I wanted you
to be delivered
box-shaped.
Small, medium, or large - it didn’t matter.
Just prove predictable,
measurable,
comprehensible,
and
contained.
Should you arrive early,
I’d be tempted
to set you aside
waiting
for my readied willingness to catch up
Should you be late,
I might demand
a partial refund of faith
or
write a poor user review,
warning of
potential disappointment.
If dimensions
aren’t right,
no worries.
I can trim you
down to size.
Funnel the love
until it seeps,
drips,
drops,
at a manageable pace.
Whittle the edges of mystery
with a lathe
of certainty.
Accept only rules
of engagement
that grant privilege
and safety.
I’ll be sure to discount
the grace,
stocking the shelves
at the five and dime,
so that demand
never exceeds supply.
but you.
you,
of all people;
so irreligious
in your holiness.
Unrighteous piety
that's frivolous
in love;
wasted
on charlatans,
beggars,
and
drunks.
you,
stingy
in anger
toward those
outside
of the sanctuary.
The liars,
the chancers,
and
the cheats.
you,
with dirty feet
and
unclean hands.
Touching prostitutes
and
crossing the road
to bandage
the dying.
you,
a derelict
of the very system
created
to explain you,
make you plain,
bring you close,
and
make you attainable.
Worked my fingers
to the bone,
beat my head
against the wall,
configured
and decoded
all I could,
with
no
lasting
success.
because you.
you,
an ever-moving target,
impossible
to manipulate;
an uncontrollable
mighty wind.
you,
a blue-hot fire,
impossible
to extinguish;
unquenchable
burning flame.
I never know if trying to explain my writing is helpful or a hindrance to the work itself. In this case, I shall give a short postlude. I have grown increasingly discontent, over the years, with the workings and ways of the American church. We are so tempted to analyze our success according to easily measurable numbers (attendance, building, and cash). And while these metrics can be helpful in assessing growth, they are far from taking into account the intangibles of true discipleship (increased virtues, deepening love of God, self, and others). The latter is much more difficult to gauge, and so we return to the things that most quickly define us as a congregation - our size (in people, facility, and dollars).
This poem is part of my own processing as I consider the unsolvable nature and mystery of God. It's a product of my own wrestling in this last year of a changing hermeneutic in my life about the place of certainty in my walk with God. The god I knew as a child was finite, fully knowable, and predictable. As I age, I recognize that "seeing through a glass dimly" means there will be great and unsearchable things I won't know this side of heaven. Things about God's character, His stance of controversial issues, and the full matter of salvation. And I am becoming more and more comfortable, perhaps even delighted, in the uncertainty.
So, this piece is like retrospective in part, and still a current autobiography, as I seek to live resisting the urge to reduce God to a definable, fully comprehensible entity. He's much too lovely for that. But the malady of the church is that we often, quite belligerently, defend the certainty of our point of view. The people of God, who on some level know God is mystery, choose to diminish this mystery for the sake of our own comfort. And herein lies the irony - religion, which is developed to grant people access to God, is often the most guilty of culprits in denying people that very proximity of grace. It's the weakness of religion, because God was never meant to be contained.
What if believers walked in a certainty of God's goodness, seen most vividly in Christ, and a willingness to admit uncertainty in most everything else?
