How Do People Change? Why Be a Christian?

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this daily Advent blogging! Especially when my friend Wanda, an ordained minister and a therapist, asks Really Big Questions like these:

1) How do people change?

2) What contributes to personal transformation process?

3) How can I be part of/helpful to the transformation process of others?

4) The exploration of above has to include relationship...

I happen to know that in asking these questions, Wanda was thinking about her conversion experience to Christianity at the age of thirteen, so when I was trying to think of a story that might illustrate what I think about personal change, my own conversion to Christianity came to mind.

That’s a long story, but don’t worry, I only want to tell you about a little part of it that came up in a conversation I had recently with Michael. Our conversation was indirectly about another Really Big Question that Michael has posed, so I think I will try to tackle them all together: If in God's grace, there are many ways to lead a good human life, why choose to be a Christian? Or is it a choice at all?

I believe that God’s grace is bigger than the church, infinitely bigger. I reject any theology in which Christ is the only source of salvation. In a nutshell, if you are not a Christian? I for one am not worried about your soul. To insist that God is so small that God cannot work outside the church is blasphemy. To insist that a handful of scriptures validates this view is idolatry piled on top of blasphemy.

So why choose to be a Christian? Why indeed. Lord knows, we Christians have mucked things up so badly for so long, I think my church friend the Reverend Joe has a point when he suggests, with some conviction, that Jesus himself wouldn’t be a Christian in these days.

Is Christianity a choice? I think it most certainly is. In my case, at least, it is, and a pretty remarkable one, and almost ridiculously unlikely, truth be told. Until just recently, my experience of faith has often made me feel like a fraud. I empathize with folks who reject the church because it is narrow and literal and hates sex and requires magical thinking. I empathize because I am not really all that different from those folks – and yet here I am, inside the church, embracing my identity as a Christian, and grateful every single day.

I think it’s actually easier to articulate “why NOT be a Christian,” even for me, than to articulate “why BE a Christian.” I couldn’t possibly tell you all the reasons why I choose to be a Christian, because it’s an experience that is always evolving, ever changing, and will likely be something I’m forever working out. I’ve written about it a bit here. I’ll no doubt be writing about it many more times. But in a nutshell, I would say that my choice to be a Christian has to do primarily with four things: relationship, ethics, story and mystery.

I am a Christian in the first instance because I married a Christian. If I had married a Jew, I would most certainly be a Jew. But I didn’t, I married the preacher’s daughter, and through her became part of a Christian community that I can’t imagine my life without. My relationships in this community – so diverse, so wide-ranging, so unlikely to ever happen in any other context – are what sustain everything else in my life. So there’s that.

I also happen to find the Christian ethic compelling, at least when it isn’t pushed aside by the idolatry of Biblicism. Of course, at its heart Christian ethics are not that different than the ethics of any other faith, or even of a secular humanism, but I find Jesus’ telling of the Christian ethic compelling. In a nutshell, I would say that ethic is, as Michael preached a couple of months ago, that “People Matter.” Simple as that.

I also love the Christian story, the incarnational messiness of it, the rhythms of its liturgical year. It is a story that gives deep and meaningful shape to my life, a story into which I continue to grow and grow.

And the growing into that story is ultimately about becoming comfortable wrestling with, but also resting in, mystery. The mystery of the Christian faith often makes me uncomfortable, but it is also what calls me to be my best self. My faith helps me give form and word to my experience of that which is ineffable and mysterious and complex.

So that is why I choose to be a Christian: relationship, ethics, story, mystery. But truth be told, it’s ultimately all about relationship. It was my relationship with Julie that got me into the church in the first place, and it is my relationships – with God, with Christ, with the Body of Christ, and with a wide-ranging community of folks both in and out of the church – that mean everything to me.

Which brings me back to Wanda’s question: How do people change? For me, at least, I need to change when my life falls short of my ethics, as articulated for me most compellingly by Jesus. I want to change because I desire my life to be part of a story that is meaningful, and compelling and rich. I am called to change when I am drawn to mystery and allowed to wrestle with it but also rest in it. But first and foremost, I change because I am in relationship – with those who challenge me to remember my ethics when I get lazy, with those who tell me stories I might not otherwise hear, with those who are not afraid of mystery and invite me in.

Relationship is everything, which makes transformation everything, which is why I am a Christian. Thanks be to God.

The Cost and Joy of Discipleship: Now THAT Was Church!

When Trixie was born, I had not yet joined the church; indeed, I wasn't even so much thinking of joining the church.  Old First was a community I loved -- Julie had been a part of it since she was a volunteer there in college, and she joined immediately upon our move to Philadelphia, five years before Trixie's birth.  I loved the people, loved working at the homeless shelter (where we were known as "the ice cream ladies"), but I was actually exploring Judaism at the time, and was pretty sure that wherever I landed, it would not be as a member of a mainline protestant church.  

As it turns out, Old First worked its way into my heart and soul, and through that community, I found myself casting my lot with Jesus and his wacky band of disciples.  If conversion is a "turning around," I've always thought of mine as a 360, rather than a 180, degree turn; my dad, the born-again atheist, lives the most Christ-like life of anyone I know, and my conversion to Christianity has simply given life and community and rhythm and story to the values of simplicity and hospitality and love and stewardship that are my birthright and my family's lifeblood.  So on the one hand, my conversion was simple and easy; but on the other hand, it was oh-so-difficult, and it was precisely baptism that was the stumbling block.

I was not baptized as an infant, much to the chagrin of my staunch Episcopalian Grandma Rose. My parents held firm though; their baby would not go through what felt to them like a meaningless ritual simply to appease the grandparents.  As it turns out, I am forever grateful for their choice on my behalf, because their choice not to baptize me meant that I had to very actively and consciously choose the church, rather than just falling into it.   Had I been baptized as an infant, I could have quietly joined Old First without having to think very hard about it. But baptism! Wow, that felt really big.  How would I know when I was really ready?  

How would I know if I really was a Christian? What if all those lingering doubts just made me a big old fraud?   It was my friend Donna (there she is, taking some of these pictures) who finally distilled my dilemma for me:  "Marta," she said, "It sounds like it's time to shit or get off the pot."  Yup! On the day of my baptism, though, I did not feel like a new-born child of God. Mostly I was in a really grumpy mood, and wished everyone would stop asking me how I felt, implying that I was supposed to feel something in particular which I most decidedly did not, confirming my own secret fears that I was, indeed, nothing but a big poser.  

I like to think that baptism, like conversion, is something we grow into, forever, and not something that happens and then it's done.  I had clearly come to the point in my conversion where I needed to continue my journey inside the church, so it was time to "get washed up." But I'm always glad to have the chance to renew my baptismal vows, as we do at St. Vincent's at Easter Vigil, where older children and adults are baptized -- with lots and

lots and lots of water!  I've been going to Easter Vigil (with Pat, Trixie's confirmation mentor and our dear dear friend) for years at St. Vincent's, the Catholic church in my neighborhood where I also sometimes attend the mid-day Mass.  And I've always loved all the water, big copper urns of it, poured over the heads of the kneeling candidates.  My own church's tradition is sort of a desert version; water is apparently scarce in the UCC, so just a few drops must do.  That was my own baptism, but I wanted something different for Trixie.

It felt important to both me and Julie that our children have a choice, especially since, when Trixie was born, my own spiritual quest had not yet landed me in the Christian faith, so Trixie and Micah were both dedicated as infants, but not baptized.  As it turns out, we did not give Trixie so much of a choice; she has been very much raised in the Christian church (so much so, that once as a toddler, when we pulled into our church's parking lot, Trixie declared, "We're home!"  It occurred to us then that perhaps we were spending too much time at the corner of Fourth and Race.)  But whether or not we have really given her a true choice, her baptism is something that she has been able to actively and fully embrace as part of her year of exploring her faith in anticipation of Confirmation, and I am glad for that. Normally, she would be quickly baptized, with a few drops of water, prior to the confirmation ceremony (scheduled for Pentecost, on the 31st), but she, Julie and I all wanted something more special, and with LOTS MORE WATER.

Lucky for us, our dear ones Woody and Joey have a heated pool, which, if you're in need, is now full of a whole lotta holy water!  This seemed an especially perfect place as Woody played John the Baptist in Old First's production of Godspell a couple of years ago. And Trixie is an avid swimmer, so a plan was hatched, and a wonderful service and pool party followed.  In the words of our friend Wanda, who co-officiated with Julie's father at the service:  "Now THAT was church!"  Indeed.

I will leave you with the lovely Prayer of Baptism from the UCC Book of Worship's baptism liturgy, which I have always loved:

We thank you, God,

for the gift of creation

called forth by your saving Word.

Before the world had shape and form,

your Spirit moved over the waters.

Out of the waters of the deep,

you formed the firmament

and brought forth the earth

to sustain all life.

In the time of Noah, 

you washed the earth

with the waters of the flood,

and your ark of salvation bore a new beginning.

In the time of Moses,

your people Israel passed

through the Red Sea waters

from slavery to freedom

and crossed the flowing Jordan

to enter the promised land.

In the fullness of time,

you sent Jesus Christ,

who was nurtured 

in the water of Mary's womb.

Jesus was baptized by John

in the water of the Jordan,

became living water to a woman

at the Samaritan well,

washed the feet of the disciples,

and sent them forth

to baptize all the nations

by water and the Holy Spirit.

Bless by your Holy Spirit,

gracious God, this water.

By your Holy Spirit

save those who confess

the name of Jesus Christ

that sin may have not power over them.

Create new life in Trixie

baptized this day

that she may rise in Christ.

Glory to you, eternal God,

the one who was, and is, and shall always be,

world without end.

Amen.

Lots more photos on Facebook (Margaret? Marjorie? I'm just sayin')