Unlike, say, Pascal, whose words could substitute for many a modern who faces the hazards of confession weighed against the many voices of our contemporary life that call even the possibility in to question, I see no reason to think of my faith as a way of hedging my bets. The reason is simple. Being a Christian isn't about weighing options. It isn't about considering one set of interpretive lenses, or way of living, against another, considering the costs and benefits, and moving forward.
Of course, I would also say that I don't agree with Kierkegaard and his 20th century great-grandchildren. That is to say, being a Christian isn't some kind of unfathomable leap in to the unknown. It is ridiculous to argue that, after all the hemming and hawing, all that's left is taking that step off the ledge in to the unknown, wondering if the abyss has a bottom, or if there will be a hand to save us before we find out the hard way.
I am a Christian because I have been touched in my life by the grace of God, understand that in Jesus Christ, the God who created all that is - black holes and colliding galaxies and bacteria and squirrels and even mosquitoes - was uniquely and fully manifest, willingly suffered the humiliation, rejection, and death meted out as human "justice", and rose to take away the power of those things once for all for all creation.
I have been touched by the communities called churches of which I have been a part all my life. I have been touched by individuals who gave me a word of grace, a word of judgment, seen the power of second, third, fourth, fifth chances offered even me, surely one of those who deserve it the least.
I have been touched by the realization that, quite beyond any native capacity I possess, I have reached out and touched the lives of others in ways that humble me. It is at these moments, when I hear testimony from others concerning the impact of something I have said or done or written that I understand St. Paul's insistence that it isn't him doing this stuff, but Christ within him. See, I know what I can and cannot do, and when I hear people tell me or email me or whatever that I have impacted their lives in a way that is positive, I am astounded.
Being a Christian turns ordinary life - working and sleeping, eating and chatting, shopping and sharing, even loving and arguing - in to something extraordinary. World-transforming. Each and every moment of our lives offers the opportunity for this. Even if we aren't aware of it at the time, as Christians our words and deeds can suddenly find themselves in synch with that great wheel that turns the whole Universe. We have no idea how far-reaching some act of ours might reach; the connections among all of us are so complex that treading carefully, with both love and humility seems a far greater option than not caring a whit and acting as if our lives were our own and no one else's.
Finally, I am a Christian because being claimed by the God who created the Universe, who nevertheless sees in me something important, something eternally vital to the on-going project of making human life truly human, of making this world more truly the world God created it to be, leaves me fumbling around for reasons to reject it, yet finding nothing more than the smiling face of God on the other side of all my excuses. I care not a whit whether being a Christians earns me a pass through the pearly gates or not. What happens once this life is ended is in God's hands; Biblical testimony on this matter seems far more concerned with the final consummation of creation, anyway, than whether or not I walk some ethereal city with streets of gold.
Living for others, in love, under the shadow of the cross, seems to make all the other choices in my life fall in to place. It makes sense of what can seem senseless. It gives meaning to the empty flow of time, the unfurling of the Universe as it unwinds its course. In the faces and voices of others, whether at my elbow or across the reaches of time and distance, I see those whom God loves, and wants to be fully as God intended.
This is my confession. So help me God.
