I Don't Have Pithy Answers

Edit: I wrote my first post immediately after the event, posted it, then I slept on it, then woke up to realize what I was actually trying to say.


I've come face to face with the fact that I not only don't have all of the answers to questions on Christian theology, but what few questions I do have answered are painful for me to articulate. The former does not unsettle me - it is the latter that gave me difficulty when confronted with a Catholic priest who told me he wasn't trying to convert anyone to Christianity, that "If they are in my pew and happy, then I'm happy for them."

I'm scared that my friends who invited me to this mass may not know Jesus. What's more, I am scared that I don't know what it means to know Jesus. Last night I tried to articulate the importance of the spiritual relationship and the three-parts of spirit, soul, and body that make up a person. It was fumbling, it didn't make sense.  I couldn't get my emotional truths out of my mouth. I was dismissed.

It struck me to know that for all of my sureness in my Christianity, I could not stutter out one convincing sentence in the face of someone who was content to leave this whole Jesus thing out of the matter, telling me that making people more human was enough, that improving humanity was the goal.

I could not get out the emotions, experiences, and knowledge that was in me, so I was left staring at the things in me wondering what were they, really, after all? How useful can the knowledge I have be if I can not disseminate it - if I can not spread the Word? I could not even get words out when speaking to someone who I should be able to have the same basic understandings with, but it was like we were speaking a different language.

Dr. Tran taught it my Heritage class that Theology is a language about God.

In this regard I have learned I am as good as mute.

I will likely never be a great apologist (I give room for possibility because I'm only 23 and God can do as He fancies). I come to the discussion table with emotional truths, some of which I truly can not put into orally-spoken words without losing a bit of their gravitas and meaning. But I know that I should have been able to hold my ground on something, I should have had something memorized that was stark truth and unchangeable. None of the Creeds came to mind. Not even "Jesus Christ is the Son of God, begotten, not made."

I do not know yet how to change this. For now, this is simply a marker of where I am.

What does it mean to be "co-heirs with Christ"?

Someone was telling me the other day that becoming a catholic after growing up a Protestant was like finding out you were born into royalty and no one had told you.

I, (who have not become catholic), did know I had been born into royalty. I was raised by romantic nerds who read too much Narnia. They didn't really understand what they were reading a lot of the time (do any of us?) but they knew it was true. So I knew that to be a christian was to be royalty, I just had little idea what royalty was. So what does it mean that we are adopted children of the King?

I knew we were "heirs with Christ," whatever that means. I knew that Peter was supposed to be the high king of Narnia and that was pretty cool. It meant he got to wear a crown. I knew Simba had a responsibility to take back his kingdom and I certainly knew what a responsibility was. I knew Aragorn was really cool and could do all sorts of useful things. But all these things were just cool. My understanding of being “co-heirs with Christ” was not much more nuanced than a childish desire to be a princess and to go on adventures.

Going back now and rereading the Lord of the Rings and Narnia and Hosea and 1 & 2 Samuel and many other things, it seems that I didn't know what a king was at all. There are lots of things these kings and queens do that didn’t fit with my understanding of royalty. I didn't know why Aragorn is recognized as king for having "the hands of a healer." I didn't know that "always a king or queen of Narnia" meant something more than vague nobility; it is also a duty. I didn't know why Simba could save a country that Nala couldn't. I didn't know that Nala was also royalty in any meaningful sense. I didn't know that Lucy's cordial was a gift for the queen, and not just a tool for use by the most compassionate female available.

While I was told I had responsibilities as a Christian, those responsibilities were all evangelism; there were no others. I didn't make the connection that those duties of the Christian are also those of the voice crying in the wilderness "make straight the paths of the Lord," of giant slaying, of having the hands of a healer, of standing at the front of the army and leading it fearlessly, of caring for one’s people, and of exposing treachery. Those ideas were all presented, but they were disjointed and misplaced. The puzzle slowly comes together, and the result is a heavy picture of honor and responsibility. Yes I am an heir with Christ, and do get to be nobility. That is an honor. That honor is not cheaply bought. The princes and princesses here in our church have that honor because they have to ride at the front of the army. The title is not really earned, it is given as adopted children, but it is profoundly expensive. It costs your whole person and then some. In order to be a king or queen you have to be more than you are, and so you need the title and the honor. It will be called upon.

Part of that responsibility lies in claiming the title. Simba and Aragorn are both born into kingship, but both of them have to claim their kingship, and the act of claiming it is their most important and most difficult duty. T'Challa wouldn't be the king he is if he didn't defend that title from people who want it only for the glory. Scar tells Simba “you don’t understand! The pressures of ruling a kingdom—“ and Simba finishes his sentence: “—are no longer yours.” Simba is not taking the title and glory and submitting to its responsibilities, dangers, and pressures. Rather, he is claiming the responsibility and the title that goes with it. A king has a duty to his people not to treat his title lightly; he needs it to lead them well.

Another part of that responsibility is knowing who else is in charge. The other kings and queens of Narnia (all of them) know that Peter is the high king, obey him (even Edmund), and all respect one another, letting each do the thing they are best at. Aragorn wouldn't be half the king he is if he didn't know how to serve under another king, bow to the king of Rohan in his own hall, know what a force of nature a shieldmaiden of Rohan is, recognize that even the king of Gondor and Arnor can marry above his station, obey his foster father/father in law, and accept the authority of Galadriel. There have to be other royals; no one person can rule alone. (Though how we are all royalty is the subject of another paper.)

We are all co-heirs with Christ. We are princes and princesses of the coming kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Our high King will return, with the sound of a trumpet, and raise the dead. We are his children, fighting and working until he comes. It doesn't necessarily take Catholicism to realize one is royalty. Just ecumenical education in our own history. And that realization is tremendous, wonderful, awesome, and sobering. Christ has conquered death, but until he returns in glory he and his co-heirs are still fighting for the salvation of the world. And he has a royal army. Our family has in it women who died in battle, princesses who slew and tamed dragons, men who liberated slaves, kings and queens who conquered death, mystics who understood mysteries of the faith, and ordinary everyday men and women who gave their lives to feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead.

Take care of one another. We are sons and daughters of the King of kings. We have work to do.


A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” ... Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:3-5, 28-31

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ... The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:14, 16-18, 37-39