How to Keep the Gods Happy

If you lived in the Middle East five thousand years ago, you would notice there were a few things everyone seemed to know. In those days, everyone knew there were lots of gods who existed outside of human control. These gods were responsible for all the things we couldn't do on our own: for the rain, for the sun, for the crops, for the hunt, for the fermentation of beer, and for fertility. We couldn't control the gods, but we needed them to like us. The only way we knew to keep the gods on our side is to give them something we liked. Need the gods to like you a lot? Give them something you like a lot. Did you make the gods really mad somehow? Give them something you like the most. The system of sacrifice pre-dates the Bible, it is older than the book of Leviticus, and it is as old as human consciousness.

We know we don't control everything, and we need to keep those who do on our side. 

A few years ago I was in Jordan with some of my students. We were walking down a very old-but-modern street in Amman. Next to the shisha bars and kebab restaurants there was a very new looking burger restaurant. We were all in a group across the street from it, walking calmly down the road that evening when a pickup truck screeched to a halt in front of the burger joint. Two men jumped out of the cab of the truck and pulled a very uncomfortable and loud sheep from the back. We froze. The men drug the sheep bleating to the curb and a third man came running from inside the restaurant with a large knife. This man slit the throat of the squealing sheep and let its blood fill the street. My group of American students were horrified. Some began crying, a few gagged. The sheep breathed its last breath as deep red blood squirted from its neck.

What? 

Why did that sheep get killed right in front of me on a normal night in 2014?

I looked at the lady who was taking us to dinner. She could see the questions I had before I could get them out.

"He must have made an oath to God," she said. "That is probably his restaurant and he made a promise to kill a lamb if it was allowed to open. Don't worry, the meat will be given to the poor."

"What century is this," I thought. "How barbaic, how archaic, how backwards."

We modern people would never do something so silly. We would never worry about making God angry with us. We would never sacrifice something in order to keep beings we can't control to like us. We would never change how we act in order to be accepted by outside forces. We would never spend more money to be accepted. We would never try to keep up with our neighbors just to impress them. We would never think if we just did this, had that, dated her, looked like him, or bought those then the people from whom we crave acceptance would really like us.

"Everybody worships."  David Foster Wallace was right. We can't help it. We are limited creatures who are all painfully aware of our limitations and that we need outside help to be happy and alive. We have to keep the gods happy. We have always known that and we have organized systematic mechanisms in order to assure us the gods are happy with us. 

Here's the amazing thing about Jesus. God is exactly like Jesus, and God can't change so God has always been exactly like Jesus. God is exactly like Jesus and God has always been exactly like Jesus. Make sure you understand what that means. For centuries and centuries humans tried to figure out where we stood with the gods. The Israelites developed an intricate system of sacrifice to make sure they stayed on God's good side. To them, God needed the sacrifice of bulls and goats in order to even be in their presence. In order to even be able to talk to God, something else needed to die. Except over and over and over we see glimpses in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) that God didn't want those sacrifices in the first place. In Psalm 51:16-17 King David understands that God isn't pleased with burnt offerings and sacrifice. In 1 Samuel, in Hosea, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah,  and most persuasively in Amos we see God speaking through prophets--the men who were supposed to know most what God wanted and what He was like. In every case, we see them telling the people that God doesn't want these sacrifices. The sacrifices aren't keeping them in good standing with God because God never wanted them in the first place. The sacrifices were something they were already doing because that's what they assumed the gods wanted, and God allowed this to be part of the system through which they came to worship Him. The sacrifices were for our hearts, for our own peace of mind.

In Jesus, we see God fully revealing Himself to us. He shows us exactly what He has been like all along.  God doesn't need the blood of bulls and goats. God wants our hearts to be pure and our actions to be good. We don't have to worry about making Him mad. We don't have to work and work in order to please Him. We don't have to compete with our neighbor in order to be the best. We don't have to compete for blessings from a capricious father who gives good to some and garbage to others. God loves us and gives us only good and perfect gifts.

The cross is the sacrifice to end all sacrifice. NOT BECAUSE GOD NEEDED IT, BUT BECAUSE WE NEEDED IT. Notice that was in italics, underlined, all caps, and bold. We needed the sign of who God is, what God looks like, and what God is willing to do while forgiving our sin. We needed it to have our heads cleared from the lies of the devil and our own insecurities. The Cross is the sign stamped on our hearts that we are good with God. He doesn't need a single thing from us. He doesn't need us to try harder, buy more, dress trendier, or look better. He is happy with us. We don't keep Him happy, because God doesn't change.

How jealous are we of other people who we think are getting blessed when we aren't? Why doesn't God like us as much as He likes them? Judgement, division, jealousy are all based in the same insecurity. When we are secure in how much we are loved, there will be no jealousy, no competition, and no judgement. You are blessed. That's a description of your identity, not your current situation.

May He continue to illuminate the cross in our hearts, and may we be reminded of how right we are with God. May we kill our idols. May Jesus' sacrificial love keep us from sacrificing anything to anyone else. 

Two Churches and a Boat

A few days ago I was in Brussels, Belgium, being a tourist. It was a California-swimming-pool-blue sky day and I walked the city with my wife and her mother. We stopped in cafés and shops and museums and experienced the city as much as one can in two days.

We walked to a cathedral at the top of a hill, a massive building with twin column towers reaching to the sky. Flags lazily flapped in the breeze at the cathedrals highest point. I was sure the inside of this building would be as impressive as the outside. Having seen the cathedral in Cologne several times, I was anticipating a similar feeling of dumbfoundness when I walked inside the sanctuary.
I was disappointed when we couldn't find a single door that would open. We walked all the way around it. I tugged on a door with St. Peter carefully engraved on it, nothing. St George's door? Nope.

I was upset. And not just because St. George gets to be a Saint because he killed a dragon when we know there aren't such things as dragons. I was upset because I hate the idea of locked doors on churches. The only thing I hate more than locked churches are churches that charge admission, looking at you St. Mark's in Venice.

Later that evening we walked after dinner. I love to walk after dinner. It makes me feel like Woody Allen, but not like weirdo-maybe-pervert Woody Allen, but like cool-artist Woody Allen. Really more like a character in a Woody Allen movie. I love having a delicious meal with people I like and then walking with them, talking mostly about how good the meal was. It's one of the few distinctly urban experiences I enjoy. So we walked. We meandered through the skinny streets of the old town and then came upon a small square with cafés and bars (Brussels ain't running out of cafés or bars anytime soon) and there was a church in the middle of the square.

This church was old, sure, but not special. The outside of it looked like any number of churches in Europe. It could have been a small Catholic church in about 20 countries. Its door, however, was open. We walked up to it and were shocked. The inside was jammed with stuff. Just tons of things. This tiny church had paintings in gold frames all over the walls, a crucifix ten feet tall hanging in the entryway, and not one empty space. Individually, each piece of art was beautiful. Piled together with ninety other things and a giant shrine holding the bones of thirty or so martyrs, it just looked busy. We took off, overwhelmed.

Sometimes we can be closed off. Maybe full of truth and beauty, but unavailable to anyone. We have a lot of good ideas about God but don't ever share them. Or maybe we like our people, but don't want to be open to those people, whoever they are. We can be closed up cathedrals.

We can also be so full of stuff. We can let people in, only to show them everything we have immediately, scaring them off. We can be "vulnerable" but really all we mean is we are OK sharing a ton in small group or praying out loud. We over-share in an attempt to be more pious or to cover up what is really wrong. We pile religious things up in our lives, like they will help us.

I saw a refugee boat in the entryway of the Cologne cathedral a week ago. It was an actual boat, about 6 yards long, that had held 100 refugees on their quest for a new life. Many of those people had died on the journey, suffocated to death by the bodies of other refugees. Scared people looking for hope. Projected on the floor in front of the boat, it said "Christ sits in the refugee boat." Nothing in any church has moved me as swiftly and deeply as that image. I needed a moment. An empty boat tells a story of hope and loss and suffering and need. It asks for compassion and understanding and Love. Christ is there in it and in me. He is in the boat, and He is in me, so maybe I can see myself in the boat.

Not a closed cathedral, not a church full of religious trinkets, but a refugee boat might be the best image of Christ's love inspiring us to participate in His work. Let it be so.