Plaque Words

The prophets were an inflammatory lot.  Come to think of it, so were the apostles.  So was Jesus.  They said things that got people all riled up, things like, "I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!"  (Paul), "You brood of vipers!"  (John the Baptist, and Jesus), and "You cows of Bashan"  (Amos, speaking to the women of Samaria, comparing them to a particularly plump collection of cattle).  They made outrageous claims, daring to speak for God himself, or even, in the case of Jesus, AS God himself.  And generally, their audiences didn't receive their words with particularly good grace or humour.  They persecuted the prophets, threw them into prisons and pits, stoned them, sawed them in half, even . . . even crucified them for the things they said and did.

No, the prophets were not particularly popular.

Which is why I am always somewhat amused when we pluck a portion of prophetic writ out of context and turn it into a platitude on a plaque or a mantra to rattle off.  We take these verses and turn them into something to make us feel good -- a purpose the prophet never really intended.

Oh, it's not that prophets weren't into comfort.  They were.  "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God," and all that.  It's there, for sure.  But it's there in a context, primarily a context of warning, condemnation, and punishment.  And it is that context we would do well to heed.  It is a context, which, if we took seriously, might warn, condemn, and punish us.  The words, in context, might make us feel a whole lot bad before they started to make us feel good, which was exactly their job.  And exactly why the prophets were so hated. 
 
You see, the people of God then weren't all that different than the people of God now.  The Pharisees of Jesus' day aren't all that different than we are today.   They all made the same mistake.  They all made the fatal error in judgement that the context didn't apply to them.  And that's why they were so stinking offended at the things the prophets and apostles, and Jesus, had to say.  How dare anyone accuse them?  They wanted the winsome words without the warnings.  After all, they were the people of God.  They were the good guys, the ones who had it right.  They weren't like those people, those miserable sinful people out there.  And when we pull a platitude out of context, without looking at the warning that precedes it, we do the very same thing.  We assume the warning doesn't apply.  We assume we've got it made.  We assume we're ok.  We don't allow ourselves to bow beneath the warning of God.

Take a verse like Micah 6:8.  "He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Plaque-able, really.  And so very inoffensive.  Perhaps some tough to do, but inoffensive.  After all, who doesn't like being just, loving mercy, and (cough, cough) walking humbly?  Such a person would be . . . nice.

Until you look at the context.

Even Micah 6:6-7 will do to get an idea:   

"With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Do you see what Micah is saying?  On the outside, these people were doing all the right things.  They were coming before the LORD.  They were bowing to him.  They were bringing their burnt offerings, just as he required!  In fact, they weren't just standard-spiritual, they were super-spiritual!  They were in church every time the doors opened.  Their kids were in all the programs.  They tithed and more than tithed.  They gave till it hurt and kept giving.  They put serving the Lord ahead of their kids.  They were pillars in the community.  They were doing things they thought would please God, things that God himself had asked them to do.  And Micah came along and threw it all back in their faces.

They came before the LORD, but they cheated a little when they thought they could get away with it.  They overcharged where they thought they could make a bit of extra profit.  They underpaid and crowed about the great deal they got from the sucker who sold them the goods.  They forgot to charge taxes or forgot to pay taxes on the cash deal.  Nothing major, just watching out for themselves against big business, big government, or the little sucker down the street selling stuff at the garage sale.

They bowed before the LORD, but they lied to each other when it was to their advantage.  They made themselves look good, and someone else look bad.  They conveniently forgot their own mistakes but long remembered the mistakes of others, and made sure that everyone else did, too.  A joke, teasing, I-didn't-really-mean-it.  Whatever worked to get to the top and stay there.

They brought their burnt offerings, calves a year old, but also bid for power.  They aligned themselves not with the one who was right, but the one who had the most influence.  Money spoke.  They allowed the big donors to get their own way.  They made decisions based on what was popular, what was culturally relevant, what was politically correct.  Whatever it took to be the biggest, the best, and the brightest, the most happening place in the area.

No, Micah says, the Lord has already shown you what is good, and what he requires. And what does he require?  Inner transformation.  A heart that beats for the same things that God's heart beats for.  A willingness to fight as ferociously for the injustices of the world, to love as extravagantly the completely unlovable, to forgive as wholeheartedly the unforgivable, to walk and eat and serve as unabashedly among the most broken and hurting people of this world as he did when he gave his firstborn for my transgression and for the sin of my soul.

It's so easy to forget the context.  It's so nice to just feel good.  But I dare not do it.  The people of God have always forgotten context at their peril.  To claim that the context does not apply to me, to assume I'm ok without allowing the searchlight of the prophet to plumb the depths of my heart is to risk hearing God say, "Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins."  What do you mean, my sins, Lord?  Didn't I do it all right?  Didn't I do what you required?  I thought I was ok, but I never really took time to look.

But when I look, when I examine the context, when I recognise in my own heart those tendencies to put myself first at the expense of someone else, to speak words that will make me look good and another look foolish, to align myself with pride and power, when I recognise these tendencies not as "no big deal" or "little things", but as symptoms of a sinful and corrupt heart, when I see how far I fall short of acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God, ah, it is then that the prophet whispers comfort to my bruised and broken heart.  "When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.  I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until  he pleads my cause and executes judgement for me.  He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication."

Words that become too precious for a plaque.

Ending in Lament

I read through the Bible.  I start at one end and read through to the other end, and then I switch versions and do it again.  I read everything.  I read the stories of Jesus in the gospels and the weird mildew laws in Leviticus.  I even read the begats -- those long lists of names.  If my name was in those lists, I'd want someone to read it there, so I figure that they're worth reading.  Some of it's a bit tedious (if it's not heretical to say that parts of the Bible are tedious) but I read it all.  And some parts of it are just wonderful.

Like the Psalms.  That's where I am now.

And in that wonderful book there are Psalms that are especially dear to me:  Psalm 13, Psalm 18, Psalm 22, Psalm 73.  And Psalm 88.

They're all laments.  It is through the book of Psalms that I learned to cry.  It is through the Psalms that I learned that crying is ok.

That crying is, in fact, praise.

It's true.  The Hebrew title of the book of Psalms is "Praises".  And the book of praises is full of crying.  The single largest category of psalms in the book of Praises is lament.  People crying to God.  People yelling at God, questioning him, feeling abandoned by him, wrestling with him, asking him why, bawling out their eyeballs because life has gone horribly wrong.  But they're crying to God.  It's all wrapped around him.  That's what makes it praise.  Sometimes I praise God in my laughter; sometimes, I praise him in my tears.  But always, I am wrapping my life around him, and that's what makes it a life of praise.

So what about Psalm 88?  Why is it in Marianne's Top 10 List of Awesomest Psalms?  It's certainly not there because it's bright and cheery.

"For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.

I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, 

whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves."

It's the song of a soul in pain.  I get that.  I've been there.  I've gone through seasons where the pain is so bad I truly felt like it would kill me.  I couldn't eat.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think.  I couldn't even really feel anything, except feel hurt in every fibre of my wounded being.  So I love that the psalm is honest.  I love that it gives me permission to feel that way and to be honest about it.

But mostly, what I love about this psalm is the end.

"Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend."

And that's it.  Boom.  The darkness is my closest friend.  The end.  And I love that.  I love that.

Psalm 88 is the only lament psalm in the whole psalter that ends without some kind of resolution.  All the others have a "turn", a "but" statement.  My life stinks, but you are good and I will trust you.  Things are really hard right now but I know the Lord will save me.  I can't tell which way is up, but it's all going to be ok in the end.  Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  They all have it.  Except Psalm 88.   And I'm glad for that.

I know it's true, those "buts".  I know God is good, and I know he can be trusted, and I know that he will save me, and I know that it will turn out ok in the end, and joy will come in the morning.  But there are seasons in life where it just doesn't turn around quite that quickly.  There are seasons of life with very, very long and lonely nights.  And without Psalm 88, I could start to feel guilty about those long nights of weeping.

Sometimes people expect "weeping for the night" to be kind of like a 1-hour TV show.  It's all a mess, and everything's horrible, but within the hour, everything is tidily wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after.  In the time it takes to read the psalm, I should be moving from lament to thanksgiving.  Just that quickly.  Fine, if you need to cry, cry, but get to the "but" in a big hurry.  We have no patience or tolerance for extended periods of grief.  We are so quick to slap on the guilt trip, to say, in hushed tones, "Oh, she's not doing so well.  She's still really struggling," sometimes only weeks after a major trauma, let alone months or even years.  If we allow lament at all, we feel so justified in ending it quickly; after all, the lament psalms end in trust!

Except then there's Psalm 88.  And Psalm 88 gives me permission to sit in the sadness and give the night of weeping the time it takes to dawn into a new day.  "Darkness is my closest friend."  Psalm 88 gives me permission to truly grieve.

To grieve, but not despair.  Because despair turns away from God, but there is not a single psalm anywhere in the book of Praises that turns away from God.  Psalm 88, in all its dark night of the soul, is focused solely on the One who can heal the broken heart.  It cries out to the LORD, the covenant God, the one who is I AM, the one who hears and who keeps his promises:  "O LORD!"  "O LORD, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you.  May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry."    Grieving is not turning away from God or showing a lack of trust -- it is running right into his arms.  It is crying in the arms of the God Who Saves, the God Who Turns His Ear. The God who knows we trust him, not because we're not crying, but because we've brought him our tears.

I love the God who understands that sometimes nights of weeping last longer than the hours of physical darkness.

I love the God who Saves.

And who sits with me in the darkness, and holds me when I cry.

And that's why I love Psalm 88.

Fearing Fear

I heard it again this morning:  fear is wrong.  Fear is never appropriate for a Christian to feel.  It might be appropriate under certain circumstances to be angry, or to grieve, but never to fear.

I hear that a lot.  I hear a lot that Christians are never supposed to fear, that fear is not of the Lord, that fear is sin, that fear is wrong.  I've heard that the Bible tells us 365 times not to fear (or some variation of that) -- conveniently, one for every day of the year.  I don't know if it's true or not; I've never bothered to count.  (I wonder what happens on leap years?  Do we have free reign to live in terror that day?)  I certainly do know that the Bible tells people often not to fear.

But what exactly does that mean?

Am I really supposed to believe that fear, in and of itself, is a sinful emotion?  That the emotion of fear is never appropriate, never of God?

When I'm walking down a street and a guy jumps out at me to mug me, fear is inappropriate?
When the neighbour's dog approaches me, growling, tail twitching, teeth showing, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm driving through a winter storm with knuckles clenched on the steering wheel, fighting to keep my car between the lines of the lane I can hardly see through the snow, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm told that the results aren't good and it's looking like I've got only a couple years, or months, or weeks to live, and the end is going to be rough, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm laid off and I have no money in the bank and bills to pay and mouths to feed, fear is inappropriate?

I don't think so.  I really don't.  I really think it's a lie.

Fear, in and of itself, is no more sinful than any other emotion:  anger, grief, hurt, sadness, love, happiness, excitement.  It's just a feeling.   In fact, I believe it's a God-given emotion.

It's a feeling that warns us that something is terribly wrong and that our lives are at risk.  It is a feeling that shoots us full of adrenaline so that we are equipped for fight or flight.  Without fear, we would recklessly endanger our lives.  Fear keeps us in one piece.  When the neighbour's growling dog approaches, the snake of fear warns me to back away and get out of there.  When the snow whips across my windshield, the cold wind of fear cautions me to slow down, stay back, or get off the road altogether.  It's not a sin to feel fear.

But for too many years, I believed it was.  I believed fear was a sin, and it crippled me.  No matter how much I tried to not feel fear, there were times when I did feel it.  I tried to retreat from life and run from risk, because taking a risk meant feeling fear, and fear was wrong, so I refused the risk.   I tried to pretend that I wasn't afraid when I was.  I acted tough and strong and even mean so no one would see that I was afraid.  I brought a pretend-me into my relationships, with others and with God, but pretend-me wasn't real, and real-me was lonely.  My masks stifled me and suffocated me and distanced me from God -- God who was calling out to real-me while pretend-me tried to convince him that she was actually real-me, as if I could fool God.  All because I had heard and believed that fear is sin and never appropriate for a true follower of Jesus to feel.

But you know what?  I believe that Jesus felt fear.  Listen to this:  "He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground"  (Luke 22:41-44).  In John 12, Jesus says, "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? `Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour."  Now, I know that neither of these verses actually use the word "fear", but they sure don't sound like the words of a man who is saying, "Bring it on!  I'm not afraid!"  As he looked ahead to the horror he was facing at the cross, I think Jesus felt fear.  And justifiably so.  His life was in danger, and fear warns us that our lives are in danger.

So I think it's a lie to believe that fear is, carte blanche, wrong, and sinful, and inappropriate for a Christian to feel.  In fact, I think it could even be a lie of the evil one to keep us in denial, to keep us from taking risks that might otherwise make us feel afraid.  I think it is a lie that cripples us.  In our desperation to avoid the "sin" of fear, we begin to fear fear itself.

No, fear is just a feeling, a feeling like any other one.  Where we cross the line from appropriate feelings of fear to sinful fearing is where we allow the fear to control us without stopping to analyse it.  It's not the feeling that's sinful; it's how we respond to it.  There are times when I feel fear, but when I stop to think about it, I know logically that there is no reason to fear.  So if I see the neighbour's dog snarling and growling, and my heart leaps and thuds to my toes, but I stop for a second and notice that the dog is tied up with a heavy chain (the dog does not exist, by the way -- he's merely an illustration), I will not allow the fear to cause me to run away in terror.  Instead, I will control it, and walk past the house, staying beyond the length of the chain.  There are other times when I feel fear, but I know that what I must do is right and it is what God is calling me to do, so I must move forward despite my feeling of fear.  My mouth might be dry, my hands clammy, my heart racing, my knees knocking, but I will do what I must do, because it is the right thing to do.  Like Jesus, who went to the cross, even though he was sweating blood.

It seems to me that for every time God says, "Do not fear," in the Bible, it's probably too late -- he's saying it because someone is already afraid.  Is he really saying, "You wretch, you just sinned"? Or is he perhaps saying, "It's ok.  You're on the right track.  I know how it looks, and I know how you feel, but keep moving forward.  I'm in control.  Don't look at the fear.  Look at me.  Trust me."  Fear is just a feeling.  It is not wrong.  It is not sin.  It is not inappropriate.  What is inappropriate, and sin, and wrong, is blindly allowing fear to rule my life, blindly assuming that just because I am feeling fear means that my life really is at risk, or that my life-at-risk is so all-fired important that I must preserve it at all cost, even if that means outright disobeying my Lord.  What is sinful is if I allow fear to control and paralyse me, rather than allowing God's Spirit to control and empower me.

I have laid down the masks.  I have quit trying to pretend I don't feel fear.  I have quit playing it safe in an effort to prevent myself from feeling fear.  I just admit it.  There are lots of times when I am afraid.  Shaking in my boots, mouth-full-of-cotton afraid.  And I'm ok with that.  I bring my fear, without shame, without guilt, and without fear of reproach to my Lord.  And I've discovered that the more honest I've been about my fear, the more courageous and bold in my walk with Jesus I've become, the more I have learned to trust deeply, to love passionately, to move forward with determination.

I can take risks.  I can do hard things.  I can go where he asks me to go, do what he asks me to do, face what he asks me to face.
Because I no longer fear fear.
I just feel it and move on.
And that's ok.