Looking out of portals

I haven't seen the movie. I'm not even sure that I will. But I know of a scene in it that I am very interested in seeing. My friend Cass shared it with our group this morning: around the table a handful of different characters reveal that they really treasure the image of Jesus that they carry around with them, but the images are wildly different and vividly off-the-mark as compared to a traditional presentation of Jesus. One prefers the "baby Jesus", another a "Ninja" Jesus, and on it goes. All this was a reflection on the Marcan "Confession" passage. Jesus asks his followers, "Who do you say that I am?" It seems that we all of our own versions of an answer to that question, even as we may know what the "right and proper" answer might be.

A similar kind of observation was passed on to me through a book -- a kind of "assigned reading" for another fellowship group I am in. The book is The Practicing Congregation by Diana Butler Bass. There is much in there seems rich and new/old and invigorating to me, but the point at the moment is the observation that we (at least we in the mainline churches) are often defending competing versions of "tradition." Not so long ago it was commonplace to argue that conflict in the church was between those who wanted change in the church and those who wanted to preserve the tradition. Ms. Bass would claim (I think rightly) that in fact those who want "change" are arguing in favor of tradition also. It's just a different understanding of tradition. She says everybody in the churches is a defender of tradition. We just have a different take on what "tradition" is.

I intuitively think this is right. And it's related to my growing conviction that no human being has a complete take on Truth. As a human being we only have a partial vantage point. Whoever we are. Wherever we are. Whatever the "Truth" is that we would defend. I owe something of this most recently to Barbara Brown Taylor in her interview on Fresh Air.