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Words
People, religious people, love to use certain words; there is a certain safety and security in those trade words, insider words, religious jargon. You know, words like saved or born again, spirit filled, or even Christian.
I don’t like those kinds of words; I react to those kinds of words. By using them, it feels like I’m agreeing to some sort of contract that has an awful lot of fine print, and, I’m not so sure that I want to sign my name on the dotted line. I know it will give the person who is asking some reassurance that I believe in a certain way that I hold to certain tenets, that I follow a prescribed path, but, I’m sorry; my faith is not that clear cut.
Really, don’t we only get a glimpse here and there? How often do any of us see God as clearly as Moses must have seen God on Mount Sinai? And even when Peter and John and James saw Jesus transfigured that day on Mount Tabor, they weren’t sure what it was. Aren’t our encounters with God are much more like the sleepy disciples seeing something in a cloud, or like the Israelites, gazing through the veil covering the illuminated face of Moses? The last thing we want to do is to try to somehow contain that experience in religious jargon.
One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Karl Barth, was asked shortly before his death, what was the most profound point of all his work. Barth had written volumes and volumes of theology attempting to explain how God could be wholly other, completely different, yet fully present within us, somehow revealing and making God’s spirit known to us. After all those volumes and a lifetime of work, Barth answered back in his thick German accent, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Using the simple words of a children’s song Barth demonstrated the limitations of language, and in particular religious language, as somehow containing God. God’s spirit is only something that we can encounter beyond words, beyond concepts, beyond the format of religion. Sometimes, we need to just be quiet and listen, or perhaps sing the simple words of what seems to be a song for children.
- Mike Duda
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