Subways:
underground trains in big cities. In
places like Washington DC and New York the underground system is immense. The subways in Moscow are ornately decorated and
quite beautiful. But a lot of subways
are not so pretty. The platform is
grimy, trash strewn, without benefit of sunshine (obviously), and overall quite
drab. Subway riders are harried, tired;
thousands of people rushing to and from work where they will, in a
high-pressure environment, give 10-11 hours of their lives, 50-75 hours a week.
The work, the rush, the gray,
depressed environment; the underground metro is not a place of spiritual
inspiration.
Except …
There’s that young woman. Look at her down in this cave, dancing! All we hear is the shuffle of tired feet, the
screech of the trains coming down the line.
In those earbuds, what does she hear?
What music induces such beautiful body movement? Poetry in
motion.
All we see are heads down, glum eyes set
straight ahead. Must get to work. Must do the work. Must get home. Must not go crazy. Must not slug anyone as I slog through this
commute. The subway iPod dancer’s eyes
are closed. As we muddle along in the
shadows, what light does she see, she with her closed eyes, her smiling face,
her dancing body?[i]
She is Christianity. Wait.
What?
Where the world sees death, a
Christian, one who follows Christ, one whose life is lived in Christ sees laughter. We
don’t mock the pain death brings. We are
sympathetic. But, we know death is an
enemy that has been defeated, and in Christ we have eternal life. God gives beauty for our ashes, strength for
fear; God gives us deep laughter and takes our grief. We will be called “oaks of righteousness” …
to display God’s glory.[ii] In the Spirit, God is with us now and always,
comforting us, emboldening us, filling us, and empowering us. As we live in awareness of God-in-us loving
us, we hear music others cannot hear. We
smile at happiness others do now know, cannot know. We can’t help it. We must dance.
Look at her, so frivolous as she
sprinkles beauty and grace all about this bleak subterranean world. Look at us, witnesses to eternal joy and indefatigable
hope – hope that cannot be broken or made weary.
Except …
We know too many people cut off from
this joy and this hope, cut off from God and caught up in pain.
Twitter is the ultimate safe space
because you can create any name you want as your user name. You can put any picture in as your ID. You can exist in the Twitter totally
anonymously. You can also follow
whomever else is on Twitter.
My Twitter handle is
‘revtennant.’ The picture is a photo of
my wife Candy and me. On my profile page
is a picture of me on one of our church trips to Ethiopia. My bio tells exactly who I am.
Occasionally, I will tweet scripture
verses or quotes from authors like Eugene Peterson. My simple aim is to get positive words
flowing into the raging torrent of social media. Tweets and Facebook posts can be impossibly
negative, divisive, and provocative. I
too try to provoke. I try to take words
from the Bible to provoke people to hope, or at least to consider that hope
might be possible.
Most of the people who see my Tweets
are church members, friends, family.
But, remember; on Twitter anyone can follow you. Someone called “Atheist C Cat.” Has reacted to one of my Christ-proclaiming
tweets. Atheist C Cat could be anyone –
maybe someone from this church or formally of this church. A-Cat’s bio says, “Skeptic. Atheist.
Ex-Christian. Cat lover.” That’s it.
A-Cat’s initial response to me was a
low grade jab at God. I posted a quote –
“Everything God does is woven into the plot for your salvation.”[iii] “Maybe the all-powerful, all-knowing,
perfect, loving deity should have created a perfect world where salvation isn’t
needed.”
I didn’t take the bait. God doesn’t need me to defend God. God’s reputation is intact. Instead, I tried to pick up on A-Cat’s words
and engage in a conversation. I asked.
“What would a perfect world look like?”
“Different than the one we’re in.”
“Couldn’t Christians and Atheists
and Muslims and Jews” work together for good?
And A-Cat responded and we went on
this way. I kept trying to guide the
conversation toward a hopeful place and A-Cat kept going back to the
inevitability of death and destruction.
I hope the conversation will continue, but where he or she last left it,
was with this. “I choose to live in
reality as much as possible, even though it does appear bleak. But the evidence leads the way.”
Pay close attention to this
anonymous atheist Tweeter who depicts him/herself as an ex-Christian and trolls
Christian pastors with impotent barbs aimed at God. She declares that reality is death and
destruction. Anything else – faith,
hope, love – is fantasy. Reality is humans will always be evil
and malicious toward each other. And
evidence, the supreme standard for truth, leads to this fatalistic
conclusion.
Two thought for A-Cat; first, I
suspect many people feel just like her.
Many see the world and see death and try to make the best of a situation
that inevitably leads to chaos and misery.
Second, in a world without God, A-Cat is right. All people sin. Sin is seen in real time in the way we hurt
each other. And sin up on sin, across
the oceans across the span of centuries leads to a world that is spiraling to
death. A-Cat is correct.
Except … subway iPod dancer seems
oblivious, dancing, spilling color and light and music out all over A-Cat’s
gray dying world.
So the tension is clear. Without God, without life in Christ, we exist
as Darwinian animals whose only purpose is to survive and pass on our
genes. Eat, produce young, and then die,
either a lonely death or a violent one.
Either way, there is no hope because this life is all there is and death
is the end. With God, living life in
Christ, we stand in the midst of a decaying world bound for destruction. Each one of us, each church, big or small,
each individual Christian, stands amid the chaos and insists there is another
story, a better story to be told and being told. In Jesus Christ, God has come near. In Jesus Christ, the Kingdom has come. In Jesus Christ, we can have life, abundant,
eternal life. I’ll take that subway iPod
dancer’s vision over A-Cat’s fatalism any day.
I want to dance like no one is watching.
Except … many people in the church, people who
speak words of faith live lives that suggest they are find A-Cat’s argument
more convincing. A lot of Christians are
beleaguered by doubt and or burdened by responsibility or immobilized by
depression. Some in the church live
joyless lives that suggest whatever good we can hope for from God is coming
much, much later. We drag ourselves
through our days with an aura of defeat.
Ignatius of Loyola defined sin as “refusing to believe that God wants my
happiness and fulfillment.”[iv]
Questions; do we believe God wants us happy
and fulfilled? Do we believe God is able
to help us be happy and be fulfilled?
Can God help with this? If we say
yes, God wants us happy, and if we say, yes, God can help with this, then
here’s the biggie. Is God willing to
help? But there’s even a bigger question
than that. Assuming God is willing to
help, will we know it when God does help?
When God gives happiness and fulfillment, we recognize it?
Or are we caught in smaller things? God gives a good marriage, full of commitment
and grace – a happiness that starts now and lasts to old age. But, we miss the gift because we have misguided
notion what a marriage should be and we spin our wheels trying to achieve
something that will produce limited happiness that quickly runs out. God gives honest work, but we miss the gift
because we think we should be distinguished, accomplished, and respected. We never stop to consider the burdens that
come with prestige.
I am not saying don’t strive for
excellence. I am saying don’t wait to be
grateful. See what God is doing in life
right now and trust that God has good in store for you tomorrow. If today, you carry pain, don’t let the pain
define whether or not today is good.
Bring the pain into worship, into community of fellow
Christ-followers. Bring the hurt to the
cross and see God standing with you in the pain and let God define what today
is.
Philip Yancey references a survey in which
Americans are asked what words they would like most to hear. Three answers top the list. You’ll guess the first one. What is the number 1 answer to the question,
‘what words do you want to hear?’ It is
“I love you.” What’s number 2? It is “I forgive you.” Let’s see if you can guess number 2?
“Supper is ready.”
Where do most people eat supper? I think at home. But some live alone, so supper is quiet
unless the TV is on. Others are in
families, but the despair of the world had invaded the family. So, with family around, the TV is still
on. No one is talking to each
other. Everyone sits zombie-like,
letting the evening news or the 7 o’clock game show define reality. Or the family is fragmented. Some sit down to dinner, but others are at
practice or at meetings. Why is sister’s
chair empty? O she has soccer. Why isn’t dad eating with us? Had to work late. Or the dinner table is the arena in which the
family fights are battled out. At least
once a week, dinner ends with someone slamming down silverware and someone else
leaving the table in tears.
In the Kingdom of God, dinner is
different. It is with family no matter
your age or marital status. In the
Kingdom, dinner is an affair where you are surrounded by people who love you
and pay attention to you, and no one is in a hurry and no one is missing. God, Ephesians 1:5 tells us, “destined us for
adoption as his children through Jesus Christ.”
The Kingdom is family. Verse 11,
“in Christ we have an inheritance.” And
that inheritance is eternal life. We say
this with certainty because we know Jesus lived, no one, atheists or otherwise
deny that he was crucified, and we are positively certain he was resurrected on
the third day. Ephesians 2:20 – “God …
raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above
every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”
We believe these hope words because
the strongest historical evidence is that the resurrection happened. But evidence is not the only standard by
which we assess truth. We also look at
experience. We have experienced the love
of God. Through our lived relationship
with God, we know God is here and God is good.
What I pray I could show Atheist Cat but also show my brothers and
sisters in Christ who are overcome with negativity and disappointment is that
God, as we know God in Jesus Christ, is Lord.
Jesus is Lord now, here. And Lord
wants us to receive love and forgiveness.
And the Lord has a place set for us at His table.
Those of us who have received the
forgiveness and eaten at the table of the Father who’s adopted us are so full
of love, we are free to dance like no one is watching. We have music to share in the monotonous
drone of godless life. We have good
news.
If you have known this good news but
the hardness of life has driven it deep into the recesses of your heart, this
morning, pray. Ask God open the ears of
your soul so you can truly hear Him say, “I love you.”
If all you can see are your own
failures they threaten to overrun you, ask God to open your heart so you can
hear Him say, “I forgive you.” And when
you hear it, believe it. Receive it. You are a new creation, a child of God.
If you know you are loved and you are
forgiven, then you also know people who haven’t walked with Jesus. You have people like Atheist Cat in your
life. Go to one of them and with grace
say, “Your place at the table is set and ready for you. Please come home to father. Supper is ready. ”
AMEN
[i]
Philip Yancey (2014). Vanishing Grace, Zondervan (Grand
Rapids). In this message, I refer to
several stories Yancey shares in this book including the iPod dancer, the
references to Tim Keller and Ignatius of Loyola, the words people want to hear
most. These stories are found in chapter
4 (p.69-88).
[ii]
Isaiah 61:3.
[iii]
Eugene Peterson (
[iv]
Yancey, p.79.
No comments:
Post a Comment