How do we share the faith that means so much to us with others? This is a question that people of faith across the ages have wrestled with. If faith is not passed on, this special gift, and the institutions tasked with sharing it, it seems, will fade away.
This struggle has existed at least as far back as Genesis. The scriptures witness to the fact that while some generations do better at this than others, faith continues. Sometimes it comes from mentors passing it on in beautiful, life giving ways. Other times it arises from the rubble of mistakes and misguided intentions, or even a long silence.
Regardless, we discover in reading the scriptures, that God continues to seek us and is always ready to be in relationship with us. We can trust God. We also discover that a desire for this connection to God in faith community is part of being human.
This is the last week of our worship series, Centering God. This series is based on the book by Meredith Miller, Woven, in which she shares how we can pass on and “can nurture the kind of faith that can flex and grow, be broken and repaired. This is the sort of faith that can stand up to the life a child will live, the doubts they will encounter, and the questions that will come up along the way.”
Miller uses the image of the spider web to describe this kind of faith and contrasts it with the image of a wall. The spider web has many strands and points of connection. If one breaks, it can be reclaimed and used to make a new connection. And, there are many shapes and sizes of webs. Can you picture a faith that looks like this? The points of connection are what make the web work. These connections are God and the multiple relationships within the faith community.
This is very different than faith envisioned as a wall. A wall is about rules and order, morals and ritual, who is in and who is out. Can you picture a faith that looks like this? Once a wall is broken, it is difficult to repair. With a wall, God and others often seems distant.
And so Miller encourages us to think about a web and to ask in each aspect of our faith and life, how are we keeping God at the center of our worship and work as people of faith? How are we becoming more like God as we share God’s values, our love for God, and God’s love for others with our families, our church, and the world around us?
As we wrap up this series, this weekend we will think about the ways God is present with us and that we can trust and connect to God. I look forward to worshiping with you!
Grace and peace,
Pastor Suzanne