Saturday, June 5, 2010

Sometimes God Scares Me Spitless

After I first started following Christ, circa 1972, I devoured the Bible. I loved it; I needed it. The stories about Jesus especially gave me hope. He was so self-assured, kind, smart, unflappable--all the things I didn’t feel I was. The way he treated the underdogs with respect, dignity, and love let me know he would treat me likewise.

Not to mention the miracles and all the other amazing stuff he did and said. Jesus made me feel good. I couldn’t get enough and toted my Bible everywhere I went.

But after a time certain parts bothered me. For example the story of Ananias and Sapphira dying after lying to Peter and God about how much of their money they donated from the sale their property scared me spitless. I mean I was--and still am--far from perfect. What would stop God from just taking me out? I probably deserved it.

How do we deal with the Bible stories about God we are uncomfortable with, don’t like, or that scare us spitless?

For a time I ignored them and only paid attention to the sections that made me feel good.

In seminary, though, I had to face these ugly pictures of God and humans. It is in seminary also, however, I learned to reason the difficult passages away.

One branch of scholarship simply decided that the parts of the Bible they were uncomfortable with were not inspired by God but made up by humans. The trouble with this, as you probably know, is that more of the Bible is harsh than sweet and, in the end, this group began to call the whole book myth.

The opposite branch cried foul to that but developed a whole series of complicated systematic theologies to explain many of these problem passages. Some of these explanations made sense, some did not. I agree with many of them. But they are often convoluted and too complex.

Slowly I’ve come to see that maybe the problem is not with God or the Bible, but with me. My view of God is askew. And coming up with ways to validate my perspective on life and God only puts more distance between God and me. I have begun to believe maybe God holds more in his hand for me (and all of creation) than me feeling good.

If God’s top priority is other than making me feel good or be happy, then maybe it’s okay to be uncomfortable, not like, and be scared spitless by certain parts of the Bible and God. Maybe I’m supposed to feel that way and not know all the answers.

It seems to me God does not view pain, death, and even life the same way we do. Are they to God as splinters and knee scrapes are to parents of young children? We care but know they are not the end of the world.

Somehow I’m beginning to see how God, with his vast view of eternity, knows that seventy to eighty years (more or less) of life containing a mixed bag of pain and joy that ends in death is only a blink of his eternal eye. Beyond that blink lies much more than we can think or imagine.

Should I be scared that God let Ananias and Sapphira die because of their lies? Sure enough. God is not safe. But God is so good that he will not let what happens to us in this broken world to define him or us, because there is so much more in store.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Presto Chango

When I re-introduced myself at my twenty year high school reunion, most of my classmates simply gaped. I was unrecognizable to them. Not just because I had grown older, but because I had become someone entirely different. One long-lost friend said, “Eugene, we voted you most likely to be dead.”

In a way he was right. I had died. All most of them could remember about me was that I was a good [sic] source for drugs and that I had flunked my sophomore year and had disappeared (dropped out) in the fall of my junior year. There are no pictures of me in the yearbooks, even my name was expunged for what would have been my junior and senior years.

I had died. At least that angst driven, drug addicted, confused, human IED I was back then had.

Robert McKee, in his book Story, writes that we humans don’t “take any risks we don’t have to, change if we don’t have to. Why should we? Why do anything the hard way if we can get what we want the easy way?”

How is it then that I had changed (again not gray hair, wrinkles, and a bit of a gut) so in twenty years? McKee was right. It was not easy and it came at the cost of two lives.

Every story has a turning point. Robert McKee calls it the “negation of the negation.” This is the point in a story where the worst that could possibly happen does--and then gets worse. Nothing changes, truly changes, in our stories until this point.

For Jesus’ friends nothing could get worse than Jesus’ awful death. They are grief stricken, deflated, finished. Every dream, hope, and plan for their world to get better was nailed to the cross and drained of life.

But wait! Jesus conquers death, is resurrected! Now he’ll show those Romans and those unbelieving religious people. Now Jesus’ll set things right. Jesus’ll get ‘em.
But instead of using his power to conquer evil, he wanders around for forty days eating fish and teaching and saying cryptic things such as, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

I can imagine the folks at the back of the crowd, confused looks on their faces, asking, “Who’s this Holy Spirit guy? We’re his witnesses? What does that mean?” Then Jesus floats off into heaven.

Things just got a whole lot worse. Jesus has disappeared in a cloud and left the entire revolution up to losers like Peter and Bartholomew and you and me. This is the plan, however, the true turning point. But they don’t know that. We know the end of the story, they don’t. This is it for them. Only now are they ready for change. And change they do.

In The Message, in his introduction to Acts, Eugene Peterson writes, “The story of Jesus doesn’t end with Jesus. It continues in the lives of those who believe in him. . . . [T]hey are in on the action of God, God acting in them, God living in them. Which also means, of course, in us.”

We only change if we have to. The easy way would have been for Jesus to bodily stick around. Jesus, it seems, never did anything the easy way.

I’m glad for that because I was dead at sixteen, out of earthly options. My transformation cost two lives: mine and Jesus'. I am so fortunate one of those “who believe in him,” two thousands years after the fact, showed me the One who had given his life for me. Then and only then was I changed!

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Bible Versus Reality TV

The Bible records more murder, mayhem, sadness, and disgusting human behavior than an entire season of Desperate Housewives. Quentin Tarantino has nothing on this violent disturbing book. To me this is rather confusing. Wouldn’t more people like the Bible and maybe even believe in God if the Bible were more like those sweet, uplifting Chicken Soup for the Soul books or an episode of Barney?

Take Judges 21 for example. In the Book of Judges a bunch of guys need wives and so slaughter every person in another town except the virgins. Then in the Book of Ruth everyone but the two women die in the first paragraph. Wow.

Sometimes I just want to read the sections that tell about Jesus holding children on his lap and healing blind people.

So, why did God let all this awful stuff find its way into the Bible?

Reality TV is not real. If that spoils it for you, I apologize. Obviously there are elements of these shows that are real. The competition, the ups and downs of relationships, the tears and laughter are true elements of life. But in the name of entertainment the producers and directors carefully craft what we see, manipulating situations and splicing scenes, and therefore producing an hour of TV that is anything but real. The producers keep the show just dangerous enough to be exciting but safe enough so they don’t get sued.

Is that what we expect of God and the Bible? That he direct and produce, manipulate and splice life so that it’s safe but exciting?

Maybe that’s why we get so uncomfortable with the violent, painful sections of Scripture. They are bold, gritty, ugly, real, not sanitized. And God rarely gives a narrated voice over to explain why he would let such things happen. Just like real life.

And when I am being real, I appreciate these sometimes incomprehensible sections of the Bible more than reality TV because they let me know God will be there for me even when my heart and life is at its ugliest.

Eugene
P.S. This was first written for and adapted from www.bibleconversation.com

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Worship: What's In Your Wallet?

What’s most important to you? I once heard a speaker who claimed if we just look at our check registers and our calendars, they will reveal what we value most. Trouble is my wife won’t let me have the check book. But seriously how we spend our time and money carries a clue to what we value.

It’s true. My calendar is full of meetings with people and time for family and writing. Gaps in my calendar also reveal that I struggle to find time for other things I value. Hiking, fishing, and hunting are very important to me. Yet I shoehorn them in. Worshiping God also. Too often God sits patiently in the lobby of my life waiting for a cancelation in my schedule. In the end I am the one who suffers for this.

Psalm 95 is an encouraging picture of what life can look like when we put worshiping God together first.
Ever wonder how many of the 2.5 billion Christians (worldwide) fit attending a worship service into their schedule this last weekend? Probably not. Only us pastors think about such things, and pollsters. And God; God thinks about such things, even though he knows the answer.

Worship seems pretty important to God, especially people doing it together.

Just look at God’s check book and calendar, so to speak. God spent a lot of time and money on worship. God appointed an entire tribe, the Levites, whose only job was to make sure Israel worshiped. God commands Moses to fund and build an elaborate Tabernacle for people to worship in. Scripture mentions worship around 250 times. And, whether the word is used or not, worship is the main theme of the Psalms.

Ever wonder why? After all it’s a pretty strange thing to do.

Psalm 95 gives us some answers.

Worship focuses our relationship with God and others who love God. “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord. . . Let us come before him. . . the Rock of our salvation.”

Worship fixes our priorities. “For the Lord is our great God, the great King above all gods.”

Worship gives us a real picture of who we are and who God is. “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

Worship communicates we matter to God. “And we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”

Worship draws us into God’s presence in a way other activities cannot. Those who don’t worship and listen to God’s voice will “never enter [his] rest.”

Unfortunately even when I go to worship, I don’t always connect with God. For me that is because, on that day, it is a duty, or a nuisance, or God doesn’t seem to meet “my needs.” On the days I do connect, however, it’s because I go to meet with God, to spend quality time with God and his people. And that is when my priorities realign. Psalm 95 communicates that worship is the open door to God’s dwelling place. Let us enter in.

Eugene first wrote this blog for http://www.bibleconversation.com