How the Preposition “of” Made a Difference to my Faith

Richard Rohr in his April 10, 2016 meditation says, “Many scholars over the years have pointed out that what is usually translated in Paul’s letters as ‘faith in Christ’ would be more accurately translated as ‘the faith of Christ.’ It’s more than a change of prepositions. It means we are all participating in the faith journey that Jesus has already walked.”

That change of prepositions saved my faith as a young girl. I’d hit a pretty intense dry spell when I was riddled with doubt and wrestling with what it means to let go of my intense sense of failure, of bearing down hard on that word “wretch” whenever I’d sing “Amazing Grace.” The preacher’s words about sin had sunk as deep as my bones and I could weep for hours over how far I’d fallen short.

I’d weep over the saying, “If you were the only one who’d sinned, Jesus would have died for you. I wept because I imagined standing in the crowd saying “Crucify Him.” In my tears, in my bones I knew I was one of the ones John wrote about saying he “came to his own and his own did not receive him.” In those sweet tears, I felt Comfort draw near–God close to the broken hearted, saving the crushed in spirit (Ps. 34: 18).

There was a boulder in the Normanskill that I sat on, even in the cold, that was just far enough away from the bank that I could step across and large enough that I could sit looking upstream or down stream at the river banks, the woods sweeping towards the sky, the Klienke’s old barn way high up. I was far enough away from my parents’ ears that I could let my sorrows fly.

It was there I read, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God” in Hebrews 4, and the scene in Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret about how he walked on Brighton Beach and found the same thing, that the work of Christ wasn’t up to him. (Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China in the late 1800’s. He dressed like the Chinese and worked to understand their culture while preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. I had read along identifying with everything he said about how desperate he was to follow Jesus.) Then I bumped into this passage:“There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him.” (from Christianity Today.)

It was the week my boyfriend had broken up with me, searing a hurt that would make it hard to date good men until I met Bruce. I could have married H. We’d spent a summer walking the tracks from Albany to The Farm, walking along the base of the Helderbergs, doing happy teenager stuff. He was a good man in the making. But he kissed me. As a young fundamentalist, I pushed him away. Besides we were way too young to commit. I needed the adventures ahead of me more than I needed to settle down with a good man.

My bottom burned on that rock while I read and it dawned on me that being a good person was all on God. That waiting for me there was a rest from all this self hatred. Something like relief settled between my eyes and the page.

But when you’ve listened to hours of preaching hammering what a sinner you are, it’s hard to believe that God has tossed those sins as far as the East is from the West.

I read, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20 KJV).

I realized my old self, what Rohr calls the false ego, my guilt ridden, sinful self, is crucified. It’s deader than dead. Gone. I don’t have to continuously mourn over my terrible mistakes.

(If you don’t believe I am capable of something terrible, let me say this: words, my words, can wreck and hurt. I have called my gossip venting, later realizing I started a fire that might be soaked by the gentle rain of my confidant’s keeping a secret better than me, or it could flame wide and terrible if what I said is repeated like a juicy story. The shame cuts because the story is no longer safe with me.) But God, somehow God says He can turn all our evil to good. Somehow Jesus’ death brings forgiveness, so that I can let my shame go, and walk forward.

But this was all hard to believe until I saw that even my faith, came from Christ himself. I live by the faith of the Son of God. Of.

Later translations changed that preposition to “faith in the Son of God.” But here, here, Rohr says it’s Christ’s faith I can rest in. I could say, “I believe, help thou my unbelief.”

Somehow that little preposition “of” helped me find rest even in faith, even in my connection with God. Since then I’ve experienced God’s faithfulness to me, even when I was shattered, maybe especially when I was shattered. Maybe especially then. And with God-guys saying one thing or the other about how Christ’s sacrifice works to save us, all I can say is that Jesus’ death has become an even deeper mystery to me. This business of taking up my cross, of being crucified, a gruesome, naked death as a way to life, a mystery, something I don’t try to understand, but that I can trust and try to practice.

This is linked with #TellHisStory at InLinkz.