My Hero Gollum

Is there something good in all of us? Something redeemable? Something God can use?

I drink so much Starbucks that I've become friends with all the employees in the greater Chattanooga area. I've also used every restroom, regularly (lame pun alert). My goal is to befriend all of Tennessee, the US and finally the world. Then wherever there's a Starbucks, there's a friend of mine.

Anyhow, one of my better friends at Starbucks posed this question above to me as we talked about Tolkien and more specifically Gollum. His claim is that Gollum is a hero of sorts. That he is the one that accomplishes the mission of the entire Lord of The Rings Trilogy: He destroys the ring and defeats evil.

Sure he does so by biting off Frodo's finger, dancing about in selfish glee over the fires of Mt. Moriah and eventually falling to his doom. I'm not sure this is what Tolkien was getting at, but something within me resonates with the idea of Gollum being a hero of sorts.

Maybe it's because he was always the most fun to immitate. "Fishes, fishes, my precioussss." I can picture my brother Taylor and I scuttling about in our underwear doing our best Gollum impersonations. He was so much fun. In fact, in my early 30's I impersonated him in Vancouver at a swimming hole that was too cold for non-Gollumsies.

I swam across and dove down, revelling in the water, only to crawl up on the other side, perch on a rock with my fresh fishy, glare hatred at the weird humansies and hiss at them. I love being Gollum.

And in a lot of ways I am Gollum. I constantly learning the hard way about life. I strain against God's will and look for preciousses in other places than in Him. But what's fantastic about the Gollum story is that Tolkein uses Gollum's selfish desires to accomplish something really good, the destruction of the RING OF DOOM.

Perhaps he uses my selfishness and sin to do the same. Perhaps, in learning the hard lessons, I'm growing less like Gollum and more like my creator, seeking him more than all the glittering preciouses. Perhaps.

Tolkien definitely wants us to pity Gollum. He gives a detailed back-story of the poor guy, and we see the pain that has ruled his life. Deep pain and rejection. In the story Gollum even seems to begin to reform. I believe Tolkien wants us to relate.

Why? Perhaps because Gollum is a creature that has the imprint of a creator. He was created good. Evil has bent, twisted and corroded him to the point of bare recognition. But in the end, Tolkien uses the evil to accomplish good.

There's a lesson hear about God's good will being accomplished. That no evil can thwart his goodness. That even our own evilness, our hell-bent desires and selfishness, will ultimately accomplish his purpose.

It's an encouraging thought, and the hope of everyone who believes in redemption: God will bring good from the most evil of circumstances. Good will win. God will win!

It's the greatest hope of the believer that no evil will seperate us from the love we have in Christ - specifically the evil within.

God a Maniac?

"... the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces." - Leviticus 9:23.

I've shouted and fallen on my face plenty of times. Never on purpose though. And to my shame it's normally proceeded by an "Oh shit!" which I do believe, if I don't die of "natural causes" is pretty high on the list of the most likely last words of Philip. I hope not, but you never know.

I read and wrote about one of my favorite authors last week - Terry Pratchett. I've always been curious about his take on Christianity as he makes some interesting comments in his novels. So I did some reading on him, and being a British intellectual and all that, he seems to fall into the group of those who dismissed God at an early age.

In his particular case, he read through the Old Testament in "one go" at age 13 and came to the conclusion that if this is God he must be a "maniac". I don't think that's the wrong conclusion to make for a 13 year old. But to stick with that thinking for the rest of your life? It's sadly typical.

But, as I read out of Leviticus this morning, I stumbled upon a passage that I didn't have to sleep-read through (mostly because of the explosion of fire!!!). In the passage above, after a long process of ordaining Aaron and the Levites to offer sacrifices in the Tabernacle, God shows up. Kaboom!

In fact, the Israelites, with mouths still munching on dirt because they had just seen "fire come out from the presence of the LORD" may have had the thoughts similar to my friend Terry, "Are we dealing with a maniac?"

Now I'm going to do a quick google to see the definition of "maniac." Here you go: "a person exhibiting extreme symptoms of wild behavior"; "a person who has an excessive enthusiasm or desire for something."

The definitions do seem to fit don't they? God is wild and shows extremely wild behavior. And God has all kinds of excessive enthusiasm and desire.

Our God is impossible to put in a box. We think he should perhaps be a bit more tame and safe. He should be a bit more like Santa Claus, but he's not. He works in history, he works in our mess and sometimes he reacts violently, exhibiting what we would consider maniacal behavior.

Israelite: "Come on God, surely your holiness is not that big of a deal..."

Wait for it...

"Oh shit!" BOOM!

This is the God who's self-definition is "I am the LORD your God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But I will by no means acquit the guilty..."

The error that barbs our thinking and has caused such confusion in Terry Pratchett's England and I guess all over the west forever, is that since God tends to wipe people out, whole nations in fact, he can't be loving, consistent and merciful.

Maybe since we're dealing with God, we should think of him in different categories. Rather than constantly suspecting his actions, because he makes a big deal out of things, we should look to see what he's making a big deal about.

And maybe, just maybe, God isn't so easy to define. Maybe he looks a little more like a maniac, albiet a loving and merciful maniac, than many of us Christians dare to discuss. Maybe God's excessive obsessions and violent tendecies are a good thing, something we're called on to discuss, ponder and revere, not over-look and dismiss with "Let's just skip to those pretty passages" (you know the ones, they're on web-pages with music and pictures of dancing cherubs).

Like I've said before, God gets violent and shows obsessive excessive tendencies when he sees his creation and creatures being religiously raped, violated, persecuted and murdered by a race that's hell-bent against God and focused on self. God doesn't mind getting messy and he stays holy. He's totally involved and totally seperate.

It may be a good thing that we selfish creatures come to wrong conclusions about God. Because if we thought God was "all-good," or simply one of us, we'd be in trouble. Big trouble.

There, I'm done writing about stuff I have no idea about for the day. Sorry about that. I better stop before something blows up.

A Bloody Mess

"They offered at the dedication of this house of God 100 bulls, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel 12 male goates, according to the number of the tribes of Israel." - Ezra 6:17.

Gross! Can you imagine the stinky, slimy, stomach-turning, bloody mess it would be to be part of slaughtering 100 bulls, 400 lambs and 12 goats! 12 goats wouldn't be so bad. That's just 12 bleeting necks to slice, plus goats are really annoying. But 400 lambs! They're so cute and cuddly. It'd be like killing 400 chocolate lab puppies. And 100 bulls, that would just be plain scary.

I don't get animal sacrifice real well. Perhaps, because the closest I've come is the 1/2 of a cow I've killed in a life-time of eating McDonalds. Which is a major reason I'm writing right now. I find that picture of Ronald McDonald so offensively annoying that I have to have another post to look at. So forgive me if I write a bunch of garbled, meaningless fluff about sacrifice. I just want to not look at Ronald McDonald anymore. And I would choose such an easy topic as biblical sacrifice.

But my cousin was asking me the other night why God chose sacrifice. In particular why God chose to sacrifice Jesus. It's just so offensive. Clearing my throught, girding up my Ancient Near Eastern loins and putting on immense ammounts of humility I went on to explain that God chose sacrifice because our sin has to be carried and paid for. And that the cross wasn't so much about sacrifice as it was about ruptured relationship. I was trying to help her see how it wasn't so offensive. Silly me.

Now that I think about it, destroying God's creatures in sacrifice is supposed to be an offensive thing. Offensive enough for us as humans to reflect authentically on the repugnant nature of our sin. For example, can you imagine being there to see 400 bulls slaughtered? And that just to dedicate God's house, and that's just for dedication. I won't touch the 1000's (I think) that were slaughtered in Solomon's dedication of the original temple.

I think as I watched something like that I would begin to get a sense that since in God's good creation murdering animals wasn't a part of God's reality, that all this slaughtering had something to do with me. I might even feel a slight twinge of guilt. Actually, I could slaughter goats all day and not feel guilt. I really hate goats.

But I think that's a point being made by God in all this sacrifice stuff. He is other. He is good. We are filthy, rotten and broken. We have taken his good world and made it a sham. A place where it takes a lot of blood to cover our sinfulness.

So I've written all this and I still don't really get it. And perhaps I'm not supposed to. But the reality is God required it of his people and therefore it's to be searched out not brushed asside as God just trying to speak the pagan language of OT times. There is great realities and meaning behind all of God's actions. And sacrifice is a big deal.

So when we come to the cross, God's ultimate sacrifice, I think if we have a fully orbed (whatever that means) understanding of sacrifice, it can help us to understand what in fact God was doing. If we simply say, as I did, that it had to do with Jesus carrying our sins and a ruptured relationship, I believe we're getting the gist. But are we getting the offensive depth of the payment our sin/relationship-we-ruptured requires.

And when we add up all the sacrifices in scripture it adds up to millions of annoying bleeting goats, cute little lambs and tons of really mean bulls. And I am not about to chalk it up to "Oh they lived in a primitive, uncivilized culture, where people were stupid and didn't where deodarant and stuff." We're the primitive ones, we're the uncivilized ones and we're the stupid ones when it comes to understanding the depth of offense that is our sin.

Now I can not look at that picture of Ronald McDonald anymore. Thanks for bearing with me.

Scary God

"I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord GOD." - Ezekial.

I read these encouraging words this morning and it got me thinking that I definitely don't want to cross God. In fact I don't even want to make him slightly angry. It also reminded me of how so much of what we worry about - politics, corruption and violence - is being watched over by a just God who definitely will deal justice.

So on the one hand I'm really glad that I don't have to face God's wrath because Christ's obedient life and death covers me, and on the other I'm really relieved that God's in control. Maybe it's why I don't pay much attention to politics. Heck, I don't even read the newspaper. (For all of you out there that are aghast at my lack of cultural engagement, I listen to NPR. That should trump all.)

A lot of people struggle with God's judgement oracles in the OT. I do as well. How could a merciful and loving God be so judgemental? He kind of seems mean doesn't he. But the finger our hearts (do hearts have fingers?) point at God when we read these oracles need to be pointed back on us. We brought evil into the world and we deserve infinitely more wrath than God deals.

These oracles remind me to fear God. To give him honor as the one who can build a nation up and tear it down. He can give a king a crown or make him sit on a really pointy one. God is in control. God is to be honored.

And if you are frightened of God, that may not be such a bad thing. I really want to qualify this though. It's qualified by the God of the Cross. The God who gave up everything to be with you and me. The God who could have smited us from the cosmos, delighted in us enough to pay the ultimate price and more for our freedom.

Don't be frightened of God because he's a jerk like your father or something. Be frightened of God because he is Good and we are Bad. The good news is that we are way worse than we think, and way more loved than we dare imagine (thank you Tim Keller I think). Cling to you righteousness in Christ and rejoice!

"The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

My Brain Hurts Like Hell!

Do we follow a wrathful God?

Did God crucify his son?

Is God responsible for Hell?

These are just a few of the questions that popped up in a conversation I was having with a friend yesterday. Needless to say, I was struck dumb. But then my brain had some time to catch up and here are a few of my thoughts:

How do you explain God's wrath? He wiped out nations in the OT didn't he? He delivered up his son to the cross with full foreknowledge. His very first Covenant with Abraham involved butchering animals!

To our western modern minds if God doesn't seem evil, he certainly seems to dabble in it with his wrath. I want to take a close look at this suspicion in this short blog and see if I can take a swing at this issue. Forgive me as I may miss the mark completely! I'm wading into some mystery here. I welcome any comments and help you may have.

Let's start with the fall of Adam and Eve. They willfully tried to become like God. There's was a grasping mistrust in the love of God similar to our thoughts today. This mistrust has warped our view of God's good wrath as well. And it's warped my thinking so that many better minds who read this could help me. Help!

Adam and Eve brought the curse into this world. God cursed it, because He's good and they had rejected him. So is God responsible for evil? No. We are. Is he in control, yes. For he cursed creation. I don't believe he cursed like we curse, in some sort of spiteful "curse you" manner. He intervened like a man who sees a woman being beaten on the street. He saw his creation being abused by us since the only order that really is good is centered on him. We attempted to center it on us. So he withdrew some of his goodness that held things together. Obviously he left some of his goodness in that everything didn't go "BOOM!" But it was quite a curse for he is quite good!

Let's look at the cross. Who put Jesus on the cross? For that matter, who invented crucifixion? Humans did. We put him there physically, and we invented the device by which he died.

What did God do in the crucifixion? He was willing to have his son put to death, take on the curse of the fall and to withdraw his presence. The lack of God's presence, the presence without which there is no good, means all that is left is hell. Jesus felt the full rupture of broken relationship for us. He felt the full good wrath of God towards evil. He felt the anger God feels towards our evil.

The biblical pattern seems to be that God turns people over to their own evil desires. This is their punishment. And he turned Jesus over to the world's evil.

Now let's look at Hell. Is it God's invention? I know I'm on tricky ground here, but I don't think Hell is God's invention in that he was sitting around and was thinking, "I'd really like for people to burn in a lake of eternal fire." I believe it's our invention. His wrath is holy and good, he is angry and hates sin. So what does he do? He punishes by withdrawing his presence, protecting all that is good, and we are left with hell. The hell of our own making. His grace is that he puts boundaries on hell. Now I feel like I may be off here, God's wrath is active, but it seems to be active through scripture in order to protect his good creation.

So what does this leave us with? A good God who's interaction with evil is to destroy it. He feels great good wrath towards it. This may be a more helpful paradigm than thinking of God inventing hell, maliciously inventing a curse for mankind, and actively sacrificing his own son. I don't know and welcome your feedback.