1517 Blogcast

My mom’s never gonna forgive me!” She was right. Her mom never forgave her. I was translating for the 15-year-old minor the words of the defense attorney. He wanted to convince her that if she behaved well in the foster home, she could go back home.

Why did God put that tree in the Garden of Eden? Many have pondered this question through the ages. This is the tree from which Eve took the fruit, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the tree upon which the fate of the human race depended. Why would God allow such a tree to exist in His beautiful garden?

Ten lepers obey Jesus' command. As they go to the temple, they are cleansed. Nine go to see the priests. They follow Jesus' commands to the letter. Their obedience is remarkable. But, one turns back. He is a Samaritan, a foreigner, an outsider. He is a leper and a Samaritan. That means he is a duck twice dead. Worse yet, he ignores Jesus' command. Instead, he finds Jesus, falls on his knees and worships Jesus. But, the one who turns back, Jesus says, is saved by his faith. So what are we supposed to learn from this parable? Is this lesson about obedience? Maybe it is about miraculous healing? Maybe it is supposed to direct us to thankfulness?

We may feel righteous indignation against the drunk driver in court, but before God, we are no different. God looks into the DNA of our hearts and measures our extremely high level of lust, envy, pious pride, even intellectual, religious pride. We may hide it well, but inside we get irritated over trivialities, and in our heads, we are constantly suing someone for some minor or large grievances. We always want to save face, even at the expense of others. We are drunk on our own pride and selfishness – and what’s worse, we are not even aware of it.

But what exactly do we mean by the word “believe”? Is it enough to feel something deeply, or is action necessary? If so, what sort of action must be taken to bolster the object of our belief? Many of the greatest atrocities in human history have been committed by humans who firmly believed that they were doing the right thing. Is the worth of our beliefs judged by the glories (or horrors) we may experience because we adhere to something—or is there another way to measure belief? And who gets to judge whether the results of our beliefs are right or wrong?

We are all theologians of glory. We all believe that we have something precious to offer God. Maybe it is our good works; mission trips, teaching Sunday School, helping the poor and downtrodden. Maybe that thing we believe God needs from us is subtler. Perhaps, we imagine, He simply needs our good intentions or our desire to be better. Perhaps, we think, what God needs from us is our faith. And if our faith is not enough, perhaps what He needs is our piety, our complete reverence, religiosity, and desire to follow His will come what may.

Adam has left an unworthy theologian in all of us: a theologian on a quest to know what God has not given us to know, a theologian of glory. We are all still striving to be God. Still eating the forbidden fruit of wanting to ascend to Him. This unworthy theologian doesn't seek to know God to worship Him, but rather to displace Him. The old Adam in us wants to kill God. We believe God is holding out on us, and that He has kept the best things from us. We associate divine glory with spiritual power. And if glory means power, we will gladly become theologians of the former.

On the cross, Christ took our place. With His plea, He cried out, “I will not divorce you, I will not let you divorce me, I love you, I love you way too much, I love you forever. I love you so much I have died for you.” Our senseless divorce plea is drowned out by the voice of our groom Jesus Christ who cries out, “I will never forsake you or abandon you… Do not fear: I am with you; do not be anxious: I am your God, I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Heb. 13:5; Is. 41:10 NABRE).

I was recently asked, "Does Jesus ever just get fed up with how much time I need to spend each day taking care of myself? I have so many aches and pains, and so many things I need to do so I can function. I just wondered, does He ever get irritated that I spend so much time taking care of myself and so little time paying attention to Him?"

This morning, while watching the news I saw an elected official from Hurricane Florence-ravaged North Carolina plead for neighbors to keep an eye out for each other, and to help whomever they were able to. It was a pretty benign request in the face of possible disaster.  My initial response, however, startled me. I thought “technically, no one is legally obliged to help one another." And I was right. Of course, our “musts” and “shoulds,” do not always compliment each other.