Ethan

Ethan was part of our worship service on Sunday. Ethan is young, energetic, and full of life. He has also been diagnosed with autism. On Sunday, the drums fascinated him as the music played. Several times his mother caught him as he headed for the drummer and the drums. I think that probably his presence and behavior caused a bit of discomfort in those of us present.

I really don't think that the problem was Ethan. I think there is an underlying issue with Ethan in the worship service and his presence underscored the issue. You see - I want my relationship with both God and people to be neat and tidy, not messy and out of control. I subconsciously create a belief system, a theology, that is precise, in control, and measurable. I like lines and definition - this is in and this is out. I like linear - in an hour I know what I will be doing. I want to know exactly what time the service will be over and what time the race or the baseball game starts. Anything that disrupts my neat, managed, controlled relationship with either God or people causes me discomfort.

Yet when I read the gospels and the account of Jesus life, it seems as if He was (and is) anything but predictable. Not only was He unpredictable, His life was filled with interruptions and chaos. In the midst of a deep theological discussion about divorce with the religious leaders, the children interrupt. At a dinner party in the house of another religious leader, a woman of the street crashes the party. She begins to weep, her tears washing over Jesus feet. She takes her hair, drys His feet, kisses them and puts a fragrant lotion on them. On His way to heal the daughter of the leader of a local synagogue, an unclean woman pushes her way through the crowd to touch Jesus' robe for her healing. As Jesus spends time with her, word comes that it was too late. The girl He was going to heal had died.

Jesus was constantly surrounded by people whose lives were anything but neat and tidy. Blind beggars loudly cried out to be healed. Demons shrieked with terror. A desperate woman would not leave until her daughter was healed. Even His disciples were anything but neat. One was a thief, several were hotheads (the sons of thunder), one was a terrorist, and one was a traitor.

Beyond that, Jesus Himself defies a neat description. He made wine for a bunch of drunk wedding guests. He spit in a man's eyes to heal him. With another man, Jesus put His fingers in the man's ears, spit and touched his tongue. Another time Jesus makes mud with the dust and his saliva and puts the mud on a man's blind eyes.

When I compare the actions of Jesus and His relationship with people to my paradigm of a nice neat God working through nice neat people in a nice neat church, I find almost no similarities. As I have pondered Ethan and his presence in our worship service this week, I have wondered if he was not sent from God, a prophet if you will, to point out my own (and others) self made God paradigms that far from the reality of God.

finding God in the mundane

I've not disappeared or fallen off the face of the earth! The past several weeks have been very full. I've spent a good deal of time at our place in NY building our cabin. The physical labor has given me time to think about God, His work in the world today, and about our role in it.

I've had several conversations recently that stirred my thought process. I believe that we make walking with God far too impractical and ethereal. I am convinced that all of our life is spiritual, that if God is not found in the mundane details of our life, then we are missing the point.

A friend of mine told me of an acquaintance of his. This acquaintance had spent all his life waiting for God to do something big with his life. Now at the end of his life, he wonders if perhaps he missed God. A young man told me that he desires to do something significant for God. He is frustrated by his work. In his mind it limits his possibility of doing something significant. It seems unspiritual and disconnected with God.

We fall into a trap of assuming that the significant things God has for us will somehow propel us into a more spiritual realm. In our desire for spirituality we miss the work of God in the mundane ordinary events of life. We have bills to pay, children to raise, and grass to mow. We separate these things from God, compartmentalizing our life into our God life and then our mundane life.

To compartmentalize our life in this manner causes us to miss God completely simply because He will appear in the ordinary. The religious leaders of Jesus' day missed the Messiah. He appeared too un-Messiah like. He was rather ordinary, born out of wedlock, and in general did not meet their expectations of the Messiah.

In the same way today, the work of God is far more practical, far more earthy than we may want to admit. The original command for Adam was to subdue the earth. God never rescinded that command. Our responsibility remains to subdue the earth, to accomplish the work of God in making the earth fruitful. That doesn't sound very spiritual at all.

Yet it is in the mundane things that we find God. It is the work of God to raise our children, to change diapers, to go to work, and to pay our bills. I find God in my work, as I labor in building a cabin, as I relate to my children. If I separate my "God-life" from my everyday life, then I will miss the point! Find God in the mundane and you will discover life.