May 2024
How do you share your faith with the next generation?
I think this is a perennial question. In my other job, I work at a retreat center (Ingalls Creek Enrichment Center) and recently we held one of our Aging Well Retreats. These cater to folks over 60 who are navigating retirement and all that the ‘third third’ of life entails. I’ve only been to a few of them, but inevitable conversation surfaces at one point or another where a parent expresses heartache over an adult child who has walked away from the church. This general idea comes in variations - kids or grandkids that aren’t part of a faith community, not being allowed to discuss spirituality with adult kids because of the trauma they have experienced, or the anger they feel towards the church, adult kids walking in rebellion… perhaps you can fill in the gaps here with stories of your own or ones you’ve heard.
When I hear these stories, I also hear a couple different underlying narratives. Parents who question themselves (“Did I do something wrong?” “Did I do enough?” “How can I turn this around?” “How can I lead them to Christ?”), and parents who struggle to trust that God is walking with their kid. Our journey of faith is often this balance of our participation amidst God’s action, and this space is no different. It’s also the tension of our timing and God’s timing, which can be quite infuriating! Is God getting the memo that I meant for the ship to turn around right now?!? Time is of the essence!!
All through April I’ve been focusing on the lectionary texts out of 1 John during Sunday worship. This book is pretty repetitive, and sometimes I thought, ugh do they want to hear this AGAIN - but you know what the repetition is? How big and deep and wide God’s love is! This IS a message that Christians ought to be known for ad nauseum. People should be sick of us because we can’t stop talking about this truth. But that is not usually the association most people attach to Christians. Why is that? How have we strayed so far from this core piece that is fluid from Genesis to Revelation?!? I’m returning over and over to 1 John 4:18 which reads: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
I’m sharing this because I think it is targeting the fear and anxiety we feel around God getting through to the people we love the most, because perhaps our understanding of God is too small. God’s invitation from the beginning is to know this expansive love for ourselves, be transformed by it, and then project it out into the world. For those we fear for, we ache for, we worry over - what tangible love have we expressed to them? Is it tangled up with fear and judgment, or a pure expression of God’s love, trusting God’s love is powerful enough to do the heavy lifting?
I know each person’s story is different, but at the end of the day each person wants to be deeply known, and deeply loved. That for me is a huge mark of the Good News - that God’s love persists through any of our choices, failures and foibles. I hope that we are expressing that same love to the world around us. For all the judgment calls we might make about ‘the world today’ and these ‘younger generations’, the spiritual hunger for love and belonging is right there waiting to be engaged. Not with fire and brimstone, or with a fear of hell, but the invitation into real salvation - being transformed by the radical love of God. May we each walk into this world as Christ’s ambassadors, undoing old narratives of whatever humans, in the name of Christianity, have left in their wake. May his world know God’s love in new and rich ways, and may we deepend in that knowledge as we journey to tell the story to the people in our midst. Amen!
Pastor Becca (with some Balsam Root views from wildlife walks)
