More Than Stone

I recently heard someone recount the story of the loss of their brother-in-law in the Iraq war. He said that for months the story of Lazarus plagued him. He continuously asked the question, “What does redemption look like when Jesus doesn’t show up and raise my brother from the dead?” Indeed. What does redemption look like when the dead are not raised? Or the house is foreclosed on? Or the cancer isn’t healed? Or the job never comes? Is it as simple as “we do not have, because we do not ask” or is there more to the story?

Since the fall, mankind usually does one of two things when confronted with something unpleasant. We hide or we blame. We cover the unpleasantness with fig leaves or we point the finger at something or someone. When Job’s entire life was destroyed, his friends spent chapter after chapter trying to appoint blame. When things don’t go well for us, as believers, we like to think we can find a reason so that we can zip it up in a nice, neat, explainable package. Well guess what, friends and neighbors? I don’t find that there are answers for everything…I think God is bigger than my explanations and excuses.

Consider the story of Job again. So, there is this guy named Job. He is righteous. He follows the law. God calls Job blameless and upright. So what does God do? He makes a bet with Satan and tells Satan to “do whatever you want to him, just don’t physically harm him.” This is what Job gets after being devoted to God? No matter how often I read the story, I don’t get this. Why would God do this? I have no idea. I can’t find an easy answer to this. We tend to gloss over this part of the story, by focusing on the fact that God restored Job by giving him a new family and more wealth than before. That’s great, but as a mother, having a new family would not replace the old one.

The story of Job doesn’t completely make sense to me. But neither does much of what I see in the world. Why do babies starve to death every day in Africa? Why do wonderful families face tragic events? Why do children lose fathers? On and on I could go with the questions. Furthermore, I don’t have the answers. I don’t know why these things happen, other than that we live in a fallen world and God is not done working towards the new creation.

So, with that said, “What does redemption look like when Jesus doesn’t show up and raise the dead”? In my mind, redemption is when God does not abandon the sufferer. Redemption occurs when our friends face our suffering with us, without hiding or blaming. Redemption occurs when we recognize that God is sovereignly ruling the universe, despite the injustice, sickness and violence that we live amidst.

When will we stop reading Scripture …

As “an owners manual” for life.
As a book that justifies our own hatred.
As a book that justifies our own righteousness.
As a book that justifies our own cultural milieu.
As a list of rules that everyone else is breaking.
As a book full of little bite sized “truth nuggets”.
As “Jesus’ Guide to Good Morality”.

When will we begin reading Scripture…

Without looking for 3 points and finding appropriate alliterations, because the story itself just isn’t enough?
As a story versus a list of logical, systematic categorizations?
With our eye on where God is taking this whole thing-namely A New Creation.
As the tale of God’s broken, fallible followers.
As a five part play, in which act 5 is not yet written.
As a beautiful, sweeping narrative of God’s actions in the world.

Ok, so I have 3 people that check my blog and it has summarily inspired me to post something witty and clever. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything. An update will have to suffice. I am currently going back to school for nursing and am having to retake all my sciences since it has been longer than 5 years since I was last in college. “5 years!”, you say, “How could that be? You couldn’t be a day over 25”. Ahh, my friends, alas, I am a bit over 25.

As I age, (ever so gracefully), the aforementioned sciences are kicking my young looking behind. Frankly, if I were to make a solution containing 33.6 g KCl with a total volume of 250 mL, I don’t care what the molarity of the solution is. Perhaps you do. If you find that question intriguing, maybe you’d like to take my final for me. My email contact info is below. Amidst my sciences, I am also taking a survey of the Old Testament and wish I had more brain power to dedicate to this class, as I’m really enjoying it. In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with perhaps the most blasphemous lament in the Scriptures. I find the honest humanity of Jeremiah in this text absolutely intriguing.

A brief history: Israel had already been crushed. Judah was on the way out with the Babylonian storm clouds right over the horizon. Yahweh has demanded that Jeremiah speak truth to Judah, who has her head in the sand. Now his friends want to kill him for raining on their parade. So, Jeremiah, takes Yahweh to task. Amidst his railing against God, Jeremiah praises God, then promptly wonders why God didn’t just kill Jeremiah in the womb. I love the raw nature of this lament.

Jer 20:7 O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me.
Jer 20:8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.
Jer 20:9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
Jer 20:10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.”
Jer 20:11 But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.
Jer 20:12 O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.
Jer 20:13 Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Jer 20:14 Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed!
Jer 20:15 Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “A son is born to you,” making him very glad.
Jer 20:16 Let that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon,
Jer 20:17 because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great.
Jer 20:18 Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?

I just got off the phone with a dear friend. Please pray for her. Her husband is across the country and unable to get home until next week. They are financially VERY tight, with no health insurance for Mom and Dad. She thinks her 4 kids are sick, as is she. And now her mother (who lives with them) is gravely ill and hospitalized with a very rare disease whose name escapes me. I happened to call her tonight, not knowing what was going on. She sounded awful, perhaps at the breaking point. There is a lot going on in that home. More than one woman can handle on her own. Unfortunately, I live 400 miles away, or I’d go scoop those 4 sick kids up and put her in bed.

Towards the end of the conversation, she said “I’m just trying to figure out what God is trying to teach me in all of this. I know there must be something I have to learn.” OH, how I hate that sentence! I lived and breathed that sentence for 6 months last year. What is it about our faith/teaching/evangelicalism that automatically presupposes fault or lack of worthiness on our part when something goes wrong? Yes, I know that we are sinful. Boy, do I know it. But what about REDEMPTION??? What about a new heart? Isn’t that what God promises us?

I’m angry right now. I’m angry at leaders. I’m angry at bible teachers. I’m angry at churches. I’m angry because AGAIN, I see the result of preaching/teaching from the standpoint of the fall, and not the standpoint of new creation/new earth/new man. No, we are not there, but God is working it out. We, as the church, are the vision of that new creation, we are the foreshadowing of that. Yet we do not talk about that, we talk about only our sin, only our unworthiness. No wonder the church is so ineffective. Why should we be anything but?

I don’t know why these things happen. I don’t know why children get sick or die. I don’t know why events converge in such a way that a sweet, wonderful, kind and loving woman is pushed to a breaking point. I do know we live in a fallen world with it’s sickness, heartbreak and pain. I do know that every day brings us one day closer to New Heavens and New Earth. I do know God’s grace is more compelling and more powerful than our failures.

Fall into God’s grace and mercy, Lisa. It’s the one sure thing we have.

Last night a dear friend’s husband passed away. I am also very good friends with my friend’s daughter….so we have the loss of a husband, father and grandfather.

The question that has been thrown around is about where this man stood with God. He never professed belief in Jesus, that I know of. He didn’t attend church. So….when death comes…the question remains. This seems a very poignant situation considering the session I attended at the Isn’t She Beautiful conference. Rob Bell addressed these very issues in a session entitled;

“A few thoughts on God, Jesus, salvation, judgment, heaven, hell, who’s in, who’s out, and the end of the world as we know it”

I tremble at the thought of answering these questions. Who’s in? Who’s out? I’m not God, so I refuse to pretend that I am. These are difficult questions to answer and my vision of God is clouded on this earth.

Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. 1 Cor 13:12

What I do know is that God is merciful. More merciful than we are. I take hope in the following story outlined in Mark 2:2-5.

2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. 3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. 4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

The friends had the faith to bring the paralized man before Jesus. The man was unable to do it for himself. When Jesus saw the faith of the friends, he said “Son, your sins are forgiven”. Wow. How dare we start to declare who is “in” and who is “out”. In the book “Mere Christianity”, C.S. Lewis says,

The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name…There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand.

I choose to believe in grace. I choose to believe in God’s mercy. Grace trumps the hard and fast rules of theology every time.

Craig Ferguson, a late night TV host, made an absolutely brilliant statement. Probably one of the best statements I’ve heard recently, and as far as I know, he’s not a Jesus follower. He was doing a bit on Pat Robertson’s recent prediction of mass killings at the end of 2007.

Ferguson said,

“I think what happens is that some of these televangelists, they prey on the good-will of the congregation… People flock to these preachers, cause they want someone to tell them everything is gonna be all right. But here’s my thing, you can’t have certainty and faith. You can’t. You can’t have them at the same time. If you have faith, you don’t need certainty. If you have certainty, you don’t need faith. They can’t coexist. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t be hungry and full. You can’t be drunk and sober. You can’t be fat and thin. It doesn’t make any sense.”

This is an absolutely fascinating statement. If we have faith, we do so many of us flock to those public figures that predict the future through “prophecy” or promise the “best life now” or promise healing. Where is the faith in that? Are we not simply running off to soothe sayers? What is the difference, other than some use the name of Jesus and others don’t?

It reminds me of Job’s story, in some ways. It all came crashing down on poor Job. When I think I’m having a bad day, I just think of Job…puts things in perspective. Job lost his house, his children, his wealth, and then to make a bad day worse, his wife tells him “Why don’t you just curse God and die.” My husband loves when I say that to him.

So, there Job is, when his friends show up. The see how absolutely miserable he is. Scripture says that he looked so bad, they hardly recognized him. His friends sat with him for 7 days, mourning with him. But 7 days of mourning was about all they could handle. I think that we are not much different. We can only stand someone else’s grief for so long before we have to jump in and “fix it”. But that’s a story for another day….

His friend Eliphaz (I’ll call him Eli) jumps in and says, “Hey, Job, do you mind if I jump in here?” From there, Eli goes on to tell Job that the innocent prosper and the wicked get what they deserve. Hmmm…what was Eli implying?

Then old Bildad (Bill for short) weighs in. He suggests that perhaps Job’s children deserved to die for their sins and that if Job would simply repent, then certainly God would restore him.

As if this isn’t enough, then Zophar (Zoe for short) jumps in. He proceeds to tell Job that he is a mocker and a babbler and that he got LESS than he deserved from God as punishment.

Round and round it goes….for chapter after chapter. Eli, Bill and Zoe accuse and condemn Job (apparently, these guys have never heard of a fair fight). Job doesn’t fear God, Job is wicked, Job is clearly not listening to God. Of course, Job spends much time attempting to vindicate himself before his 3 “friends”. However, at some point the convo stops, because his 3 friends were disgusted with Job, as he was “righteous in his own eyes.” Then, to Job’s delight I’m sure, another friend swings by Job’s pad. I’ll call him Eli Jr. (no relation to the older Eli). Junior is already in a right state by the time he speaks. He was ticked with Job for justifying himself. He was ticked with the older 3 men, because they were unsuccessful at proving Job wrong. Junior takes 5 chapters and just lets Job have it.

And then…..drum roll….blowing of the shofar…..

Jehovah shows up.

I just love God. He has a fabulous sense of humor. So, God shows up and speaks to Job out of the storm. Even this is a clever little play on words. I think when God shows up, He must show up in the midst of a tempest, but Job was experiencing quite a tempest of his own. So God tells Job …
“Ok, Mister Man…get ready for me. I will now ask the questions, and YOU can answer.” God proceeds to ask Job questions like “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world? Can you create lightening so that it says to you ‘Here I am?” Stuff like this. I’m thinking Job was feeling a bit humble. About halfway through God’s tirade, Job breaks in and says “Ok, Ok, You are right, God, I’ll shut up”. But God isn’t done with Job, yet. God continues to question Job with more humbling questions. One of my favorite questions that God asks is “Will you play with the leviathan like a bird, or put him on a leash for your girls?”. That’s funny. I don’t care what you say.

So, as the story wraps up, Job repents. He admits that he had no business questioning God or His purposes. Then, here comes the beautiful part, God totally OWNED Job’s friends. He tells them “that you have not spoken rightly of Me and that Job has. IF Job will pray for you, I will accept Job’s prayer and not deal accordingly with you.” BURN. I bet that Job’s friends were glad that Job was not the vindictive type. Job DID pray for his friends and God accepted Job’s prayers.

So, if you’re still with me, you may be wondering, “What the heck does this have to do with Pat Robertson and Craig Ferguson?” Well maybe, not much. However, I think it speaks to this need for us to have all the answers. Pray and God will heal. Be holy and God will bless you. Seek God and He will tell you the future so you can prepare.

God is not a gumball machine. We can’t stick in a quarter (the right action) and expect a gumball (the thing we want) to pop out. God is God. Who are we to question?

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Technorati Tags: Pat Robertson, prediction, Craig Ferguson, Job, prophecy, healing, prophetic, Joel Osteen,

In His Big Grip » Blog Archive » Salvation From What?

John Turner has started an interesting discussion on his blog about salvation. Should be interesting to see the discussion.

Technorati Tags: salvation, god, theology

Shannon asks this question in a recent post on his blog
Shannons states:

I for one have always held that the Bible is the ultimate answer for the ultimate problem. Throughout the ancient text we can find every problem that has ever been known to man.

Relational
Emotional
Physical
Spiritual

These are facinating questions that leads me to my question. Is the Bible an answer book? That is what I’ve always been taught. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. N. T. Wright, in his book “The Last Word” points out ever so eloquently that Scripture is God’s authority, in a delegated sense. And if that is true, how does that actually work? The Scripture is story after story of God, His people, and His actions in the world. How is authority excercised through story?

I think perhaps that the question we should be asking is “Is God Central To All Life’s Problems”. Perhaps, in our enthusiasm to point to the beauty, majesty and wonder of Scripture, we have overemphasized it’s supremacy and facts and underemphasized it’s wisdom and authenticity.

Truly a facinating discussion!

Technorati Tags: bible, scripture, Tom+Wright

Surrender. How does one completely surrender? Surrender involves giving up every desire of our own. Giving up our own will. Not only our desires for what we want, but giving up even our will to live. God gave his own Son so that we might live and yet I am unwilling to give up my over abundant creature comforts for any reason. What am I doing for the Kingdom? What are most of us doing? We aren’t even serving in our own communities. Oh, we may donate some used clothes or even give some money, but what are we really doing that would actually require sacrifice? Are we willing to give up our vacation to support a missionary? Are we willing to serve once a week at an abused women’s shelter or soup kitchen? Are we willing to give up a spare bedroom for an orphaned child? Are we willing to sell everything we own and follow Him? Anywhere? And if not-why? Shouldn’t that concern us? Alarm us? Scare us to death? Howe it must grieve God to see that we won’t even leave our homes to minister to His beloved people after all He has done. IF it weren’t so tragic it would almost be amusing. God lays it all out, takes our sin and takes our consequences. And what do we do in return? We give him a nod, a wave and a cursory “thanks”. He says, “Now, go! Tell others the good news! Feed the poor; help the needy, care for the widow and orphan, so that ALL may see my love. Go my child. You are free.” We, in return, lock ourselves in our church buildings and plead to hear his voice.

In a recent Newsweek article, Billy Graham was interviewed.

“As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world,” he says. “And in his death on the cross, some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don’t understand. But there he was, alone, taking on the sins of the world.”

Wow. This is going to tick some people off, isn’t it? Another well known evangelical purporting that he doesn’t know everything there is to know about the mysteries of God.

rob+bell billy+graham newsweek