understanding

I’m often scornful of what passes for dialogue now, especially on any topic related to politics, and especially as worked out on social media. People are so certain of their own rightness, even on issues they know little about, and so closed to hearing any other opinion. And we’ve become so tribal that our demographic or identity shapes what people hear almost as much as the actual words.

I’m scornful, and then I’m reminded that in this matter the church has also lost it’s distinctiveness. On matters of worship style, diversity and inequality, or voting we can be as polarized and as hostile to each other as are unbelievers. Worse yet, we often have the same take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to matters of doctrine. The end times, whether Jesus actually went to Hell and for how long, who will go to heaven (dogs, of course, but some other Christians?) and a host of other topics have us pulling our verbal knives to finish off our less-informed (to our thinking) wounded.

With all this in mind, I was brought up short by a brief sentence from Mark 4, a chapter made up in large part by parables that Jesus told. It says this, in verse 33: “With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.”

Jesus didn’t tell the people, or us, everything there is to know about himself, or the kingdom of God. He told as much as we could understand. So much of it we won’t get until we actually experience it. We are, in matters of faith, all children. Just as children see complex things like marriage or time zones through a very simplistic lens, so is our grasp of the things of God. I think it was C.S Lewis that said something to the effect that we’re like little children who don’t want to leave the puddle we’re playing in because we can’t comprehend a trip to the sea shore.

I need to remember that as I engage others in our civil and church discourse. After all, being wrong feels exactly like being right, up to the point you realize you’re wrong. And sometimes we defend our wrong positions so vigorously that we get invested in them, and continue to argue even after we know we’re wrong.