Tag: labels

NO ONE REALLY KNOWS US

george gaffgaLeave a comment

That’s right. Nobody really, truly or accurately knows us. Not our spouse, lover, doctor, friend and most often we don’t even know ourselves. Oh people have opinions about what’s going on inside of us. We’re depressed, shy, angry, and sad among many possible traits. But none of those labels get to the heart of just who we are and what’s going on inside of us.

Sometimes we crawl deep within ourselves hiding, as it were, from the storms around us, even the people closest to us. We might put on a disguise of happiness or strength but inside we’re just little children crying for love and understanding.

Even saying we are a child of God says very little about who that child really is; what he or she thinks. No, I’m afraid that people are only guessing about the ‘me inside’.

I think King David was that way. We can read all about him and even analyze this shepherd king but the cries of his psalms tell us that he was at most times a lonely man living in the solitude of the castle he built around himself, running, hiding, fighting, and sometimes praising and giving thanks.

Take a look at Psalm 139 and you will discover that this is only ONE who really knew David and thus you and me. “Lord you have searched me and you know me.” Or as the MSG puts it, “I am an open book to you.” The whole Psalm labors this point. There is no place to hide from God. Not that God is angrily searching for us. No. Just the opposite. David’s Psalm is one of thanks that God does know him when others don’t.

Our Creator is our Supreme Lover having knit us together in the womb. This loving Father is even invited by David to uncover David’s offenses deep inside. Not even the most private caverns of darkness within our souls can keep us hidden from the loving pursuit of God. (Read this whole Psalm)

From the silent screams of our hearts to the highest praises of our lips God is right there with us. And knowing that my Lord knows makes all the difference in the world. Such love may not change my outward circumstances or it might. What matters most is that

THE GREAT I AM knows who I am.

By the way. In Advent let’s remember IMMANUEL means ‘God with us.’

RELIGIONLESS CHRISTIANITY

george gaffga3 Comments

I have taken up readings by and about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) once again.

He was a Lutheran pastor who gave his life in resistance to the Nazi Reich of the 30’s and 40’s. And what he observed in Germany was a piety that pushed God away from the center of a person’s life. In this way God was safer.

This marginalization of God was done by language, ceremonies, and even church sacraments. One could be a Nazi and still give allegiance to God through the label of ‘Christian’ and even go so far from the center to have a ‘God blessed baptism’ without the effects. (It reminds me of a scene from ‘The Godfather’.) The same people who received the church sacraments could be the same persons who were anti-Semitic and executed their own citizens for the security of the Reich.

It’s hard to imagine how the German Nationalists could live with themselves. The reason perhaps is that they pushed God to the periphery of their lives, A God to whom they were only accountable for their religious observances and not their day to day lives.

We do and have done the same in America, myself included. We use our religious labels like ‘born again’ or ‘evangelical’ as ways of aligning ourselves with the God of religion. We get baptized, carry large study Bibles and join churches as a means of attaining an acceptable righteousness with God.

But what truly matters is very little of any of this. What matters is Christ, not religion. Christ is the understanding of Bonhoeffer was the epitome of ‘giving ones life for another’. In Philippians 2 Paul writes that we are to have the attitude, the mindset, the character of Jesus who ‘gave up power’ and his equality with God to become a servant to humanity even to the point of dying on the cross. That’s the center where Jesus lives and to where he calls us. In the vocation of salvation, to which we are called, we are to be a people who are for ‘all the others’ not just the few who belong to ‘our group’. Jesus didn’t die for only the Jews. He died for everyone, for all people. He was/is the Lamb of God who takes away ‘the sin of the world’. (John 1)

So if I am called to be Jesus’ disciples whom do I get to exclude in the name of nationalism, politics, the economy or even safety. Jesus did not call us to be ‘safe’ in this world. Rather he said we should carry a cross and deny ourselves, which is the only real way to discover who we really are.

‘Religion’ keeps us thinking that this is what we have really done. I Tithe. Wow, what a burden, a cross to bear. Jesus said that the very people who tithed were the same ones who neglected weightier matters of just and mercy.

Here’s the Message Version of Luke 11:42 “I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.

And now one of our states has a ‘good Christian’ man running for the U.S. Senate. His past is questionable with several allegations of sexual abuse. He has been compared with Joseph the carpenter who married a young virgin, Mary and bore a son, Jesus. So what’s the problem? And it was 40 years ago. It’s not relevant, some say. And he’s good for the country, a quality that outweighs any past behavior.

See what Bonhoeffer means by pushing God to the peripheral even while using God to condone our own character.

Remember Paul in 1Cor. 13 writing that we can ‘do’ or ‘perform’ all the right acceptable and seemingly moral behaviors but with love it counts, in the salvation vocation to which we are called, for nothing.

God did not send his Son to only save our personal souls to go to heaven when we die but to establish once and for certain His Kingdom, the beachhead for a reconciling of earth and heaven. In Luke 4 Jesus tells about his own presence on earth.

God’s Spirit is on me;
he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to set the burdened and battered free,
to announce, “This is God’s year to act!”– Message Version

We are called to follow Jesus in the center of all life, loving others, those on the fringe of life, needing to know the love and blessing of God for everyone. We are called to be the light of the world- the whole world.

And as Jesus taught, ‘not even the powers of hell can stop that kind of church’.

We are the bride, getting ready for the Bridegroom to meet us, to feast with us and to restore this creation to a new heaven and new earth. That cannot happen with God on the periphery of our lives. We are not looking for a Christian State but rather the state of Christians to make Christ the center.

And listen- I’m no pillar of virtue when it comes to all the above. I have performed many religious acts and ceremonies that I have thought appeased God and even after 60 years of being ‘a Christian’ I need Christ more than ever at the CENTER, the center of all I am and do. Thanks be to God for his grace in all of that.

Maranatha