In Need of Realignment--January 4, 2021

In Need of Realignment--January 4, 2021

"For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding..." [Colossians 1:9]

Okay, so here's the thing: your cell phone is not God (a statement I hope goes without saying), but neither is God like your cell phone, either.

You may want to insist that those are both the same and both obvious, but it seems to me that we often have this unspoken assumption that God functions in our lives like a tool of technology--like our cell phones--and whose job is get us things we want.  Honestly, we treat our faith sometimes (maybe quite often) like the role of having God in your life is to acquire things, to make things the way you want them in life, or at least to arrange things the way you want them in the afterlife. Our lists may be different--sometimes we wish for money, job, career, "winning" (whatever that means), our political party to be in charge, or romantic relational fulfillments.  Sometimes the wishes are more "spiritual-sounding"--like "inner peace," or "contentment," or just the hope of going to heaven when we die.  But however you or I would word it, we often operate like God is a service provider--like your cell phone network carrier--and that God's job is to get us access to the things we want.

Now that by itself is, in all honestly, theological garbage, but then here's the second layer of garbage we add on top of that:  we often treat "faith" like it's the on-off setting on your cell phone that scans for available networks.  We assume that if we are feeling unspiritual, disconnected from God, or out of sorts in our souls, then it just must be a matter of flipping the right switch, so to speak, to get out of "airplane mode" and to start picking up God's signal again.  If we just do that--whether we imagine it's by going to church enough, praying the proper prayer, or having the right one-time come-to-Jesus moment, then we'll be instantly back in touch with God, we'll clearly see God's direction in our lives, and we'll be back on track to getting all the things we want God, our spiritual service provider, to give us access to.

If that sounds like a crude or unfair caricature of popular religion, listen closely to how so much of Respectable Religious out there sounds:  "You didn't get what you wanted because you haven't been praying for it enough..." or "We all must put on a show of religious contrition and start up a revival to get our land and our society 'back' to some glorious time in the fog of our memories that we think actually happened" (but was probably a good deal imaginary).  Or it's, "You must pray hard to get your candidate or party to win... and if your candidate or party doesn't win, it must be the devilish forces of darkness fighting against you getting the thing you want." Or even, "If you want that success in business, or your kid on the honor roll, or to meet that special someone who will make your life cookie-cutter complete, you have to "name it and claim it" in prayer, and then if you believe hard enough, God will give you want you have claimed in faith.  Those aren't far-fetched--that's an awful lot of the pop theology floating around us all the time.

And to be clear, every one of those notions operates from the assumptions that (1) God is here to grant our wishes and provide a service to us like a cellular network carrier, and (2) getting in touch with God to make all that wish-granting happen is just a matter of some one-time religious action you must do. The voice we hear in the letter to the Colossians begs to differ.

In fact, this one verse from Colossians challenges both assumptions, first by turning the tables on whose will is most central, ours or God's... and the second by reminding us that getting in tune with God's will is not a matter of a single one-time flipping of a switch, but an ongoing, daily seeking and striving for clarity.  

Let's start with the first.  Contrary to the religious thinking in our age that often treats God as a glorified vending machine or spiritual service provider, the apostle says that what's most important is that we be filled with knowledge of God's will--not some leverage to get God to do our will.  Think about that for a moment.  When the apostle prays for these Christians in Colossae, he doesn't ask for God necessarily to give them their list of wishes, but that their wants, thoughts, desires, and hopes would be brought into alignment with God's will.  So if I've been yearning for a McMansion and a Lexus and haven't gotten it, maybe the problem isn't how to get God to do my bidding and cough up some sets of keys--maybe what I need is for MY heart to be re-shaped, and MY will to be re-formed, in light of what God's good vision is.  And maybe instead of me getting a bigger house and more expensive car, God's design is for me to use the resources I already have to help make sure someone else gets to eat and doesn't have to sleep in a bus stop kiosk to get out of the cold.  If I've been praying (or selfishly wishing and dressing it up as prayer) for more stuff or for my political party to get more power, and it hasn't happened, maybe what I need is for God to change me so that my priorities become aligned with God's priorities of justice and mercy and enough for all.

Here in this verse from Colossians, that's basically the move that the apostle makes:  instead of fervently praying that his readers would get what they want necessarily, he prays that God would shape what they want to be in line with what matters in the Reign of God.  And I've got to tell you , sometimes it's hard for each of us--myself included--to admit that my wish lists and personal priorities are out of whack with the vision of God's Reign as we see it in Jesus.  Sometimes I want my pet hatreds reinforced, or I want to only see good things happen for Me-and-My-Group-First.  Sometimes I can only think in terms of my immediate comfort or convenience, rather than what people far away from me might need--and how their needs might need to come first before my privilege.  Sometimes I don't want to admit that God loves people that I can't stand, and I don't want to allow the possibility that God not only loves them fiercely, but is doing good in their lives in ways that will shape them to be more like Christ as well, even if I can't see it yet.  All of that is hard, and Colossians reminds us here that this is happening all the time--God is at work (in answer to prayers like Paul's) changing each of us from the inside, so that what-I-want is slowly being brought more fully into alignment with what-God-wants.  Admitting I'm out of step with that is hard.  But then realizing that someone else might be praying for ME to be brought back in line with God's will and values is even more humbling.

And that's the second piece we need to spend a moment talking about here, too:  getting aligned with what matters to God--what we sometimes call discerning God's will--isn't some instantaneous flip of a switch or speaking of a prayer.  It's something that grows and deepens over time (and yes, sometimes we take steps backward between steps forward, too).  We want our religion to be reducible to a one-time prayer or an easy, obvious set of propositions (like, "God always want this political party to win, so always back them," or "God always sides with this nation of the world, so nothing they do can ever be wrong," or "God is always aligned with policies that lower your taxes... or help your business make more money... or maximize your personal freedoms" or "God's will is to make you more comfortable and privileged, and who cares about people who are outside your group"). But Colossians suggests (and I would add that I believe the whole of the Biblical witness backs Colossians up on this) that discerning God's will is often a lot messier, foggier to figure out, and interconnected with all of us.  And that means it's not simply a switch you can turn on. It's not just a matter of asking one time, "Dear God, show me your will" and then assuming that every gut impulse you have after that is the word of God or the nudging of the Holy Spirit.  

It means that seeking God's will in our lives is going to require patience, wisdom, humility, and the presence of other people.  We need others who will pray for us, sure, but also people who will be checks and balances in our lives and hold us accountable.  We need people to tell us when our gut impulses are really just our own wishful thinking rather than direction from God. We need people who can tell us when our actions or priorities don't line up with the way of Jesus, and who can call us out on them.  And we need the patience and grace with ourselves to keep muddling through on the days when God's will or direction doesn't seem clear yet.

All of that mean that the Christian faith is a lot less like paying for a spiritual service provider (where I am the customer who is always right), and a lot more like a daily walk in which we need the voices of companions on the journey--and a map and compass, too--to keep leading us in a good direction.  There are no switches to flip, and no simple setting buttons to toggle, to make God connect up to us.  There is instead the step by step adventure of a journey, shared with other sojourners along the way, on which God's voice becomes clearer as we go.

It's a long road, but it's worth giving your whole life to traveling it. Let's go.

Lord God, help us.  Re-align our wishes and wants to the shape of your Reign of justice and mercy.  And speak to us in ways that get through to us, so that we will recognize the sound of your voice leading us onward.