Speaking Faith

The same year that I began seminary (2008) the ELCA launched its Book of Faith initiative with the publication of Opening the Book of Faith. One of its goals was to teach people in our congregations the language of faith - to understand the Word of God as our "mother-tongue." That definition has stayed somewhere in the back of my thoughts as I learned to decipher Greek and Hebrew, considered the language we use in prayer, liturgy and hymns, and studied the Bible. Now the question of how faith language has emerged again in conversations about the strange silence of the Bible which is the idea that the Word of God is often absent in how we go about living in the world.

The language we use to approach God is important and how we worship can shape how we think about God but that is a different conversation.

The question I have been thinking about is one we ask when we talk about how we make decisions and live as God's people in the world: "What if we lived as though we believed God's promises?"

I think the question needs to be even more basic: "What if we knew God's promises?"

I didn't grow up in the church the way my children or many of my classmates have; I am not a pastor's kid and my grandparents were either dead or agnostic so I didn't have this family tradition of faith. I learned faith as a young adult.

So I know I am not fluent in this language of faith but now when professors or lecturers say, "Well, you all know the story of...", I can usually figure out what they are talking about.  But what I have been thinking about is that when everyone you know, or at least most of the people you stay in conversation with are Christian, it's tough to know what it's like to not know the language.  Have you ever traveled to another country, or even another part of the U.S. and asked for soda, pop or Coke? Discover tea in the South is not Earl Grey? (we have it; it's just not the first thing that comes to mind) What about when you started working in a new job? Do you remember what it's like to be in a group of people who all speak the same language and use the same jargon and you're still figuring out the alphabet soup?

Even though I began learning this language later than some, I had forgotten what it was to not know it. To not know that God loves me. If that is a promise you know and remember, it's easy to forget that everyone doesn't. People do not know God loves them. Not just people outside the church, but people in our congregations.

Why not? It's not because they were texting during the sermon or fell asleep, didn't show up for Sunday Learning or skipped confirmation classes. Too often, I think we speak in a different language and if people don't learn it, we leave them behind to figure it out on their own. Like there is a passcode or hocus pocus. After all, that would be easier than admitting our efforts were worthless and we did nothing but receive God's incomprehensible grace.

So, let's let the secret out and start talking a language that people can understand: one that tells them that God loves them.  Then we can think about how we teach people inside and outside of our churches God's promises. We can help people understand that the waters of baptism are the beginning of new life and coming to the table for Holy Communion is the nurturing on our journey.  We can awaken people to the discovery that the language of faith is not buried or petrified in religious tomes but is a living language that frees us and gives us our voice. When we can begin to speak the language of faith and learn about God's promises to us, then we can ask what life looks life when we both know and believe that God fulfills God's promises.