“Because the Bible says so…”

“It’s not me it’s God that says this…”

“If you were faithful you would be blessed and not in the place you are…”

Have you heard these words or phrases like them? They often come from people genuinely attempting to help but come across a little like a surgeon amputating a hand (without anesthetic) for the sliver that is causing so much pain in your finger.

I am catching up on my readings in Job this morning and am struck by how modern it is (or how prehistoric we are depending upon your perspective).

In short – Job’s life has taken a turn for the worse (to put it mildly) and his friends come to help him. Initially they come with wisdom which tells them to stay quiet and simply be a soothing presence in their suffering friend’s life. After a while they can no longer bear the “falsehoods” Job is speaking and feel a responsibility to hold him accountable and to point out to him that he is the reason he is where he is…that God punishes the wicked and rewards the just and therefore Job’s suffering is a result of his wickedness and if he would only repent things would go well for him.

“God will send his burning anger against him
and rain it upon him into his body.
He will flee from an iron weapon;
a bronze arrow will strike him through.
It is drawn forth and comes out of his body;
the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder;
terrors come upon him.
Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures;
a fire not fanned will devour him;
what is left in his tent will be consumed.
The heavens will reveal his iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against him.
The possessions of his house will be carried away,
dragged off in the day of God’st wrath.
This is the wicked man’s portion from God,
the heritage decreed for him by God.”

– Job 20:23-29

These are the words of Job’s friend Zophar. Sure it probably “hurts him as much as it hurts Job“, but someone needs to speak God’s truth into this wayward person’s life.

Coming back to the modern day it is easy to imagine these words on the lips someone offering advice or admonition. After all these words are Biblical…one can clearly preface them with “The Bible says…” and level an opponent’s argument about grace in a circumstance. The Bible is truth right?

Job of course tries to argue back but his friends will have none of it as they clearly have the word of God and righteousness on their side while Job, well he lays at their feet in open sores, sackcloth and ashes…where is his righteousness?

This discussion is so like the current back and forths among theologians and believers who use the very same God’s words against one-another to the point that one wonders how God could have said everything they say God said.

To which we finally get to the important point of context. One can certainly yank Zophar’s words from Job and hurl them at some ne’r do well and legitimately claim to be empowered by God’s words, this happens all the time. What is lacking however are the words that come far later in Job when God speaks in chapter 42, verse 7:

“After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

So here we have an instance where God has said that there are words (a substantial number of them in fact) in scripture that are untrue. Words that would be easy to pull out and hurl like spears at other people because that was their point in the narrative of Job. We are thankful we have God here to point out the parts of scripture that are false in this instance and we would do well to listen carefully to the lesson.

One should not tear words from scripture and hurl them about at people like lightening bolts loaned by God because the scripture is a document whole unto itself. It is likely the bolts will come back at the hurler anyhow.

What one can and should do is be prepared to offer scriptural advice within context or better still speak your own words tempered by a life of soaking in the word and the world with a sense of humility.

We breath in scripture and it transforms us and gives us life like air but we must remember that the air we breath in will kill another if we attempt to exhale it into them long enough…ultimately they must breath it in for themselves in order to live.

steam erupts like Old Faithful
from a man’s coffee cup
a golden grey mist of promise
on a morning seeking its fill
we, yes me, we are old and older
than once we were
fattened mutton sitting at benches
far from the days of the lamb –
contemplating
bringing the world inside us
for safe keeping
till the forge is re-fired
and we can spill it shiny
from the wells within ourselves

we are not rheumy eyed
we are not tired
we are rundown prophets at rest
awaiting abundance

Gravity is an attractive force exerted by objects with mass on other objects with mass. Its force is proportionately stronger as the mass of the object increases.

But of course this is only a rule that applies to the unthinking object. Attempting to understand the conscious person in light of this rule can be confusing. Take for instance the individual vs. the couple vs. the family vs. the community.

Individuals have a certain gravitas, a kind of attraction that is based more on the mass of their personality than their bodies but for the most part whether one is attracted to another is largely dependent upon social factors and matters of culture and upbringing – and of course there is intent.

I find it interesting that some groups and communities expect the physical laws of gravitational attraction to work in their favour when it comes to relationships, and, depending upon your perspective one can wonder whether “favour” is the correct word to use.

In this instance favour usually means that the larger group or community relies upon their collective gravitas to attract individuals or smaller groups into itself…like a black hole consuming smaller bodies and stars its very existence is somehow expected to do the work for them.

This tactic largely works because in general the law does in fact apply across the board but not in ways we expect. I say in general because there are exceptions (increasingly so) to the law. Some people actively avoid larger groups and communities. Amazingly, unlike the world of physics, their desire to avoid the gravitas of the larger group requires no exertion of an equal and opposite force. In fact no matter how large and attractive the group may be the very lack of interest or suspicion on the part of the individual simply cancels out the attraction. It is negated as if it were not there.

The larger group or community generally ignores this as an isolated incident given the comfort of a great multitude of individuals who have already been drawn in and it moves along its way expecting its shear size to do the work of attracting for it.

ASIDE: It should be noted that smaller groups envious of the larger group’s size will often, and to their danger, seek to emulate the larger group’s tactics of attraction by sheer existence and in doing so miss the point of community altogether.

If one views the attraction of the group more like an embrace however instead of gravity one comes to see that there is indeed a responsibility on the part of the larger group to act intentionally to attract and draw in the individual. In fact one comes to realize that this is what relationship and community is all about and when dealing with humanity we should speak and ACT in terms of communal relationship and NOT in terms of physics.

When we understand this we realize that the community that simply relies upon its sheer size to attract more people is no different than a black hole that consumes the individuality of its constituent parts. This then is a form of death and the community becomes the destroyer and a dead thing in and of itself. A black hole does not act out of a sense of loving responsibility – it acts simply because it is. A community group or even individual seeking healthy relationship has a responsibility to act, a responsibility to reach out because this is its nature.

All this to say that for the community that seeks to be true to itself it must actively deny its own gravitas, recognizing that its simple existence is nothing special, and intentionally reach outside of itself and into the world to engage and embrace out of a sincere desire for genuine relationship. In doing so the community becomes what it was always meant to be – a multifaceted collection of bright stars, dancing together but not consumed. A vibrant showcase of talent and gifting each seeking to reflect that collective embrace that drew them in the first place. This is the community that regularly “goes out” of itself and brings its message into the world because it recognizes that this kind of existence is trans-formative.

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

– Isaiah 53:2

broken is the haggard heart
that seeks to hold itself together
with bits of tawdry tape and twine
cobbled from a peasant’s life of love
a desert life of dry and dusty dunes
yearning for one drop of emotion

it seems that golden glow
is not the only sign to show
the failing falling of the
waxen leaves in autumn-time

this pale worldly weight
seems hard pressed upon the gate
throughout the yearning year
like bells still heard well past the chime

an echo weaves the frost-laden air
shadows of heartache trap, ensnare
like a desperate pressing embrace
a loving killing moment hot and sublime

this ever-present grey-heart shadow
this dark cloud too weighty to overthrow
it rains a steady gut-twisting stream
and fills the pit from which one cannot climb

the universe
has fallen in
to become
this starry skin
that wraps us whole
in light

would
that the world
would feel
phosphor bright
to drive away
this pressing
deepening night

the Persians tell us
“this too shall pass“
and there is hope

against even darkest storm
the blackest thoughts
of scarce malignant misanthrope

look to the endless east
look toward the heavens
and climb this shining slope

“We lose more kids transitioning between Sunday School and Youth Programs than from teenagers to young adult status, sometimes because that is when parents give them freedom to choose whether or not they go to church. They’ve never been in the service, we’ve spent years teaching them that there is nothing going on of interest to them upstairs during the service, then they age out of Sunday school, so why would they suddenly be interested in what we are doing?”

The above quote comes from an article about a recent Canadian study on the loss of youth and young adults from churches throughout the nation. The report is called Hemorrhaging Faith and the article is here:

http://www.theEFC.ca/whytheyreleaving

By young adulthood 60 percent of evangelical attendees have left the church. The whole issue of youth leaving the church has been a soap box of mine for a while. I have been convinced that we are boring them away from Christ at a rapid pace for the reasons mentioned in the above quote and more.

We rationalize that to adapt our services to changing cultural norms of teaching, technology and learning would be to compromise the faith while at the same time we design Sunday school programs focused on mixed media delivery and interactive involvement for just such reasons. There is a clear hypocrisy going on here.

Andy Stanley, a phenomenal pastor and speaker out of Atlanta speaks of churches understanding the distinction between theology and methodology. That the way we deliver the gospel is our methodology and this should always be keeping pace with culture and the norms of delivery…doing this does not compromise theology.

I think it would be an interesting exercise for youth pastors and churches everywhere to bring their youth into two or three Sunday services and have them act like focus groups. Let them come in with the purpose of taking notes on the experience. What held their attention? What didn’t? Why? What could be done differently to keep them focused and interested throughout the service?

It is not the gospel that bores them…it is not the gospel that they feel is irrelevant…it is us. It is our delivery and our setting.

We have no right to accuse them of being childish and shallow in their desire for a more exciting delivery of the gospel when we are the ones who designed exciting programs for them from ages 3-12 or 3-17 and then expect them to transition into a lecture hall of sitting and standing to largely irrelevant tunes and then sit and listen to one person drone for 30-45 minutes. After all they used to be involved, they used to create the gospel message in art, drama, film and action.

For those who claim being contextual with the gospel is being worldly I would simply quote the following verse from scripture:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14

There is nothing more contextual than a holy transcendent God humiliating the Godhead by willingly taking on human flesh for the sake of communicating the gospel. If God is willing to condescend to humanity surely we must be willing to meet our youth where they are. Who knows – in the process we may even learn something.

It has been hard to resist the urge to highlight every single jot and tittle of this commentary by Karl Barth on Romans so I have decided to periodically post collections of quotes.

“Paul, as a child of his age addressed his contemporaries”

“My whole energy of interpreting has been expended in an effort to see through and beyond history into the spirit of the Bible, which is the Eternal Spirit.”

“It is a communication which presumes faith in the living God, and which creates that which it presumes.”

“Grace is the incomprehensible fact that God is well pleased with a man, and that a man can rejoice in God. Only when grace is recognized as incomprehensible is it grace. Grace exists, therefore, only where the resurrection is reflected. Grace is the gift of Christ, who exposes the gulf which separates God and man, and by exposing it, bridges it.”

“Anxiety concerning the victory of the Gospel – that is, Christian Apologetics – is meaningless, because the Gospel is the victory by which the world is overcome.”

“God does not need us, indeed if he were not God he would be ashamed of us.We, at any rate, cannot be ashamed of him.”

“No divinity which needs anything, any human propaganda, can be God.”

“Bound to the world as it is, we cannot here and now apprehend, we can only receive the Gospel.”

“If Christ be very God he must be unknown, for to be known directly is the characteristic mark of an idol.” – Kierkegaard

“The judgement under which we stand is a fact, quite apart from our attitude toward it.Indeed, it is the fact most characteristic of our life.”

“The kingdom of men is, without exception, never the kingdom of God.”

“The world possesses deep and penetrating insight. It refuses to admit your supposed superiority. It recognizes that you are flesh of its flesh, bone of its bone. Your corruption renders you unfit to work for God and to take the lead in advancing His cause. You act in precise contradiction to the profession which you have not unreasonably adopted for you undertake a mission without being sent. Where law is, the word expects a doing of the law; where impress of revelation is it expects actual revelation.”

“Human righteousness is, as we have seen, in itself an illusion; there is in this world no observable righteousness. There may, however be a righteousness before God, a righteousness that comes from Him.”

“Judgement is not annihilation; by it all things are established. Cleansing is not a process of emptying; it is an act of fulfillment. God has not forsaken men; but God is – true.”

“The oracles of God…are the incomprehensible signs of the incomprehensible truth that, though the world is incapable of redemption, yet there is a redemption for the world.”

“God never reveals Himself to no purpose. Where there is law even if it be nought but burnt out cinders, there is a word of the faithfulness of God.”

“The faithfulness of God may be obscured, but we cannot be rid of it; His gifts may evoke no gratitude, but they will not be withdrawn; His goodness will bring under judgement those who withstand it, but it is His goodness nonetheless.”

“The bearer of revelation himself lives of the recognition that God is declared to be God by his inadequacy.”

“The arrogance with which we set ourselves by the side of God, with the intention of doing something for Him, deprives us of the only possible ground of salvation, which is to cast ourselves upon His favour or disfavour.”

echoes
echoes of voices
trailing down the streets
traipsing through alleys
forever calling tender a name
a name that we once knew
soft like a haunted breeze
a breath that seeking, persists

remember and awake

she is a dancing Sophia
with the thousand songs
chasing past her longing lips
fragrant with a poured holiness
spilled from censors swinging, 
singing –
come,
know the one that sent me