My understanding of faith and its practice has changed. I used to believe faith was made evident in church attendance and tithing.
“Of course, I’m a Christian. I’m a member of a church, aren’t I? I pay the bills, don’t I?”
I used to think faith was as obvious as the clothing we wore: the length of dresses and things. I was convinced it was made plain on the faces of girls and women who were told that wearing make-up and nail polish was a sin.
I was fully persuaded holiness and purity were colored white. It was the color of first Sundays, cloth-draped communion tables, clergy collars and choir robes.
We even sang it: “The things I used to do, I don’t do no more.” Faith was a false binary of do’s and don’ts.
I was convinced faith was based on the places we frequented or the behaviors we stayed away from. I thought faith was identified by foods, drinks and other substances we didn’t consume.
It was communally agreed upon that faith was practiced on Sunday mornings at 11 o’clock sharp. This was the exact time for believing.
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them”—not five thousand (Matthew 18:20, NRSV). So, faith is not in the numbers either; that’s the capitalist version of scripture interpretation. Still, many see it as picture proof of the blessed assurance that God is with us.
I also held the position that the church building had the exact specs for the miraculous. God was sure to show up here and no other place at this singular, fixed holy hour. Though the Word was made flesh, God was in this particular pile of brick and mortar (John 1:14).
The same could be said of good and bad people. There was no gray area when it came to who God blessed and cursed. But things change when you see the rain fall on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45).
My faith was exact and certain then. I could recite it word for word and highlight it back then. Some would say I was “fully persuaded.”
Today, I don’t find faith in the predictable, the scheduled, the planned, or the programmed. Instead, I am keeping my eyes out for burning bushes, for bedtime invitations to climb Jacob’s ladder, for North Star visions that break into fuller and freer realities.
I am listening for Baby Suggs preaching in “the Clearing,” where I am reminded to love my flesh. “For this is the prize.”
This is the exact opposite of what I was taught. The problem was our carnal activity, which would prevent us from going to heaven.
These days, my eyes are on the “kin-dom” coming—not on a cloud but around a table in a “world house” in the here and not too many Sundays from now. Coined by Franciscan nun Georgene Wilson and for decentering male-centered language and the patriarchy, the witness is of full inclusion, welcome and co-laboring, where we pull up chairs devoid of hierarchy and see each other eye-to-eye.
But we’ve got to get moving on dismantling all these lines, divisions and borders. How else can we get together and be on time for dinner? This is the future of my faith, working until I get to serve the table that is prepared for us all.
It is also the invitation on the back of this seventh season of The Raceless Gospel podcast. “The Evidence of Things Unseen” places faith in the vision of a world without hierarchy, hatred and oppression and for which there is a way out by way of the Underground Railroad. Because it’s still running.
If you’re having visions and dreams, if you have a strong urge to “steal away,” if you have set your sights on the North Star, then put your earbuds in and let’s be on the move. “The Evidence of Things Unseen” will be released on August 20th on all streaming platforms.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.