Re-centering My Wheel of Faith
I was raised in the Lancaster Conference of the Mennonite Church. My family attended the Ephrata Mennonite Church whenever there was a service. That included Wednesday Night prayer meeting, Saturday evening Young People's Meeting, and Sunday School and church on Sunday morning. Sunday evening services were held every week and we were always there. In addition there were often all-day meetings on Saturdays. The rule was we never missed church except for sickness and I was never to miss communion except for death, MINE! It was really a little too much for me. I decided that when I grew up and got married, I would stop going to church. Well, Mary changed my mind about that. We never missed a beat.
My parents never had a period of family devotions at home. We had a prayer before meals, but it was a silent prayer unless there was company for dinner. If my grandparents were there, we also returned thanks after the meal. I knew that my mother prayed, but I don't recall ever hearing her pray out loud. The same went for my father, except in public prayer. I suppose that's why Mary and I got away from a formal mealtime blessing in our home many years ago.
The theology I learned as a boy was a conservative one. My view of God was that of a theistic being, sitting on a throne somewhere above the sky. We gathered in our church to worship this being. We prayed to him and sometimes he gave us what we asked for and sometimes he didn't. I was under the impression that my requests were not granted because I did not have enough faith. To me that meant that I didn't actually believe that they would be granted. Actually, I usually was full of doubts about my prayers being answered.
Even as a young lad, I questioned the concept of a God who would create a universe based on sound physical laws and then would often throw them aside as it became necessary to perform another miracle. As I grew older, my logical and mathematical mind made it more and more difficult to accept this view of God. I just could not deal with a God who violated his own scientific principles. I stated this a few weeks ago in this class and got myself into trouble.
As the years went by, I simply put many of my doubts aside and tried to accept what I didn't understand by "faith." However, this faith became a wobbly faith, as my views alternated between "science" and "religion." I knew that someday I would have to come to grips with this whole matter. As I grew older the search has become more intense.
Mary and I and our family continue to attend church with the same rules my father used. The question was never raised as to whether or not we would go to church on a Sunday morning. We simply went.
Now as to a personal devotional life, I never developed a set pattern for meditation, prayer, and bible reading. However, I have spent a lot of time doing those things in preparation for teaching, presenting devotionals to the choir, and in writing for my web site. That has forced me into studying the bible and reading to complete those tasks. Of course, the 4-year study of the bible in Questers and the six years that I taught it provided a really intense experience.
About ten years ago I began reading books by John Shelby Spong, Richard Horsley, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Jack Nelson-Pallmyer, and Walter Wink. I began to realize just how narrow my view of God was. I'm not sure that I understand, nor accept all that I have read, but their views come much closer to the conception of God that I have longed to embrace. However, since my old conception was now dead, I felt the need to learn to know this Christ and this God in a new way. I knew that I had a long way to go in my spiritual quest.
I then turned to a history of the Anabaptists and Mennonites written by John Ruth. He entitled the book, "The Earth is the Lord's." As I read again of the willingness of these simple folk to give their all, including their lives for what they believed, I became acutely aware of the seriousness of the quest that I had undertaken. However, my compass was skewed, and I felt myself floundering as I searched for direction. In traditional language, I felt lost. I surely was not as certain of my faith as were these saints who preceded me.
Let's go to the Hebrew Scriptures for a metaphor. As he searched for direction for his people, you will recall that the prophet Ezekiel described a vision in which he saw a wheel turning within a wheel. I don't know what he saw, but his description fits what we today call a gyroscope. This is a device with which we can find our way in the absence of other navigational aids such as a compass or the stars. My problem was that since the spinning wheel in my gyroscope was off center, I kept changing directions as the wheel wobbled. I needed somehow to find the center of my faith.
In 2002 I journeyed to Lake Junaluska, North Carolina to attend the National Older Adults Conference (NOAC). I had attended NOAC three times in the past, but for various reasons I had missed the last two conferences. I was excited about going to this conference, and I went there looking for some direction in my spiritual quest. The theme of the conference was "As I Run This Race," based on Hebrews 11, and 12. Bob Neff was the bible instructor and the text chosen for the three day Bible study was Hebrews 12:1-2:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
As I thought about the great cloud of witnesses who went before me, including the Anabaptist martyrs, and the cloud of those coming after me who are looking for a model with which to mold their own faith, I became acutely aware of the cloud of witnesses surrounding my presence there at the conference. There I sat in the midst of more than a thousand older adults who had been running the race for many years and who were preparing to hand off the baton to the next generation. I became overwhelmed by that presence, and I finally knew where to find this God whom I sought so desperately. He is just where the New Testament writers said he is. He is in this body, the Body of Christ, which we call the church. He is in that cloud of witnesses who grace my presence from the past, the future, as well as in the present church. For the first time in many years, I felt at home. At last, I sensed that feeling of safety that I used to find at Sunday evening services as I laid my head against my father when I was a boy.
The old questions with which I struggled no longer seemed quite so important. Although my quest is not over, I have joined the great stream of those who have set their mark on the high calling in Christ Jesus. I have re-discovered the center of my faith, and my gyroscope has settled down. I still have many doubts, and I still want to know more. Our God is so vast and so great that we will never really understand him as we run this race. But I have, along with Bunyan's "Christian," again caught the vision of the Celestial City.
At Lake Junaluska in a Methodist facility, listening to Baptist, Presbyterian, and Brethren teachers and preachers, I began to sense God's presence anew. But it was simply being in the company of that great cloud of witnesses that brought my faith into new focus. As the old spiritual says,
"Guide my feet while I run this race, for I don't want to run this race in vain." Amen and Amen!