Ritual Redefined
Grace Bestowed Amidst the Mundane
I’m working on a new book, largely influenced by my time with various churches this past year and by what seems to have resonated most with you all of you.
The idea is encourage the use of imagination when reading Scripture. I believe that our divinely inspired text was intended to be immersive, something that engages our whole body, not solely our intellect. It should stir our emotions and our creativities, dancing through our minds like something living and vibrant, not solely something archaic that is worthy of intellectual study. (Two things can be true at once.)
So in much the same way I have in past newsletters, wherein I re-engage with a piece of Scripture in a new way, or more specifically, from a new perspective, that is what my next book sets out to do.
It’s still in a fairly early stage — but progress is quick, and with the right amount of inspiration and motivation, who knows.
That being said, there’s a sneak peek I wanted to share with you today. It’s a topic that’s been turning itself over in my head a lot lately because I think that amidst the chaotic world we find ourselves in at present, there’s something increasingly important about this notion of ritual.
Rituals are ways to imbue meaning, to construct purposeful encounters with the Divine, to ground us in our present spiritual circumstance, to point us back to Divine Power when we’re so often surrounded by human strivings.
In my book, the story I turned to in order to more fully explore this notion of ritual was Jesus’s baptism.
So if you’d like to give that a read before diving in, you can look up Matthew 3. Otherwise, keep reading, and consider this re-telling from the perspective of a Pharisee.
This painting is beautiful in that it renders a collection of saints as witnesses to Jesus’s baptism — saints that lived long after Jesus’s life and death. And now, we too can join this chorus of saints in bearing witness to this beautiful story… but perhaps from a perspective other than our own, to learn a little extra something.
A Pharisee – Ritual Redefined
I know the law. I know the Scriptures. I have been trained to find meaning in the mundane. And yet, there is nothing mundane about what lies before me.
We walk through the wilderness. There is no road, only a trail trampled down by the feet of past travellers. Much like the way in which we participate in a faith that stretches back centuries, our practices and songs and rituals laid down as offerings on the path we now walk.
We arrive at a river, and it reminds me of time. Our lives are like standing in place while time rushes by, the currents misplaced perhaps by microfractions. Compared to God, we are but persons in a river, time flowing by without our making but the smallest of impacts. Whereas God is the earth, cupping time’s flow with Divine hands.
A man stands on the bank. A wild man, to be frank. Gone is the polish of templar piety. The rituals that connect us with the Divine aren’t present here in the mud by the river.
And while my colleagues murmur among themselves at the audacity of this man, I can’t help but be reminded of Elijah. Of Isaiah. “When you walk through the rivers, I will not sweep over you.”
Then, when the man spoke of fire, I could only be further reminded. “When you walk through fires, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze.”
The waters offered by the prophet, the fire offered by another yet to come, they can do us no harm, not if they are divinely orchestrated rituals to remind us of our promised peace and presence.
I am a creature of habit. I prefer routine and security over impulse and originality. It’s part of why I felt called to religious leadership in the first place. There is something beautiful and important about preserving tradition, upholding law, providing people with regulation.
All of that to say, I find myself entirely out of my comfort zone.
