News

Some years ago an agriculture professor in my congregation invited me to open the convention of the National Seed Analysts convention with a devotion. The convention was meeting in our city.

When this was first mentioned, I had never before heard of a seed analyst. A cartoon picture immediately popped into my mind of a kidney bean shaped seed laying on a couch with another similarly shaped seed sitting on a chair next to the couch with a pad and pencil in hand. The one in the chair was saying to the one on the couch, “Tell me about your father.”

I discovered that is not at all what a seed analyst is. In fact, I learned there are seed banks around the country preserving and protecting seeds in the event of some catastrophe natural or human caused.

There is a reason analysts, however, do sometimes ask about one’s father or mother; that is, about one’s past. How one got to where they are is a result of the people, places, and events of their past as well as many of their past decisions. The past is how we got to our present.

Currently there are many who seem fearful about teaching of our past in school….that is, of our past in its entirety. Why should a nation or culture fear talking about negative parts of its past? Why be uncomfortable revealing the darker side? Is there anyone who does not have things in their personal past of which they are not proud? Have any of us not ever harbored some darker thoughts or done or said something to cause harm to another?

There is a reason history is studied. It is not because we find it interesting, it is because we need to discover what has worked and what has gone wrong. We need to learn from the past which has brought us to where we are today. We need to confront it, deal with it, change it, and move forward. In fact, failure to address the negative in one’s past robs healing of its fullness.

In the Christian faith we call this repentance. Martin Luther described the Christian life itself as a life of repentance. Those who believe new life can emerge from that which is dead can embrace and welcome repentance, acknowledging the wrongs of the past so as not to repeat or exacerbate them now and in the future.

One of the things we need most confront is why certain issues seem to press such volatile buttons in us. If race and racism is not such a big deal, why can it so easily enflame us? If we are not threatened about issues of sexuality and gender, why does volume seem to increase in discussing such?

It boils down to this: why are people of God, assured of God’s love and forgiveness so uncomfortable and insecure about delving into those areas of our personal and national past? Discomfort is one thing. Insecurity and inability to deal with such important and divisive issues is another. Can we find faith enough to risk saying and doing the wrong things? Can we find faith enough to have others teach us of the errors of our ways so we can repent and change them? Why must we remain so unreflectively convinced of just how right we are and convinced our attitudes and ourselves are never in need of reform?

One of the Reformation insights was that the state of the church is to be in a constant state of Reformation.” Ecclesia reformanta semper reformanda” was one of the Reformation’s several mantras; the church reformed, always reforming. Can we apply this slogan to ourselves? To our nation and world? Only by acknowledging where we were and who we now are. Dare we be honest both with God, each other, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, to ourselves? It is a good way to avoid needing an analyst.

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.