“…what’s most amazing to me,” the pastor said… “is that Jesus comes to people like us. Cowards, liars – even mother mockers! And entrusts us with the kingdom of God, with carrying the message of peace. We get that peace too, when we surrender to the horrible belief that God loves us anyway.” (Anne Lamott in her novel Blue Shoe)
From the film “Lars and the real girl”:
Lars Lindstrom: How’d you know?
Gus: How’d I know what?
Lars Lindstrom: That you were a man
Gus: Ahhh. I couldn’t tell ya.
Lars Lindstrom: Was it… okay, was it sex?
The other week zoomtard was givin it socks and I learned a lot. But one of the things that it got me thinking about (through a picture of some man i’m too young to appreciate) was how thankful i am that Jesus never got married. Not because it would have been a terrible thing, but because it reminds me that being whole sexually, physically, emotionally, spiritually and any other way does not depend on sex or marriage because Jesus is the most complete human being that has ever been. And in today’s culture that seems significant.
Every culture has it’s rites of passages. Hunting, tattoos, graduation, first beer, first communion, first kiss… sex… . our community tells us that we’re not quite whole unless we’ve gone through ‘the’ process. We will always be an outsider looking in until we do it (whatever ‘it’ may be). In the west one of the strongest messages we receive is that our sexuality is only complete when we’ve experienced sexual intercourse. We will not be real women or men until… but Jesus’ sexuality was not lacking anything. Therefore, our femininity and masculinity is never found in sex. I know this to be true and yet i still find it hard to get my head around.
What is our masculinity and femininity? are they even real things or are they social constructs? i don’t think so. But what is it then that allows these parts of us to flourish or be restored? It’s definitely not sex, and the sooner we learn that the better because to live like it is damages us and those around us.
In the movie Lars’ brother answers the question like this:
Gus: Um. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s uh, yeah, yeah it’s kind of – it’s uh – no. Well, it’s kind of sex but it’s not uh, you know? I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s – uh – good question, good question.
Lars Lindstrom: Yeah, but I have to know
Gus: Well, it’s not like you’re one thing or the other, okay? There’s still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what’s right for you, what’s right for everybody, even when it hurts.
Lars Lindstrom: Okay, like what?
Gus: Like, you know, like, you don’t jerk people around, you know, and you don’t cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you’re wrong, or you try to, anyways. That’s all I can think of, you know – it sound like it’s easy and for some reason it’s not.
loving people well? is that the answer to what it means to be whole sexually, and any other way. maybe old Gus is onto something?…
Me in my small corner has also been thinking about this if you’re interested.
So tonight i got to hear the wonderful Juliet Turner live in Chester, (which incidently is alright but doesn’t hold a candle to sweet maynooth). I forced my friend to buy a cd just so we could meet her (let’s hear it for pizza rach not pizza and wine!). I have an intense fear of meeting people i admire, mostly because i say the most asshole things so i didn’t really say anything. However, what i would say is that if you havn’t seen Juliet sing live you need to. Her performance tonight was simply beautiful. She is one of those singers who is so present in her words and music that sometimes it makes you feel like crying, forcing your heart into a place of deep silence that you dont want to wake from.
I have been debating this question a lot lately and i need help. One friend says that discipleship is defined by Jesus in Matt 28 – ‘…teaching them to obey everything i have commanded you.’ If this is what discipleship is then logically the how of discipleship is simply the study of scripture where we can learn the commands of God and then obey them. This is not a bad argument, i even kind of agree. But it leaves me a bit cold.
I guess what bugs me is that if this is how i approach discipleship with another person then my goal for them and their goal for me is that we would be people who are obedient to God. This is a good thing, but it is only a good thing if obedience is not seen as an end in itself and i fear that too often it is. If my goal for you is that you would simply be someone who obeys God then my goal for you is much less than God’s goal for you. And that seems like a foolish thing and a bit sad. I sometimes have a picture of God telling us to do certain things or to live in certain ways and deep down i feel like the reason he is doing so is because i’m his child now and he doesn’t want me to be an embarrassment to him. But surely this is not the heart of God the Father.
God wants us to know life to the full. God wants us to know Him. He wants us to know all that he offers us, the depth of love that he lavishes on us. His commands are invitations to this, invitations to knowing him. This is why when another friend defined discipleship as ‘helping people comprehend the love of God.’ i kind of got a lot more excited. If this is true then the how of discipleship is rooted in the bible for sure, but it involves so much more than studying the bible with people. Perhaps it is to live the bible with people.
Jesus did so much more than teach the disciples. That was a significant part of it, but he loved them and they felt it, he served them, he gave them vision, hope, he fought for them, he challenged them… He did life with them.
I’m not sure what i make of all this, maybe i’m being flakey, but there wouldn’t be anything better for me than being able to look back on my life and say that somehow i’d helped people more fully comprehend the love of God. Because it is only then that we will become people who truly obey Christ not because of our efforts to do so but because of the transformation that occurs in us as we bring all areas of our heart and life into the light of his love and grace.
maybe we’re all saying the same thing and this is a waste of time, but it helps me process so deal with it!
You may recognise the above picture known as the ‘bridge diagram’ (although my artistic skills have made this version particularly unique). This simple diagram is often used among the evangelicals in order to communicate the gospel. Ideal for those situations where your friend or even a stranger asks you how the separation between them and God can be overcome (of course it can happen!). These 3 or 4 simple illustrations show the separation between us and God, the cross that bridges the gap, and the result: that you can hold hands with Jesus.
Zoomtards obsession with Bill Hybels has lead me to think about the ‘bridge diagram’, and as tempted as i am to mock it without mercy i am trying to consider the good stuff about it.
ok i’ve tried. cant do it
Aside from the fact that it is probably rarely used in real life, I think the picture of the gospel that the bridge diagram presents is distorted. It is distorted mainly because it is incomplete. But that is exactly the problem with trying to boil the gospel down. we try to sum it up in a diagram, or 3 sentences or an anagram or a multi-coloured bracelet… and although the motive behind this is to communicate the truth of the gospel clearly which i love, i don’t think this does it well. Part of the problem is that in our efforts to communicate the gospel in these ways we are only communicating part of it, that in itself is not a problem, but it is a problem if we are letting people believe that what we are telling them is the whole gospel. This is my frustration with many of these tools.
I do however recognise that they can be helpful tools, they provide memorable pictures in our minds that are useful when we are in conversations about the gospel, and even if we dont whip out the old napkin and pen, they can help anchor our thoughts and words. I think i would like the bridge diagram more if God walked over the bridge to us rather than us to Him, i think that is a truer picture of the gospel.
Mostly i dislike these methods because they feel conceptual and a little clinical. To me the bridge diagram feels like a step by step programme to something good, but such a diagram is useless unless i know something of the beauty and love of God and his heart for us. Why else would i care to ‘walk across the bridge’ to God. I know that people who are fans of these diagrams see them as only tools to be used inside the context of sincere and loving friendships though which really helps provide good context.
I do not doubt that God has used these tools to bring many people to Himself. I also do not doubt that these tools communicate truth clearly. But personally I don’t feel that they capture the sense of story that exists, nor do i feel that they capture the heart of God for us, the way he relentlessly loves and pursues us. Mostly they don’t communicate that our salvation is only part of God’s big plan of cosmic reconciliation (which lets face it is way cooler).
When someone comes up with a diagram that illustrates the life that is truly life i might listen.
from she who is preparing her apologies in advance of offending many that she loves.
ps if napkin evangelism was advertised in the US it would take on a whole new meaning right?!
A SNIPPET OF A DAY INSIDE MY HEAD…
“I wonder what hell is like? Not what it is like, but what would I be like if i were there?
I wonder if Lewis is right, that i would become an eternal horror that i couldn’t imagine in my worst nightmare?
Or what if I was just me as I am today but without the potential to become a better lover of people. (cue the eerie feeling in my stomach).”
Despite what hell is or isnt like, this thought got me thinking about the old theme of absences. Part of what makes hell hell is not just the reality of how things are but the absence of what we long for and the inability to reach it. The potential to live. The potential to love. Simply the absence of potential. The idea that i could be frozen as i am today and never grow any more in heart is actually one of the most torturous thoughts i have ever had.
THIS in turn made me wonder about heaven. I know there I’ll be sinless but will i be static or will there always be room for me to grow in the expanse of my heart for others? Will there always be potential?
dissenterdan i wish you’d just said that about 6 weeks ago, it’d have saved me a lot of trouble and heartache! thanks for your comment, i am giving it it’s own space so that the issue is cleared up without me having to write about this ever again! (i’m only partly joeking).
Dissenterdan said: “Hey. enjoyed the blog. Since we are being speculative let me say that for me the separation of Jesus from his Father was a separation of the Father as God and Jesus as man. The danger might be in thinking of Jesus on the cross as only God. In the incarnation Jesus sets aside his equality with God and takes the form, the limitations, the emotions of a man. He does not only appear to be a man (who is really God all the time), he is a man, fully and completely (who is also really God all the time.) For me, the point of the Psalm is both that Jesus the man fully experiences the full horror of separation from God sin has caused and that he has knowingly entered into it because he knew his Father’s will would not be to leave him thus separated. in this way as God, the nature of the trinity was never in doubt but as man, Jesus (who had walked with God as a man in perfect relationship all his life) faced and bore the genuine separation and torment it meant to take what we deserved upon
himself. For me, anything less implies docetism on Jesus part and poor service to the Psalm on ours.”
Partly in response to neuro in the previous post and partly because i wanted to talk about this anyway.
“For those who love the Lord, His presence will be infinite joy, paradise and eternal life. For those who hate the Lord, the same presence will be infinite torture, hell and eternal death… The “fire” that will consume sinners at the coming of the kingdom of God is the same “fire” that will shine with splendor in the saints. It is the “fire” of God Himself who is love… For those who love God and who love all creation in Him, the ‘consuming fire’ of God will be radiant bliss and unspeakable delight. For those who do not love God, and who do not love at all, this same ‘consuming fire’ will be the cause of their ‘weeping’ and ‘gnashing of teeth’. “Thus it is the Chruch’s spiritual teaching that God does not punish man by some material fire or physical torment. God simply reveals Himself in the risen Lord Jesus in such a glorious way that no man can fail to behold His glory. It is the presence of God’s splendid glory and love that is the scourge of those who reject its radiant power and light” (Thomas Hopko).
Between God and us there is an analogical gap. There is always analogy in all our language about God. Eg. If i say ‘God loves me’ the meaning of the word love in this sentence is different than if i am to say ‘my mum loves me’. My mum’s love for me is not the same as God’s love for me and yet i have used the same word. my mum’s love is in someway like God’s love but they are also different. and yet they are not so different that i can’t grasp something of God’s love by thinking about the love of my mother. Make sense? SO, there is always a gap between God and creature even in our language about Him. It is wrong to say there is no gap (eg God’s love is exactly like my mothers love) and it is also wrong to say that there is no connection at all (eg God’s love and my mum’s love have nothing in common whatsoever). We must recognise this gap as we read scripture and talk about God.
It is in this context that i have been thinking about God’s wrath. I (maybe we) have a tendency to leave no gap in our understanding of Gods wrath and our wrath. We understand that it is bigger and more just (perfectly just) but the nature of his wrath we think of as the same rage and danger that we see in ourselves and each other. Because of this the quote above by Thomas Hopko really caught my eye, along with a reminder of CS Lewis’ thinking in ‘the weight of glory’.
As you read above, Hopko describes God’s wrath as we know it, as actually being God’s glory or beauty. This beauty destroys that which is not of it because it is unable to bear the weight of glory. When we see moments of God’s wrath eg in stories in the Old Testament we think that God must have just lost it in that moment. This is ok to us because we understand that God only looses his temper for the right reasons and from the right heart and motivation. (admittedly it does make God seem a bit like jackal and Hyde at times)
But what if Hopko is right? What if our experience of God’s wrath is actually his love and beauty and glory being revealed and the parts of me that are not of Him cannot bear it and are destroyed by it. This is very different than the picture i often have in my head of God zapping people (i picture lightening coming out of his finger cause that’s how my mind works) because they didn’t bring the right sacrifice or whatever. It is not so much God punishing but rather God simply revealing himself and that which is not born of Him cannot survive in his presence. Bonaventure said “I cannot see God’s face and live, so let me die!”.
This idea also makes sense to me in light of the fact that God is love. He is not only loving, but he is in fact Love itself. This means that God can be and do nothing other than love. Kind of like the way sun is light and can’t not give light (i plagiarised that). So what we call God’s wrath is actually His love. I’m not saying that God is wrathful for loving reasons i’m saying that His acts of wrath are actually themselves acts of love.
We need to view every experience of God through the lens that He is love and his love is constantly and fully expressed in every moment. This is where i begin to struggle, because when we ask questions of why did God allow suffering the answer must somehow be ‘because he loves me’. Although i find this hard to swallow somehow i also feel freed by it and for many years i have lived my life on the same kind of premise except it was the words of Jesus when he said ‘i have come that you may have life to the full’. when i really saw this i was able to view everything in my life and everything that God commanded me to do through this lens. So when i hear God say forgive your enemy and i say but why God? i know the answer is partly because He wants me to have life to the full. That is always his agenda for us. To live like this is to see God as much more involved in your life and everything that he allows in your life. It also allows me to enter into pain with a sense of joy and hope at the same time.
BUT! I really struggle with this whole idea though because it seems then that God is not angry and (although i don’t want him to be angry at me) i want him to be angry at the people who have hurt me and the people who hurt others. If he is not angry it seems like he doesn’t care about the suffering in the world, kind of like he is passive towards it and uninvolved. This doesn’t really sit right with me but i cant seem to reconcile it all.
SO, bring on the comments i need your help.
What actually happened between God and Jesus on the cross? I don’t know if you’ve ever given this much thought but for a lot of my childhood I believed the suffering of the cross was the physical pain Jesus went through. When i got a little older I began to realise there were a few more layers to this cross thing. I began to understand that the physical pain was only part of it, but what was worse than this for Jesus was the separation from God he experienced as he took on the sin of the world. I believed that at that moment when Christ ‘became sin for us’ that since our sin separates us from God it also must have separated Jesus from His Father. That God the Father had to (as we sing) ‘turn his face away’ from His Son.
This idea in my head was reinforced by the words that Jesus Himself speaks on the cross “my God my God why have you forsaken me”. It seems from these words that God did infact forsake Jesus on the cross. More than that I believed He had to otherwise the cross could not have accomplished all that it has accomplished. BUT my thinking has been flawed. So simply and yet so significantly (I have to admit im a little pissed with myself that i didn’t figure this out alone but that’s just my pride).
So, as my new friend pointed out: ‘if there were ever separation in the trinity the whole world would have ceased to exist’. Can’t argue with that right? It’s true and obvious. And yet this being true means that the way i have understood what happened between God and his Son on the cross is not quite right. God did not forsake His Son. He did not turn His face away from Him. (I was flabbergasted when my friend said this at first).
Some of you may be in protest – but hold on you say ‘what about Jesus words on the cross?’ this is where it gets even sweeter. The words that Jesus says on the cross are a quote from Psalm 22 as most of you already know. If we actually take the time to read the Psalm we realise that although the psalmist begins with cries about why God has forsaken him and is so far from saving him he comes to a place where he says these words “…You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one;he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help…” You see? When Jesus quoted this Psalm that’s exactly what He was doing, quoting this psalm – his hearers wouldn’t have just heard the words my God why have you forsaken me, they would have also heard the words for He has not despised the afflicted one, He has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. His hearers would have known this whole psalm they would have known that Jesus was referring not to a prayer of desperation but a prayer of hope. They would have heard the hope in Jesus words, but today we just hear desperation. We hear it wrong simply because we do not know scripture as we should, it is not in our minds and on our lips like it would have been in Jesus day.
It’s kinda like when i say something like “in my best behaviour i am really just like him” those of you who are sufjan stevens fans will understand that i am saying that i am a deeply sinful person because i am quoting a line from a song that is about a murder. Those of you who do not know sufjan stevens song will be like ‘what the flip?’. It’s a culture thing. I don’t have to explain myself to those of you who like sufjan you know exactly what i’m saying although i don’t actually say it. And so it is with Jesus on the cross, this phrase of despair was also a phrase of sure hope. I feel like this is something fredric Buchner would say because he talks so much about the comedy of the gospel – well, this is the comedy of the cross and Jesus knew it. As he hung there for us offering himself as the sacrifice for our sin in pain and suffering that we will never understand he at the same time knew fully the picture of what he was accomplishing also in a way that we will never understand.
At this point i now have all the how questions. Somehow Jesus has taken the world’s sin on his shoulders and yet at the same time remained one with the Father. Somehow He has experienced death and hell and yet at the same time remained one with the Father. how does this all work? – i will play with these questions on another entry on another day.
I recently spent two weeks learning from the incredible Laura Smit (she has definitely been added to my list of heroes) about the theology of beauty. Over the next few weeks i will attempt to process some of my thoughts and musings here so that you can help me shed more light on this phenomenal topic. today’s entry is a light introduction into a number of questions that are often keeping me awake at night.
What is beauty? It is tempting to think there is no answer to this question. We believe that beauty is undefinable because it appears to be subjective. What you may call beautiful i may not. Take for example my crazy potter friend who has been moved to tears at a mere picture of a pot (true story i promise!) never mind the real thing. That picture did not make me cry. it barely caught my attention. In this case it seems that beauty really is ‘‘in the eye of the beholder’. But is that the truth? Here’s something my favourite potter friend has done for me – she has taught me to love pots. There was a time that i would have walked around life and barely noticed ceramics. But now i am unable to avoid noticing! everything ceramic catches my eye, i find myself drawn to touch these pieces of art, i am compelled to turn them upside down and look at it’s finish. I appreciate the texture, the colours the impressions of the artists fingers on the clay. I say to myself ‘that is so beautiful’. (maybe not enough to make me cry though!). How did this change happen? I didn’t just flick a switch inside my brain, rather as i watched her love pots she has pointed me to the beauty that was there all along which i had been looking past.
Beauty is not subjective. It is real. It is present. The question is do we see it? Do we perceive it? When i fail to see beauty in something it is just that. I fail to see it. It is not that the beauty isn’t there. If this is true (which i believe it is) then the gift of community is that other people help us see beauty where we cannot yet perceive it. We are all so unique with our own God given gifts and passions that make it easy for us to see beauty in those places. The biologist sees a pattern of cells and finds it stunning. I don’t know why but i want to and he can help me see it so that i too can share a little bit in this beauty that glorifies God who is Beauty himself. We must look and see, and help each other see, that we may join in worship as we acknowledge and enjoy the presence of God in this world.
Beauty: a quality of being percieved. The perceptibality of a things truth or goodness. (Smit or someone she quoted and i didn’t write down;)
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