I was saved early by Jesus. I didn't know it was him then, and I am not entirely sure it is him now. Certainty about Jesus has never been our bond. Instead, warmth and trust come to mind.
Our relationship began on a tough night. The pastor of my Missouri Synod Lutheran Church showed up at my house, when I was 6, and told my father to stop beating up my mother. From that moment on, I have pledged myself to join Jesus in keeping little girls safe. From that moment on, I have also had warmth in my belly that could be called fundamental trust in Jesus and his ability to show up. The warmth has never left me. Thank you, Pastor Witte, you who showed Jesus to me.
Since that night, I have studied Jesus and preached Jesus and misunderstood Jesus and re-understood Jesus. I have demythologized Jesus and applied "critical theory" to his words. I have recited the Apostles' Creed from memory and gotten the Nicene wrong when I've tried to repeat it. I have let Augustine and Aquinas have at him and read Reinhold Niebuhr in distant respect for him. My studies have distanced me from the theological concept of "Christ" but not from Jesus or his warmth.
Jesus is my brother and my friend. He has grown larger than life and smaller than life -- both, not either. I have fussed with the fundamentalists over him, even though kind fundamentalists raised me. I don't see myself as their enemy, but instead as one who inquires about why they need to talk so much about the distanced Jesus or the correct Christ. I want to talk about the warmth in my belly that persists when I have to have surgery or right after I get hit by a drunk driver and realize I am in an ambulance. In times like these, my early memories of the warm protecting presence of Jesus accompany me. I don't really know how to be afraid.
If I were to describe this warmth, it would resemble the sacrament. In bread and wine, I have known the gathering presence of something divine, something larger than the fear or the pain or even the possibility of death and harm. I feel something. I sense something. It is stronger than any thinking I have ever managed about Jesus.
Because of these protecting sacraments of a warm Jesus, I have come to really dislike the word "Christology." Sometimes I worry that my seminary education gets in the way of the Jesus I know. Jesus, in my terms of trust and warmth, embodied in bread, wine, pastors and congregations, wouldn't make such a big thing out of himself. So I don't know why there is so much fuss about his fine points. Certainty -- or getting Jesus right -- would be like fully understanding my biological brother, whom I do not always understand. I do love and trust him, however.
When I am forced to move Jesus out of my belly and into term papers and fusses, I do a couple of very simple things. I imagine I understand what it means that Jesus Christ is Lord. By "Lord" I mean over all, beyond all, above all. I need not bow down to drunk drivers or physical pain. Nor do I need to bow down to states or churches. There is something larger than everything else and that is our "Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ." "Fear not" is the best response to what my belly has told me over and over again.
This emotional response to Jesus also has ethical implications. I am to love like he did, in that golden rule, which is not so much a rule as a bidding. When you are bid to live in love, which may involve nothing more than showing up and protecting children, you are truly safe, even saved. Nothing can scare you if you know love as your center. Everything can scare you if you don't. Why live with Jesus as brother and a sign of love? For my own good. My own welfare is tied in a knot with the welfare of the other, the city and the neighbor. I am utterly dependent on others, as I learned early. Jesus is the one who calls me out to the other on behalf of myself. Jesus is the argument that you can have what you can let go of and that you can't have what you can't release. Pouring out fills up.
Consider Zacheus, the rich tax collector who had to climb a tree to see Jesus. He needed to get above the crowd to see what was going on. Most of us do. The crowd has blinders that prohibit our vision. The crowd is happy to tell you that everything is up to you, that you are worthy only as you are productive, and that you better stay part of the herd. The crowd is happy to use interpersonal violence or war to enforce its blindness.
In church, as body of Jesus, we help each other climb trees. We become one small crowd that challenges the larger crowd. We gather weekly in a sacred space to remember our intuition that Jesus has something to say. From the Easter alleluias to the Advent lights and back again, the greatest intuition of the church is to see Jesus, the one who had a way of showing up and bunking in with sinners, so that children, and then adults, might be safe.
I have made a bet that Jesus will make me safe. My belly bets with me. The warmth I know in Jesus did not mean that my father stopped beating my mother or that he never hit me again. It did mean that I felt safe, anyway.
Some of us place double bets. A little here, a little there. A little Jesus, a little humanism, a little crowd following, a little lottery ticket. I have been an ordained minister for 38 years in the United Church of "Who?" I contribute to the blur about Jesus. I try not to, but I do. We hedge our bets because we ourselves have been hedged. Just because you know the direction you want your life to have does not mean you stay on the path.
The hardest part about Jesus is how expensive it is to follow him to his gold: We are to even love those who have hedged us or hurt us. That enemy business, which is so securing in such a phony way, is tossed out. Living without scapegoating or blaming or enemy-izing the other makes us very vulnerable. We are even to love those who continue to hurt us. We can't fight our way out of this relationship. I have never wanted to. The trust and warmth in my belly is just too valuable to me.
Excerpted from 'The Jesus Diaries: Who Jesus is to Me.'
Blessings,
-Brandon
whatjesusdiddo.blogspot.com
I was too, by the way.
I can relate to the author's back and forth struggling with faith and doubt during those years.
However, I think it's safe to say there will always be doubt when religion is involved, since the Christian religion requires faith.
I eventually accepted the fact that it's all a myth, perpetrated on my impressionable young mind as a child.
"Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved". - Tim Minchin "Storm"
So much for warm feelings for that church and its doctrine.
Sounds to me like we had the same disfunctional family and the same church and the same issues.
While in my teen years, suicidal ideation was my best friend.
I believe ever word you wrote is true. Something happens at a young age to most who know we're to be the saved at the end of this civilization (Matthew 24:13). In my life it was between age 6 to 9 months old, I was left in a baby bed with the rails up and everyone left me there asleep. When I awoke I made noise for someone to come get me so when none didI began crying at the top of my voice to no avail. After what appeared a long time a voice said "you may as well become content, no one is coming to get you," and I did.
Except for a few times hearing my name when there was no one around, I never realized that voice again until after my 1973 "new conception" leading to my 1976 "new birth" when I became the wandering messenger per John 3:8. I'm sure that's what made me the explorer I have been all my life, seeking the purpose for things most people take for granted. I had a difficult time accepting the concepts of good and evil but it wasn't until I became the wanderer that I forsook all abstract concepts.
My 34 years the wanderer has "made me free" and placed me in "the straight way with the narrow gate" Jesus say only a few find. I've proven all of his teachings except John 14:12 I'm expecting any day. So, from your testimony I recognize you.
You can deny my experience but I experienced it and will not. That may be why I believe and, I am told, at the age of 5 I told my mother something which convinced her I was ready to join the Baptist denomination. Several times in places where there was no one I also heard my name called but don't remember when. Completing my new conception it told me "go back to the church" which I did and it answered many a prayer in words like "do you trust me" and "you don't need to go to seminary, I've already taught you."
After my new birth it told me many things which, when I obeyed, my needs were met. There were times when in the first 4 years the voice spoke to me, after it it seemed to be an internal thought which went against all I would have considered doing.
I don't call it Jesus nor god, I'm atheist, and don't quite know if I believe Jesus was actually a man but I have proven his message valid.
This article made me gag on the saccharine level. Wonder if the writer has a husband - and if so, wonder how he feels about coming in a poor second.
"....We are to even love those who have hedged us or hurt us. That enemy business, which is so securing in such a phony way, is tossed out. Living without scapegoating or blaming or enemy-izing the other makes us very vulnerable. We are even to love those who continue to hurt us. We can't fight our way out of this relationship. I have never wanted to. The trust and warmth in my belly is just too valuable to me."
It has failed.
Yes, I said it the church has failed in it's duty.
You can argue all day long about the world is a cesspool, or set against you. (By the way its been written that the world would be.) but the church needs to look itself in the mirror.
Sex abuse scandals. Nothing can be said to mitigate it. The church as an organization showed what it valued when it protected the pedo priests, or shuffled them. Image mattered more than substance. It may not have been "common" sure. But once is too many times. You don't get a free pass on that.
Financial scandals.
Another betrayal of trust. People give out of their hearts, expecting to be helping both spread the word, and more importantly alleviate suffering around the world, only to find the pastor/missionary was pocketing it.
What is happening now is the painful time before the chuch goers have to clean house.
However, religion still continues to grow in modern times, much to my dismay.
Knowledge of scientific truth continues to grow, and the gap that god is needed for continues to get smaller and smaller. There isn't a good reason to need faith anymore. As long as churches/mosques/etc continue to fill the minds of small children with religious myth and belief, religion will continue to grow.