Conviction - Fear to Love No. 3
Once upon a time, except it really happened, I was standing in a church office as the pastor returned fuming mad after lunch. A member of the congregation had just lit into him for changing the Lord’s Prayer the Sunday prior. The congregation had “always” used the version with “trespasses” and he had switched the bulletin to the version that used “sins” instead.
“HOW CAN SHE TELL ME THAT IS AN INAPPROPRIATE AND UNFAITHFUL VERSION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER?!?!”
Apparently, she spent more than 30 minutes yelling at him about the change. He thought and believed the decision was a faithful and loving way to open the door for deeper faith formation and hearing. He thought people would appreciate the clearer translation. I listened to him “get it out of his system” for a bit because he was so hurt, but then he said the thing that has stuck with me for more than 15 years.
“So, basically, if that is the only Lord’s Prayer that she is willing to hear or say, then she hasn’t grown in her faith for nearly 80 years. What are we doing wrong as a church?”
Friends, that convicted me. His statement haunted me for years and remains a gut check for me on a regular basis even today.
“Faith grows?”
See, I was that person, just 60 years younger. My belief system, a collective mesh of rules on sin and salvation, came from my pastor, my church, and the people in my world. It was drilled into me. I truly felt that any deviation from those foundational principles would leave me burning in hell. I feared questioning my beliefs because if I was wrong, the consequences were – death. Spiritual death. Fire.
Fear is a harsh motivator.
At the time I was standing in this pastor’s office listening to him rant, I was living in and among a new world of people who believed differently than I did, who were patient with me, but I had not yet released myself from the cycle of fear to question. It was more like I was riding alongside them, secretly believing they were wrong and praying for their salvation too. But as I have said before, a collection of unconnected moments began to break down the fear and this statement, on this day, was one of them.
I began to look more closely at what it means for faith to grow – not to simply believe a set of rules or laws that were drilled into me. Not to simply show up at the times deemed appropriate (and lawful). I began to consider what it means to question, and I started with the Lord’s Prayer. So, if Jesus gave it to us, then why are there two versions being said in different churches? I really had no concept. At that point, I had only ever seen it written in a few bulletins. I had always just recited it from memory.
What I learned was even the crowd favorite version that uses the word “trespasses” was not exactly the same as the one written directly in scripture. More importantly, I learned the Lord’s Prayer is found in multiple places in scripture, and they are not the same.
Mind Blown!
And, I learned there are different translations of scripture. So, if someone really wanted to be technical or literal, how can they justify faithfully that the one they said as a child is the “right one” and the “only option.”
I spent and continue to spend a great deal of time with this reality. Opening this door to questioning and literally opening the source (scripture), opened the door to an unending number of new questions. So many things I had learned along the way were just flat out inaccurate and I am still working through the depths of this with each new day. Like the creation story. There are two of those friends! And they are also different!
Wrestling with this over the years has been unsettling and comforting at the same time. Each time a piece of my faith wall was chiseled away, a new, larger block of understanding replaced it.
My wall is being completely misshaped along the way. For a while, it felt like the whole thing could just crumble to the ground. Through this, I used the image of this woman’s face and the pastor’s face, both angry with one another. I used his words, “that means she hasn’t grown in her faith for nearly 80 years,” to accept the challenge of new questions. I did not want to become her, but friends, even in this, God used her to help me grow once again.
As I have mentioned, my husband is a pastor. One afternoon he returned from a nursing home visit with a guitar. He was glowing. “Today, Ms. Hazel sang with me.”
Ms. Hazel was a member of the congregation with Alzheimer’s. Jason never knew her before the disease and had not known her to talk to him since becoming the pastor of the congregation. He visited her faithfully in silence each month. On this day though, he had brought his guitar and decided, if they could not talk to each other, he would sing to her. Except, to his delight and surprise, she began singing too.
The old hymns, the ones she sang for so many years came flooding back. This happens often with dementia and other diseases that steal our memories. The songs we sang as children return and that is a deep and true connection to the roots of our faith. The foundation was so strong, she was able to pull from that well and it brought her joy that day.
So, now I ask myself, how do we live in the middle. How do we grow in faith and build those lasting memories and traditions that become deep pockets in our faith wells, while being open to new ways of hearing the Word and celebrating our worship of God? How do we recognize that our comfort is someone else’s challenge? How do we allow our walls to be rebuilt in a messier, yet fuller way?
I don’t have these answers. But with each new day, I recognize God’s love and grace in the midst of my questions. God is not afraid of my questions. God is bigger than what I deem to be the truth at any moment along my path. God’s love is in all pockets of my well, nourishing my faith through challenge and comfort. This is not a reason for fear. This is the motivation for a deeper journey.
References:
The Lord’s Prayer is found in scripture in Matthew 6: 9-13 and Luke 11:2-4.
The Creation Story(ies) are found in Genesis 1 and 2.