Telling this Great Story is
theology. I do not like the word, but it is the best we have. I used to think
theology a waste of time. It was unnecessary to define things I felt
indefinable. It was static when the Gospel should be dynamic and active,
adventurous. All it seemed to do was think in circles while neglecting the
inarguable tasks God left for us. Why do we argue over the ‘correct’ form of
baptism when it seems like God accepts them all? Or if he does not, we at least
will not know that until we meet him.
God
did not give us all the information.
Therefore,
we must conclude that what he gave us was enough for what he is asking us to do
right now…if he is the good God we believe him to be.
He did not tell us the right way
to be baptized. He just said to go and baptize. He did not tell us if the bread
and wine was actually his body and
blood. He just said as often as you eat, remember him.
Theology, some types of it, loved
to focus attention on the things God did not tell us. Of course it did. That is
our nature. But the problem was, we argued so much about those unknowable
things, those sights on the mountain above the clouds, that we neglected the
things he did tell us to do, like to wash our brother’s feet.
I cannot see the purpose of
theology which neglects to feed the hungry. Nor could Jesus. To know You, Father,
and to do nothing is like a doctor who understands the body but sits idly as
people die of a preventable disease. To know the magnitude of this Great Story and
to not live in a way that witnesses to
the fact that we know it, that we know you, Jesus, are alive and your
Spirit resurrecting lives, relationships, communities!--this does not make sense to me. The Gospel is
only the Gospel if it changes hearts, brings the dead back to life.
This Story does not allow for an
intellectual theology. There’s no such thing.
There is life or there is death.
The Gospel of the Kingdom for
children like Paul—that is life.
And only children like Paul
understand that Gospel—for they live with
Truth.
To know the Gospel and to do
nothing is not to know it at all.
It is the same with our faith, or lack of
faith, in this Great Story. Our beliefs comprise our soul, the
motivators of our lived out lives. And what we believe about God alters our unthinking intentions so that the energies of our lives—how we respond to
criticism, how we view happiness or abuse or sex, our humility or our wretched
pride, judgment and grace—amend themselves.
And because our God is so humble (as a child is),
he reveals his undying love through the most ‘un-godly’ of mediums, mediums
unworthy of himself: driving in traffic, infidelity, breakfast in bed, a blind
beggar named Bartimaeus, injustice, college, the list goes on.
That is another reason I believe in the
Great Story. For the God of this Gospel speaks to his creation in any possible way
that they might hear him. It is truly amazing the lists of stories in which
people have felt the tug, or kiss, of the Divine. The end result is the same in
every case—that being a dismantling of our self-centered worldview and a
brokenness beside two perpendicular, wooden beams stained with deep crimson
liquid. But the route each person
took to get to that end, the rocky or plush earth they travelled to get to the
cross, is truly something, and always different.
This would agree with the stories
in the Gospel and I mean the entire Gospel; Genesis through Revelation and many chapters unwritten. It is all one giant
Story and every chapter was written with vigilance and authenticity, like that
of an honest child.
And because the God of this fairy
tale is willing to humiliate himself in so many ways, with tears drenched in
longing, just so that each part of his creation, each child in his family, may know
he is there and feel his love just
for them, I am speechless. This God appears to have always possessed a reckless
and brazen spirit. We see this just by the way he pursues us. He loves us
recklessly when we do not know he is there. He loves us recklessly when we cannot
love him back.
He does not end our relationship even
when we imagine we are fooling him. We grow scared because we wonder when he’ll
discover that he’s being tricked, that actually we don’t deserve this love, that we don’t deserve to be intimate with
him. But it is like he never does. He just keeps touching us with his grace and
mercy. He keeps forgiving us over and over. And though it usually takes a life
time, there comes a point after years and years of our faithlessness followed
by the undeserved washing of his restorative grace that it finally sinks in, and
to our knees we fall, understanding as a child has always known, “Oh my God…You really
do love me, as I am. I was never fooling you. And you are never going to leave
me are you?”
And his answer is always the same
for each one of us.
“Finally
you understand! You get it! You’ve never been tricking me. Oh you have no idea
how madly I love you…just as you are…You are mine.”
I want to see as Bartimaeus does
I want to understand with a
child’s wisdom pouring forth
I want to hear like the soldier
with reattached drum
I want to eat no more, for no
more is necessary
I want to taste eternally, for
sweet and lasting is the water of life
I want to feel the gaping holes
and braised back
I want to cry with new tears,
same as laughter
I want to sit as though I’m
running
I want to yell as though I’m
praying
I want to dance like I know I can
I want to sing upon a lion’s back
I want to love as I’ll never
understand, but love even deeper than that
I want to have faith the way
Christ knows his Father
I want to rest…
I want the world to know that
they don’t have to be afraid anymore
I want Light to be my heart and
skin, to see Him and understand,
I want you to see as Bartimaeus
does
I want you to be free like I
never knew was possible
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