Let’s Get Worked Up

I talked to God today. I didn’t hear anything back though. I suppose God may have been busy. He has been that way a lot lately. Perhaps God was busy doing other things. Or maybe God’s stuck in Washington DC what with the shutdown and all. I am not sure where he was but if he wanted to say something I was available.

Have you ever wondered what God is doing while we sleep? Of course the whole world doesn’t sleep at the same time so God always has something to do. Maybe that’s why he made the world round. I wonder what would happen if we started a movement where everyone in the world would sleep at the same time. What would God do then? Too be a bit more religious, what would happen if we all prayed at the same time? Perhaps God would do what Bruce Almighty did and just push alt, control, yes at the same time. But that didn’t turn out too well for Jim Carrey.

Religious people get scandalized easily but usually about the wrong things. For example, take the war on Christmas. What in the world is that? As far as I can tell it all started at Wal Mart. I am not sure but the basic premise is that we can’t say Merry Christmas any longer, or maybe it is that we’re supposed to say Merry Christmas. I am not a very good foot soldier for this war but some people seem to think the Second Coming will be delayed if we don’t somehow win this one.

Oh and religious people get all worked up about politics. You know it’s all about the wall or immigration or Supreme Court justices. Katy bar the door, this one is huge, or is that yuge? If you pay attention this doesn’t just come from those who are trying to save Christmas. In fact I just heard that if Jesus were a baby in the world today he would have been killed at our border. That doesn’t seem to resonate with me theologically but it isn’t any worse than so-called evangelical leaders who claim that it’s immoral to not protect the borders. I am not sure what it is we are supposed to save them from or why they need saving but save them we must.

My new favorite comes from Jerry Falwell’s son (anyone remember the Moral Majority which was an oxymoron sort of like Microsoft Works). Evidently we are to be scandalized by those who want to help the poor or something like that. Jerry’s son (who ironically has the same name as his father) is all worked up about all the focus on poor people. After all what do they contribute to our country? All they want is to take, take, take.

I am sure there are other examples out there but this seems to be a good cross section. Well that’s interesting, I used the term “cross.” If religious people want to be scandalized, I recommend this one. You know the “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me” deal or this little tidbit:

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Well that seems like something religious people ought to read. Maybe they have but it appears that the God they worship needs some help. I mean what if we all prayed at the same time, or slept at the same time, or Wal Mart won, or God forbid, the wrong person was put on the Supreme Court or the borders were left unprotected, what would happen to us?

I struggle with religious people. They seem too serious. They get worked up too easily and the wrong things scandalize them. As I learned to say during my ten years in Texas, “bless their hearts.” I would rather spend my energy on being scandalized on things that scandalize God: the desperately lonely, the vulnerable who society has forgotten, orphans, widows, wars and drone attacks, innocents slaughtered by power hungry dictators, those who die seeking better lives by traversing over miles and miles of dangerous lands and so on. I’ll leave the religious to try to help God out, or to save God from disaster. I will let God help me out and save me from disaster. Even when I don’t hear God speak, I’ll keep praying. It does my heart well. In the meantime, God has already told me what I’m supposed to be doing: be scandalized about the right things and do something about it, one person at a time.

Until next time,

Darrel+