Belief
Last Sunday, Joe Reynolds preached an excellent sermon. I wasn't there to witness it, but so say folks who were. He preached on belief. Not what we believe, but more what it means, or could mean (and not mean) to believe, and why its important TO believe. As this is my first real post for Houston Belief I thought it might be an appropriate subject to take on and wrestle with for a few lines.
Joe (the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral here in Houston) said, quite poetically,
"The important thing – the most important thing – is what you seek, what you yearn for, what you reach for. The reason that is so important is because what you look for is what you will find. What we believe in, really believe in, is what we will make happen."
Now, this is not a statement about the creation of God, that old joke that God created man in his image and man returned the favor, this is a statement about defining belief more broadly, really examining what we believe and how it makes us who we are. So often we get caught up in "believing in" that we overlook the power of simply believing in the first place.
In the Episcopal church we cast a fairly wide net, many would say too wide. But as a born and raised Episcopalian I keep wanting to challenge the edges of the net: who else might we include? Every Sunday morning for the majority of my life (aside from a few lost college years) I have woken and gone to some building to gather with other folks with whom I have very little in common aside from that little red book in your pew pockets that we like to call the Book of Common Prayer. That little book and the liturgies it contains have always been for me a symbol of the simple fact that everyone who picks it up is choosing to look beyond themselves, choosing, even for just an hour (or 15 minute compline) to not know, but to hope and to look, to praise and to worship. And it's that choice which binds us, that choice that I call belief, not belief in, cuz I don't know what you believe, but the choice to believe (period).
And it's a powerful choice, as Joe alluded to in his sermon, when we believe we change the world. When we acknowledge that we are small and limited but choose to not accept limits, then we become agents of change, of growth and of hope. The reason I think this site is so great is because its not about faith which we strive to have, or religion which we are often given, but about belief, which we choose. Unlike faith and religion pages, Houston Belief acknowledges the lack of knowing, the lack of certainty "in" something but the simple and profound act of believing itself.
Joe (the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral here in Houston) said, quite poetically,
"The important thing – the most important thing – is what you seek, what you yearn for, what you reach for. The reason that is so important is because what you look for is what you will find. What we believe in, really believe in, is what we will make happen."
Now, this is not a statement about the creation of God, that old joke that God created man in his image and man returned the favor, this is a statement about defining belief more broadly, really examining what we believe and how it makes us who we are. So often we get caught up in "believing in" that we overlook the power of simply believing in the first place.
In the Episcopal church we cast a fairly wide net, many would say too wide. But as a born and raised Episcopalian I keep wanting to challenge the edges of the net: who else might we include? Every Sunday morning for the majority of my life (aside from a few lost college years) I have woken and gone to some building to gather with other folks with whom I have very little in common aside from that little red book in your pew pockets that we like to call the Book of Common Prayer. That little book and the liturgies it contains have always been for me a symbol of the simple fact that everyone who picks it up is choosing to look beyond themselves, choosing, even for just an hour (or 15 minute compline) to not know, but to hope and to look, to praise and to worship. And it's that choice which binds us, that choice that I call belief, not belief in, cuz I don't know what you believe, but the choice to believe (period).
And it's a powerful choice, as Joe alluded to in his sermon, when we believe we change the world. When we acknowledge that we are small and limited but choose to not accept limits, then we become agents of change, of growth and of hope. The reason I think this site is so great is because its not about faith which we strive to have, or religion which we are often given, but about belief, which we choose. Unlike faith and religion pages, Houston Belief acknowledges the lack of knowing, the lack of certainty "in" something but the simple and profound act of believing itself.
posted by Jason Sierra at 11:58 PM
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