Conversation Point

Faith Talk

The ABC network recently offered up what appeared to be an interesting program promising discussion about faith in the United States. While I prepared for a yard sale I was hosting on my front lawn the next day, I observed several women considering a vocation in a cloistered convent, statistics indicating how many of us say we believe in God (91%) and a young high school woman's anguish for being ridiculed by teachers and students because she is an atheist. I turned the channel as previews of the next segment's exorcism began. At that point I also wondered if this was a rerun of a program I had already seen. Either I had seen it before or this attempt at addressing faith dialogue in our country completely missed the mark as so many others before it had.

A friend also saw parts of the program and concluded that whoever conceived and developed it was not a person who embraced her or his own faith perspective. I agreed and we also came to the conclusion that religious issues sell if they are limited, extreme views that can be sensationalized. The closest anyone came to discussing faith was a man connecting these values to appreciating nature and falling in love. Billed as a discussion of faith, these two hours did a better job of talking around faith, almost avoiding it all together. Perhaps in an unintentional way this show did address faith dialogue in the United States for what it is, existing only in extreme forms and carried on by people who don't really have a chosen, growing faith perspective. Perhaps now is the time to change that.

One of the things I love best about Jesus is how he drew people into talking about what they believed. He spent a good deal of time doing the talking among his preaching, storytelling and sharing of parables, but he also asked a whole lot of questions. He asked people what they wanted from him before he healed them. He asked his disciples who people said he was, then asked them directly who they believed him to be. His, "I'll answer your question after you answer mine," style with the Pharisees almost appears comical to us because they fell into the trap so easily and so frequently. I don't believe Jesus was trying to trap them. I suspect he hoped that if they stopped to consider their own motives, and how Jesus' message may connect with their own faith, they may come to appreciate how different the present and the future Israel could be. Jesus asked lots of questions, not to elicit specific responses, but as a tool to help people understand their own faith as it existed, exploring it more fully in the process of seeing where they were heading.

Which brings us back to the preaching, storytelling and parables for which Jesus is also well-known. As Father Mulcahy, chaplain to the fictional MASH 4077 unit, replied when complimented on a sermon, "You can't miss when you've got good material." Once primed to think about what they believed, the people responded to Jesus' words because it kepi them thinking, stirred up their faith and expanded their vision of who this God of Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, Jacob, and now, Jesus, was to them on a daily basis. Jesus talked about who was blessed, how they were salt and light, and that the kingdom of God already existed among them. Imagine the conversations as friends and families came together after Jesus had preached or taught in their communities.

The Biblical Epistles tell us that conversation continued and expanded even further as the early church grew. The Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians, as well as the individuals Timothy, Titus and Philemon, all received letters from Paul discussing specific issues each had raised in long distance dialogue with him. Christianity was an exuberant, vibrant faith movement that took root, survived and flourished when other religious groups did not last. Surely God's grace and the Holy Spirit moved among these people striving to integrate the teachings of their savior into their hearts and lives. But even as they aimed to embody their beliefs they talked about what their faith meant to them, how they applied its tenets in their communities. When confusion, frustration or roadblocks occurred, the conversation didn't end. This is to say that the faith of the early church wasn't blindly accepted. It was lived as Gospel.

Valiant effort that this latest attempt to explore faith in the United States was meant to be, it didn't show viewers that there are people out here who think about what they believe, aim to grow in those beliefs and live them each day. Are these ideas part of your faith experience? Who do you talk with about your faith? Who challenges you to educate yourself, to grow, to dig inside yourself for the richness that God's grace provides? How can we continue to hear Jesus' questions, listen for his stories and lessons, and continue to talk to each other about what they mean to us?

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 6:32 PM