Advent for those deconstructing their faith – Day 1

Advent is generally seen as a time honoring and celebrating the longing, expectation, hope, and promise of the birth of Jesus and also His “second coming.” But when your evangelical faith has changed (fallen apart?), and you’re not sure where you stand on all things Christmas, it’s hard to know how to celebrate any of it. This month, I’ll be writing some short posts from the perspective of one whose faith is significantly different now than it was a year or two ago. I can no longer write with a strictly protestant, evangelical point of view. I’m hoping that the words I share leading up to Christmas will help others like me who are struggling to figure out how to celebrate this holiday right now. If you are not in a place of evaluating your faith, you may find these writings heretical, confusing, or discomforting. Don’t worry – there are a lot of other great Advent readings out there for you.

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God, your scriptures said you were sending a savior, and now I wonder – a savior for what? What exactly are we waiting for? What exactly do we need to be saved from? Everyone around me says, “sin!” They say that we are separated from you because of all the bad things we’ve done in our lives, because we are bad even before we were born… even though they also say that you knit us in our mother’s womb and we are precious in your sight. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how I reconciled all that before – this idea that we are “created in your image” and yet “born sinful” at the same time.

But did you really send a savior to save us from our bad deeds? That kind of sounds lame, to be honest. I used to believe it and buy that concept hook, line, and sinker, but if that’s all your son came for, it feels pretty depressing because I’m still not as patient, kind, forgiving, gentle, generous, or loving as I should be. And if your son’s death can’t make me into a person who doesn’t do bad things then why did he die?

I’m so tired of striving. I’m so tired of trying to live up to this idea of a “good” christian. I’m so tired of worrying that I am somehow mocking Jesus’ death and crucifying him again and again because I’m unable to control my temper, unwilling to control my words and my attitude, and constantly find myself needing forgiveness for all the sins I still commit. I am tired of trying to earn your approval, and tired of always feeling defeated, like no matter what I do, it’s not good enough.

I long for someone to save me from my doubts.

I long for someone to save me from my fear.

I long for someone to save me from the back and forth of trying and failing.

I long for someone to save me from the trite responses and offerings of other Christians; the nothings they say – though usually with conviction – imagining that the complex questions and issues of my heart can be resolved with a simple Bible verse or invoking your name.

I long for someone to actually bring about a change in the church, to reveal and end the hypocrisy, to show up for racial and ethnic justice, to illuminate the causes you supposedly care about, and to actually be your body.

I long for someone to actually bring about a change in me. I’m tired of praying and praying and reading and reading and yet struggling with the same things all the time. I beg and plead for your spirit to change me, for your word to be my light, but years, decades, later, I find myself in the same place spiritually. Aren’t we supposed to grow up at some point?

I long for someone to tell me that growing up and leaving behind my childhood faith is OK; that I’m not being heretical, or following false teachers… that I won’t be cast out of my church family or looked upon as “backslidden” because I’m reading different books and exploring different beliefs. I long for someone to recognize that this path I’m taking might actually still lead to you even though they never would have guessed it.

I’m longing for you, Jesus, but not in the same way as before… I’m longing for you to be more than what the scriptures indicate. I’m longing for you to be someone worth longing for, someone who is going to do and be more than just a blood-covered sacrifice for me screaming at my kids or dropping the f-bomb or clinging to resentment.

Does that sound awful? Does that sound ungrateful?

I’m longing for you to make good on your promise that you came to give us abundant life. That you came to show us the way, the truth, and the life. That because of you, we will be able to do great things here on earth. That you came to set us free.

I’m longing for freedom and abundance and miracles and a better way to live.

Words to contemplate

The Descent of Love – by Meister Eckhart*

In distress and want, I ask “Where, O God, are you?

Here, I am as close to you as the warmth of your breath.

But this does not satisfy my mind, and so I ask again.

Here, in the confusions that make you trade life for death.

Still, I ask what I have with my questions already said.

Here, in the doubts that rise against My descending truth.

And yet I am undone with deceptions ever old and new.

Here, let me give Myself to you with love that alone will soothe.

**From Meister Eckhart’s “Book of the Heart” Meditations for the Restless Soul (as translated and collected by Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows)