Making God Fit (How We Try to Recreate the Creator)

In an attempt to reconcile our standing with God and our living in the world, I think we've attempted to change and modify him.  In fact, we have a history of attempting to reduce God to a political platform, a few standard cultural norms, or even a figure who just doesn't like whomever we hold in contempt.  In other words, we try to recreate the Creator. 

Do we really believe God would be either a democrat or republican?  Certainly, he has a set of ideals (would we want the ruler of the universe to have none?).  But, try to imagine Jesus running for President.  First of all, he wouldn't.  He was explicit in saying that his kingdom is not of this world (John 18).  He also instructed his followers to give their hearts to God...and give Caesar what is Caesar's (Mark 12).  In other words, your most important possession belongs to God.  Secondly, his political platform would look a little unusual by the worlds standards, wouldn't it?  Try to make a political commercial out of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). Blessed are the meek?  The response would certainly include how "impractical" Jesus' espoused values are in the modern world (author's note: by the way, Jesus meant that stuff).

Neither does God fit into our cultural norms.  Sure, God has blessed America.  But, I'm not entirely convinced that he recognizes our borders with Canada and Mexico and he has blessed many other nations besides the USA.  Kenya is desperately poor but has one of the most devout Christian populations in the world!  Why do we say God has blessed us only when we are prospering (or when we win the game - not when we get beat)?  Do we really think that our struggles and weaknesses contain no blessings as well?  What if our prosperity and/or strengths are only serving to distract us from our need for God? This was the case with the rich young ruler (Mark 10).  What if God has intentionally left us with a weakness in order to further demonstrate his power through us as was the case with Paul's thorn (2 Cor 12)?  Moses stuttered and was orphaned.  John the Baptist ate bugs.  Jesus himself was poor and despised by the majority.

Finally, we tend to justify ourselves to God by pretending that he is more accepting of our shortcomings as opposed to the shortcomings of those people around us.  In our minds, this makes us slightly better than "the bad guy" standing next to us thinking that God then holds us in higher esteem.  For instance, if we fail to recognize our pride and arrogance, but hold the drug addict in contempt, are we sounding a lot like the Pharisee who prayed "at least I'm not like this poor tax collector" (Luke 18)?  According to Jesus, it was that "heathen" tax collector who made it to heaven...

God is obviously too expansive to reduce and recreate but we try to do it anyway.  Anne Lamott said it nicely" You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do".  In this sentence, you could substitute the word "people" with: things, ideals, or shortcomings as well.  I pray to have continued faith that his word will hold true.  That he alone is sufficient.  That he will provide my needs just as he is ... and that I not attempt to reduce him to whatever I see as normal and/or acceptable. 

Real Faith, Real Living

I believe that one of the reasons that God created human freewill was so that faith and love would exist within us.  He loves us enough to allow us to choose whether or not to follow him.  So, while our broken world is full of hurt, love does exist and it carries the most incredible and overwhelming power.  True love manifests itself in us in ways that can be quite surprising.  Who among us hasn't been surprised by what people are willing to sacrifice for someone for whom they have deep adoring affection?  Thus, Jesus said that those who truly believe in him will lose their life for his sake; they place his interests before their own. They end up seeking to glorify him in how they live.  Paul called this "being a living sacrifice"

Some people picture Christians as self-loathing religious rule-followers. They think that we live in a state of shame and guilt subjected to oppressive rules and regulations of a controlling church.  Some churchgoers have an equally distorted image of what it means to follow Christ believing that merely repeating a particular prayer, kneeling before an altar, or robotically following a set of rules (Jesus called this last group "whitewashed tombs") will lead to a fulfilled life with Christ.  Unfortunately, disappointment follows this approach when their spiritual walk is short-lived and empty.  They find that a formulaic approach to God is a dead-end road leaving them further from God rather than closer.

When true belief is found, the disciple approaches God in a manner that can be somewhat similar to other relationships in their lives.  A follower feels compelled to learn as much as possible about the incredible one with whom this relationship has started.  The more we understand him, the more we grow to appreciate how truly magnificent God is.  The more we appreciate him, the closer we grow in our relationship with him.  We also see that while we can never fully understand God, we are called to trust him.  To trust in the unseen and to believe his promises.  This is where our faith lies.

Followers get joy from following Jesus.  They pray by speaking and listening to him, study the bible to learn more of him, and observe his works in their lives in order to better understand him.  They desire to please him in all that they do - not because they are forced to but because they wish to offer themselves as living sacrifices to the everlasting God.  They trust what he says and follow him because they know and love him.  They even pray that he will strengthen their desire to live in a manner that brings glory to him and not to themselves.  This is massively different than being a religious rule-follower isn't it?  Regimented rule-following is founded in self-interest, staying out of trouble, fear and appearances.  It is a sham.  I am most happy when my children do good because they have the desire to do so - rather than because it has been demanded of them.  I imagine God feels the same about me.



  

Big Feeling from Humility

Christ's disciples understand that his teachings were radically different than what the world values or believes.  But, sometimes those values are difficult to understand.  When he, the very Son of God, knelt to wash the filthy feet of his followers, Peter was aghast!  He thought: how could the King of Kings, the Messiah, the Son of God place himself in such a lowly position as to wash another person's dirty feet?  Jesus' response to Peter was very direct:  "unless I wash you, you have no part with me".  Jesus was teaching Peter a different way - a humble way which he commands us to follow.

When the two brothers, James and John, approached Jesus with a request to receive a special seat of honor next to Jesus, they were also rebuked.  Jesus responded in a manner that turned the world's values upside down when he said "whoever wants to be first must be slave of all".  Jesus was teaching them a different way - a humble way which he commands us to follow.  These examples are consistently in the forefront of Jesus' teachings and seen throughout the New Testament.  Even though the Son of Man himself "came not to be served, but to serve" and we are commanded "to do likewise", the world does not reward this humility.  The world does not revere the least, the last, the lowest.  But, we should absolutely take heart in that fact!

Like Peter, James and John, many Christians have difficulty embracing God's value system.  At best, we are sometimes fearful to live by these values because of our need to survive in the world (which this fear is caused by a lack of faith in the very Creator of the entire universe).  At our worst, we sometimes seek the rewards of the world for our own glory while placing those rewards ahead of One who created even our very breath.  There is a better way, Christian.

As a natural extension of following God's leading, Christians will most typically observe modesty and simplicity in their lifestyle, language, and mannerisms.  They will lean away from pretensions and feelings of superiority (or as the Amish say gross feelich or big feeling).  In a win at all cost, toot your own horn, dog eat dog, pat yourself on the back world, modesty has no natural place.  So, it certainly isn't easy.  Jesus said that we were "sheep among wolves" indicating that we are naturally exposed to certain vulnerabilities because of our beliefs.  I laughed (because I absolutely loved it) when I heard a baptist preacher say to his congregation: "if you feel like an alien in this world, I have great news for you...you are!".

But, the follower understands that living for the glory of God (and not ourselves) has greater rewards that are impossible to put into words - because those words would have to reflect an eternal and everlasting God.  Those words would have to reflect the amazingly endless acts of a Creator that are seen only by eyes that he has opened.  Those words would have to describe a love received that is absolutely and wonderfully boundless.  Those words would have to describe the One who has served to a degree that we can only aspire.

Encouraging the Inconceivable (Am I a Stumbling Block?)

While some people are blessed to find God early in life, others like Saul of Tarsus, can take many years consisting of twists and turns that no man could possibly conceive.

We know how the story ended with Saul (mostly known as Paul after his conversion).  So, it is easy for us to not be shocked by the complete transformation of the man who personally oversaw the murder of Christ followers.  In modern terms, prior to becoming an apostle, he was a terrorist that was involved in a horrendous genocide.  But, we now recognize him primarily for his zeal for Jesus Christ.

Apparently, the prayer of the apostle Stephen was heard by God when he prayed for the forgiveness of his attackers while he was being beaten to death.  That prayer was answered by God's deliverance of the gang's ringleader, Paul who wrote most of the New Testament books.  No man could write Pauls's story - nor could any man foresee his deliverance from an evil past.  In fact, when Paul was converted, Jesus' disciples were still initially afraid of Paul and skeptical of whether he had truly been changed.

At a minimum, this wildly radical story of deliverance should cause Christ followers to pause when attempting to determine another person's station in life.  Today, a person's journey to Jesus Christ can no more be determined by man than could Saul's path be comprehended nearly 2000 years ago.  The question is whether we can finally stand before God as one who provided encouragement, or conversely, a stumbling block toward their final destination.

A homeless man once told me that this story of Stephen's stoning has resonated with him his entire life.  Stephen's unearthly reaction to his execution has been an encouragement to a man that has no earthly hope.  I have no doubt that, when reflecting on that horrible day, Paul somehow found encouragement in Stephen as well.  Maybe this homeless man finds his way to finally have hope in Christ partly due to the God given grace of Stephen - or maybe he will simply be encouraged by a believer that is a source of love and care.  As a follower of Jesus Christ, I pray that I am able to be a source of encouragement, not to serve as a stumbling block, to those unknown pilgrims around me.  Like Paul's journey, the path they are on is sometimes impossible for me to see or even comprehend.    

Don't Blend In (Jesus meant what he said)

When I was a kid, I thought that being a follower of Christ meant that you were in the mainstream of society.  Christians were people who would dress nicely, smile a lot, and knew a few special words and phrases.  Certainly, their behavior was completely acceptable because they pretty much just blended in with everyone else.  They weren't really that different than everyone else.  That was the image that I had of a "typical" Christian.

During his earthly ministry, Jesus would have been difficult to classify as mainstream.  He combated the traditions of the religious elite, told his followers to lose their lives in order to follow him, and dined with people with whom most of us would be embarrassed to be seen.  Downtrodden people were honored by him and the people most honored by the rest of society (usually people in positions of authority / power) were most often challenged by him.  Jesus took man-made convention and stomped it into the sand like a scorpion.  The Jesus that I have come to know and love was a counter-culture radical that turned the values of the world on its head.  He continues to do that today.

What if Jesus actually meant what he said and did?  For example, Jesus kept company with some pretty rough characters; he really seemed to prefer the company of the least desirable people.  How might we treat someone who collected taxes for a hostile occupying foreign government and profited from these activities by skimming money from the top?  Would we be embarrassed if a prostitute barged into the room to wash our feet while we dined with the local pastor or priest?  Given the choice, would we choose to spend our time with those on the very lowest rung of our society? Would we try so hard to be first if we really believed him when he said that "the last will be first, and the first will be last"?  Do we really believe that we are loving Christ when we are loving the lost and forgotten - prisoners, homeless, addicted, and broken? Do we really believe the Sermon on the Mount? Or do we skip the hard stuff?  Questions like these make me wonder how accepting we Christians actually are of the One we profess to follow.

This message of Jesus' is as radical today as it was then: the values of this world have no place in a person's heart.  We are simply called to be different.  In his book "The Cost of Discipleship", Dietrich Bonhoeffer disposes of the myth that Jesus' messages were merely an ideal to be merely strived for and not practical to live by.  Executed in a martyr's death in Nazi Germany because of his faith, Bonhoeffer explained that Jesus meant exactly what he said and that we shouldn't skip past the hard stuff - perhaps especially when that means we won't blend in so much.