat doesn’t draw people in. Not that the right kind of preacher can’t whip up the necessary short term fear in the detritus of the old Christian culture, but with Southern Baptists and other classical evangelicals declining it appears those stakes don’t work so well either. Even if we go back to the roots of Methodism it would be surprising if anyone came to the show.
One answer to this problem has been to recast the “wrath to come” in terms of the “loss of meaning.” It assumes that while modern Americans don’t fear hell or long for heaven, they do fear meaninglessness and long for meaning. And we might have a story to tell except that instead of telling the story of the church as a community of those seeking meaning amidst near insurmountable obstacles, we’ve defined the church as the source of meaning readily available by simply walking through the doors.
Do you want to be saved? Come to our fellowship hour and worship service and we’ll fill your life with meaning, mostly with, but depending on our theological flavor possibly without, Jesus. Any crisis during the week that keep you from feeling the warm glow of a meaningful life? Well we have either a support group or an activity that will solve that problem. And Sunday after Sunday we promise you’ll walk away from the music, sermons, and prayers saying, “that was so meaningful.” When the church is the goal it doesn’t really have much of a story to tell, because anyone can reach the goal by walking through the door, or even just going to the website. No obstacle, no drama, because we’ve worked hard to remove the obstacles.
Another answer, which I associate with the new Methodist evangelicalism, is to make the goal of the church the preservation of orthodox Christianity against the corrosive forces of modernity. Preaching the gospel may be the long term goal, but first the church has to fend off the modernity that is destroying God’s plan for human social life, diluting the fear of God, and undermining the authority of God’s Word, on which attaining salvation depends.
For those who actually fear the loss orthodox Christianity, and for those whose identity and meaning are tied to it, this is a compelling goal. And the obstacles in contemporary society are apparent. So some are attracted to join this story and face the inevitable obstacles to reach their goal. But there are a couple of problems as well.
First, this isn’t a universal human story, its strictly for people who are already Christian of a particular sort. Even in terms of getting a new Christian audience the drama must first convince potential participants that the goal is something other than saving the old, deeply oppressive powers of historical Christendom. And its not apparent that the story of defending a non-modern understanding of God’s plan for the world is different from preserving a pre-modern Christianity.
Second, when we look at the wealth and political influence of those busy saving Biblical authority and a Christian worldview its hard to believe they are facing any serious obstacles. Its hard to root for a hero who already has all three branches of the US government, a major cable network, and country music on his side. Modernity may seem like an overwhelming threat from inside orthodoxy, but at least in the US from outside modernity looks more like a potential victim than a threat.
The doppleganger narrative in contemporary Methodism comes from those who believe the church should fully embrace the goals of progressive modernity. They aren’t rescuing the church from modernity, much less fleeing the wrath to come. They are fleeing the old oppressive structures that constrained humanity in order to build a brave new world in which every individual reaches his or her full self-realization. Inclusive is the appellation that describes this vision, and inclusion is the name of its mission, which faces obstacles aplenty in the institutional United Methodist church.
But is building an inclusive church a compelling goal to anyone outside the church? That this goal animates the fiercest emotions of those inside the church is without question. But it doesn’t seem to have excited much interest outside the church for two reasons. First, because in this case the church trails society in terms of inclusion, and secondly because so many other churches are already inclusive. The goal is in plain site, so the viewers aren’t convinced that the stakes are high for themselves or anyone else.
After all, the core of the drama from inside is the wrenching emotional choice of leaving the family, the same drama claimed by the new evangelicals. Unfortunately this is a family drama which, like most family dramas, has yet to present such compelling characters that people want to watch the pilot, much less it into their house for a full season. There is a reason reality TV has to be “scripted,” and the UMC is just doing bad improv.
I’ve sketched what I see as the hapless efforts of United Methodists to create a compelling narrative. Yet a bigger problem looms over our efforts at evangelism. How do you make a story compelling when you claim to know the end? When week after week you announce, without even a spoiler alert, “the good guy wins!” And even worse when you produce this ending with the worst possible dramatic move, the deus ex machina.
So let’s go back to the gospel narrative about saving the world from sin. Jesus begins his ministry in a world and among a people being ground down by political oppression, legalism and hypocrisy, and a gathering storm of demons manifest in disease and spiritual dissolution. And his goal? No less than to save the world from these forces. And the obstacles? With every sermon, with every miracle, they become greater. All the powers and principalities of the world eventually array themselves against him. Satan, Rome, Religion, the Mob. All turn on him him. Its a great story leading to an inevitable crisis, whose denouement remains in question to this day.
Wait an minute. Its denouement remains in question to this day? What about the resurrection?
The resurrection is not the end of the story. Seen as dramatic narratives the main character of the gospels isn’t Jesus, its God. Its God who has a mission, a goal, of saving humanity. That goal is entrusted to the Son of God, who gradually gathers in to himself a group of co-conspiritors, an Ocean’s 11 of flawed characters committed to the greatest theft of all time - stealing back the soul of humanity from Sin and Death.
As Jesus’ confrontations with the powers of the world become starker and more dangerous these co-conspiritors are drawn further into the mission, and into its inevitable danger. And then, five pages before the end of the script, we have a climactic confrontation in which the Son of God is crucified. We hold our breath, it seems like its all over, and then resurrection. He’s back. Happy ending!
Except its not. Its still five pages before the end of the script, or maybe five minutes before midnight. The clock is still ticking down toward the final judgment when those who belong to Sin and Death are irrevocably snatched away. No matter the dramatic perspective of the gospel writer (and all four are quite different) they all show us that the final crisis wasn't the Son of God facing death, nor is the real resolution the resurrection.
The real crisis is whether Jesus' co-conspiritors will take up the mission and carry it on.
If this were Star Wars we would stand at the moment when Obi Wan Kenobi is killed by Darth Vadar. That crisis isn’t the end of the story. Obi Wan doesn’t reach his end, he becomes a different kind of character, and now we focus on Luke Skywalker and the gang of co-conspiritors, the apostles of the rebellion who must now struggle against all odds to carry out the mission into which they’ve been drawn.
The gospels are no different because they were the model. The resurrection isn’t the end of the story. It is the transformation of the Son of God into a different kind of participant in the story. And it is the transition to the apostles, or more properly the apostolic church, into the role of the main character carrying forward the mission of God. The drama is now an ensemble piece, in which the plot will be driven by both the internal conflicts of the characters and the external forces of evil. Its actually a very interesting story. Its a story people might actually “get into.”
And it is ongoing. It hasn’t reached its final crisis, although it has faced many setbacks and turns of plot. Indeed at this stage we’re not really sure what that final crisis will look like. There are vague prophecies in cryptic language that suggest an apocalyptic end awaits, but before the characters can be sunk in either despair or self-congratulation the enemy attacks again and they remember “you will not know the day or the hour,” “and this is a call for faith.”
But I think we’ve screwed up our telling of the story, and that’s why no one is so much into it any more.
If the goal of the church is to say “Christ is Risen!” and then move on by living in the light of that eternal victory then the disconnect between our claim and the world of lived reality is so wide as to make our religion not a drama but a farce. “Jesus Christ is Lord!” we claim as genocide becomes the pastime of nations. “He lives within my heart” we sing before moving beyond the church doors to our daily lives of exploiting the poor and calling death down on the enemies of our national security.
Our claims are ludicrous in light of human experience. And you can’t blithely dismiss criticism by looking for silver linings and rainbows. You can’t excuse the execrable behavior of Christians by saying “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” and “please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” The world won't accept a half-baked Christian culture of excuses and rationalizations.
But the problem isn’t just the dubiousness of our claims in face of the experiential evidence. The problem is that we’ve misunderstood the goal of “being my witnesses to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the Earth.”
Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” We live by faith, not by sight. The mission handed on to us by Jesus Christ isn’t to make an unprovable and indeed dubious claim about God’s sovereignty manifest in human life. It is to make a claim about the possibility of human hope engendered by an encounter with Christ. “Jesus is the Christ” isn’t a statement of fact provable in the court of rational judgment or even emotional intuition. It is the endpoint of a trajectory, a narrative, along which we as Christians live our human lives. It is a claim about how we orient our lives within the world, not the nature of our lives or of the world itself.
We as a church do have a compelling narrative goal. To bring people into lives of hope; the hope we have in God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. And we face obstacles both within and without. From within there are the doubts we ourselves have about whether we can reach our goal or should even try. These are legitimate doubts given our daily experience. And from without there are the challenges from a world whose structures of power and oppression will be destroyed if such faith ever become prevalent.
When we tell our story as a story of hope and doubt, of standing in the indelible shadow of the cross while seeing our way forward by the flickering light of our half blind eyes, our story becomes compelling. Its a story anyone can understand. And it is located within the Biblical narrative of the apostles living as witnesses between the resurrection of Christ and his coming again.
If our witness to Christ is an act of hope in the midst of doubt our conflicts within the body become a comprehensible part of our claim rather than damning evidence against it. Placed in the context of this narrative of hope and doubt our audience will readily understand how, fueled emotionally by our hidden doubts we create internal obstacles toward reaching our goal. And they will understand how we, like they, are affected by all those forces that would deny all meaning except that of power and domination, or that thrive on self-loathing and fear.
If our witness to Christ is an act of hope in the face of all the forces opposed to our hope, then our setbacks and failures become comprehensible. Our disagreements over strategy and short term purpose make sense, and become signs of our seriousness and comittment.
In short our story becomes a story worth joining because of the loftiness of the goal and thus the worthiness of the challenges that are so clearly manifest. But to tell this story we will need to do the hardest thing for United Methodists, whether we are confident of the orthodoxy of our faith or in the righteousness of our cause. We will have to admit that we don’t yet know how and whether we will succeed in our mission, and that doubt and fear are central drivers of the plot of the story.
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole,
a plow.
And a whisper will be heard
in the place where the ruined
house once stood.(Yehuda Amichi)
We can invite the world into a story whose goal is grand: to face the powers and principalities of the world with God’s love, and to witness to the truth at the heart of the universe. We must admit to the world that our story full of obstacles and doubts. Yet when we doubt but persevere, as John calls the seven churches to do, our doubts become the furrowed soil where many seeds of faith may be planted to await within the Body of Christ their resurrection.
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