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I Was a Teenage Atheist September 16, 2007
“‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it – that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” Luke 15:9b-10
“God loves to look at us.” This is what Kathleen Norris affirms in her book Amazing Grace. “God loves to look at us…even when we try to run away… God will find us, and bless us, even when we feel most alone…God will find a way to let us know that [God] is with us in this place, wherever we are, however far we think we’ve run.”* This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John Wesley called this good news “prevenient grace” … the grace that comes before. God’s grace is ours even before we know that we need it. God comes to us and empowers us before we are able to turn to God.
This is the good news in the parables we just heard from Luke’s Gospel. While I’m sure that today, we might not like being called sheep or even loose change, when first told, these parables spoke directly to the listeners. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?… Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it?” No matter who we are… no matter what our circumstance… no matter how lost we’ve become… God will find a way to let us know that we are not alone. God’s grace is our even before we know that we need it.
Sometime during the last year, in my reading, I ran across a story that starts like this: “I was a teenaged atheist…” Since I could have written this phrase myself when I was a teenager, the story caught my attention and I tucked it away for a future time when it made sense with the scripture reading for the day. While calling oneself “a teenage atheist” might be shocking to some, it is important that we recognize that this should probably just be listed as one of the stages of faith. Christian Education specialists have recognized that it is developmentally appropriate for youth to declare themselves to be non-believers or even unbelievers. For adolescents, faith is at one and the same time “having God with them as a friend” and having “the space to ask questions and talk about doubts.”** Whether they are simply trying to get a reaction from their parents or bravely giving voice to questions and doubts that plague us all, questioning God’s existence is a part of the journey of faith.
But back to that story about the teenage atheist. Now an adult, Mary Louise Bringle says that she was a junior in high school and was coming to grips with “the problem of pain” in the world. You know… why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God in the midst of our personal and public tragedies? Not having any sophisticated tools at her disposal to help her reconcile the goodness of God with the suffering of innocents, she decided she would simply stop believing in God. She says that “with all the brashness of adolescence, [she] pestered [her] church-going friends with questions about how ‘their God’ could let this, that, or the other thing happen in the world.”
Bringle reports that she was excited to hear of a debate on religion that was going to be aired on public television. The debate was to feature Madelyn Murray O’Hair – many of us will remember her as a champion of atheism and one who initiated the legal action which eventually led to the Supreme Court decision outlawing prayer in public schools. O’Hair’s opponent in the debate was a religious leader with a “far less exotic” identity. Bringle tells of watching the debate with her mother. At one point, when the religious leader offered some appeal to faith that she, in all her adolescent wisdom found particularly hard to swallow, she blurted out, “How can anyone accept that as an answer? Just ‘having faith’ is too easy!” Apparently, without batting an eyelash, her mother gently responded, “If it’s so easy, then why can’t you do it?” Two degrees in theology and one re-conversion to Christianity later, Bringle now realizes that a “deeper life-orientation of faithfulness is not all that ‘easy.’”
“A deeper life-orientation of faithfulness is not all that ‘easy.’” I don’t know about you but, when I am most honest with myself about my own faith, I have to admit my doubts. There are minutes and moments when I am not sure about what I believe. There are wonderings and wanderings in my faith that leave me with far more questions than answers. Even today, my own seminary degrees and ordination certificates are not enough to keep me from questioning when it comes to my faith in God. Is God is the midst of those personal and public tragedies? Does God let or even cause bad things to happen to good people? Will God love me no matter what? Thank God that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt. Thank God the opposite of faith is certainty. Thank God that God believes in us even when we aren’t sure we believe in God. “A deeper life-orientation of faithfulness is not all that ‘easy.’”
Faithfulness – better yet, the lack of faithfulness – was, at least in part, a cause of the Pharisee’s grumbling in the 15th Chapter of Luke’s Gospel. They didn’t like the fact that Jesus was associating with people who didn’t have the right set of beliefs… people they didn’t think were among the faithful. In this case, tax collectors and sinners. In Luke’s Gospel, tax collectors and sinners is code for that whole group of people who were outside the faith… that whole group of people who could never be loved by God… that is, if you believed what the Pharisees believed. The definition of faithful was usually in question whenever we read of the grumbling of the Pharisees. They wanted everyone to believe exactly what they believed because what they believed was right with God They wanted everyone to behave exactly as they behaved because the way they behaved was right with God. They wanted to be in control determining who was faithful and who was not. They wanted to decide who could and could not receive God’s grace. Truth be told, I don’t think they even believed in God’s grace. Faith for them was following a set of rules and being rewarded for the following. The concept of grace, especially prevenient grace would have been lost on them. The idea that God’s grace is ours before we even know we need it was beyond their understanding. Truth be told, it is often beyond ours.
When we read the Gospel of Luke today, all these years later, it is important for us to understand that it was intended for those on the outside of the faith community. While Matthew’s Gospel was written for those who were a part of the Jewish faith community, the author of Luke basing his account of Jesus’ life on the Gospel of Mark, portrayed Jesus as a compassionate friend to the outcasts. It is no wonder then that we find this set of parables … the lost sheep, the lost coin, and finally, the lost son… in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus is clear – no one is ever on the outside when it comes to God. No one is ever beyond God’s love and grace. We are never so lost that God will not search us out. God is faithful to us, believing in us even when we don’t believe God. The Jesus of Luke’s Gospel proclaims that “…even when we try to run away… God will find us, and bless us, even when we feel most alone…God will find a way to let us know that [God] is with us in this place, wherever we are, however far we think we’ve run.”*
Philip Yancey once said, that “we are accustomed to finding a catch in every promise, but Jesus’ stories of extravagant grace include no catch, no loophole disqualifying us from God’s love. Each has at its core an ending too good to be true – or so good that it must be true.”*** Barbara Brown Taylor, writing about her decision to walk away from serving the church as a parish priest, says “I wanted out of the belief business and back into the beholding business. I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure of what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me even though I am not sure of anything.”****
Listen again to the good news of Jesus Christ. This is news so good it must be true. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?… Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? Celebrate with me! Count on it! There is joy in heaven!” God’s grace is ours before we even know we need it. God will find a way to let us that we are not alone… no matter where we are… no matter what we believe… even when we don’t believe… even when we can’t believe… even when we won’t believe. God still loves us. May we trust God to catch us even when we are not sure of anything.
*From Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris ** From Making God Real for a New Generation by Craig Kennet Miller and MaryJane Pierce Norton *** From What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey ****From Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor |
