One problem in Christian community, though certainly there are many others, is the tendency to use “god-talk” in our conversation. God-talk is language that ends honest dialogue. It typically includes the use of scripture in a way that is unchallengeable. It ignores the reality that there are scriptures that are difficult to swallow and much that is hard to understand.
I don’t believe God is thinned skinned nor easily offended when we struggle with scripture or concepts that are difficult. In fact, I believe he encourages us to struggle and to wrestle.
A person using god-talk doesn’t. He or she stakes a position and shuts down further discussion of the matter. In the world of god-talk, things are black and white with little subtlety, mystery or unknowing. Undoubtedly, there are absolutes which I have no desire to challenge. And with each passing day, as we have opportunity to learn and to grow in knowledge, in wisdom and in understanding, those absolutes are clarified through the subtlety and mystery, the struggle and the challenge. To these will I cling and to the God behind them.
Yet humility is required. For as I reach the end of my days on earth, more will remain unknown than known. I will only know in part, as the apostle Paul declared. That is why I believe in the goodness of God despite terrible pain and loss. I wrestle and struggle with Jesus’ invitation to “ask what you will, and it shall be done” or “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, be gone, and it will be cast into the sea.” I have asked and I have faith, yet some prayers aren’t answered, and some mountains aren’t moved. At least not yet.
I wrestle and struggle with reconciling the promise of Jesus of abundant life with the promise of trouble. I wrestle with knowing that he is my Deliverer and yet walks me through the valley of the shadow of death. I enjoy his unbelievable mercy while at the same time praying for his justice, knowing he is both merciful and just, yet not fully understanding how he can be both.
The god-talkers among us have it all figured out, in neat boxes and categories. Their tone confident and positions firm, they have an air of arrogance providing adequate warning of their faulty position. Many come to their positions innocently enough, staking their confidence on a truth believed bedrock. Yet the strength of confidence can be quickly overcome by the weakness of arrogance when humility is absent. We know only in part and understand in part.
As a Christian community, let us reject God-talk, if instead of dialogue it is a monologue of rigidity and pride. Let us in honesty and humility converse with one another, wrestling and struggling with the words of God and the reality of the world around us. Let us be as the Book of Acts describes the Berean Jews, “now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11 NIV). Let us embrace the humility and mystery, the certainty as well as uncertainty, and honestly live our lives together as we wrestle with what we know as well as what we don’t. All the while embracing the beauty and truth, the wonder and the mystery and the awe that is God.
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