Last night I was exploring the web and came across what
appears to be the Christian version of The Onion. The website offers a Word of
God for Today and yesterday’s was taken from Isaiah 1.15a: “No matter how much
you pray, I won’t listen….” (CEV). So you get the idea of the website.
When I mentioned this Word of God to a few friends, the
immediate responses included appeals to God's eventual relenting, his compassion, and other soft and warm
concepts about God and our relationship to him. This is common among
Christians, emphasizing the goodness and graciousness of God rather than his
wrath (with some notable exceptions in the popular media). God is good, and patient, and compassionate no doubt. However, the God in Isaiah is the same God in John.
This seems like it may be a problem with us Christians from time to
time. We get comfortable living our lives, secure in the idea that either God
doesn’t notice or that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. We go to
church, we tithe, we even give extra money and time to other causes. We staff
mission trips, teach Bible classes, and maybe even attend Christian schools. We
don’t cheat on our taxes or our spouses, we don’t actively hate others, and we
don’t carouse on the weekends. We are in fact, pretty good people, secure in
the notion that God is with us and he likes us. A pretty comfortable life,
actually.
Lament is not something us moderns like to do and sober
self-reflection of our imperfections is often avoided at almost any cost. We
dismiss the moment by encouraging ourselves with comforting phrases that speak
of acceptance and coverings. What is it about us that we seem not able to sit
with our failings? Is it possible for Christians today to spend time
acknowledging and accepting the fact and behaviors of our “bad selves?”
There is a psychological principle that asserts that mature
people can incorporate the negative side of themselves and their experiences
into their whole being. In fact, in many cases it is our running from those
negative thoughts and beliefs that cause psychological pain and dysfunctional
behaviors. Psychologists and therapists help their clients examine,
re-evaluate, and accept the shadow aspects of their lives.
Read God’s Word again. Can you see yourself as the one
addressed in this verse? Can you acknowledge that your own attitudes and
behaviors have been below par? Can you hold that reality longer than a few
seconds? While holding that thought, can you review your attitudes and
behaviors, identifying habits and views that are not God like? Can you do this
without succumbing to the temptation to compare yourself with others or defend
yourself because someone else did something to you? Can you pause in this
moment while being aware of your own imperfections and open your heart and mind
to God? Can you offer him your imperfections one by one – out loud – and then
sit and listen for his response?
In about a month we will enter the Lenten season, a period of reflection prior to Easter. Our Lenten reflection is supposed to be a personal examination of our part in the tragedy of Good Friday. The Word of God for Today with which I began this essay seems a good entre into this reflection. Mankind’s and God’s People’s behaviors and attitudes reached such a depth of disgrace that God was prompted to turn his ear from them – from us.
The period of Lent is forty days, a long time for this sort
of self examination. The purpose is not to belittle, humiliate, or beat up
ourselves. Rather, it is a space – acknowledged by those around us – in which
we and they can participate in checking the direction of our lives without
giving in to the immediate desire to dismiss our misdirections in favor of more
positive thoughts and feelings.
God’s more harsh treatment of his people serves a purpose and
that purpose is to have them stop, think, and return to him and the people they
are made to be. He says as much on more than one occasion, wondering out loud
it seems why his people missed all the signs he sent to them. Even in this
God’s Word for Today, the same purpose is ultimately served. Even in his not
hearing, he encourages his people to wake up, to return to him, to accept his
character as their character. That will never happen though if they don’t slow
down and examine how they have missed the mark of being his people.
Let’s take this God’s Word for Today and prepare to enter
Lent ready for some sustained self-reflection, accepting our shortcomings;
accepting our part in the death on Friday afternoon. An honest, sober, and
sustained period of self-cleansing, openness to the working of God, and being shaped will set
our hearts more ready for the coming of Easter.
Nehemiah 9:1-8 NIV
ReplyDeleteEugene Cho, my pastor,feels uncomfortable with being told to repent. However, he says what is important is not so much what we are turning away from but what we are turning towards. It is good news because God has a better way. It's a time to look at what God has planned for us. Sometimes we are turning away from generational sin that have shaped our families for decades sometimes we are turning away from vices that destroy our capacity to love others fully or keep us from participating in kingdom building. We must separate ourselves from the figures that destroy the walls that God is trying to build up (see the foreigners in the passage, figuratively). We must be ready to be his hands, feet, voice and heart.