Voices from Pulpit and Pew

The Reverend Dr. Merle Jordan, PhD. taught his students the distinction between an “operational theology” and a “professed theology.” The latter refers to what we think and say about what we believe, derived more from what we have been told and taught than experienced. The former refers to what Jordan calls the “implicit religious story” of an individual or congregation and what it shows to be the truth about what we believe and value. Someone once said that the distinction between an ‘operational theology’ and a ‘professed theology’ is the difference between the heart and the head, and thinking in such terms is helpful. Jordan makes the distinction a bit clearer when he quotes Edwin A. Hoover who defines “operational theology” as a “person’s beliefs about the world, humankind and God, based on experience, perceptions, myths and hopes and that person’s belief about his/her place in relation to all this.” The critical point here is a belief system based upon experience and an “implicit religious story” that reflects those beliefs. As I look back as pastor of First Church, I realize that I have always been more interested in our “operational theology” than our “professed theology,” that is, more interested in what I have seen and experienced as being actually “at work” in the development of our implicit religious story, than any set of creedal formulations that come from without and not from within.
Three illustrations that make clear what I mean by “operational theology are as follows:
In his book, All the Dammed Angels, Professor William Muehl of Yale Divinity School tells this insightful short story:
One December afternoon many years ago, a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to claim their children after the last pre-Christmas class session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his or her hands the ‘surprise’, the brightly wrapped package on which he or she had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat and wave all at the same time slipped and fell. The ‘surprise’ flew out of his grasp, landed on the tile floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash.
The child’s first reaction was one of stunned silence. But in a moment, he set up an inconsolable wail. His father, thinking to comfort him, knelt down and murmured, ‘Now, it doesn’t matter, son. It doesn’t matter.’ His mother, however, much wiser in such affairs, swept the boy into her arms and said, ‘Oh but it does matter. It matters a great deal.’ And she wept with her son.
This story is poignantly illustrative of what God says to us. “Oh, but it does matter.” It does matter to God; it matters a great deal whether we come to experience the incarnation of God’s love amidst the shattered dreams and scattered expectations on which we have tried to work so diligently.
The second anecdote comes from Merle Jordan’s Taking on the gods: The Task of the Pastoral Counselor. He writes:
“A familiar story concerns a little girl named Maria. Her mother was a devout, religious woman, who was trying to raise Maria with a sense of love and acceptance. She didn’t want Maria to be a fearful person. The essence of the mother’s teachings to Maria was:
‘God loves you; God will guide you; God will protect you. You never need to be afraid.’
But one night there was a terrible thunderstorm. Maria was in her bedroom by herself. She had her nose pressed to the windowpane, watching the lightning zigzag through the sky, and listening to the crashing of thunder. ‘Mommy, Mommy, I’m scared,’ she cried out. Her mother came to the door of Maria’s room and said, ‘Now, Maria, haven’t I taught you that God loves you and protects you and you never have to be afraid of anything?’ ‘I know, Mommy, I believe all that. But tonight, I need someone with skin on.’
A healthy congregation wears its skin well, being there ‘in person’ in times of celebration and sorrow, in times of compatibility and conflict.
The third story is told by Rabbi Harold Kushner about ‘a day at the beach.’
“I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst in tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spent so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”
The stories, sermons, letters, and reflections included in this book reveal the operational theology of our congregation. Those included here are regrettably too few but hopefully, they will say enough. We know that we matter to God and to each another, flaws, and all, and that as a people of faith, we possess and exhibit the courage to have our “skin on” and “hands” out to make incarnate the redeeming presence and love of God.