My Journey of faith – Cees Van Beek
St Paul’s Athens – 24th september 2023
When Nelly asked me a few weeks ago if I would like to share my journey of faith in lieu of a regular sermon, I have to admit my initial reaction wasn’t immediately positive.
Not only because it’s a vulnerable and rather scary thing to do, standing here on the pulpit in front of the congregation, sharing your innermost thoughts and experiences.
It was also a sort of imposter syndrome that held me back.
Did I actually have a journey? Isn’t it more of a messy ride, with a good amount of wrong turns and detours as well?
And what about that other, even more pretentious word, ‘faith’? Surely, I try to go to church every Sunday, I love the Anglican liturgical and musical traditions, and I was raised by very devout parents.
But what about my own faith? Don’t I have too many questions and doubts for it to even be inspiring to others?
But then I read the story of Jonah that we just heard.
If ever there was a strange journey of faith! To sum up: a disobedient prophet rejects his divine commission, is cast overboard in a storm and swallowed by a great fish, rescued in a marvellous manner, but then complains to God when He doesn’t carry out the destruction He had threatened.
My journey will be slightly less spectacular I can reveal, but I do feel a bit more comfortable now to share mine.
So buckle up and bear with me.
****
In the family I grew up in, faith – or at least religion – was omnipresent.
Me, my 6 siblings and my parents went to a strict Dutch reformed church twice a Sunday. We would attend Sunday school afterwards, and stay home the rest of the day reading, making music or playing board games.
Playing with the neighbours’ kids, going for a bike ride or doing anything else frivolous was not allowed on Sunday, the Day of the Lord!
During the week, we would go to an equally strict reformed secondary school, for which we had to bike 40 minutes one way, come rain or shine. Girls were not allowed to wear trousers, and skirts had to have a decent length (if not, they would be provided with a very unfashionable, but very decent skirt by the concierge).
After each meal, my father or mother would read a Bible passage, and especially my mother often stressed that you can’t really call yourself a Christian if you didn’t model your life after Christ’s example. I will never forget the weeks where an Afghan refugee family would sleep on the floor in our living room because their asylum application had been denied and they had nowhere else to stay.
Someone who deserves special mention is my maternal grandfather, after whom I’m named. His was a deep faith, a true kindness, a mischievous sense of humour, and an unconditional love for his children and grandchildren. He and my dear grandmother prayed daily for us. What a blessing that was. He was to me a real holy man, in the true sense of the word. To quote C.S. Lewis in his letter to Mary Shelburne in 1953, “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing … it is irresistible. If even ten per cent of the world’s population had it, would not the whole world be converted and happy before a year’s end?”.
Not everything was smooth sailing though.
The narrow-mindedness of the Calvinist church I grew up in became increasingly suffocating. The very negative views that my church held about homosexuality didn’t help either. I increasingly felt drawn to more inclusive churches in which the Gospel message of salvation wasn’t filtered through a rigid dogmatic system, but was preached fully and abundantly.
In 2007, I found a lovely and welcoming church community in Rotterdam: St Mary’s Anglican and Episcopal Church. That’s how I became Anglican, and that’s why I’m standing here today.
***
What has this journey taught me over the years? Let me share with you 3 insights that are important to me.
- The comfort of baptism
When we enter this church, the first thing we encounter is the baptismal font. And that’s for a reason. We need to be constantly reminded of our baptism as the outward and visible sign of God’s grace.
To me, that’s profoundly comforting. God’s grace towards us doesn’t start with us, our efforts, our righteousness, our (often failing) attempts at living a life of integrity and holiness.
No, God takes the initiative. He is there first and choses us, not the other way around.
The French Reformer John Calvin said it beautifully in 1536: “There is no doubt that all pious folk throughout life, whenever they are troubled by a consciousness of their faults, may venture to remind themselves of their baptism, that from it they may be confirmed in assurance of that sole and perpetual cleansing which we have in Christ’s blood.”
That abundance and generosity of God’s grace is something that the workers in the Vineyard in the Parable from the Gospel reading today still had to learn. We can hear it when they grumble about equality as they remind the landowner of the burden they bore.
We all love God’s grace – until it doesn’t line up with our expectations of fairness. Jonah wanted to see Nineveh’s downfall to satisfy his own sense of justice.
But God’s ways are not our own, and our sense of what is fair is not necessarily what is fair in God’s Kingdom.
- The value of inclusion
Inclusion is a word that is thrown around a lot these days. Often times, when we say that a church community is or should be ‘inclusive’, what we actually mean is ‘diverse’.
Diversity is about the factual makeup of our community – demographics such as gender, ethnicity, age or sexual orientation to name just a few.
Inclusion on the other hand is the practice of making sure that people feel ‘included’, embraced, valued, and safe.
Diversity is the ‘what’, inclusion is the ‘how’.
The Church of England has fortunately made great progress in this regard.
For me personally, that means a great deal.
To quote the pastoral letter of the Bishops of the Church of England from January this year:
“We are united in our desire for a church where everyone is welcome, accepted and affirmed in Christ. With joy we cherish and value the LGBTQI+ members of our churches and celebrate the gifts that each brings as a fellow Christian. We are united in our condemnation of homophobia. We commit ourselves – and urge the churches in our care – to welcome same-sex couples unreservedly and joyfully.” [END OF QUOTE]
Not everybody in our church community here in Athens might fully agree with that, and I understand.
But what I do hope, is that we can find common ground in a firm determination to fight prejudice and stigma on any ground. And that we will treat each other with empathy and respect, recognising that we are all God’s children, regardless of who we are or whom we love.
- The beauty of holiness
The third lesson is something that I would call the ‘beauty of holiness’, and that Oliver so eloquently described a few weeks ago. Liturgy, music, tradition.
They can lift us up when we are down, they can provide us with the words when we can’t find any.
When our heart is full, or maybe empty, the old hymns, with their profound wisdom and poetry, are the wings that can make our souls fly.
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.”
A kindness and mercy that Jonah needed to be reminded of, that the workers in the vineyard needed to be reminded, and that we all need to be reminded of.
Or another favourite of mine that we will sing as today’s Offertory:
“Jerusalem the golden,
With milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed.
I know not, O I know not,
What joys await us there,
What radiancy of glory,
What bliss beyond compare.”
***
In conclusion.
I recently came across an interesting survey that was conducted worldwide about which sentences we humans like to hear the most. The top 3 was:
- I love you;
- I forgive you;
- Supper is ready.
That is exactly what church is about. That is what God – through Christ – is about.
He loves us. He forgives us. And he shares Himself in Holy Communion.
However messy or inconsistent our own journeys of faith may be, may He be our daily compass.
