“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1, NRSV
I feel like you and I, dear Doubters of Great Faith, are on the strangest of journeys, this path we’ve been led into, not of our own choosing, but borne of necessity, at the most peculiar of times, in the very infancy of our relationship together. It’s the time when Rector and congregation, like partners who have wed, learn through acts, and signs, and words, and deeds, what trust, and hope, and, indeed, faith, and “faith-full-ness” (to be filled with faith) look like.
I refer to you as “Doubters of Great Faith” for a reason. To my way of thinking, that is a sign and symbol of your great courage to live in the place of tension between that which you can see, that which seems so obvious, and that which you cannot; to be willing to ask questions and to seek the God that you know, in the places, and the things that you do not know. What you are doing, whether you know it or not, when you live this way, is living into the very best representation of our Anglican theological heritage.
“Scripture – Tradition – Reason.” The Anglican “three-legged-stool.” It’s what gives us the freedom to question, to look for the ever-present, life-giving God, not only in the word (small “w”, the book), but in the Word, Logos, Jesus Christ, God revealed in the world all around us. It gives us the freedom to see and seek and stretch God in our beautiful Anglican tradition. And it gives us the ability to use reason, the capacity in and of itself to question, to test and retest what we believe, guided by the Holy Spirit, as we journey toward God’s wholeness.
I am learning all about this from you, St. Thomas the Apostle. And there could be no better time to learn it, than this “Corona-tide.” These are skills that are going to serve us and that we will continue to access throughout this marathon.
We are moving through the eighth week of isolation and social-distancing. Our state government has begun to relax restrictions on stay-at-home orders. They have changed to “guidelines,” as businesses struggle to regain a foothold in the faltering economy. People are aching to get “back to normal,” to have some sort of social contact with all those for whom they have been disconnected. Many are rushing out into the public domain, oblivious to the pandemic which continues on.
It is going to be hard to push against that deep longing and desire to physically reconnect to what was, our former lives, what we were, to jump back out too soon, as we see others doing that very thing. I urge you to follow reason – the science and the data, and to continue to proceed with great caution. If and when you do move about, take great care with your health and the health of those around you (wearing masks, distancing, etc.). Taking responsibility for your neighbor IS the Christ-thing to do.
And I urge you to continue to look through that tension of faith and reason, to know that we are not, in fact, going back to what we were anyway. We never were. You and I were starting something new, straining our eyes forward, into the future, God’s future, for us together.
Faith IS the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of those things not yet seen.
Faithfully straining forward,
Fr. Christopher+
