“You can’t sit on the fence with Jesus” I say to a Year 8 girl with blonde plaits. It’s 2014 and we’re lying on a patch of grass overlooking the ocean. The bell is about to ring for dinner at the youth camp I’m leading on.
“You’re either on the field or you’re off it. There’s no middle ground. Either Jesus died for your sins and is the God of the universe or he’s not” I say. She nods. She thinks she’s ready to accept Jesus as Lord because she wants to be on the field. Everyone else on camp is. She pulls the grass between her fingertips.
By the end of 5 intensive days of Bible talks, on the night where the music is a little louder and the singing is more of a zealous cry, she makes her decision. She jumps off the fence and runs onto the field with her hands outstretched, crying with joy. I pray for her with thankfulness.
It was simple logic at the time. Jesus was either the Son of God who died for your sins or he wasn’t. You were either going to spend eternity in heaven with Him or you weren’t. You either had the Holy Spirit dwelling within you or you didn’t.
This made sense to 19-year-old me. I thought it would be something that made sense for everyone, regardless of age.
It wasn’t until I tasted trauma and read widely with a more critical gaze, had conversations with people from different walks of life (who hadn’t arrived in a church building to share it) and lived and travelled in a variety of cultures around the world, that I recognised how narrow minded and naive this fenceless acceptance of ‘truth’ was.
It’s been four years since I was that youth leader lying on the grass and now, I believe in fence sitters’ rights.
“But what if Jesus comes back tomorrow?” Christians cry. “You’re simply unwilling to give up the sinful pleasures of the temporal world. If he came back tomorrow you’d be burning in the fiery pits of hell for all of eternity!”
Yes, what if Jesus does return tomorrow? What if Jesus came back to Earth to find little old me, swinging my legs over a fence, looking over at the field and looking back over the fence, overwhelmed and confused by the narratives humans tells themselves to make sense of the world. “Really God? Really? You think it’s easy for me to make this choice?” I’d decry. Surely God, with all His eternal wisdom and understanding would get it?
But hey, what would I know, and what would you?
~
I spoke to a young man about this concept in Melbourne last year. He used a different analogy.
Maybe we’re “all like sheep who have gone astray, bah bah do bah bah” (Buchanan, 2003) and we’re roaming on a dusty, desert plain. In the middle of the plain is a well- the water of life if you will. Many religions believe that the best way to access this well is to walk over to a sheep pen that’s been constructed near the well and cuddle up with other sheeps and have beautiful sheep fellowship. But some sheep don’t want to be in a pen. Some sheep are more susceptible to the wind and some aren’t particularly social with their own species. Some sheep have black wool and some have patchy wool. Some have gold plated hoofs and some only 3 legs. Some have no wool at all and have been shaved by the traumas of existence. Some are more nomadic than others. What if the lost sheep don’t want to be found?
I believe the most important thing here is not that we’re in a pen, but that we’re pointing towards the well. Some sheep are closer than others, and achieve that through prayer or meditation or wide reading. Some find that they can focus more on the well surrounded by a community of others, in a pen, say. But the well is more important than the pen. And you can access the well without the pen.
I think if Jesus exists, if God is loving, He will judge us not on the pens we find ourselves in, but in the direction we’re facing. There are a lot of people in our churches with their backs to the well and we can see that in the corruption, abuse and false teaching that riddle our places of worship.
I may be a one-legged, black sheep hobbling around a desert plain, but in the distance I catch a glimpse of the well. I don’t know what’s in the well- it could be nothing- but I think it’s worth aiming for. The pen is a little off course for me right now and I’m okay with that. It may be forever. As long as I’m fumbling along in that direction, I’m going to be okay.
I’m going to be okay.
Also published on Medium.
