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.

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

Skittish Trout

It was just a wide spot in the stream where the mountain valley flattened out to pool and drink the icy water. Tall, snow-covered peaks reflected in its placid surface. Narrow shadows hung suspended in its middle: brook trout facing upstream and feeding on anything drifting through their territory. I had to crawl through the grass as I approached the pool so as not to send the trout flying for cover in the undercut banks. Even then, the shadow of my fly rod arching across the water panicked them. Skittish trout, they’re called. So attuned to hawks and fishermen and other predators are they, that any movement from above is perceived as a threat. And rightly so.

I have a friend who calls herself a skittish trout. She grew up in a guilt-based, authoritarian religion and church. Any question, doubt, comment, or difficulty she had with her childhood faith and church was met with anger and derision. Intellectual abuse, she called it. Not that she didn’t have faith, she just wondered. As soon as she was old enough, she fled organized religion. And today anytime even a shadow of that old-time religion falls across her life she flies for the safety of the cutbank, peering out, yet still wondering.

In the process of starting a church, I’ve discovered large pools of skittish trout. Unfortunately, stories similar to my friend’s abound. Church splits, pastoral infidelity and dishonesty, harsh judgementalism, cold cliquishness, unbending dogma, rampant self-righteousness, cookie cutter lifestyles and answers, authoritarian leadership, political partisanship, powerless people, and ample—but common—human failings in what is supposed a divine institution are just a few of the shadows that the church and her people cast across the pool of modern life.

Almost all of us have, or have heard, a similar story. The scars and their impact vary. I started following Christ at age fifteen and began looking for a church to attend. Even I knew that was the way of things, but I was naive about the dress code. My hair flowed below my shoulders and my jeans were ratty. It was the 1970s. At the end of the sermon, I tramped forward in response to the “altar call.” I knelt to pray and a pastor (At least I think he was a pastor. To me he looked, acted, and smelled like one) approached and asked me if I wanted to become a Christian.

I proudly told him how just days earlier I had become a Christian at a church camp. He frowned at me and shook his head.

“You need to get your hair cut before you can become a Christian, son,” he said as if this truth saddened him deeply.

I was young and stupid and argued with him. “Jesus had long hair. Haven’t you seen those pictures of him?”

Not impressed with my theological acumen he simply offered, “I have a pair of scissors in the back. I can get them, cut your hair, and then you can pray and become a Christian.”

I decided to look for another church.

Since then I have been in three churches where the pastors have had affairs, and within most of the churches I have been a part, have seen and heard things that come straight from the gates of hell not the streets of heaven, and have made my own sad mistakes as a person and a pastor (proving the adage that if I find the perfect church I had better not join it because I’ll ruin it).

Two things:

One, apparently not being a skittish trout but maybe a stupid one, I have yet to fly for the cutbank and hide. Sometimes I feel like a singed moth circling the flame. I’m not sure why I don’t fly. Probably because God keeps blocking the escape route. Probably also because with each scar the church and I have left on one another, there are equal—and more—marks of grace and life this crazy body called the church has bestowed on me. That she has allowed me to seek my calling and share my thoughts, ideas, and life through her may be the least of them. And when I parade before my eyes the faces of friends I have made, and how they have enriched my life, in this human/divine community, I am humbled and grateful.

Two, dealing with people’s souls is dangerous and delicate. So too, I’ve discovered, is this starting and being a church, and mysterious. We’re not selling widgets or snake oil. We’re attempting to touch God and, through rugged and calloused human hands, places in ourselves God hid in our deepest reaches, places we’ve hidden even from ourselves. Hanging out a sign reading, “Got God?” does not do anyone, especially the Creator of our souls, justice. This, sharing our souls, spiritual journeys, and lives, is not marketing. It cannot be shrink wrapped into some tidy package. It’s messy, alive, sensitive, unpredictable, sometimes ugly, often beautiful. Tread softly.

I wish finding God and ourselves and living in a Christ community with truth and grace could be written up in a book or produced in a program or bulleted in a three point outline, or contained in a church building (and sometimes God even works through these things). But alas we and God and life are deeper and messier than that.

And none of this is new. Even the first two humans hid from God after they discovered their bare, naked distance from and need for Him. We have been flying from God ever since. Skittish trout indeed. Fear not, however, God is no predator, but is a patient, persistent angler.

Making God’s Top Ten List

At year’s end newspapers and magazines often publish top ten lists containing what they deem the most significant happenings of the past twelve months. They serve as reminders of what we have just navigated and also reflections of what that author, if not our culture, values. This year’s compilations included the typical earth-shattering events:

• Barack Obama, a gifted young man, is elected President.
• Paul Newman, a gifted old man, passes away.
• Wall Street, seemingly the lifeblood of our economy, flounders.
• Mike Shanahan, coach of the Denver Broncos, is fired.

What if God published such a list? Would it reflect the same priorities? Or would it recognize events we don’t? What if God’s list looked more like this?

• Dennis, a very important and busy businessman, does nothing.
• Brett shares the remote control helicopter he received for Christmas with his younger sister.
• Gladys, an elderly woman living on a small pension, puts $1 in the Salvation Army kettle.
• Mary looses her job, and only source of income, and is not fearful.
• Kevin accepts God’s view of him.
• The Smiths grieve the loss of their mother and sit together in loving silence.
• Cheryl turns to the person behind her in line and smiles.
• Jared asks God to be his friend.
• Abdul prays for the peace of Christ in his war-torn country.
• Robert James is born and breathes his first breath.
• Tony and Marie forgive one another and remain married.
• Daryl reads a good novel.
• Rhonda and Clay kiss.
• George faces the end of his long life with open eyes and heart.
• Cassie offers a neighbor a cool drink of water and some shade.
• Christmas arrives again.

I wonder. Or, because of my blurred, earth-bound perspective, have I missed too? Now we see through a glass darkly, Scripture says. Jesus never seemed to focus on the “big story” of the Roman world but rather on the “little things” in the people around him. The first shall be last and the last first, he said.

Still, I occasionally find myself dreaming of doing something that would land me on one of those earthly top ten lists, "Time Magazine’s Man of the Year." There are those days, though, where simply getting out of bed and facing another day feels astronomically monumental. And other days when my plans and actions of reaching for the moon go unnoticed. Those are the times it’s heartening that God seems to notice the ordinary with the same eyes he sees the extraordinary. Faith pleases God, we’re told. Reality is I spend most of my days with only a mustard seed of faith in my pocket. Too often I can’t even find that among the lint. But maybe, just maybe that’s enough to make God's list.

Kids, Eye Glasses, Skateboards, Snakes, and God

I once accompanied a nine year-old boy on a search for his lost glasses. I did it out of duty. And I held no real hope of finding them. I went only to quell my guilt for not searching when we would inevitably go purchase another pair. Plus this particular nine year-old is a delight and even searching for a needle in a haystack with him could be fun.

We parked my truck near the place he remembered last having his glasses—a walking path snaking through our small community and landscaped with large river rocks. He had been at the new skateboard park and I reckoned we had about three quarters of a mile of path to search from here to there. I knew the path well and was naively picturing the most likely places to search. The boy had followed no such direct route, however, instead following the more fun and loopy nine year-old course.

First, we searched the bushes around every rock he had climbed and launched himself off. Next we veered off the path and hunted around a statue of a flying horse he had investigated. Then we left the path altogether and cut diagonally through a parking lot. But even that was not direct. He showed me the sidewalk railing he had climbed over, climbed over it again, and then cut behind the dumpster and finally sauntered through the restaurant, again. It was truly random! Back on the path we peered under every weed in the spot he had stopped to chase a garter snake. He had bent over there and thought that might be the point his glasses slid off, though he couldn’t really remember. Here I engaged in the search earnestly agreeing it was the most likely place. But we came up empty and continued by scouring every dink and dodge he took off the path until we finally reached the skate park.

All the while, we had a fun conversation about snakes and any other stuff that came up. This was definitely not a mathematically precise power walk or even a systematic search. I observed he didn’t so much walk as bounce, light and airy with his feet only touching the ground for the fun of it. I learned the names of various skateboard moves and saw the familiar, I thought, walking path for the first time. We spooked another garter snake and marveled at how fast they are. We talked about likely fishing holes as we walked near the river. We wondered what fun things we could do with the $70 to $100 his new glasses would cost to replace, if we found his old ones. Reversing the Apostle Paul’s meaning “I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” and I enjoyed every moment of it. Being a nine year-old ain’t so bad.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he called the children onto his lap and told his adult followers to have a child-like faith. Maybe the “kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus talked about it and lived it, is more than a “straight and narrow path” defined by rules and time lines and well defined adult perceptions and ideas. What if the freedom Jesus promised his followers is better illustrated (and lived!) by a young boy turning his search for his glasses into another adventure? What if our pursuit of meaning—and Jesus himself—sometimes became a fun and loopy path? These things I pondered on the way back home.

But I had pretty much given up the search. After all, I had begun the search thinking I would not find what I was looking for (to paraphrase Bono). I would look down at the ground occasionally just because I should. Nearing my truck, I guiltily glanced down again and to my utter disbelief spied my nine year-old companion’s glasses sitting in the landscaping bark neatly folded as if someone had purposefully placed them there.

The nine year-old squealed; his face beamed; we high fived. We danced around as if we had found Jesus’ “pearl of great price.”

“I was just praying we’d find ‘em,” he said. “Jesus dropped ‘em right where you were lookin’.” Immediately my adult mind found a more plausible explanation for how the glasses ended up neatly folded where we had already searched. I wish it hadn’t.