Today in our Lenten series we
explore a third Watermark, a third basic faith practice that draws on the
promises made by God in our baptisms that enrich our lives as children of God. The
first week we focused on Bible study, and two weeks ago the Watermark we
discussed was prayer and the ways it forms faith of a Christian. In one simplified
view, we could say that Bible Study is like God’s conversation with us. Revealed
in Scripture, the living God speaks to us through his Word that we may grow
deeper in our understanding of his Son, Jesus. Prayer, by comparison, is our
conversation with God. As we pray, our hearts and minds become open to express
our thanksgiving, awe, and confession in words that are spoken by the power of
the Holy Spirit. Today’s Watermark, faith conversations, focuses on the dialogues
between us, the children of God. Faith in God becomes even fuller and stronger as
we take the conversation that goes on between God and us and begin to share it
with one another. But how does that happen? What does that look like, especially
if you’re Lutheran and typically keep that kind of stuff to yourself?
About two years ago I had to travel
to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to attend a training and orientation session for
the servant trip our youth group was going to make there later that summer. The
orientation was run by the mission organization that was setting up the service
experiences for our youth—things like building handicap ramps and putting new
roofs on small houses. At this orientation I was surrounded by youth groups and
leaders from different denominations. In fact, I was the sole Lutheran, and
Epiphany was the only Lutheran youth group signed up that summer. I learned
that the organization itself, although it served all kinds of youth groups who
wished to do mission projects, had deep Southern Baptist roots. I also learned
that while Epiphany was going to be performing construction projects for our
mission work, all of the other groups were registered for trips where they
would be directly interacting with people on the beach or in strip malls and sharing
the gospel through conversations. After we devoted a whopping 10 minutes to the
particular details of our work duties, we then spent the rest of the
orientation listening to presentations on how to finesse methods of approaching
total strangers and begin having cold conversations about Jesus and faith.
Now, I don’t know how you
would have reacted, but I sat there in that room, I thought, “Well, this is
interesting, but…nope. I think I’d rather build ten handicap ramps than have to
talk to someone about my faith.” It’s a stereotype, perhaps, but we Lutherans
prefer to share our faith with our hands, not out mouths. For example, we make
quilts or distribute food to the hungry, or clean up after a hurricane. We
write checks, raise foster children, we build houses. To be sure, there is absolutely
nothing wrong in such an approach to sharing one’s faith. These real, concrete
expressions of God’s love in Jesus are the things we’re compelled to do because
of what we know Jesus is alive and doing in the world. Yet, at the same time,
we could all be challenged—not just our Baptist brothers and sisters—to finesse
our ability in conversation and dialogue to draw attention in to the faith that
helps us build those handicap ramps. The occasional voiced connection between
belief and action is important both for deepening our own faith and passing it
down to future generations.
Is your family, for example,
diligent about recycling? Do you explain your practice because the world’s
energy problems are leading to global warming and future generations will be
doomed? Or do ever mention something
about God’s call to be good stewards of creation?
The mention of Jesus or God
or church does not always need to be so explicit, so in-your-face, nor do
Scripture verses need to be constantly quoted or referenced. However, it is
probably easier than we realize to let a foundational understanding of God’s
grace inform many of the conversations we have, to let a perspective of faith
and hope in Christ shed light on many things we do and say. If not, we run the
risk of sending the message that faith is purely private, something almost to
be ashamed of, a light to be hid under a bushel.
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| Annibale Carracci "The Samaritan Woman at the Well" (16th c.) |
Sometimes we just need the
right entrée, the right setting for these kind of conversations to occur. One
of the aspects of this scene between Jesus and the Samaritan woman that has
always stood out to me is their location. In Jesus’ day, wells were not only
public spaces, but gathering places where people—usually women—congregated to
draw water for their families and livestock. People would rest at wells and spend
time catching up on local news and share community concerns. While, as a Jewish
male, Jesus’ approach of a foreign woman during the middle of the day would
have crossed many social boundaries of the time—certainly a very
eyebrow-raising entrée—the fact that he uses a well-known but welcoming public
space to begin a conversation is significant. The well in this story, of
course, becomes not just a location, but a metaphor for the living water that
Jesus brings, but the point remains that in Jesus, God finds ordinary occasions
to enter our lives. We don’t need to limit our faith conversations to places
like the sanctuary or even the church parking lot. Home, work, and school
include many different “well” occasions where Jesus can drop by, often incognito.
What are those “wells” in
your life? Where might it be easy for you to strike up conversations with your
loved ones or close friends—and maybe even strangers—that could deepen
relationships and appreciations for each other’s perspectives? Just before
bedtime? The weekly card game with your buddies? The gym?
As a child, I remember the
car was one place where conversations happened. We were often taking trips
every summer that involved long stretches on the highway. Sometimes we would
read or listen to the radio. Once Walkmans became affordable, my sister and I
would listen to tapes and CDs. However, every once in a while, books would be
put down and the music would be turned off and we would just talk. This happens to be precisely why I
discourage iPods and personal music listening devices on youth group trips. They
significantly impede conversations and sharing.
I distinctly remember one
occasion when we were in the car as a family returning from church. My parents
were in the front seat and my sister and I were in the back. As we pulled out
of the parking lot, I tuned into what my parents were saying and realized they
were discussing the day’s sermon and what the pastor had said. I figure I was
only eight or nine years old at the time, but I to this day I still remember
exactly what they talked about and how they commented on the structure and
content of the sermon. I hadn’t even listened to the sermon, but I eagerly eavesdropped
on my parents’ discussion of it. It wasn’t an in-your-face faith conversation, per se, and they didn’t really get into
a debate, as I remember, but it did make a mark on me—a Watermark, if you will—that
my parents were listening and taking home something they’d heard. That day I
realized Jesus could show up just as easily in my dad’s blue Buick as he could
at the altar and pulpit in worship…or by a well in Samaria.
It goes without saying that
faith conversations don’t need to be so overtly about faith. Relationships,
identity, and character can be built and strengthened whenever meaningful
conversations can occur, when people are allowed to scratch beneath the surface
of superficial interactions. The point is to seize those opportunities when you
can, especially when the pressures and schedules of life in this age make us
feel as if we’re bouncing off once another, always moving in opposite
directions. Family and youth ministry experts Paul Hill and David Anderson have
uncovered research showing one of the few common denominators among National
Merit Scholars is that they tended to come from families that ate dinner
together.[1] I
imagine learning the nuances of a faithful discipleship could be the same. The
high school Sunday School class here at Epiphany regularly begins by going
around the circle and giving each student the chance to rate their week. I know
some families in the congregation find some point during the evening simply to
share highs and lows. They may sound like simple, ordinary entrées, but isn’t
that the type of place we should expect Jesus to show up? I can say from
experience that you never know how deep some of those conversations might
actually go. All these are all examples of what Martin Luther termed “the
mutual conversation and consolation among the brethren [and sistren,]”[2] ways
through which the power of the gospel heals and restores the soul and human
relationship.
That day at the well in
Samaria, Jesus reveals his identity incrementally. Only as their dialogue
continues do they reach deeper levels of understanding and authenticity. By the
end, she has rushed off to city to share with others in their traditional
networks of communication and gossip what she has learned about the visitor at
the well. Conversations about God’s love in Christ and his activity in our
world may take many forms. But one thing is for certain: this faith that we’ve
been given is something to be shared. You have drunk from his gracious well, and
been claimed in the conversation between God and creation through the waters of
baptism. A hammer and nail on a youth service trip, a needle, thread, and
donated fabric pieces on quilt-making day…these things certainly leave a mark of
God’s kingdom in the world. But so do the words of the faithful…so do the words
of people just like you…maybe every once in a while wielded like a hammer at
the appropriate moment, but also woven delicately like one of those quilt
threads through the heart of any conversation.
Give us, Lord, the courage to
do it.
Thanks be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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