Sizing Up

A friend of mine and I were having a talk a few Saturdays ago, and she said something that perfectly introduces what's been happening in and about my heart for the past little while. She and I were sharing some of our frustrations with contemporary American Christianity, specifically the super-cool "justice movement," that youthful cultural obsession with social justice issues. Which, be it known, I am all for. But when the real, actual suffering of real, actual people becomes a marketing tool to make college students feel better about buying another shirt that they don't need, my hackles raise the slightest bit.

*descends from soapbox*

Anyway. To get back to the point...
My friend was talking about Priorities when she said something that arrested my attention. This was the gist of it:
"I'd been fasting and praying," she said, "And I would get all excited about starting a revolution, and changing the hearts of those around me...carried away with the idea that people's hearts would start to turn to the Lord." She paused to sip at her tea and looked out the window. "And then God said to me, 'You do not fast to turn people.'"
"'You fast to honor Me. The point of this is to bring Me glory. Your efforts don't mean anything, apart from that.'"

We stopped talking for a moment. And something started to crystallize in my head.

Without going into a lot of detail, I had what my Christianese terminology would label "a crisis of faith" over Christmas Break. One of the biggest things I'm taking away from it is the Size of God.

He's really Big. Bigger than Avogadro's number. Times a billion. I'm no good at numbers. But even if I were. The Thing's impossible to quantify. And I do it all the time. And the Church does it all the time.
I had a lecture recently in my world lit. class on the Book of Job related to this topic. I'll try to keep it succinct.
I've heard from several people, two at least of whom are very dear friends of mine, that Job is about the failure of man's righteousness. I've sat through sermons that preach from Job, quoting the words of his three friends(whose rather imposing names were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) rather than the words of Job, and I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard the following words of Job discredited by the American church:
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
There's a popular worship song based on the above verse (Job 1.21 for the reference-minded) that our worship team used to sing. The lyrics of the song are largely your typical Christian fare, blessing the name of God in all circumstances, and the bridge goes like this:
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say,
"Lord, blessed be Your name"
Catch: We never sing the bridge.
I asked why once, and this is the answer I got: "That verse was spoken in anger against God. Job was committing the sin of fear. We know that God is not responsible for the bad things that happen. He would never do or allow harmful things to befall his children." Another friend explained it this way: "Job's sin was the sin of fear. He was trying to redeem his children by himself, with all those sacrifices he kept making for them, and so God had to take them away, because they were like idols to him." (For the unaware, this is a reference to Job 1.5.)
I looked for this in the Bible. It was not there. Not even a little.
In fact, Job 1.22 explicitly states that Job's statement was righteous: "And in all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly."
Here's my take on Job. I don't really get it. But the point of the book, at least as far as I understand it, is this:
Will we serve God when there's nothing in it for us?
Job did.
Lost his kids, lost his home, his livelihood, everything but his wife (interesting point here, as satan had, according to chapter 1, permission to touch everything except Job's person. One of the best indications of the oneness of married couples I've ever found). And even she advised him to curse God and die. And then his friends come and all sit down to mourn with him the loss of his ten children. Ten children. Ten people with distinct personalities and idiosyncrasies. They came, as good friends will, to sit in silence in the face of unbearable grief. Right?
Not so much. They really just spent about thirty chapters trying desperately to fit what had happened into the pretty lacquered box they had God stored in. Their theology was for the most part, sound. Everything they said made sense...to a point. Good things happen to the righteous. Bad things happen to the wicked. Bad things happened to Job; ergo, Job was somehow wicked.
(I do not know if ergo is used correctly there...but it was worth it.)
Problem: Job was not wicked.

So he demands an audience with God, and after chapters of frustrating back-and-forth, God speaks, and everyone else shuts up.
And that's it.
no answers, no solutions, no here's-why.
Just God. How come we assume that we have Him figured out?

One thing that has always indicated to me that perhaps elementary education is not for me is that I have a hard time standing stupidity. (Please stop laughing, you who know me, I know I display the despised characteristic with hypocritical frequency...). And the worst facet of stupidity, in my estimation, is that sort of belligerent ignorance that equates loudness and repetition with accuracy.
Listen up.
You will never completely understand God.
He is unfathomable. You can never reach the end of Him, you will never run out of things to learn:
You will never stop being wrong about Him.

Over Christmas break I realized I'd developed a mistaken impression of God: He had become someone I knew too well, and our relationship had become a place where familiarity had bred a sort of contempt. I approached Him the way one approaches a boyfriend they've been with for too long.
And then he turned around, and I was confronted by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

I had lots of questions that I do not necessarily have the answers to.
People I love have had bad things happen to them that I do not understand.
Christians who love God and do right things-- suffer.
To ignore this or to pin blame frantically does the Almighty an injustice. We do not like what we don't understand-- I understand the fear of the unknown. But would not the assumption of a Creator completely fathomable imply an equality, if not a superiority, to said Creator? Are we God's equals, that we can explain Him so handily?
There are times, and, I anticipate, there will continue to be times, when things will happen, circumstances will transpire, Bad Things will hit hard. And sometimes all we can do is repeat the words of Job, who in his confusion and pain, was more righteous than his miserable comforters:
"Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth" (Job 40.4).

What would happen if we acknowledged our vileness every once in a while? If we admitted that God was impossible to quantify? If we lived as though honoring God were the Most Important Thing, and that changing people was not? If we made our world-changing secondary to our pursuit into the Infinite?
Our self-esteem would shatter!
Well, Heaven forbid...

Verse Two

Inspired by Timothy O.

Christmas season on college campuses is always a little off, since we have break and most of us go far away, back to our homes, and thus do not spend Christmas together. It's kinda great: you get to celebrate Christmas with your friends first, to get you ready for the onslaught of Christmas-yness waiting for me back home. So Friday night I went to Christmas party with a bunch of buddies hosted by my R.A., who lives in town. I got there late, and was just getting out of the car when the throng of sweatered celebrators poured out of the house, announcing their plans to carol.
I love many things, not unlike Rupert Brooke, and among the things I love are Christmas carols. This love I attribute largely to my parents and to my family's annual Christmas parties. At my church we sang the verses. All the verses. I do not come from the three-song-worship-set background, I come from the sing-til-you're-done church. That plus the annual Christmas festivities, which find my immediate and extended family members packed into some great-aunt's living room, singing for hours on end. We like it.
That and I have a memory that retains lyrics like socks retain smells.

There are certain hymns to which everyone knows the words. "Amazing Grace," "How Great Thou Art," "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." But who knows the other verses? We do know they all have more than one, right? The same thing happens to Christmas carols. "O Holy Night," "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," "Silent Night"-- they all have more to them than the chorus. And no one knows the verses anymore. It makes me sad. It also means that whenever we go caroling (see the first paragraph) I am always the awkwardly loud one who tries to go for the second verse of "O Come All Ye Faithful," with the end result being me singing with exaggerated enunciation while my fellow carolers hum in the background. With everyone coming in a beat late on the "O come"s.

The same thing happens in church, when they start playing hymns, which have lasted for hundreds of years in some cases (which will, please God, NOT be the case for "History Maker" or "Break Free") and either use the chorus to segue into another song, or simply go back and sing the first verse again. Okay fine. The first verse is great. It's beautiful. But--brace yourself-- let's look at the other verses.
Gasp!
Are hymns not trendy enough anymore? Maybe because they weren't written by long-haired dudes in girl jeans and fitted t-shirts today's Christian won't be able to follow.
Well heck, some of these hymns were written when guys wore WIGS. And fitted breeches. So fashion should not be a barrier. In fact, let's bring those wigs back! Let's issue a call for the new worship trend to be a throwback to the way they used to worship-- 17th century style. Isaac Watts-- he's so hot right now!
!!!!!
What I really fell is going on here is deeper than people not knowing verses to carols. We only sing them for, generously, a month out of the year, so maybe it's unfair to expect people to remember them. (Even though we sing the same songs every year in that one month...)
I think what really irks me about this is the dumbing down of the church. Why do worship leaders assume that Christians do not have the attention span to be able to appreciate more than one verse? Do they think that the theology is too hard, too advanced for us pew-warmers? Is it just too much to ask a Christian to memorize a few more words? I mean, they're already taxing us with lyrics like "take take take it all" and "won't you break free won't you break free", so I assume it would be way too much of a burden for us to have to LISTEN (instead of breaking free) to words like these:

My sin-- oh the bliss of this glorious thought--
My sin-- not in part, but the whole--
Is nailed to the Cross, and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul!
--It Is Well With My Soul

Maybe the problem is the obscure language. Definitely couldn't ask 21st century people to try to understand-- oh wait. All of the words to the verse just given are completely and totally understandable. Unless you're illiterate.
As for tough theology, yes. The concept of Christ bearing our sins on the cross is maybe too obscure for us to handle. We'd rather hear "All day / All Daaaayayayay." Not only is that cooler, it's a lot more relevant too. It just has more bearing on our lives as Christians. Plus we can hop while we sing it. Which obviously literally brings us closer to God.

This post is wandering a lot. The point is, people, the men and women who wrote these hymns wrote more than just the first verse for a reason. the words to these songs are some of the most powerful declarations of faith that have ever been penned, and now we relegate them to obscurity because they have no electric guitar riffs. Please, look at the verses. Maybe sing one. Or two. I'm cautious about pushing as far as three, but if you go there, you may as well take it all the way to four, right? These words will make you think. Thinking is good.

I'll close this with my inspiration for the post-- the words to one of those carols no one could follow the other night. We already know the tunes to all of these songs-- these words go right along with it. So handy.

Hail, the Heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and Life to all He brings
Risen with healing in His wings!
Mild, he lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of Earth,
Born to give them second birth,
Hark! the herald angels sing:
"Glory to the newborn King!"