Secret Agents of God

Have you ever wrestled with the thought that Christianity sometimes seems like a narcissistic sin-management system?

                                                   Carmen Lau

“Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.”

                                                    Brennan Manning, Abba's Child

But whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,

                                                   Jesus

Honestly, magic/vending machine God thinking makes me want to lose my religion more than anything ever has.

                                                   Mark Sandlin

___________________________________________________

I think it’s a thing

“servant God”

But I don’t think it means what we often want it to mean

Try to Google “servant God” (for you theology geeks I’m thinking Isaiah here)

And all you’ll get is “servant of God”, which is also a thing

But not this thing

God is a servant God in the sense

That God gives us all the love possible

God is for us

God is with us

And God is persistent in that love, even when we don’t deserve it

to echo the words of ee cummings

God says to us in so many ways

“I carry you in my heart”

But God is not a servant God

in the sense that God is a “magic/vending” machine God

Insert prayer

Insert a vote for this candidate or that candidate

Insert right theology

Insert “good works”

Insert a check, made out to your nearest megachurch here

And we get what we want

Things like power

And wealth

And comfort

In Jesus God did not come to pull us out of this world

But to be with us in this world

Faith does not insulate us from the pain of the world

Faith opens us up to the pain of the world

So we can embrace it

And touch it

I have been thinking lately about the dichotomy that exists in Christianity

I say Christianity, but it may actually be present in most faith systems

It is certainly present in all Abrahamic faith systems

The split between those who see God as a powerful, retributive God

who sides with some, rejects some, rewards some, punishes some,

and who gives the “blessed” or the elect goodies

power and wealth in particular

and then sides with them as they use and abuse that power and wealth

making them people who dominate

and those who see God is a powerful but loving God

who loves all, welcomes all, is with all

and who tries to transform people from the inside out

making them more loving and generous

making them people who serve

What I am understanding is that service is Sacred

The call for to service is merely a call to reflect our divine DNA

To act like that One from whom we came, the ground of our being.

God is not a servant in the sense that we can demand of God

Control God

Manipulate God

But a servant,

(Perhaps the Bible gives us better words,

 Advocate, helper, comforter, guide)

in the sense that God gives of God’s self to us and for us

(think Jesus, think the suffering servant of Isaiah)

In order that we might be able to give of ourselves

The key to all this, to me, is that indwelling presence we call the Holy Spirit

I don’t think we “earn” this presence

It is as Richard Rohr suggests, “naturally indwelling, our inner being with God. (In Catholic theology, we called the Holy Spirit “Uncreated Grace.”)

But we can be variously open to this presence

We can give it more or less room to work

Depend on how willing we are to set our ego aside

And here is core truth

This presence “does not teach us compassion as much as it is compassion already.” (Richard Rohr, Blog 1/10/2020)

It is compassion, and generosity

It is patience and forgiveness

And it is an all encompassing love

“We are made in love, for love, and unto love, and it is out of this love that we act”

(Richard Rohr  1/10/2020)

And thus

We are people who serve

Rather than people who dominate

Which makes us servants

I know, I know, we hate that word

So here are some others

Ambassadors, representatives, “secret agents of God”

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (II Corinthians 5)