Paul is talking about maturing in the faith here. He's making a point of saying that being a Christian is a lifelong learning venture. That we don't graduate from Sunday School one day and know everything there is to know about Jesus' message to us. That we don't go to seminary for three or four years and graduate with a Master of Divinity degree and know everything there is to know about Jesus' message to us. That it takes a lifetime to walk the way of Christ. That our struggles will be ongoing and relentless. We will learn a little here and learn a little more there, but there will always be something that we don't know.
We come to our faith like babies being fed milk and no solid food. And gradually we are able to eat more solid food and different types of food and, all the while, we are experimenting and growing and changing and challenging ourselves in what it means to be Christian.
Photograph: WFP / Edward Parsons
Another thing that is challenging about faith development is it's cyclical, spiral nature, sometimes. It's important to know how little we know. We can be 9 or 90 and both be at the same level of understanding about God. In fact, sometimes the youngest among us have the most profound sense of awareness of the Divine. We start to get hardened and more cynical as we age, and sometimes faith is about suspension of what we think we know with our heads and recognizing instead what we know we feel with our hearts.
We also learn in this scripture that we can't seem to erase quarreling from our faith walks with one another. One group of people believes X to be true about their church, their mission, their purpose... and the other group believes Y to be true. And so, rather than continuing to grow their faith and the community around them, they just shoot darts at one another. But Paul reminds us that neither of us has the answers without God being in the center. In verse 7 of this text, he says
"So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth."
A reminder to us that the most important first step in our faith voyage is fully relying on God and not on our own understanding. Allowing God to lead the way in this faith walk and not think that our way is the way it is supposed to be. But also not allowing someone else to stray us from what we feel is a right path to take, Allowing ourselves to stop, look within and listen deeply for the path God and God alone wants us to take.
Faith walking, then, is a complicated journey. One of my favorite responses to questions when I was in seminary, from just about any of the Bible professors, was "Well, we really don't know." That's a tough pill for some of us to swallow. We really don't know all the answers about why we are loved by a God who created a world of magnificence. Oh yes, we can explain the science of the universe and its ongoing created order, and thanks be to God for our scientists who continue to teach us so much. But we can't really explain the majesty and heart of it. Except we all know that when we see a brand new little baby with sparkling eyes that a sense of wonder overcomes us all. We know that somehow, someway, somewhere there is a miracle at work. A soul growing. A life building. One baby food faith meal at a time.
What are your challenges in the Christian walk? Who do you want to become? What do you still want to learn? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or click the comment link below to leave a comment here.
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