Marquee- Something to think about as people walk by the church
Essay written by David Lowe
Let us contemplate the Marquee. We generally gather on the 3rd Wednesday evening of the month. We will meet on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 at 7 p.m.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85990128615?pwd=N080Ynl2Y0VWbkpZSVd2dngvWWtBUT09
Meeting ID: 859 9012 8615 Passcode: 180091
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85990128615?pwd=N080Ynl2Y0VWbkpZSVd2dngvWWtBUT09
Meeting ID: 859 9012 8615 Passcode: 180091
“The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God.”
― Martin Buber
Christians and other people of faith almost inevitably seek to spread the word and encourage others to join the faith. We usually see only upsides to such conversions, but downsides also exist and an awareness of the problems of faith is perhaps as important as an understanding of the faith story itself. The problem is idolatry. We create our own idols, and those idols may be both things of the world such as progress, prosperity and science, or they can be our own version of God. John Calvin famously said that the “human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” That factory will continue to produce whether we are believers or not.
The goal of faith is to walk humbly with God in whatever situation we are placed. Part of that humility is an understanding of the limits of our knowledge and the uncertainty of our path. Walking a path with uncertainty and unknowing is far closer to Paul’s working out our faith with ‘fear and trembling’ than is walking the path with certainty and conviction. When we have a faith that is certain, that can be told and explained, we may well have an idol that we have created.
Lao Tzu began the Tao Te Ching with the statement that the ‘Tao (or the way} that can be told is not the eternal Tao’ and goes on to explain that “To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.” Paul makes virtually the same point in 1 Corinthians 8 when he says that “Knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.”
A faith journey is not about confidence in knowing the truth, but instead about being comfortable with not knowing. Faith points to God and shows a way that can be followed. Some analogize our faith traditions to fingers pointing to the moon. The danger of faith is that some will make the finger their god, while ignoring the moon to which it points. From there it is a short distance to the self-righteousness that is endemic both in communities of faith and in society in general. As we lose our false images we are better able to resist the temptations of self-righteousness, and better able to hear God’s call to us in our ever-changing world.
― Martin Buber
Christians and other people of faith almost inevitably seek to spread the word and encourage others to join the faith. We usually see only upsides to such conversions, but downsides also exist and an awareness of the problems of faith is perhaps as important as an understanding of the faith story itself. The problem is idolatry. We create our own idols, and those idols may be both things of the world such as progress, prosperity and science, or they can be our own version of God. John Calvin famously said that the “human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” That factory will continue to produce whether we are believers or not.
The goal of faith is to walk humbly with God in whatever situation we are placed. Part of that humility is an understanding of the limits of our knowledge and the uncertainty of our path. Walking a path with uncertainty and unknowing is far closer to Paul’s working out our faith with ‘fear and trembling’ than is walking the path with certainty and conviction. When we have a faith that is certain, that can be told and explained, we may well have an idol that we have created.
Lao Tzu began the Tao Te Ching with the statement that the ‘Tao (or the way} that can be told is not the eternal Tao’ and goes on to explain that “To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.” Paul makes virtually the same point in 1 Corinthians 8 when he says that “Knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.”
A faith journey is not about confidence in knowing the truth, but instead about being comfortable with not knowing. Faith points to God and shows a way that can be followed. Some analogize our faith traditions to fingers pointing to the moon. The danger of faith is that some will make the finger their god, while ignoring the moon to which it points. From there it is a short distance to the self-righteousness that is endemic both in communities of faith and in society in general. As we lose our false images we are better able to resist the temptations of self-righteousness, and better able to hear God’s call to us in our ever-changing world.