49. Parasites for Christ

Protégées - Partners - Parasites

Excuse the interruption to my theological musings.  I read an article this week that I felt compelled to comment on - criticize.  The article identified that pastors need to identify three kinds of people inhabiting their congregations.  These are protégées, partners and parasites.  Obviously two of these are preferred - no one except me wants to be identified as a parasite - and I do only because of the sense of humour given to me as a result of my brother playing Whack-A-Mole with me.  He would stand outside my crib with a croquet mallet and wait for me to stick my head out.  It was somewhat of a relief when my parents bought my brother toys.

I was attending the Church of the Drunken Charismatic Lutherans and was the usher of a Sunday morning service.  There was an elderly man shuffling back and forth at the back of the church during the sermon. He explained to me that his feet hurt when he sits. He had also told me that he has been in-filled with the spirit of the prophet of Elijah.  Before he resumed shuffling he asks if I would come visit him in hospital that week as he was out on a day pass from the Psych ward.  I would go up to the hospital to visit a friend of mine, and we would go play pool.  The hospital's only pool table was in the Psych ward.  Thus I had chatted with the prophet before that day.

Christianity is not cool - it is not hip - no matter how hard those edgy pastors try to make it.  I believe that our efforts to make it a "Cool Kids Club" is an affront to the teachings of Jesus.  He taught that unless we are willing to be geeks we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  We always form cliques, and there are those we invite in – the ones that can make a contribution or that we like – and then there are those we tolerate.

The other day I was driving to an appointment and went through a section of the city that has a number of churches in it.  There stood a man on the corner wearing a hand-made Sandwich Board sign that reads "Jesus is coming are you PREPARED?"  I looked at him and felt an inward cringe - just what we need another idiot for Jesus.  Then in my own defense I realized that he is simply loving God in the way that he can.  The same way I do, and you do as well.

The problem is how do you tell who is whom?  As I make my Cool Kids Club - and choose who is in and who is out - I know that I would be left out. I would be the greeter at the door shaking people's hands all the while my pants are undone as I am wearing my bright pink underwear.  It matters not how hard I try, I suck at being cool.  

When I knew him, he was a warm and engaging man.  As a lay pastor he was exceptional.  I once saw him deliver the message at the funeral of a drug addicted teen who had shot himself.  The message was warm and compassionate - and left us with hope that the young man had found the peace that had eluded him in life.  He also worked for me.  I believe he raped an autistic boy on my case load - he had been left alone with the boy one afternoon.  The caregiver came home to find the boy's bed had been broken and the bedding put in the washing machine.  It was the others on my case load that had complained about his man that made the incident with the autistic boy take on a sinister meaning.  I would hang out with the reincarnated Elijah or Mr. Are You Prepared any day before I would hang out with this guy.

There are some underlying dynamics that would require the approach of a pastor as needing to make such decisions.  Often we are content, as the consumers we are, to have our ministers provide the service of shepherding the congregation.  After all I tithe good money, and want to get a bang for my buck.  

Yes, the position of pastor is a position of prominence; however, our congregations should be more than just audiences for Sunday morning worship.  Our role in our church should be more than just enthusiastic roadies when asked to help with set up, or tear down.  I believe we are called to be of service to each other.  So if we have a person whose need is intense, or immense, or seems otherwise daunting, it should be us as a congregation that addresses this need.

She is an odd little woman.  She shows up and has coffee with cream, sugar, hot chocolate and any other additive she can muster.  She grabs as many goodies as the person accompanying her will allow.  Then she makes her rounds saying hi to as many people as she can.  Every Sunday she is there she comes over to say hi, she holds my hand for far too long for my comfort, calls my wife by the wrong name, but wishes me well.  There are times that those who support this woman in her life don’t get her there, they don’t help with organizing her week so that Sunday she can go to church.  I miss her when she is not there.  She does nothing more than add an element of joy to my Sunday morning.  

I also choose to be a parasite for that in all honesty best describes my relationship to Christ. 

48. The Ilusion of Separation

Are we separate from God?  More pointedly is God absent from his creation?  Was our being cast out of the Garden of Eden the same as our being cast away from the presence of God?  Have we been abandoned by a God that hides in plain sight, or worse yet sits in judgement on some celestial throne?

And if there is seperation – what is the nature of that seperation?  Has God rejected us?  Are we despised?  Has he grown angry with us, and thus has cast us aside?

The story of the fall is fascinating to me.  After we had done the one of two things he had asked us not to do, we then hid. We hid from God, we tried to hide ourselves and to cover ourselves with leaves.  It was our shame and our fear of God, that was the source of our separation at that time.

This concept is repeated in Isaiah 59:1 & 2

                   Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save,

    nor his ear too dull to hear.

But your iniquities have separated

    you from your God;

your sins have hidden his face from you,

    so that he will not hear.

So yes, there is a separation, but it is not God who has moved.  We have not moved beyond his grasp, nor have we moved so far away that he cannot hear.  Psalm 139 repeats this sentiment, there is no where we can go that God is not.

Psalm 139:7 & 8

Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

I understand being in the presence of someone, even God, and feeling separate.   As I look back I cannot remember what it was that I said or did, and truly it matters not.  It was a moment of stupidity, a moment of weakness – when my less that better nature got the better of me.  I do know that I hurt her.  Even as I write this, I feel the inward cringe, and tears tempt my eyes.  But I know in that moment, Wanna and I were separate.  We were in the same room, it would have been more comfortable for me to have been in another house, preferably in another city, in another country.

In that moment I would have given anything to have taken back time, and that act - something to show how sorrowful my grief was at that time, it is even so now.  Having experienced  that moment, not a moment of vileness, not a moment of wickedness, but a moment of weakness, that I view separation differently. I have spent months physically separated from Wanna, none were a painful as those few hours where I had to come to terms with what I had done. 

Separation – that feeling of apartness is not about a physicality, it is about emotion.  For us, I believe that it is about the shame and fear that is experienced in the presence of God.  Shame about what we have done, and fear of retribution.  God has not moved, we are not separated, but sin, which which keeps us from God, makes it so that we are unaware of his love for us.

This is more than just a philosophical or theological consideration – for in our separation from God, lies the heart of the practices that at best can be summed up as “I am better than you.” I believe, this separation from God, this feeling of being distant if not totally absent from his presence leads to many vile practices within religion.  For at the heart of this is our fear that we are in fact insignificant. 

This attempt to be better than one’s neighbour, is seen in a number of practices.  Legalism, of which many religions are afflicted, exists as an attempt to show that we are more obedient, spiritual, refined, mature, insert adjective here, than the person standing next to us.  Sacrifices as well are offered, some to appease the anger of God, some to restore honour to the family, others still as an attempt to show we are better than.

I believe it is this perception of separation, combined with a fear of death that lays at the heart of many of our practices.  These practices run counter to God’s will, for they detract from the Love of God, His Forgiveness, and focus on punishment – which I believe is something we people are much more interested in.

47. The Problem of Sin

I have been challenged as to some of the stuff I have written, and I do welcome that challenge.  One of the points of my blog is to encourage others to explore and challenge their own beliefs, and thus mature in faith.  As mentioned in an earlier post, for me it does not cut it to simply answer that it is what was taught from the pulpit, when I am asked to account for my faith.  And to my way of thinking I would rather explain a heresy earnestly believed than support a doctrine simply endorsed for convenience sake – but realize that is me.

So I have been asked about my objection to penal substitution.  And for me the doctrine of penal substitution encompasses so much within the context of our relationship to God, and in the nature of humanity.  Central to the events of the cross are the problems of sin and the nature of redemption and the idea of hell – hell being the place of eternal conscious torment. In order to explain my resistance I need to explain what I see as being the context of the cross.

And so I begin my explanation with sin: what is it?  Sin is simply that which keeps me from my intended nature and moves me further away from God.  It is easy enough for me to spot, mostly, in my own life – it is the stuff that I regret.  It is that crap I have done that makes me cringe when I think of it.  I also know that there are myriad ways that I am kept from being who I called to be, or created to be, and keeps me from experiencing the Joy, Wonder and Love of God.  These ways are often not obvious to me.

I have heard a lot about sin as disobedience.  And I know for myself often sin is choice, and that yes it is disobedience.  But when I consider my addiction – for being caught in the grips of my sin – it was not a matter of disobedience.  It was not like Sunday, November 23, 1983 I woke up and went “Hey, today I will obey the Lord!”

Yes, it was me who decided to stop and buy the box of beer, the bottle of booze and or the bag of dope.  And yes it was me who willing drank the booze and did the drugs.  But to say that was all my choice greatly misunderstands just how crazy I was at the time, and the absolute lack of choice I truly had.

The morning that I woke up and walked away from my addiction I think that moment, the miracle that happened, was that I saw exactly what my addiction was doing to me.  I had seen what my father’s addiction had done to him. That day, somehow, I was able to walk away from my sin.  Very much it was a journey of fear – I had known no one who had ever been able to be clean and sober.  Thus, it was with fear and trembling that I worked out my very literal salvation.

Galatians 5:17 “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”

The struggle I see is between what my nature – self absorbed, petty and hostile and what I am called to be, or created to be, compassionate and loving.  And maybe it just me, I have so many times when I just cringe at what I have done or not done.  For me, I see the issue of sin not as being one of our depravity, though there can be a case made for such, but an issue of my frailty.  I see the struggle as giving into that ever present self seeking – greedy – angry nature. 

As St. Paul writes – Oh what wretched man I am, for I do what I do not want to do, and do not do what I so desire.  Rom 7:19 (Drew Paraphrased Bible).

And so really, I ask, mostly myself, is God angry with me because of my sin?  And I don’t believe so, I do believe that God is angered by my sin.  He is angered that I am petty minded, self seeking, and less than what I could be.  But being angry at me, because I am weak?  Being angry that I am satisfied with petty distractions such as porn?  I am not so sure he is, I am not so sure that there would be a point to being angry.  For me, wretched soul that I am, I could not see a God who is infinite in compassion, love and patience, being angry with me. 

I believe that the first time I used drugs that a process of decay was set in motion.  I believe that if I had died without that process being interrupted that it would follow me past the gates of death.  To be caught in that addiction was hell and would continue to be so. 

I think about what I lose by the nonsense I do.  And yes, for God who sees with greater clarity than I what is lost, it must be incredibly angering.  I hope and pray that I continue to mature spiritually, that I put down childish diversions such as my litany of resentments, and that I grow in strength of the spirit. 

So as I write that I am committed to the belief that sin is not about disobedience, but about our failure to be truly human – I truly mean that.  We were created as being God-like – we were created to be in relationship to him. 

This sets the foundation for why I resist Penal Substitution.  More will follow.

46. My committments

The year of blogging is coming to an end.  By my estimation I will have 49 posts up by the end of the year.  Not quite once per week, but close.  Better than I thought I would do.  It has been a struggle.  And mostly, I have written for myself – this has been my devotional, my meditation.

          I have confronted that which I have either learned, or imagine I have learned, or somehow or other come to acquire as believing people have decided God is, or should be: stuff that I have felt, or believed, to not be truth.  It has been an exorcism as a friend of mine has called this writing.  Loosing those demons of my life that have been fueled by a vision skewed by early childhood trauma, my own addiction, and depression.

          Trust me when you feel like life is full of impending doom, the bible is probably the LAST book you should read.

          This is a process that began with the death of my father in 1986, and will continue.  It has seen me reject Christianity, and I mostly still do, seek God elsewhere, and has seen me return.  But, let’s start at the beginning.

          My dad was dying of cancer.  This is man whose entire life seemed to be a mission to get it.  There were times that he drank two to three 26 oz bottles of vodka a day, for years at a time.  As AA states he was in the grip of powerful and baffling illness.  I do not think that he chose that life. 

          As he lay dying, I had come to visit him one weekend.  That Sunday I went to church, the one I had attended with the Drunken Charismatic Lutherans.  The mother of a friend of mine asked me what I was doing in town.  I told her about my dad dying, and she replied that we needed to save his eternal soul.

          This resulted in a declaration.  I did not believe that Jesus had come to earth to die on the cross for us, just so that he could send a man who had not made a rational decision in twenty years to hell.  She quoted scripture.  I told her that obviously we did not believe in the same God.

          From that point forward I struggled with church.  I still do.  I also came to believe that religion has no place in my life.  By religion, I mean the organized set of doctrines that take precedence over the leanings of the Holy Spirit in me, and my understanding of the Bible, and my relationship to Jesus.  I still have little time for religion.

          I sought God, divinity, in two different practices; Paganism and Buddhism.  What I saw, was the same attempt by people to usurp the relationship between God and his creation.  A different version, but the same dynamic that I had seen in church – “Gerald Gardner wrote, I believe it, that settles it.”  In a spirituality that by intent rejects legalism, I saw people creating rules to follow – that would apply to both Buddhism and Paganism.

          In the end, I came to believe that there was nowhere for me to fit.  And then a curious thing happened, I saw a child walking up the centre aisle of a church – and came to realize I had found a home.  I also came to realize that it was up to me to carve a place for me in the body of Christ.  Maybe carve is not the right word.

          And then this blog.  Part apologetics – a word I detest – explaining the word of God.  Part meditation.  Part Soap Box. 

          What has impressed me, is how simple the message of the gospel seems.  As I read it, it seems that what God wants is to have us love him and each other.  God being God, is a he cause it is easier for us – just ask someone what gender is God? 

          So....as I come to the close of the year, what have I found?

          I am even more committed to opposing the doctrine of Penal Substitution, and although I do believe there is power in the Cross, it is the resurrection where the power of Christ is truly found.  (It is the only act of his that we are asked to believe). (Rom 10:9)

          I am committed to the belief that sin is not about disobedience, but about our failure to be truly human – Paul writes about that he is trapped in a body that will not do what he wants it to do and does what he does not want it to do. Yes, disobedience does play a role, but it is the damage that our acts do that saddens and angers God, not our failure to follow his check list.

          I am committed to the belief that we are the ones that desire punishment and sacrifice.  The adage of an eye for eye is not a recipe for justice, but a limitation on our vengeance.  I believe that the requirements for sacrifice, are similarly designed to appease our appetite for violence.

          I am committed to the belief that I am called to be loving.  In the ministry of Jesus I see first and foremost a declaration that God desires nothing more that to be in relationship to us.  And with this belief comes the belief that there is no place where the presence of God can be experienced more powerfully than in the space that is created between you and I as we come together in love.

          I am committed to allowing the Love of God to cast out all fear.  For I believe it is fear that keeps from him and from you.  And trust me, I have a long long way to go.  Do I need repeat that I have a long way to go?

          I am committed to growing in faith, and wait for it – maturity – so all of what have written is subject to change.

Finally - I am committed to editing before I post.