Pondering the book “Almost Christian,” by author Kendra Creasy Dean. The author quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that…That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”
The quote begs to answer the question, “What are you worshipping?” The easy answer, of course, is Jesus, but that too begs the question “What does it mean to worship Jesus?” We have all experienced people who turn the Christian faith into a single-issue cause, something Jesus never did. So, what does it mean to worship Jesus…what does it mean to be Christian? Is it merely church attendance, or baptism, or pledging, or passively “loving your neighbor”? Just what does it mean to worship Jesus…what does it mean to be Christian? As a priest of 41 years, I have seen people come and go for every single issue imaginable. They have left because of the prayer book, women priests, the church’s position on abortion, sexuality issues, bad preaching; too long of a service or the wrong time, too much contemporary music and too little contemporary music, they just didn’t like me, or they just didn’t like you. The point is that people are confused about what it means to be Christian. The bigger point is that we too are people.
This book’s first chapter, “Becoming Christian-ish,” challenges us to get honest about our own faith as a way of understanding why people in general and youth in particular are not flocking to church the way WE THINK THEY SHOULD.
“We provide coaching opportunities for youth to develop and improve their pitches and their SAT scores, but we blithely assume that religious identity will happen by osmosis, emerging “when youth are ready” (a confidence we generally lack when it comes to, say, algebra). We simply have not given teenagers the sole-strength necessary to recognized, wrestle, and resist the “Symbiotes” in our midst—probably because we lack this soul-strength ourselves.”
So here is our first task to understanding the problem; using a recipe/index card, answer the question, “What does it mean to be Christian…what does it mean to worship Jesus?” Pray about it; ponder it as Mary pondered “All they (the shepherds) had told her.” Don’t sign it. Bring it to church and drop it in the offering plate for us to ponder too. If you find yourself struggling with the question, don’t feel alone, but don’t let that become the excuse that keeps you from following through with the task. The reality is that if you are having trouble articulating your faith, it is even more likely that those who have relied on your teaching are struggling all the more. We desperately need to learn to articulate what our spirit knows to be true. We must learn to tell the story of God’s love and grace as we have experienced them in our own lives. I can remember my father telling me that the two things we never talk about are religion and politics and look at the mess we have made of both. Later in his life all he wanted to talk about was his love for his family and his God. This man had come to know firsthand the power of the word…THE WORD and you couldn’t shut him up. We too must learn this truth; our lives depend on it as does the lives of our “neighbors.”
Father Bill Myrick
