This isn't from a prompt, but from something we talked about during Sunday school last week. I'm going to try to work this out by writing. I'm sharing it since I hope it somehow helps you.
The passage we were discussing was Ephesians 3:14-21, but it wasn't really about that, at least not the actual words.
It was more about the way the words made me feel. I could tell that the author (Paul or whoever) wanted to be affirming and loving and he wanted give these disciples who were so horribly oppressed some sense of hope. "It all makes a difference," he is saying.
But when I read the words, I felt, well, oppressed myself. Constricted by the apostle's words. I couldn't figure out why.
It's times like these when I really appreciate Sunday school. There's a community there where we help each other struggle with the Bible, and with God and our place in God's world.
What I got from the discussion, largely with the help of Erin and Alyssa, is that the passage is so specific, so crystal clear in what the apostle thinks God is doing, that there doesn't seem to be any room for me in there.
Now, I know that, as with most things related to theology, there's a lot of magnetism at the poles. Either you should just shut up and let the Bible tell you what God is doing in the world, or you should just speak up, because what's in the Bible is nothing but conjecture by people 2000 years ago. I don't think either pole is right.
I just think that when you love someone, you make space for them. If you love your wife, maybe you see a movie you wouldn't otherwise, or maybe you change your behavior because, well, because you want her in your life. If you love your mother, maybe you put up with some of the things that drive you crazy because the world is better with you crazy and her there.
And I know that God loves me, and God loves you, and that means that God leaves space in God's world for you. It's not a kingdom of love if all anyone does is follow orders and force themselves to want The Right Things.
John, a wonderful person, a Presbyterian pastor, whose blog I read recently lost his son. I don't know details, and I don't need to know them, but I do know that the loss was sudden and unexpected and the young man was too young to die. When I read John's blog, reading the edges of his grief, it seems important that whatever the Kingdom of God means, it must contain a space for him and the joy he felt from his son and the grief he feels now. Not just Joy and Grief, not just the concepts, but his joy and grief, which is both different from and the same as all the other grief there is, ever was, and ever will be.
So, basically, if anyone can comprehend the dimensions of Christ's love as the apostle says, then I'm really wrong about, well, just about everything. And there can't be only one way to react to God's love.
I'll gladly give up on even the concept of ever really understanding Christ's love if there can be room in there for John and his son, because then, maybe, there's room for me.
This work by Timothy H. Ruppel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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