The God you can taste

Okay, we all fall in ‘ruts,’ so to speak, and This Guy deserves as much condemnation as the rest.

I find myself in a sort of ‘theological rut’. Kind of like Walter in “The Big Lebowski,” everything always seems to circle back ’round to one particular area of theology, specifically, one idea.

The record I think stands easily which judges this one of the most well-trod ones in the history of our dear tradition. I think I’m safe in asserting that the amount of traffic it has gotten proves its relevance to the core of the Christian message.

Theologians, historians, and everyone else important refer to this concept as dualism.

A Greek idea originally, it holds esoteric, “spiritual” stuff as better than (if not wholly superior, in every sense of the word, to) fleshly, this world stuff. Some forms of it actually hold the universe (including, but not limited to, God, Satan, and all aspects of creation) to be at war with itself, the “spiritual” stuff vs. the “fleshly” stuff.

Pop quiz: Don’t think, just answer. Choose any two.

Which honors God more, praying alongside the latest Chris Tomlin hits or loving your spouse well?

Which would God prefer you cultivate, your prayer endurance or whether you work as though unto Him?

Which does God like more, those Chris Tomlin hits or Beethoven’s 5th?

Remember, don’t think, just answer. I’m wanting honest answers here, not the “right” ones. Besides, I’m not waiting around on you. Feel free to email your results.

So this morning during Communion, for the first time ever, as best I can recall, it really did hit me as I was eating the cracker that something truly profound, truly otherworldly happens during that sacred meal.

I know of no way I can get you there to that pew from earlier in the day, but the power of Communion, throughout the history of Christianity, has manifested in one particularly powerful way:

It reminds us that God is not ashamed of these bodies of flesh and this dirty, unclean, unpretty physical world made up of stuff that doesn’t always behave itself.

See, Christianity has stumbled time and time again in its history, guided by some charismatic leader who whipped some group into a frenzy over how deeply, fundamentally ashamed they ought to be at their weaknesses (like needing to go to sleep), their temptations (like being attracted to the opposite sex), and their attractions (like enjoying beautiful art).

Communion reminds us of the God unashamed of what His creation says about Him.

Communion reminds us of the Incarnation (as well as Christ’s Passion).

Communion reminds us of the God so real to us we can taste Him.

For all of our weaknesses, failures, nastiness, unfaithfulness and outright defeats… God is right there with us.

Whom, or What, have we been admonished to remember when we come to that table?

Jesus.

“God with us”.

Maybe that’s what that cracker tasted like this morning… God with us.

I should get some more of that.

Who did I think I was?

Okay, two rules:

1) This will be short,

B) this will be the beginning of more regular postage.

Promise.

Sitting at IHOP a couple of days ago and I found myself reading and meditating deeply upon Romans 8. I decided then and there, in true keeping with the ‘anything goes’ espirit de summer, to pay no attention to amount ingested, how “far I got” from my starting place at Romans 8:1, or to even be conscious of “how many verses I read this morning”.

That triggered the realization in me that there is a lot packed into our Scriptures.

Why rush?

When I taught at the School-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, there was an, ahem, very ardent Republican lady with whom I occasionally crossed paths. We would always share good banter, never anything serious or heavy (at least to me; I’m sure I wasted valuable real estate on her “God Please Open These Sinners’ Eyes” list).

Well, all in good fun (I think…), this lady one time told me that she and I were one day soon going to sit down and talk politics, Bible-to-Bible, and hammer out which position, hers (ardent GOP) or mine (not-ardent-for-either), was “more Biblical”.

The reason this exchange stuck in my mind is that, almost immediately, I realized that I don’t know my Bible well enough to make that argument on one side or the other.

I didn’t then and I don’t now.

Nor do I think I ever shall.

I hope I’m never that convinced of my own grasp of God’s Word, as well, I really do hold that if we have even a moderately high view of Scripture, as we go through life we’ll invariably be confronted with our own shortsightedness with regard to it. We’ll grow, change, and even laugh at what we used to believe they said about God.

So back to the Maison des Pancackes.

I’m reading Romans 8 and all I can do as I go is ask the inspired writ as I go, “what does this mean?” and “why?” or even “why not?”.

Alongside. Every. Verse.

Just yesterday I returned to church after about a five-week uhhh, sabbatical from there.

The question I asked myself almost as soon as I got done talking to Ryan was, “what in the world was I doing, thinking I knew God, the Bible, and His world well enough to imagine I was getting the whole picture doing Christianity by myself?

Who did I think I was?

As most who know me well are aware, I’m sort of a student of church history and what those who’ve had the same Book and Savior as us have done with It. The more I study and think deeply upon just what we are to do with this “Jesus Thing,” I stand ever more convinced of the need for deep and profound humility before God, our tradition, and the Scriptures.

The Spirit of God, alongside the Scriptures, has been at work in God’s people for some two millennia now-and we haven’t exhausted the meaning or power of Holy Writ just yet.

I’m not sure I should alter Augustine this way, but he famously said that “When you’ve found yourself a god you understand, you have built yourself an idol.”

I wonder if it’s okay to say something similar about the Scriptures?

I know I err more often than not on the side of epistemic impotence, but I really did shudder at my friend’s presumption of knowing the whole of Scripture that well, and it made me wonder if she had not in fact erred on the side of building herself blueprints for an idol.

May the Scriptures never conform… to anything.

Not a song, political platform, doctrinal presupposition, or anything else.

May they define, not deviate.

May they always shape, mold and polish.

And may they always inspire thanks to our holy God.