This Sunday at Freshwater, Joel spoke about actions without meaning, religion without heart, that sort of thing.

I won’t be long here, but it made me think of the song, “The Heart of Worship”, which — love it or hate it — says something profound about the way I do anything, really. It begs ask, “What have I made worship into?” On one hand, this entertainment, a worship of preference, some sort of spectacle; or on the other, a rigid system, a theological construct, a bunch of made-up rules? Either way I can draw near to God with my lips and be ever so far away from him in my heart.

Or the way I treat God. Sometimes I feel like I put God into little containers and just open the containers of God Time whenever it seems appropriate. On Sunday I open a big one, and on week nights and before meals I open little ones, and sometimes during the I get out a medium sized one. But God is bigger than that, right? This is what Brother Lawrence means when he talks about the practice of the presence of God, I think, that God is everywhere and in every moment, and even though there are certain times that focus in on him, the rest of them belong to him as well. God gets all of my time. Yet throughout the day, I forget about him, abandon him, and kick him in the face. As the song goes, prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love.

How often am I exactly like the people in the Old Testament? The entire collection of books is like a macrocosm of my life. Obedience is better than sacrifice. I draw near to God with my lips, but am far from him in my heart.

I have a head stuffed full of theology. Yet there’s an essential disconnect there: theology doesn’t necessarily lead to a good life. It’s just knowledge, and knowledge gives you a big head. There needs to be something that connect the two, theology and practice.

I think that thing is relationship. How do I draw close to God in my heart? By having a relationship with him, a real thing that happens, not some pseudo-relationship that involves a lot of hand-waving and good-sounding words. But I’m so far from God: how do I draw so close? There needs to be something that connects us.

I think that thing is Jesus.

Jesus is what makes the heart and head and perfect God and imperfect man connect. He connects what I say to what I mean. He is bigger than my containers.

If Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!” to you, how would you respond?

I don’t know how Peter responded — it isn’t in the Book — but I can say I’d be mighty unhappy. A little hurt. Wounded pride, that sort of thing.

Pride aside, it goes to show what happens when you’ve got your own ideas about what the Messiah’s supposed to be. What happens is your ideas get out of the way.

Peter was, I imagine, pretty caught up in the messianic vision of the day: A conquering king come to kill Romans and wrest the holy land away from the pagan empire. It’s actually a pretty cool idea, come to think of it. On an earthly scale it weighs a lot.

Of course, that’s not what the Messiah was, or what he had come to do.

Doesn’t that raise a question for me and you, though? What funny ideas do we have about Jesus that are getting in the way of what he’s really supposed to be doing?

I know some people who look at Jesus like a national hero. Others who look at Jesus as a focal point for a precise doctrinal framework. Others who see him as a good man, a teacher of morality. Others yet who say the right words but in reality see Jesus only when things go wrong, if even then.

Lots of people have lots of funny ideas about Jesus. What about you? What about me?

Who is he really, and what did he really come to do?

Are you getting in the way?

Sometimes I wonder if we sometime attribute too little intelligence to the people described in scripture. Consider, for instance, Nicodemus. He comes to Christ under the cover of night, for whatever reason, and asks Christ a question. Christ’s answer is–typical of him, and I might add, typical of most Jewish teachers of the time–obtuse and indirect. Perhaps Christ wanted Nicodemus to understand something more important than simple facts, something that takes a relational metaphor to even partially grasp.

Nicodemus isn’t stupid. As a Pharisee, he’s probably been exposed to this sort of teaching his entire life, where the teacher doesn’t answer the question with a answer, because the teacher isn’t interested in simply imparting information. The teacher wants to know if the student is actually interested in what he has to say, wants to know if the student is engaged with what he saying.

And what does Nicodemus do? He replies to Jesus with a question of his own, one that I think is a rehtorical question. How can a grown man be born again? But again, he’s not stupid: history would suggest that Nicodemus is a man well known for his wisdom. He’s actually employing Christ’s own methods, asking a question that seems simple enough on the surface while on a deeper level engages Jesus’ trope on its own terms.

This is why the conversation seems to jump around so much. Jesus and Nicodemus both understand that they’re among the most educated people in Israel at that time. Jesus is a rabbi, Nicodemus is a Pharisee. They jump from concept to concept without explaining any of it, really. Yet Nicodemus seems to understand, and from all reports, seems to have believed.

I think we do a disservice to Nicodemus and Jesus’ conversation by reading it as if Jesus is instructing Nicodemus, the toddling idiot, in all these blinding truths. Perhaps a better reading would be that two theological giants of the day are having a conversation, and one of them is suggesting a view the other has either not considered or considered unlikely.

There’s quite enough talk to go around, wouldn’t you say? I’ve been subjected to an overheard conversation, a blog post, and an article, all of which were cheap, because they were talk. That’s all. More talk.

Ironically, this post is just another post with more talk; I guess you can call these words cheap, too. But if they are, at least they’re self-aware, which is maybe the most important thing when it comes to talking about stuff.

That said, I’m sick of simply hearing people bitch and moan about stuff. Maybe talk is good in that it helps form opinions and solidify positions, but something has to come after that.

Oddly enough, the things we talk about tend to be those things we can’t really do anything about; I’m convinced that a good barometer of what people can’t change is found in what they go on about. At least, I’m like that. I talk about Jesus and love and faith way too often because I really don’t have enough Jesus or enough love or enough faith.

But I don’t talk about poverty in the former Soviet Bloc countries. I’m already doing something about that. It’s not some sense of false modesty. I’m simply doing my bit to help out by giving money and time, so I don’t feel the need to talk about it much. I think personally we could do more, corporately, to help the poor, the orphans, the widows of the world, but most people I meet are pretty good about that. I know a lot of generous people, who if they’re not donating money are donating time, and vice versa.

Tangentially, what is complaining really going to do? Anyone can complain. Anyone can point out flaws. Anyone can say, “Our church communities are doing $foo when they should be doing $bar!” Anyone can say, “I’m sick of this place, and I want to be in a different place.” Anyone can say, “This API implementation is simply proliferation.”

Armchair critics are a dime a dozen. Implementers - the doers, the makers - they’re rare, and beautiful. I love Derek Webb and Sufjan Stevens for that very reason: instead of merely saying that Christian music is, on the whole, a load of bollocks, they’ve gone and created music that not only mentions God topically, but reflects him in the quality of their work.

I’d like to be like that. I try to, when I create.

Last thing. How often do complainers mention God? I mean, not just mention him as this concept that exists alongside their particular beef, but mention him relationally (or to step back from the vogue, covenantally)? Maybe that’s the litmus test right there. Be doers, not complainers. But not pulling yourself up by your own laces. Instead do what you do through and with God. In relationship.

So there. That’s something I’m not good at. But I’m going to stop talking about it now, because I think I’m tipping my hand.

Here I was, all set to watch Mad About You, and settle down for a nice evening of not really thinking about anything. And of course the internet has to come along and spoil it for me.

Having read several books that place the focus of Jesus’ message on redemption not only of souls, but also of creation, I found a review of one of these books that called the author’s formulation of scripture’s message as a “sad substitute for the gospel”.

But is it?

It keeps prompting the question in me that if Jesus came to save souls, great: but what comes after that? What does that look like?

Or, why does salvation have to be this either/or thing between a liberal social gospel (which, I agree, standing alone doesn’t make much sense at all) and the liberation of souls from the devil’s grasp?

Why does it always seem to come down to that?

Scripture says that Jesus came to reconcile all things to himself. All things. Not just human souls, but his creation as well, unless I’m reading that verse completely wrong. Putting it another way, the creator of the world, the Word, comes back in the flesh to re-create things and make them good again, the way they were before the fall.

But what does that look like? I admit, if you’re looking for the end of the world in a decade, if you’re thinking that Jesus is going to–excuse the hyperbole–come down from on high in his spaceship and beam up all the saved people, if you’re expecting everything to just end, if you’re expecting that heaven is the final destination, yeah that makes sense. It makes sense in an individualist sort of framework, where you have a personal relationship with Jesus, who has come to save your soul, so you can eventually end up in heaven, where you will be happy and you and you and you and on and on and on.

If scripture talks that way, I must have missed it, and I’ve been doing my fair share of reading lately. I’ve poked these ideas with a sharp stick, and they bleed true, I think.

For instance, the kingdom has come. It has. Jesus said the end of the world would be in his generation, and the children of Israel saw it come, but they also saw the replacement for their small corner of the earth. They saw the children of Jesus strewn across Asia, and then across the world.

Yet the kingdom hasn’t come, not really, not the full thing, has it? Jesus isn’t reigning on earth yet. Things aren’t good here. We don’t have our new heaven and new earth. We still have entropy, and microevolution, and death, and suffering, and war.

So what do we do in the meantime? Is the kingdom this sort of inward-focused blessing machine for the people behind the walls, or is it maybe a blessing to all nations? Do we have a responsibility just to ourselves, or to the whole world?

Does this include helping the poor? Yes. Does this include saving the environment? I think so. Does this involve saving souls? Absolutely.

See, I can’t separate the two things in my head. Saved people do good things. It’s true. Sometimes they do bad things–I do bad things, for crying out loud, all the time–but in general Christians, real Christians, are a blessing to those around them. If you’re saved, doesn’t that mean the default position is feeding hungry people? If you’ve been redeemed, doesn’t that lead to a life of compassion?

Maybe the whole point is not just getting to some place where we all have a personal transformation and that’s it. Maybe the point is God’s glory, Jesus’ glory. And maybe, just maybe, he’s more glorified when we seek to redeem not only the souls of people, but everything, or anything at all.

When I was about 22 or so, a friend asked me, “How do you believe? How do you become a Christian?” When I was done answering, I think it was apparent to both of us that I just didn’t have a clue. Sure, we covered getting answers and finding facts and accepting propositions and stuff like that, but at the end of the day there was always this huge chasm between knowing what’s this and that and believing this and that.

I imagine it’s much like finding your perfect mate and not falling in love with him or her. Your friends might tell you that you two were made for eachother, and on some level you might see that this piece of your puzzle matches his, or this aspect of your personality is complimentary to hers, but on another level (if you don’t feel that way) your instincts tell you that knowing all that isn’t exactly the same as wanting to spend the rest of your life together.

Of course, some people don’t experience relationships like that. Some of you will inhabit love like part of an equation, and that’s fine. We all have different ways of experiencing reality.

Faith is the same, I think. Faith isn’t an exercise you perform or an equation that you balance or really anything like that. It seems to me that faith is like making a friend, in a way. You read scripture, you find Jesus and meet him, and you decide something; either you decide that you’d like to spend the rest of your life getting to know him, or you don’t.

Some things follow after that, says holy scripture. Your life is changed. You act differently. You experience reality in a new way. Or to put it more tangibly, you love God, and you love your neighbor, neither of which are terribly difficult concepts to wrap your head around.

Maybe that’s the problem with the whole faith thing. It’s just too simple. I sometimes think, “If a ten year old can do this, doesn’t that make it simplistic and unrealistic?” I’m a fan of not demonising complexity. I usually say, “Complexity is not a vice.” Yet, some things are simple, gut-level things while at the same time becoming mind-bendingly difficult to wrap your head around when you think about them. Maybe it’s because the heart is better at grasping some things and the head better at others: I don’t know.

I like systematic theology and thought experiments and balancing equations. I really do. They are all useful in their own way, in their own sphere. But you don’t have to balance an equation (2 + 2 = 4) to understand reality, any more than you have to understand five areas of doctrine to have reality refreshed for you. Or to put another way, the theology of meeting Jesus is simply a matter of reading a book and deciding whether or not to follow the guy you read about from cover to cover.

Or to put it yet another way, understanding that Jesus is alive, that he’s still around, and that he’ll take you if you want it. Think of all the people Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven!” to who were like, “Wait, what?” You don’t even have to go that far, I don’t think. You can find out all those things afterwards. Jesus comes first, always. You don’t really have to know you’re forgiven, that you’re changed, that you’re new. It happens, and you can figure out the wherefores and whatnots later.

It makes me wonder about how I’m going to teach my children about Jesus. I’ve thought about it for a few days now; if I ever pump out (or, hopefully, if my wife ever pumps out) some of the little ones, I think I’d like to tell them early on that Jesus is essentially like me. He’s like dad, except he doesn’t suck at being a dad. Having a dad is — I’ve found out — one of those gut-level things and sometimes a very painful kicked-in-the-gut-level thing.

My kids don’t have to understand my salary and worldview to get that I’m their dad. Yeah, they’re going to grow up and want to know about how to compile a program from source and how to change the oil in the car and what exactly why I don’t want them listening to pop music, but before all that, I’m their dad. If they can understand that, they can understand enough about Jesus and God and all that stuff to relate to him in a way that makes sense.

Sure, I’d like to raise a brood of little Calvinists, but to be honest that follows after raising a brood of little Christians who don’t start learning ass-backwards. I don’t know much, but I know that.

I’d like to go back and tell my friend what I’m saying now, that becoming a Christian is sort of like getting married or having a dad, and not much at all like playing chess or deciding between quantum mechanics and string theory. I’d like to tell him that Jesus changes your life, and all you need to do is read the book and meet the man and meet the God.