Textbook vs real

Sorry for the delay between posts. First I had a visit from Mr Jon Tyrrell, who is what the French sometimes refer to as a 'blogstopper'*, then I moved country.

Anyway, another reason that I'm enjoying Job is that it's pretty explicitly a conversation between theoretical (or 'textbook') beliefs, and real, back-against-the-wall, ruthlessly honest relating to God.

Job's friends maintain that he must have done something to deserve his suffering because that's how the world works: people who do bad things suffer, people who do good things prosper. In Job's response he argues that he has done no wrong (chapter 10), and that in fact he sees the wicked prospering all over the place (chapter 12) so his friends' theory is in need of some pretty drastic revision.

Interestingly, when Job starts complaining (chapter 3) his friends' first response is that when others were in trouble, he was the one to comfort them (chapter 4 v3-5), so it should be pretty easy for him to apply the counsel he gave in those days to his own case now. We all know the theory's much easier to apply when it's someone else who's at the sharp end right?

Eliphaz is particularly smug in dishing out the platitudes, with his "As for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause" (Chapter 5 v8, emphasis mine). I can almost feel Job wanting to punch him in the face at this point, maybe it was only the 'loathsome and painful sores' he was covered in that stopped him. I can feel a little bit like this if someone hits me with Romans 8 v28 just after something's gone majorly wrong. I've little doubt that Paul was writing the truth, but on those moments I feel more in need of Job's (and Marvin Gaye's)  "What's going on?", than a beautiful truth thrown in from someone who doesn't know what I'm going through.

* loosely translated it refers to someone whose presence is so enjoyable that it stops you blogging.

Job as prophet - further evidence

Just a quick note to finish off my thought process from yesterday.

In the verses which immediately follow Job's question re: life after death, he could easily be talking on behalf of the incarnate Jesus (especially 1st bit) and/or restored humanity (especially 2nd bit). Get your laughing gear round this:

(1sit bit)
All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.
You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

(2nd bit)
For then you would (not) number my steps, you would not keep watch over my sin;
My transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

We can't really blame Job for feeling like God is very much "watching over" his sin. He's going through hell (figuratively - to the extent that he seems to want to go there literally), and his friends are telling him it must be because of his sin. You can kind of imagine God listening and thinking "Ooh, covering over iniquity. Now there's a thought."

The point is that the thing that Job's pining after is our reality. He (again unwittingly it seems) gets a glimpse of the age to come. This is why reading people like Job and Jeremiah gives me such heart. God honoured their earnest (if tempestuous) pursuit of him by giving them glimpses of what He was up to. It gives me hope that if we are earnest and real in our pursuit of God, He'll maybe show us some of what the age to come's got in store. Whether we'll recognise it as such is another (and possibly less important) question.

Thanks for reading. I should probably note at this point that the Bible translation I'm quoting is the New Revised Standard Version. In the quote above, the (not) is there (without brackets) in the English, but a footnote tells me some versions of the Hebrew don't have it. I think the quote can work either way.

If mortals die, will they live again?

I'm gonna start in chapter 14 of Job, cos that's where this starts - and by "this" I mean, well, this; what you're reading now, and whatever comes after it. It may not be life, the universe, and everything, but it's where I am now, and that's all the explanation you're getting.

It starts, naturally, with death.

Job wants it - a bit - and seems to be complaining about it too. Chapter 14 includes his thoughts on how unfair it is that trees that get cut down can regrow, but "mortals lie down, and do not rise again". Things get really interesting though, when he asks the question in the title of this post:

If mortals die, will they live again?

BOOM! There's a first glance of what I promised last post: Job the prophet. We all know the answer - of course they will! Jesus Christ, the Son of Man (his words, not mine), and not just him of course. He was the firstborn from the grave, and he himself told us that if we believe in him, though we will die, yet we will live.

I think I'll spend a bit more time in the verses that follow, but what I'm getting at is what I closed with from Hebrews 11 in the last post. Jesus is what these guys were pointing to. Job was trying to make the point that life (and death) is unfair on us, but he unwittingly pointed towards a time when the ultimate victory of death would be overthrown - and by the Son of Man, a mortal.

I'm off out now to listen to jazz, cos jazz is good (sometimes). Thanks for reading.

An introduction (to who-knows-what).

A few hours ago I was in the mood for reading Job.

I must say I have a weakness for the gloomy prophets (maybe we don't often think of Job as a prophet, but that's one of the points of this post, as we'll see). Jeremiah's one of my favourite characters in the Bible, and I think I'll like Job for a similar reason - I love what they can get away with.

I think over the last 5 years or so, honesty has become more and more important to me in my relationship with God - particularly as my family has been through the mill a bit during that period. It's been vital that I've felt able to express my true feelings to God, safe in the knowledge that He can take it, and that as I beat against him, He's holding me fast. As a little example let me share this George Herbert poem that spoke to me so much in the weeks and months after my mum died:

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since Thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve:
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

So the appeal of Job and Jeremiah (and George) for me, is that it's like the pain and suffering they go through gives them the need (and the right?) to be frank with God about how they feel He's treated them. They don't run from the place of pain, or even from death, and I firmly believe that their faithfulness in occupying those places left us some precious treasures to enlighten our understanding, and to help us in our own troubles. Neither of them are mentioned by name in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11, but surely the words of verse 39-40 hold true for them:

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect.

That last bit is intriguing, isn't it? I'll probably come back to it in time (certainly hope so), but that'll do for now as an introduction to some thoughts I'm gonna share as I read Job.

The Idealist - 1

For the first time the other day I was listening to the song King Herod sings to Jesus in 'Jesus Christ: Superstar". Until that point I was going to write about the Realist first but that song got me thinking about the Idealist and so that's where I'll start.

The song is essentially Herod trying to goad Jesus into performing some miraculous sign right then and there which, he claims, will make hime believe. Jesus, however, refuses to be goaded and Herod ends up dismissing Him in disappointment and anger.

Last week at the University Eucharist Will preached on Original Sin, which phrase centuries ago, he explained, would have been used in a similar way to how we now use 'The System'.

These two events (which happened on the same day) made me think about how God combines the refusal to submit to any worldy system or expectations (like Herod's), while at the same time dealing with life as it is.

He will not compromise. 'Uncompromising' is not generally seen as a particularly flattering word these days (Meryl Streep in Doubt springs to mind, and her refusal to compromise on the modernisation of the church and school), but in this context it is a wonderful, and essential, aspect of God's character. He is not like the politician who uses the end to justtify the means, rather He finds another way, in which both the end and the means are glorious, though the means may not be much fun for Him (think of the cross) who those who have promised they will do anything for Him (think of Paul's tribulations, which he describes a couple of times in His letters).

I need to go and play squash now but I'm not done with the Idealist yet so I'll be writing more on Her soon.

The Realist and The Idealist

I'm going to explore here the idea that God is fully both.

As a probably-not-too-quick aside, It seems to me that the Lord (the scamp, as my friend often refers to Him. Should that have a capital S do we think?) is fully both, when our natural tendancy would be to look for 'balance' or to see 'tension'. The most famous example is surely the incarnation. Jesus Christ was made fully man while remaining fully God. He did not maintain a 'balance' between God-ness and man-ness, and I'm not sure I'd be happy saying He lived in the 'tension' between the two. He was simply fully human, and fully God at the same time.

Getting back to the title, our tendancy is to label people either a realist (at best one who deals with things as they are, at worst one who lacks ambition), or an idealist (at best one who dreams big dreams, at worst one who can't deal with reality). Often we will acknowledge that an effective team, for example, needs both. I would agree but I would go further: I think each person needs both, and I think God is fully both.

More on this to follow.

The Complexity of Hope

Let's think for a moment of the Kingdom of God as a field (sure I've heard that before). Underneath the surface of this field is treasure. As we begin to dig and discover this treasure we react in different ways at different times.

Sometimes we dig for a while and are amazed at what we find. Then we stop digging because we feel we need to rest and slowly, and often subtly, our rest turns to laziness, and our laziness to apathy.

Let's put that one aside for the moment though and assume we keep digging. There are two options open: We can think to ourselves "My goodness, if this wonderful treasure is in this part of the field, what must the rest be hiding?", and go and mine different varieties of goodness elsewhere in the same field. Or, we can think "Well the surface didn't look too promising but it was hiding this glorious treasure, what could be hiding under here?", and continue to dig where we are, going deeper and deeper and discovering treasure of greater and greater worth, in the same area.

Before we get into tunnels and the analogy falls apart (or gets too complex for the point I'm making) let's leave it there and move back to literality. The first option is analagous to someone spending a while growing in, for example, the peace of God, and then feeling it was right to spend some time practising unconditional love. In the second option she gets so captivated by this peace thing that she just keeps pursuing it and pursuing it (the reality is that that'll lead her closer to God and all His other treasures will follow, but again, that's slightly beside the point).

For the most part, I'm a first option kind of guy, but every so often something comes along that really stays with me, and at the moment it's hope.

I should acknowledge that God used the church calender, namely Advent, to start this off. During the pre-Christmas season I was encourage by my regular contact with Anglican worship to meditate on hope. I did, and I still am.

Hope is a necessity. It is, we are told, one of the three things that will last, along with faith and love (this fact alone is intriguing: what need for hope when the Kingdom is fully come?). If it wasn't for hope there are times when I'm not sure I could go on. This is not because my own circumstances are especially pitiable, on the contrary I'm greatly blessed in my friends and family, my work, my house etc, and I'm gradually getting better at living in the moment, which I think makes life more enjoyable.

However, the world is a mess, and there's got to be something that can be done about it. Here are three examples from my day so far:

A man is stopped and asked to leave while weeing against the outside of a church wall. It's actually snowing so he's got to be pretty desperate to take such a step but he is given short shrift and moved on.

A man rings the bell on the door leading from the public part of the church to the offices. I open it. He's clearly out of it and not in a good way. He keeps saying "Can I speak to..." and then trailing off. My first instinct is to block his way in, which I do. After a minute or two he tells me not to worry and leaves. I am mighty glad to see him go.

I am in a situation a where I either have to lie or say some very unpleasant things about a friend. I choose the latter. He doesn't know yet and I feel I'm stabbing him in the back.

This stuff tears me up. As I think about it I want to scream at the heavens. There's got to be a more constructive outlet though. There's got to be solutions to these issues. This is why hope is a necessity, and I'm very glad to hear that God is able to do more than we could ask or imagine. My hope is in Him. To be honest it's there at the moment simply because it's got nowhere else to go, but I suspect that over time it'll find it's a pretty good place to be.

I'll probably be writing more about hope soon, so far the digging's been tough, and that's usually a good sign.

Friends, and rejection.

I think this one's gonna have some pretty personal stuff in so brace yourself.

My friends (including me) seem to be in a bit of a mess at the moment. It's quite complicated and I'm not sure I want to go into all the details but people having been pulling each other and getting upset with each other and I'm feeling rejected and somewhat bitter. I don't THINK I'm angry with anyone in particular but I'm quite annoyed that people still seem to think they can go round kissing other people and there won't be any consequences, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It's not helped by the fact that my 'righteous indignation' is mingled with jealousy as it seems fairly clear that I can't go round kissing people (on a number of levels). The jealousy issue is also not helped by the fact that one of the kissers is a girl who basically rejected me before Easter (although I wasn't actually asking her out).

How the heck anyone is going through this without God I have no idea. I guess they're not really as He's right there with them whether they know it or not but I'm pretty convinced He's got an amazing wife for me and this still hurts and their issues are much more dramatic than mine.

Maybe this is just another guise of selfishness. I've certainly been feeling pretty sorry for myself today. Hallelujah that God's unchanging, that's the bottom line.