Back on Track

Well ... about a week ago, on a Sunday ... I remember, I finished reading PDL. ... and on my way along the float to the ramp tossed it in the river. YUP! I did my best ... and ...well, that was that. I think that is what goes on for most of us who eventually choose to leave our "faith of origin" behind ... and even that is not accurate. I still have faith ... and VERY much the same faith as I always had but now my faith is in substance and not in form. WOW!! what does THAT mean? My impression in my last years in ... was that it was about how the events of the life of Jesus were interpreted by an external authority and how by means of an hierarchical structure and a cult (rituals and symbols) those intrepretations were maintained. On reading PDL, I got the same external intrepetation only this time the authority was not the structure, hierarchy and appeal to tradition but rather the written word of God. I recently heard someone ask ... quite ingenuoously @ an Alpha Class, "How do you know that is what Jesus said?" The answer, accompanied by a look of mild surprise and confusion ... "Why, It's in the book. SEE. It's written right here!.

I suppose more accuracy in the question was required, something like "No, I mean, how do you know that what is written there was recorded accurately?" I wonder if the response and the look would have been different. So there is the form part. Now onto the substance part. Are you still following me here?

I was at a Chamber Businessmans (womens) Prayer Breakfast. I was seated next to 4 Christians. I suddenly felt I was back in the first Century of the Christain Church when surrounded by the benighted and often hostile pagans (and Jews) the followers of Jesus aggressively stated their beliefs to all who would listen. In all i've read about the Church renewal process in the megachurch revolution, this is precisely the stance the leaders are taking and encouraging their adherents to adopt.
Gee! I wonder why I felt like I was one of the benighted.
Anyway, my interlocutors bagan to quiz me on my beliefs once they discovered I was a Pastor. "Do you believe Jesus was God?" hold on we're getting VERY close to substance now! "Yes I do." Damn ... If only I'd stopped there. You see substance is tricky, slippery stuff. It is the founadtion of all there is and so it keeps morphing into what looks like new stuff when really all it is a new form of the old ... So anyway I couldn't stop there ... I had to say, "Sure He is but not any more or less than I am." Well after that to quote ol Will "the game was afoot". Happily these Christians were not of the evangelisitc variety but more of the socially active ones and so I was kind of dismissed as a ...hmmm... benighted ...modern day pagan.

My faith in substance ... remains unshaken. I believe there is One, out of which all that was, all that is and all that will be is forever and ever proceeding. To misquote Meister Eckhart, "The father is continually bringing forth the only begotten Son."
... per omnia saecula, seaculorum .....