Won't Let Go
but Jesus
Liberating Scripture Collective
I wish Jesus would let go.
I have tried to walk away, to distance myself from Christianity as much and as far as I could. I have come to call myself post-Christian, something that happens after Christianity. I have scorched and salted the earth of penal substitutionary atonement, and have all but given up of God’s sovereign. The Bible is more literature than holy writ, and I have nothing but criticism for the church institution.
Even though I grew up in the pews, in the seeds and sprouts of blatant Christian nationalism, in the shadow of the pulpit and altar, the older I have become, the more Christianity (especially the traditional flavors) doesn’t seem to fit.
It’s a bassinet I’m too heavy for.
It’s a coat that I’ve outgrown.
Shoes that have become too small.
As the Apostle Paul might put it, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. Once I’ve become an adult, I have rendered the things of a child obsolete. (1 Corinthians 13:11, LIT)”
I have put away my pacifiers and bibs. I’m way beyond milk and formula. Ive grown teeth and no longer need baby food.
This is how I see my relationship with Christianity these days. I don’t think anyone else needs this kind of relationship, nor do I think I have somehow ascended to a better place spiritually. This is me and my journey. This is where I am.
In lots of ways, I’m jealous of people that can remain Christian.
Point Number One
I hate religious poetry.
With pointy points
wrapped up with a bow
for a decorative god
who means nothing for those
of us who stutter to believe.
I hate religious poetry.
Always right and always clean
forever sitting on shelves
as if it could assure sanctimonious
art could lead to some beautiful
god that I wish I could believe.
I hate religious poetry.
It’s rarely read in church
as a sermon illustration
to highlight one of the
three points about a god in which
I cannot unjustly believe.
I hate religious poetry.
It reminds me too much of myself
because I can’t write until I eat
doubt for sustenance and have agnostic
drinks at the bar with friends who
live with me in the shadow of belief.
***
In some ways, I wish there were an honest way to stay. But—again, for me—I’m too agnostic, too caught up in my own curiosity, too hurt, have too much history, and all of this adds up to the reality that Christianity is something I have to let go.
But Jesus…
Jesus refuses to let me go.
Jesus will not let me just walk away. Jesus won’t let me forget what faith is. Jesus won’t leave me alone.
It’s maddening.
It’s not that Jesus binds me to a church institution. Rather, he woos me back with the promise of the cup and the loaf, the bread and wine, his body and blood. I spiritually hunger for Jesus, and he knows it. So, he provides that manna in the wilderness, that water from a rock. Jesus refuses to let my spiritual need go unmet.
And he keeps calling me back to his story, reminding me of the Beatitudes, of the Olivet Discourse, of the parables, of the coronation of the cross and the vindication of the resurrection. The Jesus story means something to me, whether it’s true or not. And, again, Jesus knows this. He refuses to let my wonder at his story simply dissipate into the ether.
What right does he have to do this? By what authority does he flip the tables of my life over to make room for the outcast, the exile, the forgotten and disinherited? Both externally and internally, Jesus calls me to make room for that which the world and empire deem undesirable. He clears space in the temple of my heart, moves in, and begins to heal, begins to teach, begins to gather.
When I demand answers, he asks me questions. When I can’t answer, he tells me stories. Jesus is convinced to get me into the kingdom of heaven with the tax collectors and prostitutes instead of waiting in line with the religious elites.
Every time Jesus asks something of me, I dig my heels in hard, give a firm no, and set my mind against it. Then, my heart betrays me, and I find myself doing the very thing Jesus wanted. It’s a cycle of hardening and softening, of ebbing and flow, of waxing and waning. And Jesus is there through the entire thing.
I don’t know what to do with Jesus’ firm grip on my life. It’s not like he’s controlling me or forcing me to do anything. He just keeps pestering me, nudging me, calling to me. He just doesn’t leave me alone.
How am I supposed to walk away from Christianity when what I believe is the very heart of Christianity keeps tugging on my heartstrings, pulling at my spirit, holding myself in his wounded hands? I don’t know how to quit this whole thing. I don’t know how to stop believing. I don’t know how to lean out of these waters of baptism that Jesus keeps pulling me into and through.
This pulling, this wooing, this calling is a tug towards the way of righteousness, towards justice, mercy, rightness, grace. It is a transformative repentance that Jesus keeps offering me, walking with me through it, and holding me as it breaks me.
There is no way around it: Jesus won’t let me go.
Maybe the childish things I have outgrown aren’t Christianity. Maybe it’s something else, something more primal. Maybe it’s certainty that I can have the answers. Maybe it’s religious elitism disguised as theological discovery. Maybe it’s as simple as shedding the skin of the religious nationalism I was seeped in from infancy.
Perhaps this is Jesus’ call to growth. Perhaps this is Jesus’ strange method to call me to himself in the temple court of the outcast so that I can learn what it means to care for others even as I am cared for. Perhaps this is love growing.
I don’t know how to shake Jesus, and I don’t know how to give myself and stay.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.