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Grammar matters. So does spelling. The suffix “tion”, to choose one word ending, changes verbs into nouns. Words such as abbreviation (abbreviate), conservation (conserve), and extension (extend) are just a few examples. Just an addition of four letters can transform an action into something stationary or into some condition.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some simple addition or deletion that could easily change us? Plug in a four number or letter code and, “Presto!”, we are now the person whom we wish to be or some other is now the one we desire that other to be.

The change that occurs in people is a change that takes place over a lifetime. This change is most often hard work. Life has a way of changing us as events strike and we react. Many times our reaction might even put us on a different path than we have been traveling. Sometimes our reaction may just be a slight course correction and we move on only slightly touched. Other times, the entire trajectory upon which our life’s course has been headed has altered drastically.

Faith has a way of changing us. Perhaps a better word then changing would be forming. Faith has a way of forming who we are and whom we are becoming. We don’t think of this too often as we trudge off to worship, pray our daily prayers, read scripture or reach out to receive a piece of bread at communion and gurgle down a sip of wine. By themselves each act typically does not alter us in any meaningful way. On the other hand, done over a lifetime such routine acts become formative.

Faith, like life, can also be hard work especially as it connects with our life and the moments of struggle and times of joy that we experience throughout our lifetime. With us it is most often the opposite of our friendly little suffix “tion”. With us we tend to go from noun or condition to verb, that is, to action. Life can move us in this way as our emotions are stirred and we sense a need to do something. Faith can also move us in this way as we experience a wrong to us or some other and become motivated to correct or heal this wrong.

Life matters. Faith matters. They seem to matter most and best when connected in relationship. When faith is ethereal and tends to put such a warm, positive spin on everything, it denies our very humanity. It denies life. When faith is able to doubt even in the midst of trusting, when faith is able to hurt or become angry, faith is able to connect with life and help us through until it is also able to heal.

This is why Christians find solace, comfort, and hope in the cross. There hung a God who was more than a few pious platitudes. There hung a God who knew the depths of human suffering to the point of being willing to suffer with us. There hung a God who experienced the vicissitudes of life which can bring change in an instant. There hung a God who knows life matters. There hung a God who gives us faith to connect with this life, this very human life. Here is one more grammatical switch. What if instead of hung I used the word hangs? The God of the past becomes one who is and does the same God of Jerusalem’s Calvary.

You and I are changed over a lifetime. Without such change we would become older, bitter, and feel left out as life’s inevitable changes pass us by. You and I have no easy way on our road to constantly becoming a new person. There are no simple letters that work an easy transformation. You and I have Jesus Christ, a companion on our becoming, a healer who understands well the experiences of life. As we move on from this Easter season in the church, this is our resurrection; that is we move from resurrect, a verb into resurrection; a new state of being for us. In Christ we are constantly being made new. Faith in Christ matters.

So, about this COVID 19 pandemic. Are we out of the woods? Deeper into the woods? Or are we just at the edge of the forest where light ahead is visible? Perhaps the answer is a bit of tossed salad: all three.
I was thinking about this…again!…this morning as we were out for our morning walk, dog in tow. When times were very clear that we were deep within the pandemic, unwritten rules were also clear and followed. If someone was approaching you on the same sidewalk from the opposite direction, one of you had to go. That is, one had to cross the street and keep walking on the other side.

Now the rules are a bit more convoluted. Someone approaches and a sort of dance ensues. While one dodges a bit to the left, the other moves a bit to the right. To cross the street or not cross the street? That is the question. Or just walk briskly by the oncoming pedestrian, nod, smile (but don’t open your mouth to smile), and move on? Oh, such conundrums!

Such seems to be the very condition of life, does it not? To yield or to keep one’s position? To allow for another’s needs or assert our own rights? To be concerned or to not worry? To shift left or shift right or just keep plodding down the middle?

The argument could be made that this also is the condition of faith. Life and faith are full of judgements some deeply moral, and others simply pragmatic. While we are not called to judge another’s status before God or even the person they have become, the quality of life is determined by the judgements we make, including those judgements we make about other people. Frequently in determining a course of action or inaction we dance around a bit until we figure out what course we might take.

Sometimes the point is less what we decide then that we do decide. Decision made, we move forward and live with whatever consequences great or small. Standing on the sidelines refusing to commit or decide is in itself a decision, often with even greater consequences for someone if not us.

As Christians both armed with and covered by grace, sitting safely on the sidelines is quite often not the place for followers of Jesus. Jesus calls us out to the dance of life and faith. Move a little left, move a bit right, but keep moving. Love the neighbor as oneself. Cross the street or just move around oncoming foot traffic. Care about your health and that of others, and a bit less about your right to the walkway.

In the woods or out of the woods? In one way it doesn’t matter. Following Jesus is to be done in both places. The dance of life and faith must go on. After all, it is not about the woods, it is about the followers and, most of all, the one being followed.