ethans feet

I had a wonderful conversation a few weeks back with a friend who I think could be described as being on the margins of Christianity looking in.  And in the conversation I had to “defend” two things that I have rarely, if ever, had to defend before: Story, and Prayer.  And in defending them I found a connection between the 2 I had never seen before, let me explain.

This wonderful person understood perfectly well the radical nature and importance of the teachings of Jesus.  In fact, if we all held Jesus’ teaching so seriously the world would most certainly be a better place.  But what she didn’t get was why it was important to read the “rest” of the Bible.  Why spend so much time and energy on all these “stories” when what really mattered was the teachings of Jesus?  Why did the OT matter?  Why did the resurrection matter?  Why did the early church and Pentecost matter?  She wasn’t being confrontational, she just didn’t understand, and she wanted to.

In addition, she didn’t understand why it was important to do anything other then read, learn, and try to put into practice, the teachings of Jesus.  Why do we pray?  Why do liturgy?  Worship?  Communion?  Stations?  Etc.  Etc.

And in my stumbling answer I found that there was really one answer to both questions: a relationship with God.

We read the stories of the Bible because it is in the stories of the Bible that we are introduced to this particular God named Yahweh.  We pray, worship, etc. because that is the way we foster our relationship with Yahweh.

Granted, many of our churches spend a lot of time on fostering their relationships with God without dealing with the radical ethical demands of God’s primary revelation — Jesus.  And this is a failing that many of us in the Emerging Church recognize and are trying (with various success) to correct.  But I strongly believe that to fail in the other direction is just as dangerous to the church, our soles and ultimately the world.

Because, and this is really my point, the message of Jesus’ teachings divorced from the relationship with Jesus as God is not good news; is not gospel.

The stories of God, the stories of Jesus, introduce us to the God that loves evey one of us.  The ethics of Jesus are based on the reality of that universal love.  I am afraid that without the understanding of God’s universal love for us the ethics of Jesus become a damningly unattainable ideal devoid of any hope of fulfillment.

So we read the stories about God and Jesus and the church, to meet and fall in love with this God that we see in Jesus.  And we pray, worship, etc. to foster that love affair.  And we study the ethics of Jesus to try to be the beacons of that loving God to a hurting world.