Never stop growing

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

For Christmas this year, I received one of the best presents I have ever been given. One afternoon, John came in with a small package I had received in the mail. As I tore off the wrap, I found a Little Golden Book. It was entitled Bible Heroes. Featured on the front was a drawing of Samson in chains pushing down the pillars of the Philistines. I know the story well. I loved this little book instantly, for too many reasons to even begin to explain.

The real gift, however, was inside. Written inside the cover was a note from my friend Paula, who had been kind enough to send me the book. It read, "Brandi, Thanks for helping me question and grow beyond the storybook version of the Bible."

Wow.

That is very high on the list of "Super-Nice-Things-People-Have-Said-To-Me." I was very honored by Paula's words and her generous gift.

Likewise, Paula has taught me many things. I always want to be a student, even more than I want to be "the teacher." I deeply believe we all have something to learn from each other, and I try to structure my classes in this way.

Ultimately, I also think Paula really hit the theological nail on the head. We are all invited to come along and grow a little. We are all called to do a little stretching.

Every once in awhile, I will receive an email of complaint about my writings. I am grateful that I don't receive them very often, but when I do, I try to learn from them. I try to understand what drove the comments. What I have learned is A) to not take myself too seriously, and B) that everyone learns at their own pace - including me. I have also noticed that a complaint will almost always come from someone who has not taken the time to get to know me, or given me the chance to know them. Sometimes the complaints come from a place of worry or insecurity. Sometimes they even seek to harm me, tear me down, or threaten no less than the fires of hell on me for teaching the way I do.

These always serve as reminders. Thank God that there are different communities of faith, places that invite us in all our differences to learn with others which share things in common with us. Thank God that there are stretching places, even within the Bible itself, that gives us space to get stable footing before we make the next leap, or step, or small slide. Thank God that God is big enough that we don't all have to look, learn, or worship the same way.

I think the world would be a mighty different place if we were more tolerant and respectful of each other. This might be especially true when it comes to religion.

So, when this happens, I try to center myself on those stories from the Bible that I hold so close. Like Paula, I was invited by someone to look at them differently, to listen to them with a new ear. It has made all the difference, all the difference in the world to me, to have been invited rather than forced. Because of this invitation, I find great comfort in reading these fascinating stories. They remind me how small I am, and they connect me to a much larger life of faith than my own somewhat limited perspective.

In her new book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor says this:
"Some of the most reverent people I know decline to call themselves religious. For them, religion connotes belief. It means being able to say what you believe about God and why. It also means being able to hold your own in a debate with someone who believes otherwise. They, meanwhile, are not sure what they believe. They do not want to debate anyone. The longer they stand before the holy of holies, the less adequate their formulations of faith seem to them. Angels reach down and shut their mouths."

While I don't know how reverent you could call me, I do know that this is one of my greatest learnings: The more I know, the less I realize I know.

And the less afraid I am of not knowing.

And the less I feel I need to force other people to see it my way.

Paul himself struggled with issues of culture, conviction, and community. He famously battles with the Corinthian church in two separate letters in our canon. He is accused of being too worldly, while also being blamed for not being spectacular enough. His response at one point is this:
"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge, but anyone who loves God is known by God."
I Corinthians 8:1b-3

When we feel we are too, too sure of something, and there is not room for the insight or opinion of others, when we have closed ourselves to new information, we may need to take a look at where we are. There are times to close the door, and times to fling it open. There are times to learn and stretch, and there are times to stay where we are. Hopefully, we won't end up staying there in one place forever, whether we feel stuck or not, but we definitely can't move until we feel confident and ready. We need to pace ourselves, take our time, and most of all - we need to be invited. Growth will only come out of trust.

In his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith,, Rob Bell has this to say:
"Questions are not scary. What is scary is when people don't have any. What is tragic is faith that has no room for them."

As a teacher, I never claim to know it all. I like to teach so I can learn from others, and so I can share where I have been as well. I am quite sure I get it wrong sometimes, because I haven't "arrived" yet - I am still on the path of faith and growth too. I suspect actually that I will never "arrive," because I hope I never stop growing. And, because of people I love like Paula, who trust me to work at it and give me room to grow too, I take my work and my research very seriously.

My favorite professor in seminary, Paul Duke, once prayed, "May we never be so selfish as to think our education is only for ourselves." It is true, and one of the best prayers I have ever heard. Others are depending on us to take our work seriously - whatever it is we do - so that we all might benefit from the learnings of another.

During Lent, we are invited, kindly invited, to read some of the most difficult stories the Bible tells. We are invited, as Paula said so well, "to question and grow beyond the storybook version." We are asked to see things in a new way.

This is ultimately what death and resurrection is all about. Not only in literal death does the Gospel give us hope, but in the "little deaths" we encounter when what has always worked isn't working for us anymore. We die to an old way of thinking, and God helps make us new again. There is a great and poignant beauty in that, if we will let Lent visit with us.

While we all wait, while we all learn and grow, may we, like Paul, choose love whenever we can. And may we give space to each other and to ourselves as we continue to be stretched. Amen and amen.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13

In Wisdom,
Brandi Calhoun Diamond