Troublers and Clingers and Insane Clowns

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel? -- 1 Kings 18:17

It is not inevitable and not a hard and fast rule, but it is often the case that the accuser is guilty of the offense.  Elijah had come on the scene to prophesy three and a half years of drought and famine upon Israel.  The ten tribes had been apostate since breaking away from Rehoboam after the death of Solomon.  One golden calf with its altars stood in Bethel and another in the territory of the tribe of Dan, yet no king had been as depraved as Ahab son of Omri and husband of Jezebel.  Those who worshipped the one true God were pursued and persecuted and the prophets put to death.  They worshipped Baal and Asherah with dark and demonic rites, practicing witchcraft and wickedness, making gods of their own lusts.  They dredged hell for judgment to pour out on their own heads.  Then, when they began to gather in the harvest of their iniquity, they blamed God.        

In other words, there is nothing new under the sun.  We are having the troubles we have today because of the judgmental, narrow-minded, intolerant, right-wing Christians.  It’s all these people who don’t realize this is the modern world and times have changed, that we are all right no matter what we believe or what we do.  Traditional marriage and monogamy are conventions.  Marriage is kind of like Halloween, a time to dress up and put on a show.  It doesn’t matter if a man wants to marry another man or a woman wants to marry a Mercedes. 

The truth is dead.  Everybody lies.  Everybody cheats.  You just need to be able to do it with style.  It’s a matter of how good things sound and how we can make things look.  The only reality is perception.  We can have any kind of world we choose.  We can be like gods, deciding by popular vote what is right and what is wrong.  Morality is what we say it is.  Hell, sex is what we say it is.  Don’t want to be a man?  We’ll sprinkle some fairy dust, say, Shazam!, and, behold, woman, thou art loosed! 

And if anyone disagrees, they are the trouble.  If anyone tells the truth, they have to be silenced.  We can’t allow those bigoted, xenophobic clingers with their rules and traditions to dictate to us.  Life is sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.  Party hearty and die at thirty, er, seventy-five.  Don’t worry.  We have antibiotics and a vaccine for AIDS. 

Under the sun, it’s all been done, and the end is always the same.  The pendulum falls back in the dark of the moon.  That’s not to say it won’t get worse before it gets better.  It will get better, if it takes five years, fifty, or five thousand.  We have no guarantee our particular step on the ascension to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ is all that close to the top.  My hope is in Christ and the kingdom of God; otherwise, I would have no hope. 

What Does It All Mean, Mr. Natural?

He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended by Him.

Then Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.” So He was not able to do any miracles there, except that He laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief. – Mark 6:1-6

Those folks from Nazareth have kin all over the world. Some of my ancestors might have come from there.

After all, I wonder, what do we expect?

What I don’t expect is for the commonplace to suddenly take on the transcendent and for the profane to become sacred. I don’t expect “Holy unto the LORD” to be inscribed on my milk cow’s bell. The mockers will often speak of Moses and his encounter with a talking plant, as though a talking animal were any less fantastic. At least the Scripture is clear in the case of the burning bush that it was not the vegetation speaking, but God Himself through it. With primates the source is less certain.

People just don’t like the common to get out of hand. As in the case of Jesus whom the Nazarenes thought they knew, we can be offended when someone or something around us takes on attributes of the divine. I don’t know if it so much that familiarity breeds contempt. It is more like we just stop looking at the things that are most familiar.

What intrigues me most about this passage, though, is that Jesus’ homies do not really question the wisdom of what He is saying or the miraculous power attributed to Him. They seem to acknowledge this, and, in fact, it is this very fact that offends them.

Who are YOU to have wisdom and divine power? The fact that God may be able to speak or operate in this world through some people is not the issue. It is when God begins to speak and operate through someone I know that I have a problem.

You don’t have to empty hospital rooms or break up funerals to cause offense – though I am pretty sure if you did the AMA, the AHA, and the National Association of Funeral Directors, not to mention the ACLU and CAIR, would be on your tail for practicing medicine without a license, unfair trade practices, violating the civil rights of the dead and making a mockery of Mohammed. Much less dramatic demonstrations cause more than enough offense, as the folks that voted for Proposition 8 in California found out. The fact that a person believes in Christ, thinks Global Warming is a scam, opposes Islamic fascism, same-sex marriage, socialism, or one of the left’s other causes du jour is quite sufficient.

Merely living a decent life is enough to make one offensive to many. After all, if there are people who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God that means it is possible. Some of us may be a little more comfortable thinking that holiness is a nice concept, but not very practical -- which brings me to the point that has been nagging me for the last few days. As 2 Peter 3:10 and 11 puts it:

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people should you be…[?]

Or, how should we then live?

You and I may not have the same set of questions. Mine go something like this:

Do I really believe that I am a child of God in Christ?

Do I really believe God is my Father and cares for me more than any earthly parent possible could? And the corollary to that – do I believe God cares more about my loved ones than I do?

Do I really believe this world is not all there is, and that life, therefore, has a purpose beyond the futility of animal existence?

Can God really be trusted?

Is God able to work His will in the lives of those who trust Him?

Is my obedience really more important than my comfort, my reputation, my status, and my possessions?

Those are a few of my questions, and, like I said, other people may have different ones. The bad thing is that after all these years my answers are still pretty weak and tentative, and sometime inconsistent. I guess the good thing is I do know the right answer.