Five People Meet at a River

They are all agreed on one fact: GET ACROSS. 

They all agree there, these five people.

Let me describe them for you.

One is a hopeless drunk, another consumed with self-image and self-promotion, the next overridden with anxiety and worry, the fourth an attendant to a cult (you can pick the one that comes to mind), the last a successful person in their field and extremely proud of it, the type of pride that is foul and despicable.

One believes that heaven waits across the river; two others believe all that awaits them is drowning and then, nothing. The last person: they’ll get their own planet that they can populate at their own pleasure.

One believes that God exists and would love them to kill the other four people, a pleasing sacrifice to Him. Another believes that they ARE God; everyone is God, though that seems a bit dissociative if one remembers the state of these five (un)lovely folks.  Another believes God is fiction, as is everything else that appears to exist. The other believes that God abandoned us; the last, that God is simply that which is strongest (i.e. some very vague but ‘high-sounding’ idea).

A final set of descriptions: One believes that human life is valuable, but the other believes that human beings have no intrinsic value; it is whatever we decide value is. The other believes that God has made us and that we matter (at least a little), but the other believes that the world is to the strong. Finally, the last person has sat down here at the riverbank, because nothing matters.

So, what are we here for again?

Oh yes, to get across.

About that.

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The Real Questions

This week that just passed I preached (for the only time this summer) for the main service at the church that I am interning at – I know, so incredibly exciting that fact must be for you! But, joking aside, it was an immense learning experience, as this whole summer has been.

The passage that I shared on dealt almost exclusively with a single theme: ‘God is love,’ a theme that is more oft abused in Christian and non-Christian circles than dead horses. I find that the empty pleas that all religions are summed up in such statements as ‘all we need to do is love’ and ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ are held up so frequently. For that purpose, I thought of that metaphor that you read above.

The people who claim that ‘God is love’ or ‘Love one another’ as the core of religions or as the only things worth think about miss some important questions like:

Where are you from?

where are you going?

why be good?

who are you?

Are you broken?

Do you need God?

Being 'good' for the sake of it doesn't seem a sufficient answer to any of these questions.

The situation we live in - life - is far more complex is it not? 

But it is quite clear that the river is hardly the point.

Someone might say that all the complications mentioned - afterlife, overarching morality, the human condition - these are all things that religion focuses on. 

That's the issue, they claim. 

If we could simply move past that we would be quite alright - 'all we need is love' or something similar. But that is extremely simplistic; the issue is far more complex than we are led to believe. People are not as easily divisible like that - people realize that there are things wrong with them, that morality is not as simple as 'let's be nice to one another' and that death and God and the afterlife have something to do with how we act now. It is too glib to dismiss these things as primitive, aged, or ancient. We are made up of ancient things long buried under the torrents and tides of modernity, but these things are still there, basic to us.

Ask the tough questions.

Ask the real questions.

After all, as someone has said

- eternity is a long time to be wrong -

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Real Love

While I was preaching I found that the phrase 'God is Love' was immediately followed by two concrete clarifications of it:

He became Incarnate (took on a human body), in the person of Jesus;

He became Atonement, in that he took the punishment for sin on Himself.

The love of God is first seen in that He came down to Earth to save sinful Humanity.

The love of God is also seen in that He took punishment meant for us and offers us Life in Him; the forgiveness of sins; life and joy with God - now and forever. 

Love is not a something to be defined by anyone. It is seen as intimately tied together with the sacrifice of Christ for His people, and all Christian ethic is based in this:

we love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

So yes, the river is hard - near impossible - to get across.

But we got a cross.

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Someone might say that it is partisan of me to favor Christianity and the truth claims that it makes. Well, yeah, I'm Christian, I love Jesus, and I believe that Christianity best explains the emotional, intellectual, logical, philosophical and theological needs of Humanity. I'm presenting the world as I see it, but one is free to believe whatever they'd like. But I believe life is found in Jesus, full life with deep joy. I'm happy to say it, and I'd love to talk with anyone if they feel differently.

But one is free to disagree.

Love y'all.

Till the next time.