Arguing With God

What would happen, if you decided to read every word of the Bible? I mean, actually do it!!!!!!!!! Pray tell, what? Would your teeth fall out? Would your skin turn green? Would youlose the curl in your naturally curly hair? Inquiring minds want to know, they really do.
A man named David Plotz did--Mr. Plotz is the on-line editor of Slate magazine--A hip, smart, webzine--that's a magazine published on the Internet--offering news, analysis & commentary about politics, and culture. In other words, unlike the newspaper that founded it, The Washington Post, it's not for the stodgy. Mr. Plotz not only read every word in the Bible, by which David--as a Jewish person--means the Old Testament, but lived to tell the tale!! In fact he wrote a book about the experience. It's just been published, and is entitled Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, & Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible." Yes, there are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold," and by those who read the Bible.
"Should you read the Bible?," he writes, addressing his readers, unable to resist wagging a finger or two. "You probably haven't. A century ago, most well-educated Americans knew the Bible deeply. Today, biblical illiteracy is practically universal among nonreligious people. Even among the faithful, Bible reading is erratic. The Catholic Church, for example, includes only a teeny fraction of the Old Testament in its official readings. Jews study the first five books of the Bible pretty well but shortchange the rest of it. Orthodox Jews generally spend more time on the Talmud and other commentary than on the Bible itself."
As David began to explore the Good Book, he was, shocked and surprised by many of the things he encountered. But this much is true: He was no longer on the outside looking in, Making presumptions about anything and everything. He was thinking, he was wrestling, he had even begun to argue with the text. And guess what: even then, he still lived to tell the tale." While reading the Bible," he says, "I often felt as if I had finally lifted a veil from my eyes. I learned that I hadn't known the true nature of God's conflict with Job, which is the urtext of all subsequent discussions of obedience and faith. I realized I was ignorant of the story of Ruth. I was unaware of the radical theology of Ecclesiastes, the source of so many of our ideas about the good life. I didn't know who Jezebel was, or why we loathe her, or why she is the painted lady, or even that she was married to nasty king Ahab."
Yes, countless people make statements about the Bible, about the church, about God, about the Lord Jesus, without much sense of what they're talking about. Why? Because they simply never read it, nor do they any real experience of the community of faith. We, in this culture, are frankly not in habit of reading or reflecting, or struggling, at any depth. It's just not done. It just takes too much effort. It's far easier to talk, than to listen; to proclaim, than to reflect; to make assumptions, than to struggle for a more authentic perspective.
About a month or so ago I skipped down to Vancouver to catch the opera, in the company of Joanne Calkins, our advocate, and her husband Dick. The day after the opera, we decided to check out a Malaysian restaurant in downtown Vancouver. (By the way, if you've never had Malaysian food, you've missed something truly wonderful. Malaysian food has flavors which are entirely unique.) In any case, our conversation drifted into--or onto--the fourth century of the Common Era, when the Roman Empire, in official terms, became "Christian." How we got there I cannot exactly remember, but before we got very far into the conversation, A man in the next table spoke up. (This was a very small restaurant where the tables were set closely together.) "Oh yes, the fourth century," he said, "I just read a book about it! . . . That's when an emperor named Constantine-yep, that was his name, I know all about him--decided what books should be in the Bible, and he was the one who suppressed all the good ones, and kept all the bad ones. And he was the one who started all this nonsense about Jesus being God. Yep. I just finished The Da Vinci Code and it's a great book. Yep. It all happened in the fourth century. Important time."
So I smiled, and listened, and said, as nicely as possible, "Yes, I've heard of Constantine. Yes. I know that in the process of deciding the canon of Scripture, some books were kept and others rejected. Yes, I know that definitive statements were made about the deity of Christ in the 4th century." This dear man imagined himself an expert on the 4th century, after having read a superficial, salacious little best-selling paperback he found at the Five-and-Dime store, and was only too happen to give lectures on church history, at the drop of a chopstick. To be sure, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I don't know about you, but when I encounter such things, I prefer to give people the dignity of their perspective, howsoever superficial or misguided it might be, and will not pompously correct them, like a know-it-all.
In any case, if you dare to read the Bible deeply, not superficially--its words, its very words; the Book of the Words and Acts of God;--all of them, if you are daring--a veil will lift from your eyes; you will find some astonishing, surprising, bizarre, hilarious, disturbing, marvelous, & inspiring things. Like today's reading for example, as strange, bizarre even, as it might otherwise seem. At Genesis 18, we join the patriarch Abraham, Wrestling with a problem…. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah have angered God with their wickedness, and God has resolved to destroy them, utterly, "in fire and brimstone," as the KJV tells us. The problem? Abraham knows that not everyone in those cities deserve this fate. A certain sense of "natural justice" rises up in him; after all, members of his family lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, and were God to wipe out the city, they too would be destroyed. And so he turns to the Lord in prayer. There, Abraham has the audacity to argue with God. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. He boldly bargains God, talking him down like an auctioneer: "Yes, Abraham," the Lord said, 'If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. ' Then Abraham spoke up again: 'Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?' 'If I find forty-five there, ' God said, 'I will not destroy it. ' Once again Abraham spoke to him, 'What if only forty are found there?' God said, 'For the sake of forty, I will not do it. ' Then Abraham said, 'May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?' God answered, 'I will not do it if I find thirty there. ' Abraham said, 'Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?' God said, 'For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it. ' Then Abraham said, 'May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more . . . . What if only ten can be found there????????' He answered, 'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it. ' When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home."
Wow! Through his prayer, Abraham has prevailed upon the Lord to change his mind. God change his mind???!!!? Are you kidding??? That doesn't fit with my unreflective, mail-order, Sunday-school ideas about the Lord of heaven and earth. Yet God did, as Abraham prayed. Was God upset with Abraham's boldness? Strangely, not at all. Abraham had guts. He had daring. After all, this was a God with whom Abraham had a relationship! And in this relationship, Abraham had what knowing Jewish rabbis have called a holy chutzpah.
What is chutzpah?It's a Hebrew word which means "audacity, or nerve," from the Hebrew root hasap, meaning, literally, "to be insolent." What does God want from us? The mindless obedience of rules--so as to avoid his wrath, real or imagined???? A certain tiptoeing around the great questions of life, for fear of offending the Lord, or provoking his divine displeasure to judgement???? A certain timid, safe, and thoroughly mindless adherence to religious structure, carefully keeping a set of customs that have been deemed, rightly or not, in some manner holy?????? Or, does He seek those who have a heart that is His, with all the realness, and risk, that that involves? A heart that feels, that bleeds, that struggles. Which is it???
As you know, people that live together, no matter how long, or lovingly, will argue. They will. It's part of the warp and woof of human relationships. Do I not speak the truth??? "Differences of opinion are normal and healthy in adult relationships and learning to compromise is a skill required in many areas of life," writes Paula Hall, marriage counselor. Here are some of her suggestions for productive arguing between husbands and wives:1. Stick to the issue in hand--don't bring up previous misdemeanors or other things you've been meaning to say. 2. Don't argue over trivia--for example, arguing whether it was Monday or Tuesday that you forgot the milk. The issue is you forgot, not which day it was. 3. Start sentences with "I" - for example, "I felt annoyed when you [etc.]" rather than "You annoyed me when [etc.]." And "I would like to go out more often," not "We should go out more often."4. Let your opinions stand on their own merits--don't be tempted to bring in other people's opinions. 5. Try to stay sitting down, relax your muscles and don't forget to breathe--it's much easier to stay calm if you're not pacing around the room. 6. Don't start throwing abuse around--calling your husband or wife lazy, fat or paranoid isn't going to convince him or her to see your point of view. 7. Be aware of your feelings and tell your husband or wife these as well - saying "I'm scared you don't love me anymore" is likely to get a better response than "You don't act like you love me."8. Try not to block the conversation--don't interrupt, launch into a monologue or expect him or her to be a mind-reader. Remember, who wins the argument is irrelevant if your relationship loses something. Always try to confront the issue--not each other. And so on.
Arguing with God, frankly, is what brings about the Great Conversation. It's how we hammer out what it means to be God's people. God longs for us to know him. And wants people who will wrestle with him, argue with him, contest with him, until he renders us a blessing.
Remember the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel? "One night Jacob was left alone," read Genesis, "and an angel appeared and wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the angel said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The angel asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the angel said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, which means, 'God strives,' because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "it is because I saw God face to face."
Do we wrestle with God? Do we argue with him? Do we contest with him until we find the answers we need to make sense of the lives we lead? Most of us don't. As soon as we run into a snag or two in Christian life, we give up. After all, having to work out these questions not only takes too much effort, but it seems to hurt too much.
There is an extraordinary book by an American Christian writer Called Disappointment with God--and is subtitled, "Three questions no one asks aloud". The three questions are, Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden? If you ask these questions, you will find yourself arguing with God. Seeking him for answers, confronting him, Crying out to him, yearning for him, seeking for him, and in the end--I suspect--loving him, and living for him. But Disappointment with God is about a man who given up on God. The man's name? Richard. "I hate God!" he begins, telling his story. "No, I don't mean that! I don't even believe in God. My parents were just divorced. I did everything I could to prevent the divorce. I'd just become a Christian at the university, and I was naïve enough to believe that God cared. I prayed nonstop day and night that they'd get back together. I even dropped out of school for a while and went home to try to salvage my family. I thought I was doing God's will, but I think I made everything worse. It was my first bitter experience with unanswered prayer. I transferred to a Christian College to learn more about the faith. I figured I must be doing something wrong. At school I met people who used phrases like 'I spoke with god, ' and 'the Lord told me. ' I sometimes talked like that too, but never without a twitch of guilt. Did the Lord really tell me anything? I never heard a voice or had any proof of God I could see or touch. Yet I longed for that kind of closeness. Each time I faced a crucial decision I would read the Bible and pray for guidance, like you're supposed to. Whenever I felt right about the decision, I would act on it. But, I swear, I ended up making the wrong choice every time. Just when I really thought I understood God's will, then it would backfire on me. It was odd, but the more anger I directed at God, the more energy I seemed to gain. I realized that for the last several years I had shrunken inside myself. I stayed up late one night, and it seemed like was alone in the world. I sensed something important was about to happen. I was hurt. So many times God had let me known. Maybe God was there and I had it all wrong. How could I know? I remembered my first flush of faith. Maybe I had just learned a few upbeat phrases and talked myself into believing. Had I deluded myself about God? I prayed that night as earnestly and sincerely as I knew how. 'God, do you care?' I prayed. 'I don't want to tell you how to run your world, but please give me some sign that you're really there. That's all I ask."
In the throes of grief or despair people ask these kinds of questions. They begin to argue with God, and if not with God, with fate. For many people psychological or spiritual pain actual reorders the whole world of the known world--their known world--and things which they once held dear or unquestionably true shatter, and they are left to pick up the pieces.
The irony is--and this is the perhaps the greatest irony--ever struck, that argument with God, that seeking, that suffering, is the without which not of Christian discipleship--of following Jesus. Simply put--though the paradox can never be fully explained this side of the grave--without losing, you will never find. And without dying, you will never live. Without arguing, you will never develop that "holy chutzpah" which marks great Christian discipleship.
So don't be afraid to argue with God. Don't be afraid to tell him how you really feel. Just don't stop. Don't give up. Strive with God until you get the answers you need, and more. The prophet Hosea said it very well: Speaking for God, he writes, "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." The Living Bible puts the same verse this way, "I don't want your offerings, and I don't want your sacrifices; I want you to know me and to love me." If that means some rough and tumble, some argument, some struggle, then so be it. It's what true discipleship--true relationship--is all about. Amen.