Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Words from God? (Part 3 of 5)

If you read Part Two in its entirety, congratulations!  That was an unforgivably long post, and probably rather poorly written.  I have included a very brief summary before I launch into Part 3.  Thanks for your interest.

Part three of this series deals with the second catagory of negative shadows that are associated with what happens when we say words are from God.  Please know that in writing this I'm not saying that words are never from God -- i feel it is important to repeat that.  What I am interested in, however, is in the human and communal cost that is paid by those who don't necessarily share our views.  The first category acknowledged that when we say words are from God, one other thing we end up saying is that the human through whom God spoke contributed almost nothing and the words are, in their entirety, from God.  (Of course, that last sentence was a bit of an exageration, but the trend it indicates is still valid).

For spoken words, we looked at how those who don't hear from God when they worship or pray may be affected when we say to them, "hear what God has said to me."  We concluded that for many, we leave them with all of these "words" from God that were spoken over them when we prayed for them.  The upshot is that they have no way of judging for themselves and knowing wether these words are from God or not.  All they know is that they can't risk it either way and so these memories turn into a cacaphony of voices that they carry with them.  If you are one of those who has been spoken to in this way, please accept my apology.  You know what it means to carry with you these "words" and you know how risky and unsettling they feel.  We dont.  We speak because we buy into the narrative we have been told about our faith -- and a fundamental part of this narrative requires us to speak when we think we have heard from God.

For written words, we looked at how we teach our parishioners to pre-judge other people based off of whether those other people share our views on the inspiration of Scripture.  We concluded that at least one of the negative shadows here is a loss of context (cultural, textual, etc) for the actual words in Scripture.  By emphasizing their timelessness, we can at times urge people to do things that the text itself doesn't support.

The second category acknowledges that when we say words are from God, at least one other thing we end up saying is that God speaks when we ask him to.  There is a culture of worship in which we "seek the Lord" -- and wait for Him to "come upon us."  In short, we assume that there are certain pre-requisets that must be met for God to speak.  Now, obviously, as soon as you read this it is self evident that God can and (sometimes) does speak whenever and however he wants to.  We all acknowledge that in theory, The voice of God is free.  We know that, (as with Saul) the Spirit of the Lord can fall upon whomever He wills, regardless of the willing or unwilling recipient.

Yet for the rest of us in the congregation, there is a felt distance between the theory and the practice.  In theory, God is perfectly free to speak if and when God desires to speaks.  In practice, the words of God are spoken when there is a noticeable amount of human communal energy expended in the form of worship.  This felt distance is a negative shadow because it effects everyone in the room in unintended ways.  The intent is to create a worship environment in which we seek the free and living God.  The result is often a personal and communal attempt to answer the question, "where is God?"  Ways to answer that question include internal and personal questions that can amount to deep self doubt.  The fostered fear is that somehow I am not open enough, surrendered enough, repented enough, or that some sin can be blocking the movement of God in our lives.

Thus there is an unintentional internal disconnect that exists.  This disconnect can exist both personally and communally.  I have seen both.

A slightly more subtle negative shadow is cast when we shift the emphasis from the spoken word to the written word.

If I approach the written word with the assumption that I must invite God in order for me to hear God speaking, what else happens?  What else am I saying about how I receive these words from God which I find in Scripture only when I'm in a position to hear?  The risk that we run here is that I will end up listening more to my own readiness than to God.  If my reception of God is (in practice) deeply tied to my own struggle with sin, then Scripture itself becomes the meta-narrative inside of which my narrative exists.  In other words, I unconscously wrap the words of God around my own journey instead of simply reading the text I believe to be inspired.  Do negative shadow here?  Do you see how the distance between expecting that God will speak freely but knowing in practice that He only speaks if I am receptive forces me to read Scripture as a story about the personal and interior struggle with sin?

There is so much else going on in Scripture.  There is so much else going on when we meet together for Christian community and worship.  Is it worth it?  That is the question we have to ask about our negative shadows -- is it worth it?  Is proclaiming our beliefs worth the unintentional negative shadows which we cast over ourselves, those in our community, and those who don't share our belief?   Why or why not?