Spirituality Column #359
October 1, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters
 
“Complaining never helps us find God.” – Pope Francis, August 2013

I am a Jesus-first, Bible-believing Evangelical Christian, and also a bit of a gym-rat when it comes to religious news and commentary.

So it caught my full attention recently when the media reported that Pope Francis, six months into his papacy, declared with a possibly negative insinuation that the Catholic Church was “obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and contraception.”

Imagine, a Pope putting God above secular culture and political correctness.

I have a BA in journalism and my favorite definition for “news” is, “The news is what’s not supposed to happen.”  In the spirit of that definition, Popes aren’t supposed to minimize “abortion, gay marriage and contraception.”  But living daily with, and being sensitive to, the characteristic liberal agnostic slant and frequent technical ignorance of the mainstream media when it comes to all things religious, I hastened beyond the headlines to discover what the Pope actually said.

And as it turns out, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Bishop of Rome, actually did say that.  It was in an unprecedented one-on-one interview conducted over three separate sessions in August, at the Vatican, by an Italian magazine editor (and brother Jesuit priest) at the behest of the U.S. Jesuit magazine, America.

The lengthy interview titled “A Big Heart Open to God” (link) was released Sept. 19 in 16 Jesuit journals worldwide including the post-dated Sept. 30 issue of America.  It covers the gamut of Church issues, doctrine, theology, cultural challenges, the Pope’s personality, tastes and pastoral concerns.  I read all 10,000 words.

My takeaway?  I think Christians everywhere should 1) read the actual interview before passing judgment and 2) applaud the Pope for his priorities.

The Pope sees the Church as a “field hospital” where the wounded and broken are healed and loved, not berated and punished.   That’s what Jesus did.  The Pope steadfastly champions Church teaching, says it’s a mistake for her to complain about culture, and says the Church’s time, energy, and spiritual capital should be primarily focused on the Glory of God and human salvation offered only through Jesus Christ.

My Evangelical friends likely wonder why I’m talking about the Pope, and my Catholic friends likely wonder why this is any of my business.  Let’s just say the Pope’s message covers several important Christian basics.

He’s not promoting the acceptance of sin; the Pope is extolling Christians to have compassion for sinners – all of us – including, he emphasizes, himself.

The Pope is telling us, without complaining, that Jesus is the best company we can find.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) recommends 1) having a dictionary handy when digesting the Pope’s interview, 2) reading America’s editorial The Pope’s Progress, and 3) viewing The New York Times’ story (excellent overview).

Spirituality Column #358
September 24, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

Spirituality Column #357
September 17, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Spirituality Column #356
September 10, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

We live in a culture that doesn’t want to know what we really think.

But Jesus Christ is a Savior who does.

In each of the first three Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke (the “Synoptic” Gospels, meaning “similar”) – Jesus asks the disciples who other people, the crowds, think He is.  Each time it is followed closely by the most important question in the entire Bible.  Jesus asks the disciples directly:

Spirituality Column #355
September 3, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville

By Bob Walters

Too often too many of us think Jesus is smaller than He is.

I have often written in this column about how I attended church as a child, learned quite a bit about how to do the liturgy (religious service) as an altar boy through my early teens, and then by high school drifted out of the open church doors and away from a Jesus it seems I never properly knew.

In those early years I “understood” Jesus – who I now know is the Christ, the Savior, and the Son of the living, eternal, creator God – to be contained within what I saw and heard in church.  I was a child with little intellectual ignition toward imputing a bigger and proper picture of this enormous, righteous, unlimited, loving, merciful God, his servant Son and comforting Spirit.  My immature mind saw only the church “package” of Jesus.

In my ignorance, Jesus looked finite, contained and limited; safely tucked into an ecclesiastical box.

That made it easy to walk away.  And I did.

But let’s not knock church.  The Church is the Bride of Christ, a biblical  image of marriage that speaks to love, longing, patience, joy and completeness in relationship with the Bridegroom (John 3:29).  But all that is easily lost on an arrogant teenager, self-absorbed young adult, and a self-sufficient “I am the master of my fate” thirty-something career professional.

No smallish “God in a box” was worth my time.  Jesus seemed both a personal and cultural complication: an anchor I didn’t want, a sail I couldn’t rig.

I couldn’t explain it so I didn’t want it.

Three decades after falling away, I randomly attended church one Sunday.  It was Sept. 2, 2001.  My elder son Eric, then entering eighth grade, had inquired about going to church.  I was neither looking for nor expecting a revelation; I was just answering, in the active, fatherly affirmative, my son’s curiosity.

Yet for no reason I could understand, the Jesus I had relegated to the shadows of my intellect and emotion exploded into a bright light with which I was fascinated and a real person toward whom I was powerfully drawn.  Faith suddenly made sense.  I was now listening (Mark 9:7).  God wound up answering questions I didn’t know I had, and teaching me lessons I would never forget.

Jesus, I realized, isn’t someone about whom one learns and moves on; Jesus is about living life in continually growing, uniquely personal and ultimately eternal relationship with God.

And that it is a life-diminishing mistake to put Jesus in a box.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures we shouldn’t put ourselves in a box, either.  BTW, today Eric works in Dallas and is also a Young Life volunteer.