Between the Basic and the Brilliant
July 22nd, 2007
The local gathering I’ve been apart of for the past year has these monthly classes of sorts where anyone can come to learn about Grace Gathering as a community, about our past, where we are, where we’re going, et cetera. There’s also this wonderful few hours of Q&A where anyone can ask Chris, our lead pastor, anything they want. It’s designed to help new people become acquainted with us and to possibly get some answers to a few questions. Typically people attend both classes and then get involved in some way or another. It’s is unusual that anyone would attend the classes on a monthly basis.
I am unusual.
When does anyone get a few hours to ask their pastor/teacher anything they want? Who gets this opportunity?
So every month, or as much as I could, I would show up to these classes to sit in and listen to Chris explain our gathering and our foundations, and I would listen to the people in the class ask their questions. I love observing people. I guess I’m a people-watcher, in a very non-stalker sort of way. I could sit in metro systems or libraries and just observe how people interact for hours. It fascinates me.
I discovered that, for the most part, people asked very similar questions in the Q&A portions of the evenings.
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What is salvation? Can it be lost? Or conversely, can it be found?
What are your thoughts on women pastors/leaders?
How can people die in terrible ways, like genocide, and all the while God apparently stands by without doing anything?
Why do people take some of the Bible literally and some of it as figurative?
Why so many denominations?
How can the death of one man on a cross literally do anything for me? Or to me?
How is it that some of my friends who aren’t followers of Jesus more Christian-like than most Christians I know?
Why is beer so good and yet Christians are so against it? And what is your favorite kind of beer? And do you have any here at these little sessions? And have you had Newcastle? Leinenkugel? Sam Adams Boston Lager? I know. Seriously.
Does God really forgive politicians and war criminals?
If Jesus is the “only” way to heaven, doesn’t that seem quite elitist?
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One time Chris actually let me field all of the questions for an evening. It was amazing. You might not have liked my responses. On the other hand, maybe you would have.
As I continued to go to these sessions and meet people and listen to their questions, something struck me as very odd:
The same questions that were being asked by people who don’t follow Jesus or by those who consider themselves as new followers of Jesus were the exact same questions that were being asked by the most brilliant female and male authors I’d been reading. The exact same questions. I would be reading something by N.T. Wright and he would ask a few questions about faith, not necessarily questions to his readers, but questions on his own heart, more so to God. And then I’d go to these sessions and I’d hear the same things.
Somewhere between the basic and the brilliant I believe we have lost something. Somewhere along the line I feel as though Christians feel as though they’ve got it. It’s as if we learn a one-liner about theology and then we’ve got that one figured out. Once saved always saved. There. Glad I can file that one away as “figured out”.
And it’s not that simple, is it?
It’s kind of like this van bench that I found one day when I was in Mexico. I came across it as I was walking through this village, looked at it, and wondered where it had been. I wondered about the conversations that taken place on it. On the outside it looked simple. Old. Plain.
But in its depths there was more. It was more complicated than it seemed. It has a past. It has been places. It’s being used or something now.
That’s how those questions seem to me. Even though they are as old as time, there is more there. For me it’s almost never a simple answer that can be memorized with a catchy one-liner. I want to examine everything. Again. And again. Because I don’t ever want to be caught between the basic and the brilliant.
Tags: beer, spirituality
it’s true that we ask the same questions.
and i keep praying the same prayer: “help me, i don’t know.”
Rilke says “Live the questions, and maybe you will eventually find yourself living the answers.”
i have thought about this a lot in the past couple days. sometimes there are moments i wish i didn’t ask so many questions… moments i wish i could respond to a question with a well-articulated response that could trump an argument or dialogue. i just can’t anymore. i thought about this statement from Socrates yesterday:
an unexamined life is not worth living
which could also be said as: “an unexamined theology/doctrine/religion/practice, etc is not worth believing”
here’s to a life of examination. i don’t think i could do anything else. thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Greg Russinger once said, “Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.”
There are some questions that we’ll never know the answers to - that are beyond our comprehension, beyond the collection of recorded human knowledge, beyond our limited grasp. But the delving into such a journey, such an adventure, to listen, to play in the fields with no endings… it engages our imagination… something many of us choose to leave behind in our childhood.
Great points and insight, Mr. Longbrake.
I may just be slow, but I don’t get the whole “being caught between the basic and the brilliant” (and why that is not good).
sometimes basic is brilliant.
as always, it’s a joy to read your writing.
I’ve been a silent reader for quite some time now. Josh, you get me through the day by sharing the thoughts that God has given you. Agree or disagree, the ability we are given to question and analyze is something that will always give us the challenge of fully understanding the infinite faith that we have. I believe that sometimes WE are the ones that get in the way of our own salvation…something to think about, to say the least.
Thanks for always having your heart in tune to what God is calling you to do. Have a safe trip to Seattle, and keep growing closer to Him. The possibilities are endless!
the question that has been drilling holes in my brain lately is this - why are we, christians, not able to heal ourselves and the world. didn’t Jesus send out his men and said to preach and heal in his name? so what has happened that we can’t do it? why have we forgotten that “heal” part?
i asked this question to this woman i have been talking to about God and she said that she has gotten an answer that says that the church needs to go through cleansing.
what do you think?
Back in the late winter I started discipling a young believer. It had been some time since I had spent focused time and energy to disciple someone. It has been through those conversations that I’ve said certain “Christian” things with utter confidence to have this young unknowing believer reply “Why is that?” or “What does that look like?” or “How does that play out in real life?”. And I realized that far from even being brilliant is the comatose state that I was in where I just ate the food that was fed without really ever tasting it.
I’m glad you pointed out the example of “once saved always saved.” Theology aside, those kinds of statements that are taken at face value without ever really savoring what they truly mean have caused me concern. Yet I too find myself just accepting the answers to questions, however brilliant or simple they might be. I think it takes someone coming along and saying “why’s that?” or “what for?” to really check (in a good way) what we say is just the way it is or just the way it has always been done.
Jesus being the only way to God doesn’t sound elitist—it sounds biblical.
@Joj: To each his/her own, I suppose.
@kontrabanda: i think that cleansing and healing can be one in the same at times. i understand your question and i resonate with it. it’s as though the church had the greatest opportunity to be a healer, but instead became an instigator.
Good post Joshua. I think it basically has to do with humility. I don’t think we’ve ever “arrived”. There’s always more. Kind of like when Paul said just when you think you’re standing, be careful that you don’t fall.
If I were at one of those question sessions, they would haaaate me.
:)
John