Not My Problem (2)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23 NASB

Fall short – Maybe we’re just not prepared to deal with the implications. Maybe we just haven’t seen enough. But I’ve seen a lot. And I’m tired. The more I travel, the more I see men and women interpreting their experiences in terms of some adopted paradigm which they really don’t understand—and probably don’t want to. They don’t want to know where the ideas came from because to know is to be threatened. They just want God on their terms, whether it is Torah or Westminster.

Seeing the expressions of homo religiosus around the world convinces me that cultural accumulations and accommodations prevail. The religious man adapts wherever he might be thrown. The Christian church in Beijing might as well be in Santa Monica. It’s exactly the same, right down to the order of service and the stage band music. Why? Do you suppose the sheep are actually following each other, never knowing where they came from or where they are going?

Everywhere I go I find religious vocabulary adapted to a fixed theology. Spiritual experience, the untamable part of Man’s involvement with God, is adjusted to fit the paradigm. If I really press through all the religious verbiage, I find a common longing. And then the paradigm takes over. Why do Pentecostals see miracles in finding a parking space, but think the Holocaust is God’s judgment? Why do Presbyterians think glossolalia is psychic fabrication but they have no problems with Luther or Calvin’s idea of grace? Do I really think that the personal encounter with a man on the plane was designed by God in advance? Why does “evangelical” mean the same thing in Indonesia and Tibet that it means in South Africa or Italy? What’s so important about being right when there are 50,000 Protestant denominations?

Here’s the problem. The more you travel, the more you realize it’s all shaped to fit. Judaism is no different than Christianity. It has its own traditions, interpretations and hermeneutic. It’s just as much a “follower” mentality. The appeal of Judaism is not its interpretation of Scripture. It has just as much debate there. The appeal is that someone else tells you how to live and that makes life easier. But does anyone seriously think the biblical commands were given to us? They belong to an era that passed long ago. Today’s application is human rearrangement, no matter what camp you happen to be in.

In one sense we are all “modern.” We struggle with meaning. Where do we find real meaning for our lives? Do we just succumb to the pressure to conform? Do we just give up and adopt some way of behaving because it’s too hard to keep asking questions? Are human beings really any different underneath? Don’t we all have this desire to be aligned with the divine, to know “God”? Is the Buddhist priest really any different at the existential level? Is his quest so “pagan” that we can’t understand his pain, his sorrow, his hope? Isn’t he looking for the same thing from a different direction?

And what about being lost in this place—in this world? Where am I really at home? Is home just a place I choose so that I won’t have to struggle with the ideas anymore? A place of convenience where I can stop thinking? Maybe we’re just tired of “the rut of being alone, unworthy, and unloved.”[1] Maybe we’re just tired of trying to please someone—including God.

Does the Bible really have anything to say to me, where I am right now? Or is it just a history of how God used to interact with a small group of people thousands of years ago?

I find it interesting (maybe a bit more than that) that Paul chooses the Greek verb hysteréō for “fall short.” The verb has other nuances, like “to come too late, to lack, to be in want.” Perhaps there’s more to Paul’s statement than missing the mark. Perhaps we’ve arrived too late to experience God’s glory. Two thousand years too late, actually. Or maybe we’re in desperate need; we lack the proper orientation or something, in order to find Him. Maybe, as modern men and women, we’ve made a mistake. We’ve turned on to the wrong path, and now our entire culture has discovered that the universe is an empty, blind and tragic place. But it’s too late to recover. The momentum of this gigantic ship called the West can’t be turned around in time to avoid collision with the dark. Maybe what we lack is a public sense of foreboding. We just keep burying our fears, but we all know them, don’t we? A cataclysm is coming—soon it seems, and God is nowhere to be found. Oh, there’s plenty of religion around, but does that really soothe your soul?

It’s glory that I miss, and as a result, I sin.

Topical Index: meaning, homeless, paradigm, community, answers, fall short, hysteréō, Romans 7:14

A post note: After I wrote this, I walked to Sucat, here in Manila. Whenever I walk there, I pass a young man, probably about 25, who is always begging from me and others on the street. I have ignored him in the past, but today I decided I needed to know something about him. So I had him follow me to the security gate and I asked the guard to tell me about him. Apparently, he is mentally handicapped. He has no family. He lives on this street behind my apartment. He cannot work. Therefore, he relies entirely on the goodness of people who pass him by. I thought out his circumstances, the courage and humility it takes to beg, even when it is the only means to survive. I thought about how gracious God has been to me, how he has given me so much. I didn’t deserve it any more than this young man. I thought about what life would be like for me if I were in his place. And then I thought, “Maybe that’s what it means to have purpose—to recognize our fortunate lives, to feel the pain of others and do something about it. Maybe that’s what it means to experience God’s glory. To see someone lifted up, even if just for a moment. To put life back into lives. And I felt better as soon as I helped him.

[1] Terry and Sharon Hargrave, “Restoring Identity,” Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 41.