To Those Who Read My Blog,
Hi! It has been a while, hasn’t it? I need to be better at updating this thing…
So, let me just get you caught up on what’s been happening in my life before I get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to talk about.
I’m done school for the year but don’t know how I did. I have some things about this past year that I love. Men’s ministry and Swing Dancing are the two most important things I think. I have one huge regret. That regret is not spending enough time with my last Church.
Speaking about this Church, I left. I felt God telling me not to be in ministry this summer because I’m going to be in ministry this fall and winter at school. As my church is small and I have a bit of training it would have been hard for me to not do ministry there. I miss those people so much right now. I don’t know if any of them read my blog but if you do, I think about you all daily and you’re not far when I pray!
Well, seeing as I did leave my Church, I have been looking at other places. One was a Jewish Synagogue that I don’t think I’ll be returning to as they do a few things I am really against (tract ministry being one of those things :s ). I also went to a Catholic rally that happens every Tuesday night and it is here that I want to dwell as the focus of my blog post.
A guy came up to me afterward and immediately after finding out I was a protestant he said to me “You know in John 6 when Jesus talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood? How is it that you can think that he’s speaking figuratively when he is so clearly speaking literally”. That bugged me for a while and I did not know why, but then it hit me today. It bugs me because how did this guy know Jesus was speaking literally? The reference is John 6:25-59 (though more so near the end). I find whenever Jesus speaks, He goes in and out of figurative language so it’s hard to tell when He is talking figuratively and when He’s not.
This guy I was talking to was referring to transubstantiation which says that the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Christ which I am not against but don’t think is the way communion works. And that’s my point, really. This guy took an offensive approach defending his theology and saying that he was right. He also criticized my thinking by phrasing it as “how can you believe…” as in “how could you be so stupid as to even think that for a second”. He did not say it like that, but that’s the way it came across. I am sure that he left that argument thinking he won, I left that argument wondering why there was an argument at all.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus is special. He is special because He is mysterious and we can’t get Him completely figured out. We can get ideas about Him, and we can even say some pretty solid things about Him like the things proclaimed in the Nicene or Apostle’s Creed but some things are a mystery. One of those things being the mystery of communion. What does happen in the Eucharist? What is so special about it? Truth is, we won’t know until heaven. This guy might be completely on base and it might work out as transubstantiation… or it could be what I believe… consubstantiation. We won’t know until Jesus tells us and to say we got God figured out and are completely right in our Theology is just a pompous stance and a lie.
I guess where I come down with this guy is that he seemed to want to be right. I just want to be with Jesus. What are we pursuing? Are we pursuing a complete and thorough knowledge of exactly who God is and how He acts? Are we pursuing a perfect theology? I don’t think so. I don’t think God leaves room for us to do that. Instead we should just aim to hang out with Him and maybe He’ll shed some light on His workings, but if He doesn’t we can just chill with Him and wait until we are in heaven to know Him more.
We should celebrate our differences and take joy in them. If we appreciate one another then we do not separate ourselves. We can love one another fully. I think this is especially important for Catholics and Protestants (yes Protestants need to chill out a bit and take a humble stance of respect… we get things wrong too… I mean probably)
I don’t know. These are just my thoughts on the subject. If anything comes to your mind on this, please comment. If not I hope to write again soon as I have been a jerk and not writing at all! Talk to you all later.
-Joshua
