Test the spirits

The child was made to feel special.  He was told again and again how much the abuser loved him.  But now, as an adult, he knows the truth: that that love was a lie.  His abuser was incapable of loving him, or of really even seeing him, or any child.  His abuser was blind, imprisoned in adamantine bonds.  All of this raises the question: How do we test spirits? How do we find out what love really is?

    At precisely the point where would expect the apostle Paul to tells us to "love the Lord with all our hearts and souls and minds,” Paul goes in a different direction.  He speaks instead of a love that is beyond us but for us.  Much has been said and written about the famous "love" chapter of I Corinthians but let's keep in mind that wherever the word "love" is used, the phrase, "the love God has for us” or “the love God gives us” could be substituted: "the love God has for us is patent and kind, the love God gives us is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude."  You see, the law of Moses tells us to love the Lord our God but something even better happens in the new covenant. To understand, go back to the story of the new covenant.  King David was faithfully loved by God; the Lord supported him wherever he went giving help and hope, giving victory over the enemy.  But of course, this faithful love was not only for David but for the people.  God established David's throne forever in order that his people might have rest and dwell secure.  And there was even more to come.  The Bible speaks time and time again of a greater David, one descended from David's line, “there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.”  This branch, this shoot is the messiah, Jesus, and God's faithful love supports him and gives him the victory for our sake and yet even this is not the end of the good news, "I will give you the faithful pities of David" (Isa 55:3, Acts 13:34).  Not only are we "more than conquerors” because Jesus has conquered sin and death and the devil for us on the cross, we are also given all the faith and the love that he has, we too are "enfaithed," we too are supported and  helped and given the victory. And here’s what it comes down to: So often we think that love is just natural.  We take it for granted, forgetting that wherever and whenever love occurs it is a gift from the God who is love. It is from our heavenly Father. It is because of the word that rang out even before creation, it is for believers and non-believers (Matt 5:45, Isa 45).  The Bible tells us to test the spirits. So then, when someone says, "I love you," see if it is so.  Does it conform to I Corinthians 13?  Does it conform to the stories to which that chapter is pointing?  A child of course cannot do this; it is the parents' job, it's the community's work to protect children from those who are both deceiving and, most likely, terribly deceived themselves.  Contrary to what many say, the Lord does not teach us to suspend disbelief, rather we are to be scientists and prove what is true.  Well was it once said that theology is “the queen of sciences.” 

Conspiracy Theory

“But you know, no Jews died in there.” It was an uncle I think who said it. My tour group and I had been graciously invited to spend Sunday afternoon with a Christian family in Jordan and in the fullness of time the discussion turned to 9/11. One of the uncles was particularly keen to talk. He believed, no, he knew, that Osama Bin Ladin had not been responsible, rather "they" were to blame. A small secret group of, it seemed, mostly Jewish people and as proof, yet another uncle chimed in, to assert that no Jewish people had died, all the Jews, he said, had been warned ahead of time and had skipped work on September 11th. Our tour group sat aghast, what could we say? But what neither of the uncles knew was that I had seen with my own eyes the monumental, nightmare piles of twisted blackened ruins. What they did not know was that I had happened to have walked through and breathed in the dust that obscured the sun in October of 2001. What they could not have guessed was that  their guest had seen with her own eyes the workers traveling to and fro, into the murk, sifting through the rubble, searching for the remains of their fellow New Yorkers, clearing the ground, to do one last deed of mercy for the dead. What they did not know was that the published lists of those who had perished, gave the lie to the uncle’s words. What the family did not know was the voice that I and many others heard; the voice of thousands of souls, crying out to God. And my fellow believers did not know was what was about to happen next. To my utter embarrassment, when that last statement from the uncle had exited his mouth, I  lowered my head and began to cry, my green explorer hat that I had bought especially for the trip, falling on the carpet. 

The truth is that whether we know it or not there is no conspiracy. And even if there were somewhere a group of tented fingered schemers, they would be, to put it dramatically, innocents, in comparison to us.    The buck does not stop with “them,” it stops with us. It is tempting to assign blame to someone else. But the truth is we are responsible. “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.”  We all know very well, that God plus one equal a majority. But we turn away from this truth, let's put it plainly: we turn away from Jesus and deny him. People are afraid. I am afraid too, and if our power were based on our own faith we would be right to be afraid, our escapism, justified. Our faith fails. But we are on firmer ground. We have been justified by the faith, i.e., the "enfaithment" of Jesus promised by Isaiah. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

As I wept trying to tell them about my trip to New York, head bowed, eyes on the dusky colored carpet, choking on tears and spit bubbles, I suddenly saw hands reaching out, hands offering tissues, a cup of tea hastily brought, sliding forward towards me on the coffee table, and my hat ever so gently restored to my head.  It was a while before I was able to lift up my eyes and see but when I did, I saw only sympathy and even, new understanding.  It goes without saying that I was more than surprised about the turnaround. It was none of my own doing certainly!  But later I remembered the words I had learned in the bosom of my family, words from the Bible, "God's power is made perfect in weakness.” God's power is made perfect in tears and spit bubbles. We would talk no more of conspiracy that day or any other, because somehow or other the delusion of "them" had been swept away at least for the time being leaving only the "us" of mankind, his suffering and his triumph in Jesus.  No longer could anyone in the room hold suffering at arms length by a "them," it was among US of US, together.  We were as the Bible tells us, "one body," and when one member of the body suffers, all suffer, but this is good news, for those "who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy."