Setting: A church membership interview.
Elder: Well, let’s start off with you telling me, as simply as you can, what you believe.
Church Goer: God is real and he loves me.
E: Okay, can you say a little more about God?
CG: He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t make you feel bad for showing up late or having to cancel plans last minute. It’s pretty obvious he’s smarter than you but not in an obnoxious way, just in a fun to be around way. Really good at listening and giving advice but doesn’t always have to talk. Can hang out comfortably in silence.
E: You said God doesn’t make you feel bad. What do you mean by that? Is sin a factor in your relationship?
CG: God and I both know I have a lot of problems and I’m not very reliable but I am lonely. Is that what you mean?
E: Uh, I think so. So, how did you find God?
CG: Oh I didn’t. I met him through my friend Jesus.
E: Yes, Jesus. What do you believe about Jesus?
CG: He’s my friend and he’s how I know God.
E: How did you come to know Jesus?
CG: I was at a party with my friends and I said I liked this drink I had and they said yeah sure, but the best wine ever was made by a guy named Jesus who made it out of water at a different party and gives it to anyone who asks for it and it pretty much ruins all other wines for you forever. And he can also show you God.
E: Oh.
CG: So I told my friends to introduce me to him so they did, and he really does make the best wine and also bread, and he says wild stuff about his flesh and blood and believe it or not when you eat with Jesus that’s how you meet God. God’s always there too, plus a bunch of Jesus’ other friends who are weird but pretty cool if you get to know them.
E: Are you talking about communion?
CG: Is that where you eat Jesus’s bread and wine with him and his friends?
E: Yes.
CG: Then yes.
E: And you said that’s how you know God?
CG: Yeah. You hang out with Jesus and his friends and if you look around it turns out they all have at least as many problems as you and they are also annoying, but it’s weird because Jesus doesn’t have any problems and he’s never annoying, and he somehow never gets annoyed by anyone there including you. So if Jesus isn’t annoyed you kind of feel like you don’t need to be either and you should relax. You might think it’s hard to get to God, and it might be I guess except that Jesus is there and he says to talk to God like this:
“Our Father, who art in heaven…
Both: hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our
E: debts CG: trespasses
Both: as we forgive
E: our debtors. CG: those who’ve trespassed against us.
Both: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
E: So why is it Jesus who introduces people to God?
CG: They seem close. I think they’re roommates.
E: Could you say more?
CG: Once Jesus died and God raised him from the dead.
E: There we go. Why did Jesus die?
CG: You don’t seem surprised.
E: Well, I’ve just-
CG: Jesus got murdered and stayed dead for like three days, and then he just…came back to life and ate with a bunch of people again. He really likes meals.
E: He does seem to.
CG: It’s hard to make sense of. Why’d God let him die in the first place? It’s weird enough for Jesus to die and come back to life, but his friend told me once that when it happened there were earthquakes and the sky got dark and other dead people woke up. It’s like the whole world broke, but just the bad parts. He’s so good that when he died, death stopped working. He tells the story too like he wasn’t surprised. I mean he’s sad at the sad parts—I don’t know who isn’t—but he mostly seems happy and proud, not like a guy whose friends and family killed him. It’s the same kind of proud and happy as when he eats with friends.
E: The bad parts broke. Death stopped working. That’s just it.
CG: Once you know Jesus too it’s like you’re never not with him. Actually it’s like you never were not with him, you just used to not know it. I mean Jesus mostly stays at home with God but it seems like he’s so close, or you’re so close.
E: So how do you stay close to Jesus?
CG: Oh, well, I don’t. Like I said, I am not very reliable, and sometimes I don’t think about him or show up to plans. He just always seems close, and sometimes I remember and other times I don’t. But when I do, I know it was still true even when I wasn’t remembering it. And there’s always an open invitation to dinner. We have a lot of the same friends, so they’ve told me stories about him. That makes him seem close.
E: Anything else you’d like to tell me?
CG: Jesus has a ton of friends named Mary. Even his mom is named Mary, she wrote the coolest song.
E: That’s really true.
CG: I guess if I had to sum it all up I’d say this thing Jesus’s friend taught me:
“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth…
Both: and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy
E: Spirit CG: Ghost
Both: born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy
E: Spirit CG: Ghost
Both: the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”
E: I wish you’d said that at the beginning.
Gorgeous! Thank you. Can it really be this simple?! Yeah. It can🙌🏻🙌🏻