Category: Theology and Reflections

Wazup!!! It’s been a while hey? Sorry guys. I know you’ve all been eagerly anticipating my next blog. Well, here it is 🙂

The other day I was meeting with a mate of mine for a cup of smooth joe and we were talking about a whole range of things. A previous blog of mine on a controversial theologian and topic came up in conversation and my friend commended me on how gracious I was without compromising truth. That was encouraging, I needed to hear it. Out of nowhere though I said to him “if you can’t love those you disagree with, even those you believe to be heretics, if you can’t sit down with them over a coffee and love them, I think you’ve missed the point of the Gospel.” He seemed to really like that line, so much so I thought I’d write about it.

As I sit back and think about all the different movements, denominations and theological tribes within my own tradition (Protestantism), I can’t help but sometimes feel overwhelmed by how often this seems to cause division. I’m not talking about going to war or schisms per se, rather, I’m talking about the smaller divisions that happen in our lives, our colleges, our local churches. We hold so dearly to a certain doctrine or thought and believe is so integral to the Christian life we alienate (either wittingly or unwittingly) other people, not just unbelievers (God forbid), but the people Jesus told us to love in order to let people know we’re His disciples (John 13:35), our brothers and sisters in Christ. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt different, separated and alienated from friends, groups or even local churches for believing in one thing or another. It seems that sometimes in the quest for purity (which is so vitally important by the way) we unnecessarily cause disunity where there doesn’t need to be. More so, the people out there that we consider heretics and false teachers (whoever they may be), the people who probably need to hear the Gospel, and need God’s love more then even we do (we’re the only ones who can give it) are so easily cut off from even healthy dialogue because we so easily dismiss them, not just their theology.

Let me be clear because I’m sure someone would love to take a dig at me for being a cop-out or something. Heresy is heresy. False teaching needs to be addressed and dealt with. The Scriptures are fairly clear about this (Matthew 7:15-20, 2 Peter 2). However, as we deal with heresy or false teachings (or just people we generally disagree with), unity needs to only be sacrificed on the altar of purity as a last resort (sometimes it’s needed). We should never have these sorts of conversations at the expense of the person we disagree with who bears the image of God, the same God who tells us to love and bless our enemies (Matthew 5:44), to love our neighbours (Mark 12:31), and to pray for all people everywhere (1 Timothy 2:1-3). Discipline, truth and love aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. If Jesus sat with people who tended to be way off on their theology, eat with them and in patience correct them until they repented or left Him then so can we. Occasionally, we might have to shake the dust from our feet, declare the grace of God to be upon them and be on our merry way, but we need to do better at filtering out the toxicity in our conversation and injecting compassion, empathy and a sprinkle of wisdom into our dealings.

Love well dear friends, especially those we disagree with. They really need it, and Jesus really wants them.

Last night at work I was talking to a friend of mine from India and he asked me if I noticed that often in life, whatever you desire you usually don’t get (strange I thought it was usually the opposite). It reminded me a lot of Ecclesiaties where the Teacher says “meaningless! meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). The word meaningless in Hebrew is הֶבֶל (pronounced heh’vel) and this word actually is better understood as enigma, paradoxical, frustration, absurdity or in my definition a glitch. Why glitch? Because if you’ve ever played a video game or regularly use technology then you know how frustrating and even at times absurd glitches can be. You can save your work, press the right buttons, have the best setup but everything at some point fails, works slowly and glitches out.

One way you could read this verse then is “glitches! glitches! everything in life has a glitch!” This was the way I tried to explain the concept of heh’vel to my friend. Life it seems are full of these little glitches in the system of life. It doesn’t matter if you input the right commands, do the right things and think the right thoughts the glitch can always set you back and there’s nothing you can do about it. Life isn’t fair, people suffer that don’t deserve it, and those that do deserve suffering never seem to get their just desserts. You can pour your heart and soul into a job and get fired tomorrow. You can buy roses and lavish love upon your partner and be cheated on. On the flipside, you can lie cheat and steal and get everything you ever wanted. Life is indeed heh’vel and glitch-filled.

This brings to my mind a few questions that need answering:

1. How do we live in a heh’vel glitch-filled world?
2. How do we react to the heh’vel that comes my way?
3. If this isn’t how life is supposed to be, how can I fix it?

These are hard questions to answer, they don’t come easily, but I do think the Bible offers some wisdom here. The Bible is a grand narrative that tells one important story:

Yahweh God in Heaven desires humanity to flourish in a good relationship with Himself, one another, and creation. Yet we have chosen to go our own way and in the process, we have broken our relationship with God, killed each other, and pillaged the earth. God then takes it upon Himself to fix our broken sinfulness by reconciling us to Him, me to you, and humanity to the earth. He does this through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and His ongoing work as king over the earth. 

The glitch is sin and brokenness. The glitch is something that was never programmed by the Master Programmer. The glitch advocates for injustice, destruction and death. For thousands of years, we’ve all tried to fix the glitch to no avail. What we need is the Programmer to reprogram life beginning with the heh’vel and sin in our own hearts. This is Jesus. Jesus wants to work on you, in you and for you. Just ask.

 

It’s almost 3:30 am I’m tired but I cannot sleep (so forgive me for bad grammar or spelling in this blog). Lately, I’ve had new battles, new struggles that sin and Satan have used to ensnare me. Anxiety, like sin, crouches at the door of my heart. Depression, like a mist, edges the borders of my mind ready to envelop me into despair. I once thought I was untouchable, that these things would never even be on my radar. As they say, never say never. The battle is complex but what lays at the heart of my anxieties and fears is this, the desire to be accepted and approved by others. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a while since I head God speak to me. It’s very rare for Him to actually say to me, “I love you and accept you despite your flaws.” So the sinful heart settles for the next best thing, humanity. But, it is true there is something right about wanting to be loved by others. God, of course, encourages us to love others as our selves, to build flourishing communities of Jesus loving people where we all can feel like we belong and mean something to someone. But, our hearts are fickle things. It’s not long before we perform before we act before we go above and beyond just because we’re afraid people won’t love us. We start to believe in things we never thought we would, compromising our ethics and relationships that don’t matter to us (even though those ones matter perhaps more to God). You dress differently, speak and do life in ways you know aren’t right for you, and you know deep down inside that you’re a complete and utter broken mess of a thing so you cover up yourself with more masks, more costumes just to fit the bill. And so, one of the greatest battles is the war raged over your own self. The more you cover up and reject your true self, the more you become trapped in an identity that leads to a well of brokenness and darkness.

God… doesn’t offer a way out, He offers a way through. There’s something magical about the early hours of the morning, there’s something very Gethsemane. I’m definitely not sweating blood, but despair breeds depth and introspection and these things seem to be expressed best at 3:30 am. So, like Jesus’ prayer in the garden, my whisper of a prayer to the Almighty is this:

Father forgive me for I know not what I do…

Father heal me for I am broken in despair…

Father know me for I know not myself…

Father love me even when there’s no love to be found…

Father quicken me for I am slow to catch on to life…

Jesus… come back soon we miss you…

(and so be it for all of you)

Amen.