rwb

Cross and Water Tower

R is for Reconsider

It all sounded so right, being called sons and daughters of God, the same as Jesus was called, even by the Tempter. "You are the Son of God." (Lk. 4:3) After all, the name came with our baptisms, Jesus' and ours. We were getting used to the idea of being junior deities. It all sounded so right until now.

But once you put the name to the test, once you try dropping the name in high places or even low places -- the world's wildernesses, high mountains, temple pinnacles -- what really happens? Practically? Concretely? Did we seriously expect this flattering title of ours would transform stones into bread, starving people into fed ones, the homeless housed, civil strife ended, the environment protected? Were we led/misled (by the Spirit) to expect better? For that matter you would think, wouldn't you, that if we truly are daughters and sons adopted by a divine Father we would be able to work signs and wonders befitting "immortal, invisible God only wise?" Think what that could do for Christian credibility among unbelievers and unchurched. But no. Along comes someone who calls our bluff, and poof! We cannot produce. So what's in a name? It seems to have no real clout after all.

Frankly, Paul too, sets us up for the same disillusionment. What he preaches he calls, grandly, "the word of faith." (Ro. 10:8) Maybe it is that. But isn't faith supposed to move mountains into the midst of the sea?

So isn't it time to reconsider? Take a second look at what the Tempter said, "If you are the Son of God...." Ah so! That's more like it. If! And the second look makes for second thoughts. Call it doubt, as in the word "double," as in double-

O is for Obloquy

Isn't that what happens to us in the process: obloquy? We so-called daughters and sons of God come away feeling like anything but sons and daughters of God. In fact, just the opposite: not "glory," as the Tempter promised Jesus (v. 6) but obloquy, shame, discredit. What a let-down. That is the very opposite of what Paul too, not only the Tempter had promised. "No one who believes in [Jesus]," says Paul loftily, "will be put to shame." (v. 11) Oh yeah?

If it isn't shame then what is it, this persistent embarrassment: hunger among the homeless, homelessness among refugees, locally and globally, powerlessness in ourselves to show anything but the most meager political and social results? Isn't our shame finally the disquieting absence of divine providence and protection, the shame of having to stand vulnerable before a critical world which questions the credibility not only of us but of our God?

For, what else have we been promising the world -- we, in this "word of faith which we preach" -- but that God would open his hand and feed the hungry with good things, that it is God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom, that God dwells with us in Temple and in Emmanuel as our shield and defender? But if so, why are we left instead with so few tangibles to point to: "Christ and him crucified?" In practice, finally, we are reduced to a "ministry of Word and sacraments," increasingly simple and unadorned, among tiny gatherings of "two or three" in the diminishing mainline.

The experience -- all right, the temptation -- is all too real. We simply cannot bring ourselves any longer to "boast of our weakness," let alone of Christ's weakness -- not without being ashamed of it. How embarrassing it is that, when our Lord (and thus we) are challenged to show utilitarian results, he/we can do nothing more than quote Scripture, "Humanity does not live by bread alone," "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," "He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you." (vv. 4,8,10) Yeah, sure. How unconvincing, how evasive that Bible-quoting must