c. 2003 Religion News Service
(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)
(UNDATED) Five weeks ago, I asked the 5,000 readers of my daily e-mail meditations to name the question they would ask of Jesus.
If Jesus walked by, as in Mark’s story of blind Bartimaeus, and they could ask a question from the roadside, what would they ask?
I have received 233 responses and more than 300 “roadside questions.” They range from a desire to know that God exists to a plea for help in illness. The questions are simple and deep. They sound much more like the beggar’s plea _ “My teacher, let me see again” _ than any theological, doctrinal, ecclesiastical or institutional questions that religion tends to think important.
Their questions yield a glimpse into the human soul. Not a total glimpse, by any means, but revealing more consistent themes than I would have guessed. Christianity seems such a scattered phenomenon, offering a bit of this and a bit of that, hoping to stir some interest and loyalty among the faithful. And yet, when given an opportunity to ask their questions, here is what people ask:
“Are you real?” “What do you want of me?” “How can I love my neighbor?” “Will we ever have peace?” “Hold me tighter.” “Will I see my son again?” “Is my husband in the arms of Jesus?” “Why so much suffering?” “Save the children.” “Let me know calmness, a confidence, a peace, as I care for a dying wife.” “Lord, what do you ask of your church?”
I am humbled by such questions. They make me want to sit with pastors, bishops, lay councils, budget committees and coffee-hour critics, and to say, “Get a grip. Your people are hungry; give them food. Your people want hope, not argument. They want peace, not doctrinal warfare. They want faith, not church. They want a living God, not a well-run institution. They want to be writings on your heart, not names on a list. They want truth, not religion.”
When I hear questions asked by clergy _ questions suffused with the pain of serving the prickly and unresponsive _ I want to say to their flocks: “Listen to what your pastor believes or is trying to believe. Don’t demand safe or soothing words. Walk with your pastor to the edge of not-knowing. Make room for the stirrings of his heart. Allow her to love you and no longer to fear your rejection.”
How does one answer such questions? If they haven’t already been answered by the usual means, how can anything fresh occur? For a season, I want to put aside the usual sources of authority _ Scripture, Tradition and Reason _ and to seek God’s truth through the humbler lens of daily life and the vaguer process known as intuition.
I know that such inquiry takes me beyond the tried-and-true bounds. But I believe it isn’t enough to add up Scripture passages, or to quote prayer books or theologians or religious authorities. Hubris and fear don’t yield to evidence. The longing heart and wounded soul aren’t healed by argument.
Truth is different from fact, scholarship or opinion. Truth lies within the tears of a weeping parent. Truth lies within the aching of a lost soul. Truth lies within the questions that actually carry us from dawn to dusk. Truth lies between us _ in what we ask and are afraid to ask, in what we give and what the other gives, in what we hear and in our refusal to listen.
Truth lies within a man who is watching his wife die, who aches for the zest of yesterday, who receives no comfort from a church caught up in budgets and pageantry, who arrives at the core of love and discovers that love is lonely and painful.
Truth might argue, but more likely truth will experience and absorb. On a recent business trip, I stepped outside Western stereotypes and Christian triumphalism and simply observed a Muslim family breaking their Ramadan fast in a park beside the Arabian Sea.
There was as much holy truth on display there as in any Lenten fast or Christmas pageant. I just needed to see it and to know that God was now a bit closer.
DEA END EHRICH
