Can't Get Next To You, Babe

Morning Everyone,

I’m late getting this out and that is simply another example of just how busy I am these days. I spent most of the day yesterday converting books to digital format. It sounded easy a couple of weeks ago when I started, ok a month ago, but there is a lot of computer formatting that either has to be figured out or bypassed and since I don’t do computer coding all that well (at all) I had to figure out how to by pass it and trick the computer into doing what I wanted it to.

Signs of the age I guess, just a couple of years ago when I was in high school ; ) they didn’t even offer computer classes or should I say I was too oblivious to even know they existed if they did. I remember getting my first vic 20 computer in the early 80’s and spending hours learning to copy code so that I could play some game that was about as exciting as pong (which I played by the way and loved).

I don’t do video games much anymore mostly because once I get started I can’t seem to stop. I learned that in the 80’s as well, on the Atari 2600. I saw a girl awhile back with the Atari 2600 ensignia tattooed on her arm. I asked her if she liked the game and I could be wrong but I think she told me she’d never played one (before her time). I gave my system to a much younger cousin when I realized that if it stayed in the house I was never going to get anything of import accomplished –making it to the next level is not of import in the overall scheme of life. So by the time my kids were playing Nintendo 64 I was already obsolete – in the words of one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes – I chose to become The Obsolete Man.

You know if the church would have truly embraced TV as a medium instead of just seeing it as a new platform to preach from we could have conquered this nation a long time ago. Shows like the Obsolete Man are so biblical, so full of truth and have such a powerful message that, well , they would probably not make it past the censors these days. We lost the TV war before we even knew there was a battle I’m afraid.

But the truth is we lost the battle for our culture long before TV was invented. By the end of the civil war the country that the founding fathers knew was already on its way out. The seeds of modern life had already been planted and now they are growing out of control. TV is not to blame, computers are not to blame. The church is to blame. We left the path of life in pursuit of happiness and now we are reaping the destruction that follows such action.

In the midst of battling the destruction that we have chosen to bath in I’ve been thinking of the things that God can’t do. Too often in our day and age freedom is defined as being able to do anything you want to do. But I believe that God shows us that freedom is as much about not being able to do things as it is to do what you want. I guess the thing that started this for me was listening to Al Green singing “Can’t get next to you babe”

The song describes all of these things that really only God can do: I can turn the gray sky blue, I can make it rain when I want to. I can live forever if I so desire; things like that. All followed by the singer saying, but: I can’t get next to you babe.

Earlier this week it hit me that God can’t get next to sin. Duh, I know. He refuses because to leave the path of life would be the end of his freedom He would be rebelling against himself (and I think we might call that schizophrenia). That is the reason why we don’t see him in church much these days. His presence can’t abide sin and the church has trouble locating the path of life. It’s like we’re walking parallel lines with God. We can see him over there and wave to him, we think we’re going the same direction but our lives never intersect. I guess that is a perfect example of having the form without the power.

I say all of this because I’ve gone out, way out, on a limb and called my congregation to hold a day of Prayer and fasting with an eye toward corporate repentance. Mostly I did it because I’m tired of going to church without God showing up. I’m tired of watching the slow train derail off the path of life, and I’m tired of settling for imitation life instead of real life which can only be found on the path of righteousness. I’m tired of bondage that passes itself off as freedom. The freedom to sin is not freedom at all – it is destruction. Paul says twice in first Corinthians that EVERYTHING is permitted. You can sin if you want to but he always adds: Everything is not profitable.

We have been sucked into this idea that what is good is what makes us happy but nothing could be further from the truth. Death from the wages of sin makes most people happy in the short term. It feels good and that’s all that matters. Destruction feels good while it’s going on. As Sheryl Crow sings: If it makes you happy then why the hell are you so sad? I don’t know why the world is made this way but it is. We have an aversion to suffering, we assume something is bad because it makes us unhappy but the truth is we are destroying multiple generations and our future by making sure that our children never have to suffer. We are protecting them from the things that they will need to survive in the name of happiness. You see ensuring happiness rules out perseverance, it rules out learning to master life skills because at the first sign of whining we want to make happy.

But the goal of life isn’t to be happy. The goal in life is to find the path of life and stay on it. And until we are willing to humble ourselves and give up the destruction that we call the pursuit of happiness then God is going to keep singing Al Green. He can’t get next to a people that love sin. He won’t get next to a people that refuse to humble themselves. When I said I went way out on a limb with this fasting thing that’s because the risk is that I will see just how far people will go to not repent. I may even see how far I am willing to go to NOT repent. How far will we go to stretch the rules so that it looks like we are complying but really aren’t? I am running the risk of seeing the true hearts of my self and my congregation and in some sense I am running the risk of God saying “Can’t get next to you babe” so loudly that I can actually hear it.

Now that said, I am also running the risk of God actually being God and forcing people to repentance and humbleness and then I will have to deal with walking in faith and watching as the power of God takes dominion over his people and our communities. Sounds great but it means going up against giants. That is a little intimidating and probably one of the reasons that we are in the mess we’re in. But I think I’m finally at a place where I’m so sick of bondage that I am willing (If I know for sure that God is, in the words of the Carpenters, “longing to be close to me”) to take the risk of standing up in front of Giants and watch them fall instead of being safe in the arms of destruction.

Given my track record it could go either way.

Grace, Mercy and R&B to you all,
Brad