It was in the midst of the 18th century famines in France when a particular phrase was, however dubiously, attributed to the clueless royal Marie Antoinette, who upon learning that the peasants had no bread, made her entry into the lexicon of Western Civilization;’ Then let them eat brioche!’
One of the Church’s relentless missteps is to treat its members the same way. What I mean is that we often choose our leaders, lay and ordained, when we recognize that they have a particularly discernable gift: a relationship with God that allows them to have experiences of God’s presence that others simply don’t have. Our leaders, and hence their institutions, often act like Queen Marie in total oblivion to the condition of most of the rest of the world as they talk about the ways God is always communicating with them, when this is very likely not what most other people experience.
As many of you may remember, my wife Natalie gave a ‘God Moment’ in February (it’s published elsewhere in the March newsletter). A God Moment is our Episcopal way of recovering the ancient church tradition of ‘testimony.’ And we frequently hear stories from parishioners about the intersection of their daily lives with the Numinous. What resonated with a lot of us is when she said, “I don’t have God moments,” and thus articulated for many people (at least a half dozen told her afterward and probably many more who didn’t’) what we all know about faith: it is a gift.
For too long those who have been given the precious grace of seeing God’s activity in their lives and in the world have not taken to heart the journeys of those who are differently gifted: Should a fig tree shame a banana tree for not producing figs? This recognition of different gifts is becoming more and more important in today’s faith communities.
Churches, if they do anything, must take more seriously their roles as places that help us make sense of life. That is, life when we feel God’s presence, and life, especially, when we don’t. We are at our best when we walk in confidence and solidarity with those whose faith journeys are not like our own, and if one can’t make sense of the other, congratulations, add something else to the list.
The Church is not at our best when we try to correct, discipline, and judge. We are most attractive, and much more like our founder, when we walk in the knowledge of our own fragility and frailty - in the humility that Jesus took to the cross, realizing that our most profound posture is not standing in judgment but kneeling in awe. So for those who have God Moments every day, praise God, you have been given eyes to see the glory of the Lord in wonderful ways. For those who don’t, praise God for the faith that comes not by seeing but by believing, for some would say, that is the greater gift.
