Sometimes it's good to know the ending of a story. I know when I'm watching Dr Who (when does the new Dr begin?) or some other world class serial drama I don't need to get too uptight because it's on again the following week and the hero has to survive. I don't know the details of the ending but I know the general outcome. Life is far less tense when you know the ending.
Does dogma the end paragraph of our faith story: God wins, Jesus saves, the Spirit does whatever she does best and we're all hunky-dory? But with the ending of a faith story comes the ending of the Faith itself surely? Nothing left to trust our lives with, nothing left to expect or dream about or long for. It's dead in the water. Bit like the Exiles possibly in Babylon: the faith story had come to an end, there was nothing left in which to place your expectation. Babylon was fine, no thanks to God and they were doing well.
Then came Isaiah No. 2. "You think you've reached the end of faith now that you are all settled and cosy in Babylon? Well, have I got news for you!" and so the story jump-starts into a new imagining, a new vision and risking that can once again give people's lives value. You see, in my tiny mind, only when there is a risk you might be wrong, does something increase in value. Only when you have to take a chance to trust something with your life, does faith have value once more. Knowing the ending leads to deflation. Risking the story once more leads to inflation (I never thought the global economy has anything to teach the Faith. I thought it was the other way around).
So where are we in this never ending story continuum? Still willing to risk putting our trust in a new retelling of the adventure called faith where it is not all already sorted? When you know the ending it's hardly worth beginning! Please go with the Isaiah principle rather than the Dr Who one: it ain't over till it's over and their ain't no fat Davros in the wings clearing his throat ready to sing.
So where are those hymn that hold faith's uncertainty principles and risk taking? Or how can we read this passage in worship that leaves us wanting to jump on board with or without the Doctor?
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