The
Mountain Metaphor
The Metaphor
It was a pleasant enough weekday. I
was walking and I had some open time in my schedule. A bit of peace
and quiet would feel good. I ducked into a church. I don't know
why, because I've never been a church person. Being in that church
kind of felt like a different world, separated from the hustle and
bustle of my normal day. I cannot remember the name of the church.
I think it was Lutheran.
A man approached me. He was wearing a
collar. I guess he was the pastor. We exchanged a bit of small talk
as he tried to determine what drew me into his church. I didn't
really know. Perhaps there was a long forgotten childhood memory.
Maybe it was a small corner of emptiness somewhere in my life. I
figured it was most likely the air conditioning; it felt good in
there.
He drew me into another room. I
thought it was a room. But he waved his arm as he showed me a great
expansive plain. It was pretty. It was pastoral. It was peaceful.
He pointed to a small mound as he said, “This is what we like to
focus on.” The small mound was an anthill. My colleague appeared
entranced as he watched.
I saw an ant coming out of the ant hole
carrying a grain of sand. To him, that grain was pretty big. He was
making their home larger; or, maybe he was just doing housecleaning.
I couldn't tell. A short distance away, I saw another ant dragging a
piece of grass that was several times his size. I watched as he
dragged that sliver of grass down into the ant hole. That took
several seconds, after which several ants emerged carrying grains of
sand and various detritus. I concluded they were both growing their
home and doing a bit of housecleaning.
I wondered what else was the ants were
up to, so I widened my vision to see what else might be there. In
the distance, I saw several other anthills with apparently similar
activity. Out of the corner of my vision, something else caught my
eye.
I turned to look, and I saw what
appeared to be a mountain. I thought it to be a very great and grand
mountain, but low lying clouds obscured my view. I could not see the
peak. I stared at length; the mountain just seemed magnificent. A
small break in the clouds gave me a brief glimpse. I could almost
see the peak. I saw movement near the peak. Was I seeing snow
leopards? They appeared almost like angelic spirits. Or maybe
floaters in my aging eyes were playing tricks with me again. In any
case, the small break in the clouds soon disappeared.
I broke my colleague's focus on the
anthill as I turned and asked him about the mountain. He told me
that, yes, they knew of the mountain but found it very large and
quite mysterious. He said that they drew more satisfaction from the
anthill. He said that every time someone in the church took it upon
himself to study and learn more about the mountain, he invariably
came away with far more new questions than answers. They found that
people were put off and sometimes even frighted by dwelling on
mysteries that they could not possibly hope to understand. I shook
my head in a knowing understanding.
I glanced at my watch. My, time had
flown! The free time in my schedule was drawing to a close and I
needed to move on to my next appointment of the day. I bid my
colleague adieu and showed myself out. The busy outside hustle and
bustle were a sharp contrast to my intriguing and peaceful interlude.
Where had I been? Was it real, or had I just unwittingly fallen
asleep on that nearby public bench?
The Magnificent
Mountain of Faith
Our
Christian faith is an amazing thing. I look at it analytically and
see that it has 3 dimensions. There is the intellectual dimension,
the emotional dimension, and the spiritual dimension. My experience
has shown that we as individuals, we as groups, and we as whole
congregations focus on that dimension in which we feel most
comfortable. We tend to avoid the other dimensions because we don't
like being uncomfortable.
Most
Lutherans like the intellectual dimension. We are comfortable there.
We can and do have logical sermons and discussions with one another.
We discuss Lutheran doctrine, talk about things we should believe
and things we shouldn't believe, and perhaps compare the differences
in our belief structure with other belief structures. Any faith must
have a robust and healthy intellectual dimension.
Some
people and indeed some denominations dwell on the emotional dimension
of our faith. Faith in many ways comes alive in the emotional
dimension. After all, we as humans are emotional beings. Not only
does faith come alive in the emotional dimension, but most of us as
individuals come alive in that dimension as well.
The
spiritual dimension receives the least attention. We understand this
dimension little if at all. With that lack of understanding goes
fear and apprehension. Since we don't understand it well, we don't
discuss it much either. We don't even preach and teach this
dimension very much. And again, we are flesh and blood humans; we
are certainly not spirits … or are we??
None
of these dimensions is more nor less important than the others. We
must seek balance in our preaching, our teaching, and even in our
outreach. They are all essential for a healthy faith life. If we
find an overemphasis of one or two dimensions or an underemphasis on
one or two dimensions, we should seek to understand the underlying
reasons and readjust our emphases.
Overlaying
these 3 dimensions of our faith is a … well, let me call it a
cloud. It is a cloud of mystery. It is a mystery because we do not
understand it. Or perhaps it is a mystery because we cannot
understand it. This cloud of mystery is something that we don't talk
about much. It causes us a bit of discomfort because in this age of
technology and enlightened reason, it's tough to talk intelligently
and confidently of that which we do not understand.
There
are many mysteries in our Christian faith, but I would like to talk
about two of them. The first is the mystery of our faith itself. As
Lutherans, we all know that our salvation comes from God and his free
gift of grace. All we need to do is to accept that gift of grace.
How do we do that? By faith. But this is a faith of which we
ourselves are incapable. So God gives us that faith.
Got
that? God through the Holy Spirit gives us faith so that we can
accept God the Father's gift of grace. It is both simple and
incomprehensible. It is a mystery. Martin Luther addressed this
conundrum in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles'
Creed when he wrote:
“I
believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus
Christ my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me
through the Gospel, enlightened me by his gifts, and sanctified and
preserved me in the true faith; in like manner as He calls, gathers,
enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and
preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the true faith; in which
Christian Church He daily forgives abundantly all my sins, and the
sins of all believers, and will raise up me and all the dead at the
last day, and will grant everlasting life to me and to all who
believe in Christ. This is most certainly true.”
“I
believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus
Christ my Lord...” means that I by myself cannot muster the belief
nor the faith. I need help. The Holy Spirit gives me that help
through his gift of faith.
Lutherans
talk about God's gift of grace a lot. We have learned to knowingly
nod our heads, implicitly understanding that we don't really
understand. But we don't much pursue these things because we know
and dread the inevitable discomfort of the incomprehensible.
OK,
that's mystery number 1. Now onto mystery number 2. It's called the
doctrine of the Sainthood of All Believers. That means that as
believers, you and I are saints. The word is are,
not will be. As a redeemed sinner, you are also a saint. Some
people take these terms “redeemed sinner” and “saint” as
synonyms or near synonyms. I believe that we as saints can have a
spiritual life while we are here on earth. All you need do is to ask
the Holy Spirit.
I
know you believe in saints on earth. Every week in worship when you
confess your faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed, you speak of
your belief in the “holy catholic church.” We have all been
taught that the word catholic
means universal, and that is certainly true. What most of us don't
realize, is that the holy catholic church is not an institution or
collection of institutions. The holy catholic church is God's
spiritual church here on earth and is comprised of us saints here on
earth. That includes you and me. You and I along with our fellow
believers here on earth are the holy catholic church, God's spiritual
church here on earth.
You
and I are sinners but we are also unblemished saints who stand before
God because of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us through his
crucifixion and resurrection. Talk about mysteries!
The
Apostles' Creed goes on to say that we also believe in the communion
of saints. We usually think of communion as a sacrament, which it
is, but it also means a fellowship, an intimate sharing or rapport, a
oneness. In this case, the Creed speaks of the oneness among not
only the saints here on earth but also the saints who have gone
before us.
The
first mystery is the miracle of our faith itself. This second
mystery is that of our sainthood. They are mysteries because they
are incomprehensible by you and me.
There
are many more mysteries in our Christian faith, not the least of
which include Jesus' birth, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension,
indeed his whole exemplary life on earth. And of course there are
the miracles: Biblical miracles, historical miracles, and
contemporary miracles. But, I have said enough about mysteries to
make my point.
We as
Christian members of our individual churches find it far easier to
busy ourselves with the work of playing church than to maintain our
primary focus on our triune God, our faith, submission to the Holy
Spirit in our lives, and the relationship between God and each one of
us. Our faith is so awesome, overwhelming, and incomprehensible that
we find ourselves focusing on, even preaching and teaching, the
trivial, the comfortable, the familiar stuff.
We
find it satisfying to focus on this busy work not only because we
understand it, but also because we have this nagging “works
righteousness” feeling that is soothed by our working on
our church. We must learn to ask the Comforter for comfort in
accepting and praising that which we do not understand. We must
learn to speak freely to both ourselves and to others about our
faith, which we cannot fully understand.
The Finale
I am
a church guy. Always have been. Some time ago, I was at our church
on a weekday. I forget why I was there, but I am sure it was
important. I was leaving for the day. I was walking down the
hallway. My mind wandered aimlessly. It does that sometimes.
Out
of nowhere came this thought, this vision, of an ant carrying a grain
of sand. Just then, I looked up and saw Pete, good old reliable and
fellow member Pete, walking in the other direction appearing quite
focused with a cordless drill in one hand and several screws in the
other. Pete and I passed in the hallway.
Off
went my thoughts again. This time it was another ant dragging a
rather large blade of grass. My thoughts were interrupted by Mildred
walking in the opposite direction carrying a cardboard box. Sunday
morning refreshment goodies, or perhaps copy paper for the office? I
wasn't sure. We greeted and passed by one another.
There
went my mind once again. Still another ant carrying something I did
not recognize. As I reached the end of the hallway, I felt someone
watching me. I turned and saw a teddy bear in the nursery that was
overflowing with stuff. He was staring at me. He was kind of cute.
Earl
Franklin
copyright
(c) 2012
