May 30, 2006
Shelter
Every chance it gets, religion stifles faith. Perhaps one of its more subtle ways is its often successful attempt to make of faith, itself, a religion, to make a deeply subjective personal commitment and risk into a rigid system of right and wrong.
Compare that neat and innocent, albeit bold, title over on page 845 in the Prayer Book, “An Outline of the Faith,” and the lesser title over which it looms, “commonly called the Catechism.” And compare every bishop’s ordination vow to “guard the Faith.” If that doesn’t scare the beejeebies out of the purple as it should out of the rest of us, then we’re simply not paying attention.
The religious establishment in Jesus’ day similarly put their dogma ahead of his faith, and subsequently, of course, his humanity. Perhaps you’ve noticed how the practice continues, how it has apparently never been out of vogue, and how it remains so firmly planted today that it threatens the very life of the community that has given it the freedom with which it is so careless. It was that milieu that forced Jesus to say that even though all else has its place, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” [Mt 8.20].
Saint Theresa of Lysieux surely meant something like this when she wrote with such great spiritual insight that, “If you are willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.”
A dear mentor of mine once said that if I love my neighbor and hate myself, God help my neighbor. For when those times come that we cannot accept ourselves or our neighbor for some self-imposed reason, some so-called orthodoxy that rejects God’s forgiving grace for all and prevents our own wholeness, then we have turned against this “freedom (for which) Christ has set us free.” But if we can love ourselves — and our neighbor — in spite of all we know to be unlovable about the both of us, if we can will to bear serenely that trial of being displeasing to ourselves, then we will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter where the Son of Man can lay his head, indeed. We will be for Jesus… a church, a faithful people.