Ants

 

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