Saturday, August 30, 2008

Ambiguity

The other day I had a conversation with a friend about ambiguity. The issue we were discussing was how the church can deal with ambiguity, meaning the unknown. It is my opinion that people  come to church because they want answers to their questions, to feel secure and safe and to experience community with like-minded people. That's why, in my opinion, we have so many churches. Rather than incorporating other opinions into the community, they are pushed out forming their own group with like-minded people.
In our discussion about how a church can develop into a breeding ground of all kinds of people, where everyone feels safe to express who they are, how they feel and what they think, I posed the question about my own ambiguity: how do I deal with mixed thoughts and emotions within myself. Once I figure that out, I can relate to others in the same way.
I have been thinking about that and the truth is that I am OK with not knowing. I'm OK with not knowing whether the Bible is all true, or partly fictional. I'm OK not knowing whether only Christians go to heaven or others as well, or everyone for that matter. I'm OK not knowing whether God is a man, a woman or both. There are plenty more of these issues, and it's OK. Some things I have figured out for myself, some I hopefully will someday, and some might be mysteries forever. All I know is that God is bigger than we can imagine. Our imagination, our picture of who God is, is not God, it's a picture. Jesus used many stories to explain aspects of God. These stories are not God, they are stories.
I think it's easier to worship a God I don't understand. The less I understand about who He is, the bigger he becomes. Pictures of God as a Friend, a Father, a King, or a Judge, are all aspects of who God is, but they are not God. He is who He is. Can't get much more mysterious than that.
The community of believers would be best served if we go on this journey together, finding each other rather than pushing each other away, celebrating our differences, trying to understand  rather than convince each other. Celebrating ambiguity, rather than pushing it out.



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3 comments:

  1. Good thoughts. I thought of Exodus 3:4 passage (God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "). I believe one of the things that has driven us into our little homogeneous ideological ghettos is our modern ways of thinking. We try to remove all ambiguity because we assume what will remain will be truth. We dissect things down to their smallest parts and then assume we "know" all about that thing. I spoke a little about this on Sunday...I had a quote I had jotted down in my Bible from George MacDonald:
    "To know a primrose is a higher thing than to know all the botany of it—just as to know Christ is an infinitely higher thing than to know all theology.” To illustrate, I read a botanical description of a primrose. I then projected a beautiful photo of a primrose and read the quote above. The "botany" of our faith is our theological positions...helpful, necessary, but ultimately, they are just words. Sometimes I'm not sure what a relationship with God looks like or feels like. Sometimes I don't feel anything at all. But at the point I was able to say, "that OK", God is bigger than all that, (at least a God worth worshiping) things began to make a little more sense to me.

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  2. Thanks for the comment. I think one of the reasons we like to hide in our ghettos of doctrine is fear. We are afraid to be overrun by other ideologies, and become busier with self-preservation than with the other. Fear is a great motivator and unifier as we can see in politics almost every day. The example of Jesus is the ultimate attention and care for the other and less attention for doctrine, beliefs or worry about preservation of the movement.

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  3. I think many people in church want to deal in absolutes, defining boundaries of right and wrong and living on the edges of those boundaries instead of enjoying all the freedom that exists in between. I used to be one of those "like-minded" people until I met you. You opened my eyes and heart, and helped me to get "OK" with things I didn't agree with or didn't understand. I'd still like to get some answers every now and then. I've not been a very good 1 Corinthians 5:20 "ambassador for Christ" lately. Maybe I've been to concerned about the unknown. OR maybe I've not been concerned enough. I heard this morning that a 37 year old cousin of a friend of mine died at the ballgame of some kind of aneurism. A 36 year old friend from high school took his own life last week. Two deaths - one on purpose, one a total shock - the unknown or ambiguous is all around me, yet I'm still sitting here in a spiritual rut wondering if something tragic is going to have to happen to me or a family member in order to get me out of spiritual rut.

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