Our Season of Faith: Sidewalk Cracks and Open Ladders

​Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.

How’s that for a crippling thought! Then there’s the horrible disaster of walking under a ladder. Lord, save us! All around us, all sorts of behavior tempt bad luck to rain on our parades. Knock on wood.

Do you suppose our faith might have its own set of cracks and ladders – dearly held beliefs, superstitions even – from which we must never stray? Even though theologically, they might not hold much water, we don’t dare set them aside for a moment. We need their certainty to keep us on course and out of trouble. So, we step over them or around them all the time.

Why take chances?

That’s certainly understandable with personal salvation hanging in the balance. The stakes seem mighty high. Every day. If justification is the wager, it’s comforting to sing a familiar song. Let’s all hum along. Let’s cling to certainty. Let’s not gamble with doubt. Let’s just count the cracks in our spiritual sidewalks and avoid them just to be on the safe side. And move on. Unless there’s an open ladder ahead.

So, what happens? If we allow it, our heavenly pilgrimage becomes a tenuous trip along a hazard-filled sidewalk. Rather than raising our eyes upward, seeking the boundless richness of faith in front of us, some of our beliefs push our heads downward as we measure carefully where our steps fall.

The 14th edition of Our Season of Faith this month will suggest that maybe there’s a more liberating way to walk for all of us, where our souls can turn toward the divine light as easily as a morning glory turns its purple face toward the sun. Maybe there’s a holy sojourn out there where our entire being rests in God along a sidewalk free of cracks and ladders, where our attention is not cast upon our feet.

Over four Sundays, September 21 through October 12, Rev. Jamie Brame will examine four familiar cracks (ladders, if you prefer) in our sidewalks and tempt us, with trepidation, to consider stepping on them (or walking under them). Just to see what happens. He’ll wrestle with certainty and fight with doubt. Our Season of Faith, titled 4 temptations, should be quite a battle.

Jamie will offer new wine in new wineskins. Come and see. Come and hear. Come and drink. Music during OSOF will be provided by The Four Temptations, with live performances during worship.
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Don’t be tempted to miss a single Sunday!