Kevin, Billy, and God

You already know these guys if you know me. You have heard stories about Kevin and Billy if you have heard me preach or if we have shared a beer. That first picture is Kevin and I at Camp Allen when we were in high school as some improvised characters for a skit. Kevin and I had already known each other for about nine years when that photo was taken. Then we went to college together in San Marcos where we met Billy. I had never known a banjo player before. (It took him a while to BECOME a banjo player. The banjo is loud whether you can play well  or not.)  Now the three of us have been playing music together for about fifteen years, our most recent performance at a Camp Allen fundraiser. It all seems to come full circle.

All that to say, the three of us know each other quite well. A week ago, I got to go fishing on the Lighthouse Trails near Port Aransas. The trails cut through the inland pools and thick vegetation that is the home of an array of wildlife. We took home a few fish and crabs, and that was an added bonus to the trip. The real joy of the trip was just being out on the water, paddling canoes through the maze of the trails, telling stories, and being away from things for a while. We laughed a lot, which may be why we didn't catch more fish, but the laughing is an important part of our friendship. We laugh at each other and at ourselves. We can do that because we have such a great trust for one another.

An early church writer says that he only thing truly worthwhile is becoming God's friend. (It was Thomas Aquinas...I know because Kevin uses that quote all the time.) At times in my life I have wondered just what it means to become God's friend. Some other metaphors are easier for me to imagine. I can imagine the Creator as somewhat distant and cosmic, setting the cosmos in motion. I can imagine the Still Calm Voice of God in moments of silence in the wilderness or in clarity of purpose. But when I think of friends, I think of Billy and Kevin, and maybe that's the point of the image. I trust those guys. I really trust them. In questions of vocation and relationships and being in a tangled maze of trails along the coast. I trust them. So maybe becoming God's friend is about trust.

I've recently been in conversation with several Between-the-Bayous participants about the concept of belief. The central question seems to be do you have to believe the same thing as others in order to participate; do you have to believe to belong. To generalize: in contemporary American Christianity to believe seems to mean to agree with a set of statements about who or what God is. That understanding of belief is related to the way we think of facts. That understanding is based in logic and assumes that to believe in something is parallel to something that can be scientifically proven, only with maters of belief, there's no proving, you "just believe." From that understanding, if you don't believe (agree in a factual way about the statements of God) then you can't belong, etc. I don't agree with that contemporary American Christian definition.

Here's where one of the two Greek words I remember from seminary comes in handy. The Greek word pistos is translated into English as faith, belief, and trust. One Greek word, three English translations. There is no distinction between those three English words in the Greek of the New Testament. I like "trust." Trust comes from experience. It is something that is organic and doesn't much resemble that contemporary interpretation of belief. In truth, it is the same thing, but the word belief carries a lot of baggage from misuse. 

So what does friendship with God look like if you take out that understanding of belief? What does it feel like to trust in a friend rather than be concerned about detailing attributes of God, or even ponder the factual reality behind miraculous events in stories of God? What does it feel like to trust a friend rather than feel unincluded because our logical selves have difficulty agreeing with a set of statements that insiders have made?

The only thing truly worthwhile is to becoming God's friend. Ultimately, we can know nothing of God, because God is beyond our knowing. The stories we carry tell us about people's experience of being God's friend, but the stories are not God. God is God. Kevin is Kevin, Billy is Billy, I am James, you are you. God is God.

I am God's friend, and I love being part of a community seeks to intentionally live out that friendship in the midst of our everyday lives. I love inviting others into that sort of relationship that is about trusting God to be God. The tools we use to help us in that Friendship are the stories passed down, and the ritual of sharing bread and wine. Like the tools for my friendship with Kevin and Billy is camp, music, and fishing. Those things help us in our friendship, but they are not the friendship.