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Friday, October 23, 2009

Well, it's homecoming Sunday at Bethel, so Ernie Nivens is preaching. At Philadelphia we're going to get into 1 John 5:1-4. Read it. I hear in it a lot of talk about connection. First, love for Christ is connected to new birth, which is connected to having a new family. Loving our fellow children of God is connected to obedience:

"This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands."

So, our ability to love people is tied to our faith/action? But what about all those ways I can love people that seem to have nothing to do with my beliefs? There are thousands of NGOs and non-profits that offer Americans the chance to try to love their fellow man, regardless of religion, right?

What about all those ways I disobey or disregard God that only affect me? It's a personal decision, isn't it, between me and God?

Maybe, maybe, 1 John 5 says otherwise. Maybe there are connections in our midst that are real and influential.

There's a group of folks who work in this field of interpersonal connection, it's called "small world theory," and it gets into complicated math or other ways to track how humans interact all over the globe. One way for the math to boil down into easier terms is to just look at somebody's KB#. Or, their "Kevin Bacon Number". That's right.

Somebody's Kevin Bacon Number is the number of people it takes to link them back to Kevin Bacon (usually just for actors through movies that they co-starred in with Mr. Bacon). It comes from this idea that there are no more than "six degrees of separation" between Kevin Bacon and every other actor alive or dead. For instance, let's try actor Val Kilmer. Val was in Top Gun with Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon. That gives Val Kilmer a Kevin Bacon number of 2.

KB#'s are an image of our connectedness, and the idea carries over to all of us, that roughly no more than six people separate us all. Picture every human on earth and start drawing lines that connect us, and it's a huge spiderweb that is very connected.

That being said, keeping that spiderweb picture in our minds, imagine how good and evil flows along those connections from me to you, and you to me, and everywhere. Love and hate, mercy and judgment, giving and greed, justice and oppression, etc. etc. Imagine how our words and deeds travel all over the earth. It's kinda like the idea in the movie Pay it Forward.

That's where 1 John makes more sense to me, seeing that so much of us is so connected to so much of everybody else, it matters how we define our love for other people, it matters what guides our words/thoughts/deeds when it comes to loving people, it matters what we believe and how that shapes how we connect to others. Because maybe only six people separate us from the entire globe.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Job 38:1-10

We wrap up with a final look at Job. Tragedy has struck, his friends have come and flapped their gums and Job has responded. Here in Job 38, God finally responds and speaks. Right away, like some scholars point out, we see that God is NOT answering the questions we've brought up in worship the past two weeks. God doesn't tell Job "why" it's all happened and we don't really hear "where" God's been all this time. Instead, God makes it a "who" question...like "Job, who do you think you are?" and "Who do you think I am?"

We should've known that suffering oughta be a "who" question, but don't we always find ways to treat other people, and God, and personal things as impersonal? Like, on Saturday night I was watching the South Carolina-Alabama game, and to me football is definitely one of those "people treating people impersonally" kinda things.

What I mean is, players on the field can't help but treat their opponents as slightly impersonal - if I'm a linebacker and my job is to destroy such-and-such running back, then do you think I'll spend my time before the snap considering what a lovely personality said halfback has? Will I daydream about his relationship with his mother, or his second-grade nickname, or how he might feel when I tackle him? Negative. All that personal nonsense might take some of my edge off, it gets in the way of what's running through my head - "DESTROY #25 WHEN HE TOUCHES THE BALL." It's similar for the fans, there has to be some suspension of personal humanity to really yell at the other team for no good reason over a football game. But it's nothing personal.

Anyway, during the game, a Carolina player named Moe Brown caught a pass very close to the goal line and had his head/neck sandwiched between two players. He lay limp on the field, all the coaching staff ran out to him, got him on the backboard, and he gave the "thumbs up" heading off the field. And for a moment, the game became human/personal, people talked about who Moe Brown is as a senior captain, and both sides of players and fans cheered when he seemed okay (even though MOST were Alabama fans). All of that is to say, somewhere deep inside most of us I think it makes sense that suffering and hurt demands a personal, human response. In suffering we gotta consider each other's feelings, we need each other, we need real human support (and how about God?).

So, Job's friends failed as good friends because they failed to treat Job like a who. They didn't seem real concerned with Job's humanity, with his pain and feelings, with the actual suffering man, but just kept talking about Job's situation. It's like it was a case study for them. They pondered theology and regurgitated "wisdom". Job's friends didn't treat God like much of a who either - again, God was just an object of study here.

Satan's character in Job (Chs 1 and 2) points to the deep who questions of suffering, too. As the accuser/adversary, he points at God and humans and strikes at who we all are. Satan implies that God is a fool for thinking people could truly love him, saying that people are only obedient/good so that God will give them good things. And with Job, isn't Satan trying to wield suffering to get the man to doubt who God is, to call God evil and ultimatlely renounce his allegiance to Yahweh? It's a two-pronged attack striking at about the biggest deal in all Creation: the relationship between God and us.

But in the end, through all 38 chapters, Job hasn't renounced God. He's gotten close to blasphemy, for sure, but he never loses sight that God is a who. Job talks to God, pours out all his feeling to God, and won't quit. In the end, Job's friends are silent, Satan is nowhere to be found (so we can assume Job has survived the challenge), and God speaks back. Too many of us see God almost smacking Job down with strong language about how big God is and small Job is. But let's understand that God didn't have to speak to Job at all.

But God does, and it's a word that let's Job know that he doesn't have to try to be in charge, he doesn't need all the "why's" and "where's" and "how's" answered, as long as he holds onto the faith that's kept him alive so far - faith based on a personal God who hears and answers.

Maybe the overall question is, when suffering comes to us would we rather have a book of answers, and the background info, or would we rather just have a good, present, LIVING, loving God? Assuming we can't have both, which do we prefer?

Friday, October 9, 2009

Job 23:1-17

After last week, all the tragedy striking Job's life but his staying faithful and not blaming God, Job's friends show up. And we skip to chapter 23. Why? Because those 20-some chapters are full of he and his friends talking about all kinds of nonsense. No, but for real, Job's friends present to him over and over what most religious experts, wise people, the "learned" would've told him - "just stop being sinful, Job, and God will hook things up for you again. God is good but we humans are so sinful that suffering is just God's way of giving you what you deserve. It must be that you have some hidden sin in your life, that's why your success is gone." Funny...I've heard that...before, somewhere....

Aaand, over and over Job lets these cats know that they're wrong. He doesn't claim to be perfect or totally "sinless" but he knows he's lived pretty righteously and loves God. And that never changed, but still
*ka-blam* he had all this stuff happen to him. You can hear in Job's voice how aggravated these guys are making him. On top of his suffering, the "wisdom of the day" is accusing him of deserving it all...seems like his friends just bring more mental suffering.

In the face of that jive-talk, Job longs for God to come to his defense, let him know he's not crazy, and more. So, chapt. 23 is about Job's question, "where can I find God?" Isn't that a big part of how we react to evil/suffering on earth...do you ever wish you could just summon God, or go to his house and get an explanation? Or explain your own case, or seek his help/comfort? When we hurt why doesn't God always just show up?

It kinda, only
kind of, reminds me of parents raising young kids...there comes that time when the kids are left to sleep in their own room. For the first time, alone, in the dark. In that child's world their need for comfort is sometimes very real, but many parents learn not to answer their baby's cries every time, or else baby will learn that mom/dad will always come a-runnin'. And the crying will continue. Let's face it, every child craves the presence of a good parent. But a good parent knows that their child can learn to face the dark on his/her own. 'Cause mom/dad can't be there every time, but that doesn't mean baby isn't somehow cared for or provided for.

In some ways that's a terrible analogy to our relationship with God, because the evil/suffering in the world is way more substantial than being afraid of the dark, and because, no, I don't think God wants us all to just "quit being babies" and grow up and stop calling for him and fend for ourselves. That is NOT the idea.

But parents teaching children about bedtime illustrates that the real thing at stake here is our need for God's love/presence. And it's hard because no matter how much we want it, we can't just make God appear. So now the question becomes, can we trust that God has reasons for not coming running every time? When God isn't where we want him to be, the way we want him, all the time, can we still believe that we're
absolutely cared for?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Job 2:1-10

Done with James, now we've got a few weeks in Job. So, like some of us know the book digs into what's up with God letting "bad things happen to good people"? Big question. We all ask it, right? And when we all witness heinous things on this earth, it's easy to start to draw a couple of conclusions:

1. There is no God.
2. If God exists his power must be limited (he's unable to stop bad things from happening).
3. If God exists and is all-powerful he must not be good (he can do anything but doesn't care enough to stop bad things).
4. God is all-powerful and good, but likes to put us through bad things to make us better people.
5. God is all-powerful and good, but no human is really "good", so we get bad things according to what we deserve.

I'm sure there are more options, but the idea is that what we experience on earth, especially of suffering and evil, can affect how we understand God. It can punch holes in whether or not we think God exists. It involves what we assume about humankind and what humans do/don't deserve.

That's where we're going to start together. As a young American I know I can stand to get a better grip on what I do/don't deserve. My standard of living and quality of life, marketing and the media, convince me every day that I deserve much. It's like the recent news story of the girl who tried to sue her college when she didn't get a job right away after graduation. It's this idea of entitlement. But on the other hand, plenty of us have a hard time feeling like we deserve any of the good we find. Have you ever struggled to let yourself be loved, or feel valuable?

So the question this first week with Job is, what are we really entitled to? Nothing? Everything?
Do we deserve good or bad? What is God obligated to do or not do?