Wow! It has been a really long time since my last blog. I have chosen to back out of a business venture because I just don't have time anymore; actually, I never had the time in the first place. It was an interesting little adventure and I'm glad I did it, but with a full-time job and all of my responsibilities at church, it was completely unrealistic to get involved with. As my partner said, "What we do for the Lord is much more important than what we do in the business world." He is of course correct.
Every church has a slogan, ours is, "Relationship not religion". But slogans are not always easy to live up to, so the question we should all be asking, which I am, is, "does that slogan match what we really are?" A lot of the time its what we really want to be, but not always what we really are. And with all of the transitions going on at my church and after reading a short book, I starting thinking about this and its relationship to my topic, the Trinity.
There was also the aspect that the subject I'm still on – the Trinity – is overwhelmingly huge! Some of the material I had read and still have to read was and still is daunting. The very worst part about this is that I really had not idea where to go from where I was – too many possible directions. So, as I made the decision to drop out of the business venture, the father of my daughter's boyfriend gave me a book to read called The Shack, by Wm Paul Young. Now all of you that just took a collective breath and are still holding it, please, go ahead and let it out. I'm not on the 'dark-side'. Although I liked the book quite a lot, there were a number of theological errors in the book. But that being said, too much is being made of some of the supposed errors - some of the criticism is out of context for a fictional, allegorical story; things like the Father being portrayed as a large black woman or the the Father and the Holy Spirit being visible or having a physical form. These might be legitimate issues if and only if the author was attempting to persuade you that he had had a visitation, or a secret knowledge of how God manifests Himself, but that is simply not the case. This is an allegorical story, a fictional novel whose purpose seems to be to help us realize how we can relate to God. Is there an irreverent element to this story? Some might answer that questions, "Absolutely!", but maybe we need our structured little “Christian” world turned upside down from time to time.
What struck me as I read and thought about this book was the relationship with God that was being described. The character in the book, Mack, is transported - if you will - to a place where he can interact with the person's of the Trinity. Because they are personified, Mack can easily walk and talk with them about both his deeply troubled youth and the death of one of his children - the source of the Great Sadness that grips his entire being. The rest of the book is the three person's of God helping Mack come to terms with his tacit rejection of God and the anger and despair that consumes him. All of the book's criticism is based on how it represents God, from the names for the Father and the Holy Spirit to the things they say to Mack along his weekend journey at the shack. I will leave you to make your own determination as to the validity of the criticisms, they are not the subject of this blog. I would like to deal strictly with the question that rose in my heart as I read the book; what is MY relationship with God? How am I expressing it? And finally, is that expression correct, or is it 'religious'? For me, that is a real important question; remember the church slogan above?
So let's start where we should always start, with Scripture;
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" (Gen 3:8-9 NAS95)
A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You." Answering them, He said, "Who are My mother and My brothers?" Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:32-35 NAS95)
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. (John 15:13-15 NAS95)We talk about Jesus being our "friend" or "brother" and several other familiar terms, some that are, quite frankly, difficult for us to comprehend let alone accept. Many of us have been Christians all our lives, or have become Christians and have learned what to expect as our "approved" behavior, which we turn around and impose on others. Anything that has the slightest hint of irreverence, as we've come to understand it, is abhorrent to us. Yet our biblical examples are of a relationship that we don't really practice, but is actually represented in this book. Still I sense that this is in a way offensive to our sensibilities, and judging from some of the criticism of the book I found, I think I'm right about that. Forget about some of the theological problem areas of this book, that is not my focus. Please understand that I'm not excusing, condoning or ignoring the problem areas in this book. My focus is on our relationship with God, which the book makes as a center piece to the story's presentation, and my central question - what is that really supposed to be? What does it look like? Are we really supposed to walk around praying and talking to God in King James English? That answer should be obvious.
In Gen 3, we see that God regularly walked and talked with Adam in the garden. That is the only conclusion we can come to since God seems to be surprised not to find Adam there. Imagine if you will, that type of relationship. Don't you wonder what they talked about? How often they did this? Or how long their walks were? Next we see Mark 3 and Jesus clearly calls believers His brothers and sisters. Remember, He's still God, yet we are His family, warts and all. Isn't there an inherent love in families? No matter what our earthly brothers and sisters do, we still love them, even when we dislike what they do. And finally, in John 15, we are no longer slaves, but friends, friends of God with the inside scoop on what's going on. These three passages speak volumes, without hardly saying anything at all! All of those unspoken things that we just know.
Please understand, I'm not trying to make these few Scriptures say more than they really are, but my sincere belief is that we make too little of them to begin with. What are the examples of relationships with Jesus in the Bible? Aren't they of familiarity - Jesus with His disciples and His disciples with Him? Isn't it one similar to how we would relate with a good friend? Your wife or husband? Now, think carefully, is that the type of relationship you have with Christ? Is it really? Don't focus on whether Jesus would wear a tool belt, or whether the Father would appear as a 'large black woman'. To me, the absurdity of the hyperbole the author uses is self evident. Remember its an allegorical representation. If God was going to confront a clansman, I can't see a reason why he wouldn't choose a form that would turn that person's world completely upside down. God would use the very opposite of what they would be expecting, as He often did with the Pharisees. Remember what happened to Peter when God confronted him about his sudden Jewishness around his Jewish and Gentile 'brothers'? God presented Peter unclean animals and told him, "Kill and eat!" Peter was repulsed at the thought, and needed this shock treatment three times for the light bulb to turn ON! And before we get to 'high and mighty', I'll bet we'd need more than three treatments for our wake up call.
I want us to see the Jesus of Scripture, so let's look at John 11 and the raising of Lazarus. Verse 3 says,
So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."Interesting statement isn't it, the one that Jesus loves is sick. This expresses an intimate friendship with another human being. Don't you think that Lazarus felt the same way about Jesus? This same statement is made about John later in the book. Moving on to verse 11,
This He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep."And here, once again, Jesus calls Lazarus His friend, but not just "His" friend, Lazarus was friends with all of the disciples as well. Jesus is showing us a relational aspect of who He is, and how we are supposed to be ... with Him, as well as with others. We know we're supposed to be relational with each other, but what about our relationship with the Almighty God as Father Son and Holy Spirit? If we can't get it right with Him, can we really get it right with each other? Do we really understand what it means to be in relationship with each other? Let's continue in verses 33-36:
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!"Here Jesus is moved to tears about a friend that He already knew was dead when He arrived, and already knew that He was going to raise from the dead. Yet seeing his friend's tomb causes Jesus to openly weep. Now go back and re-read the whole passage. Don't you see His close interaction with His disciples, and Mary and Martha? It would even appear that both Martha and Mary understood just who Jesus was. Is that how we relate to Jesus?
If we take a look at John 21:1-18 we see the story of Jesus restoring Peter after his denials of Christ before the crucifixion. They had breakfast together, is that the Jesus you know? How did Jesus relate to His disciples? When Peter understood that Jesus was God - did it change how he related to God, how he talked to God? What about Adam before the fall? He "walked with God in the cool of the day" (Gen 3:8-9) - isn't that how God wanted to relate to us all along? And that is one of the central points of The Shack.
The depiction of Mack's relationship with the triune God embarrassed me about my own relationship, especially in light of the fact of my church's slogan. I had to ask myself if my actions showed that I actually believed it. Is my relationship with Jesus like my relationship with my good friend Bob or my wife? I can talk about anything with either one of them; but can I do that with Jesus? And more, do I relate to Him like I relate to Bob? Think about your prayers; if you inserted the name of your best friend - like Bob - would that prayer conversation sound silly? For most of us, I fear the answer is yes. And if it does, then maybe you should change the way to talk to God. Really, it doesn't have to sound religious. He's there with you, having a morning cup of joe, or driving to work, or watching television, and even when you're sleeping. If we are believers, then we can't help but take Him everywhere we go because the Holy Spirit resides IN us, continually. If we are believers, He never leaves us, ever. Does that scare you or excite you?
Yes, there are plenty of places where people fell on their faces before both God and Jesus in reverence and awe, but that doesn't negate the times they walked and talked with Him, as friends do, sharing life, troubles and pain. If we are believers, then Jesus calls us His friends too and calls us to a relationship, where we share life, not just our laundry list of prayers.
This is not an indictment of anyone; its a challenge for us all.
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