I would say that all of life is a spiritual journey, but I guess for me the past two years has been the most turbulent part of that journey so far (see previous blog post). I think I've always carried a spiritual restlessness within me, one that has always shaped how I engage with matters of faith. In my last semester of seminary, one of my seminary professors discouraged me from becoming a minister because he said that I have "a skeptic's heart." He meant this as a compliment, and I received it as such. Whenever I have read the Scriptures, I have always tended to approach them with the hermeneutics of suspicion. I don't think that has changed much in the past few months, but recently I have become preoccupied with a question that often appears in the gospel-accounts: Who is this Jesus? It is a question often asked by the scribes and Pharisees, questioning who is this Jesus to have the audacity to forgive sins. I view the question in a different light.
Recently, I have come to question whether my spiritual quest has been wrong, or flawed so to speak. I've been engaging with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in a roundabout manner. As some would say, I've been going about this the wrong way. What occurred to me is that I often view my spirituality in terms of "what" questions. What do I think about God? What do I think I know about God? What is right? What is truth (to get all Pilate-y)?
While intellectually, these aren't bad questions, they should not dominate your faith journey. Instead, I've been asking myself questions like "who is God?" "How do I experience God?" "Who is this Jesus to me?" Before, whether I was fully aware of it or not, I engaged with the divine primarily on an intellectual level while disregarding or minimizing the emotional level. If God is Person and Being, then one engages with God in a relationship. There is a strong emotional component to every relationship. Hence, one must relate to God on an emotional level. It prevents your psyche from relegating God to a concept, or worse, an idol.
Now, there is some danger to the emotional component if that is the sole basis of your experience. There are too many people out there "feeling" God and going on about how God makes them "feel" that it all seems very limiting and selfish. I'm not great at relationships, but most of the successful marriages and LTRs I've witnessed have led me to conclude that one has to be pretty selfish if the only thing they care about in their relationship is how the other person makes them "feel." However, there is some merit to being attuned to the emotional component of seeking the divine presence.
For me, the spiritual struggle has been more of an intellectual pursuit rather than a relationship, which probably reflects some of my poor attitudes to relationships as well but that is another topic entirely. I'm always seeking answers, desiring resolution and completeness. Frustratingly, I've come to realize faith is not about answers, but about being and experience. I don't like that at all. I want control. I want to know.
This desire to know is ingrained in me, but there is also this bevy of newfound questions that is culminating in one particular question: "who is this Jesus to me?" In the past, Jesus has been many people to me: preacher, firebrand, apocalyptic nutjob, teacher, hippie lovefreak, desert weirdo, smug asshole, prophet, messiah, etc. Now I'm asking myself who is Jesus to me? Is he kind? Do I trust him? Can I talk to him? What is even more important is do I have the courage to continually return to these questions and be renewed by them rather than giving into my instinct to have an answer. Can I keep that question open? Can I continually be open to it throughout my life? Do I want to be?
Begrudgingly, I think the answer is yes. I've always been drawn to fides mysterio, even if I'm in the throes of my worst episodes of rank skepticism, cynicism, and despair. There is a well of meaning (or meaninglessness) that my soul is drawn to and I wish to keep going forward. Do I have the courage to simply be in faith? Love, pray, worship, doubt, struggle, teach, preach, live, and move in an existence of experiencing God rather than attempting to know things about God? I don't know if there's an answer, but I hope there is an answer to one question: how can I live into that?
As you go forward in faith (or doubt, or skepticism, or disdain), perhaps use this Holy Week to revisit the perennial question of the gospel-message: who is this Jesus?
No comments:
Post a Comment