We Episcopalians have always been proud of our take on how we know what’s what in this faith of ours. In the old language, we talk about sources of authority—about how to know what to think about God and humanity, and what God might want us to be up to in this life. We have said that good answers to such questions come from three sources, scripture, tradition and reason. These three are often referred to as our Anglican, three-legged-stool.
I was eating lunch with an old friend this week, a fellow priest, and we were talking about some of the challenges facing Christianity in a rapidly changing culture. We talked about the place of sacred scripture and how difficult it can be to use language like “Word of God” to describe those writings in this modern era, one in which so many of us understand scripture to be very human responses to the experience of God and the deep desire to fathom the big questions in life. I told my friend that I have come to think of scripture as a part of the tradition, that is, what those who have gone before have passed on in story, practice, and understanding. I noted that such a classification would remove one of the legs from our three legged stool, and he said, how about experience. I like it. A new three legged stool for the new millennium. Tradition, reason and experience. Works for me.
When scripture is seen as a part of the tradition, our experience does indeed come to life in new ways. We continue to add to the tradition. If scripture is fixed and finished, then our task seems to involve reconciling our understanding to that of our ancestors in faith who wrote in response to their experience. If, on the other hand, scripture is seen as a part of the tradition, then we are encouraged to be attentive to our experiences of the holy and to value those experiences as part of the ongoing story.
Making experience the third leg of the stool suggests that our understanding of Christianity and its central call to our lives will change over time. I’ve forgotten most of the verses to a children’s song by Harry Pritchett, but I remember the chorus and like it. “Move go, change, grow, I don’t know exactly what or how it’s going to be. Move, go, change, grow….the Lord is calling me.” Over time, the center shifts, priorities change, all because God is at work among us. And it isn’t just the experiences of religious biggies like popes and saints that change the landscape.
We are all busy changing the tradition through our own experience. It’s hard to believe in original sin when you are making googoo eyes at a new baby. It’s hard to believe the Church’s teachings on same sex marriage when you know and love gay and lesbian folks whose lives are every bit as holy as any other human on the planet. In a world where we are connected to people of all traditions and no tradition, it is hard to believe Christianity is the only worthwhile path for deepening relationship with God. In our time, many parts of the Church are busy rethinking old ideas, testing new language, changing old rules, all in response to a culture that values the importance of personal experience.
The tradition needs our input. Rather than telling us what God will look like and how we should expect to experience God, the faith community can call us to be attentive to signs of the holy in us and all around us. I said in the beginning of these writings that many of us stay around the Church even though there are many things about it we would like to see changed. We stay because there is something here we need. One of the things that keeps me here are those wonderful old stories within our tradition. They remind me that people just like me, everyday people, some who were seeking God and others who were taken completely by surprise, had experiences they could only explain by struggling to speak of what is really beyond words. In the Christian community we are called to that kind of good work. We are encouraged to open our hearts to signs of God all around us and then return to the community to tell of what we have seen. This is the way it has always been done. This is the tradition of which we are a part.
John Baker
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