What does it mean to believe in God? I’m glad my congregation welcomes people without requiring doctrinal uniformity. I prize the freedom to ask hard questions. It’s an important quality of our congregational culture.
In fact, I value a certain kind of atheism: I don’t want to believe in just any god peddled in the marketplace. I’m grateful that I am not alone in trying to figure out what’s what in a vast universe. I can lean on collective faith and tradition without personal certainty on every point.
Sometimes we need a humble agnosticism — the ability to say, “I don’t know.”
At the same time, I find myself searching my soul for what it means to live as a believer. In the face of climate change, I wonder whether my God is big enough to withstand the worst scenarios. If I seek comfort in a God who saves, am I trying to excuse myself from taking responsibility for messes I have helped to cause?
What does salvation look like for me, or for the cosmos? Can I, or do I, believe in a God who saves, given the turmoil I see on the nightly news?
The way I read the biblical witness, God is not a concept to believe in but a Spirit who breaks into history from far beyond us and deep inside us. The God who saves does not rescue us from reality but saves us from our worst fears and our worst selves by:
— unsettling our certainties;
— letting us see things in surprising new ways;
— inviting us to act out of creativity and love rather than fear.
How do we recognize and trust this Spirit?
Elizabeth Tracy, who studied conversations with God as recorded in the Book of Genesis, noticed that God’s words never belittle a human’s limited understanding but always expand it.
My experience helps me trust that the God of the Bible still reaches out to specific people at specific times with words that resonate from one millennium to another.
Here are some of God’s words that I need to hear in these challenging times:
“I have heard your affliction.”
Moses, the exiled shepherd, hears this word from the God of his ancestors as he steps closer to examine a burning bush: “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters” (Exodus 3:7).
As the conversation unfolds, and Moses is invited to return to Egypt to speak to Pharaoh on behalf of healing and liberation, I notice that the affliction God has heard is not just of Moses’ people but also of Moses himself.
Moses had fled his privileged home after a murderous attempt to intervene on behalf of justice. Now he’s invited to revisit the place of his deepest failure on behalf of the justice he has longed for. Under God’s audacious plan for Moses’ people lurks a plan to heal Moses’ alienation, too.
“I am with you.”
When Moses is skeptical about heading back to Egypt, God assures him: I will be with you. Years later, young Gideon is beating out his grain in the wine press, hiding in fear of the Midianite army. God’s messenger comes to sit with him and, somewhat ironically, tells the fearful Gideon: “Yahweh is with you, O valiant warrior!”
Gideon is scornful: “If God is with us, why has this happened? Where are God’s wonderful deeds? We’ve been turned over to our enemies!”
The messenger seems undaunted. “Gideon, I want you to lead the battle to deliver your people.”
When Gideon points out that he’s the youngest member of the smallest tribe, God acknowledges that smallness is part of the plan.
“Yes, in fact, I propose that you send most of your soldiers home. I want it to be clear that this battle will be won not by your might but mine.”
During overwhelming times, it is hard for me to believe that God is not daunted by my smallness, my fear, nor the lateness of the hour. If I can trust that God listens to suffering, maybe I can risk taking my hands off my ears. And, with my ears open, maybe I’ll start to hear what’s mine in all this: my invitation to a tailor-made mission that leverages my experience and gifts — and deepest wounds — in service of liberation.
Listening for my next steps, I hope to also hear the familiar divine command:
“Don’t be afraid.”
These are the first words of the angel messenger to the young Mary.
We might think God was promising her ease and safety, except we know that within a few days of Mary’s assent the plan jeopardized both her reputation and her relationship with her betrothed. And the worst was still in store.
Mary seems to have accepted “don’t be afraid” as an invitation to trust God’s long-term purpose despite overwhelming evidence that could have convinced her otherwise.
As she watched her son’s popularity turn to death threats, as she stood near enough to witness his excruciating death, as she listened to testimonies of resurrection and prayed with other wondering disciples in an upper room before Pentecost, I imagine her returning to her skill of “pondering these things in her heart,” meditating again on Gabriel’s first words: “Don’t be afraid.”
To claim we can hear God speaking to us directly may sound dangerous, delusional or out of reach. I’m confident it will look different for each of us. But an authentic encounter will always start with willingness to pay attention and then proceed to conversation that is honest about our hesitations and doubts.
Exodus devotes a full chapter to Moses’ arguments and requests of God.
Gideon lays out a fleece to test what he’s heard, then another just to be sure.
Mary questions the messenger, then ponders both in her own heart and as part of the community.
This kind of vulnerability prepares us to take action — not with a heroic “this is what God told me” attitude, but with humility — taking a step at a time, trusting we will be given more.
When I taught a “skeptics” class for youth, I ended each class period with a version of this blessing, which I extend to myself and each of us in these challenging times:
I bless you to have the courage to be an atheist — speaking up to reject gods that are too small to be worthy of your allegiance.
I bless you to have the humility to be an agnostic — aware of your limits, willing to say, “I don’t know.”
I bless you to have the energy to live as a believer — knowing that your affliction is heard, that you have a place in God’s healing mission and that Jesus, the Human One, is ready to be “God with you” every step of the way.
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