Speechless

If ever there were words that describe my present mindset, it's these of Jeremiah: "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak."

Jeremiah chalks it up to his youthfulness.

But me? I'm no longer young!

I've been around the Horn any number of times, rough seas and craziness; hurt, sorrow and pain; under attack and betrayed; lied about and despised. The stuff of ministry. Yet, plenty of good stuff in the mix, as well: love, hope, peace, encouragement, friendship, humor, loyalty, and victory ... and a wife without peer, and a family of adventure ... rich experiences and travel ... and looking back, I'm satisfied with the years. And now, here I am.

These days, nonetheless, words fail me.

Jeremiah is often at a loss for words, too ... his world is a mess ... politics and religion in shambles, shady characters and greed all around ... what to say, what to say?

He rants and he raves ... he cajoles and condemns ... he comforts and holds up hope ... and when nothing seems to work, he choose silence ... says that God set him up and left him twisting in the wind. For the time being, Jeremiah is on leave.

As I am right now, but the words of God boil away in his guts ... he cannot escape the task ... but who doesn't need some time for the guts to boil, for the churning and stirring of thoughts and hurts and sorrow and despair and anger and alienation? Who doesn't need to tell God off? Who doesn't need to shut up now and then? To declare that's it's not worth my time; to turn around and walk away? Who doesn't need that now and then?

But as Jeremiah learned, his silence can hold only for a while ... because of how it all began. In the beginning, the Words of the Lord ...

When the words of the Lord came to Jeremiah, out of the blue, a wild affirmation: "You're mine. Even before you're conceived in your mother's womb, way before then, I knew you ... and already in my mind, you were appointed as a prophet ... to the nations."

Never just to Judah, but to the nations ... because Judah, while important enough, isn't the sum-total of God's care, but always the nations, the world, everyone and everything. Something to keep in mind, lest one simply hides in the church, talking pious mush and ignoring just how much of the religious enterprise is a house of cards.

So, to the nations ... and it's God's determination.

The bedrock ... you're mine! Which is something the Apostle Paul understood so well, and so did Calvin, but those are stories for another day.

The bedrock love of God.

Warms the cockles of my Calvinist heart ... the a priori love of God ... which is the only place for me to begin, and should I forget to begin there, things seriously unravel for me. Even with that, they may unravel, because unravelling is sometimes needed, so God can reknit the whole deal with longer sleeves, or something like that.

And as St. John of the Cross suggested to young monks all wrapped up in themselves, in such times as these, when things are unraveling, deconstructing, and I have no idea what God is doing, it's because God obscures God's work in order to keep me "in the dark," lest I rush in and tell God what God ought to be doing. When it's done, however, I'll know. When it's done, God will step back and pull off my blinders: "Here'; this is what I've been doing."

Like Jeremiah, I'm pretty much speechless these days.

But the fundamental affirmation of God's love for me remains, though I can forget it now and then, lost in the wilds of idiocy besetting nation and world ... yet this morning, as I write, it's consoling ... like taking a deep breath after a long time of shallow breathing ... the body settles, the mind slows down, nerves relax a bit. Nothing yet clear, but the bedrock remains ... and a house built on the rock withstands the worst of the storms.

I find consolation in my friend Jeremiah, a friend since seminary days - an honest man who cannot sever his connection to God, though he tries, because God won't allow it. It's that basic.

I like Jeremiah every much ... he's a friend, indeed, for times such as these.

Doctrine and Love???

In 4.1.7, Calvin writes of the Lord's Supper, and of our participation in it: an attestation of our "unity in true doctrine and love."

Had Calvin put a period after doctrine, we'd be left with an impossible dream, for Christians will never find unity on the basis of "true doctrine," at least in the long run. Perhaps in the short run, in the thrill of new friends and new-found associations. But in time, friendships wear and the new becomes just as tired and wearying as was the old.

Doctrine is a good thing, but only as a servant of love.

In those instances where doctrine has been given too much weight, the results are always the same: bickering, dissension and divorce.

And those newly married on the basis of doctrine will soon find other issues to debate, things endlessly in need of fine-turning, sub-point and codicil ... with mountains of paper, books and counter-books, claims and counter-claims, and with each round, a little more bitterness, a little more anger, a little more this and a little more that, until all those little things become big things, and the indifferent makes all the difference.

I know doctrine, but do I know love?

I spent a good many years, early on, in the land of doctrine; it was fun and rewarding, but wearing, too, as ideas wear upon one another like engine parts shy of adequate lubrication, until the whole thing ceases up and comes to a grinding halt.

I think it was Rob Bell who said, "Doctrine makes a good servant but a horrible tyrant." He would know, living and working as he does in Grand Rapids, sort of the Holy City in the Land of Doctrine.

But it's love with which Calvin ends the sentence.

That's always the good end, the only end required of us.

While I'm quite sure what doctrine looks like and a community of faith utterly shaped by it, I have difficulty imagining a community of faith driven by love.

Yet some things seem obvious: like putting up with one another and our respective views, without calling down the wrath of heaven or summoning up the fires of hell.

Making room for one another, and perhaps, then, we can finally address what has been our fatal flaw from the get-to: too much reliance on doctrine and not enough push on love - biblical love - highly ethical and pulsing with loyalty to one another because of Christ's loyalty to us!

Of the former issues of race and gender, those who favored the status quo were able to marshal tons of Scripture and tons more of doctrine. The weight of history, in the main, is always on the side of the conservative [note the Sadducees].

But there are other stories to be told, and someone like Diana Butler Bass ["A Peoples' History of Christianity"] helps us do just that, and with these smaller stories, reminds us of the ways of love, the courage of love, and the humility of love.

Calvin himself relied too much on doctrine [a man of his time, to be sure], but he could never forget the Holy Spirit, the mystery of God, and the power of love.

Doctrine is neat and clean, especially when we walk away from those who might offer another take on things. That's one way of keeping the house clean.

Love, however, requires of us something rather different, or so I think.

The next time I'm at the Lord's Table, which will be this coming Sunday, I'll think about these things ... to be united in true doctrine and love.

Protestant Christianity's Reluctance

From Calvin's "Institutes" - 3.7.5, "Now, in seeking to benefit one's neighbor, how difficult it is to do one's duty! Unless you give up all thought of self and, so to speak, get out of yourself, you will accomplish nothing here. For how can you perform those works which Paul teaches to be the works of love, unless you renounce yourself and give yourself wholly to others?"

As of late, I've been wondering why it's so difficult for Protestant Christianity to support justice - to stand beside the workers of America as their jobs are ripped out of their hands by a corporate power-grab that has overseen the largest transfer of wealth imaginable - billions out of the pockets of America's workers into the pockets of the rich, who have quickly shipped the money overseas. The hyper-concentration of wealth is destroying the middle class, but to raise a voice here is to be quickly branded a "radical" or a "socialist" or worse - but what would Jesus say? What would Paul or Jeremiah or Amos offer?