Wendell Berry

As a theologian and environmentalist, I can't decide which to love more: Wendell Berry himself or loving to love Wendell Berry. Very trendy, indeed.

Tonight I am reading an article he wrote in Christian Century, September 2005 called The Burden of the Gospels for one of my classes. He wonders if we aren't a little too confident in our understanding of the gospels and, for that matter, our understanding of ourselves in faith.

It is much easier to parade around with concrete answers because they seem to settle the matters that worry us most. This authority can give us comfort when God seems too big, too gracious, too...beyond us. If we were taught this method in seminary, an MDiv degree wouldn't take four whole years. It isn't taught, but it's a nasty habit we slip into when feeling insecure about God's will or overwhelmed by the world.

I commend this article to anyone who deeply wonders:

1. "If you had been living in Jesus' time and had heard him teaching, would you have been one of his followers?"
2. "Can you be sure that you would keep his commandments if it became excruciatingly painful to do so?"

My knee-jerk answer to both is, "but of course". Unless I sit with these questions and allow them to tangle my worst habits with my best intentions, I am wrong. Unless I dare to be brutally honest, I cannot admit the difficult things God is calling us to and the countless ways I fail.

But once I stop wincing and open my eyes to this simple truth, I am freed from the answers I've created and the desperate attempts I've made to be right. It's exhausting trying to be in charge and conquering the tough questions. Maybe because that isn't my job.

"Meanwhile, may heaven guard us from those who think they already have the answers."