God Would Make A Lousy Father

March 17, 2010

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem. And more than once, that impression which I can’t describe except by saying it’s like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness. The sense that some shattering and disarming simplicity is the real answer. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The problem is that waiting for the real answer until the sweet by and by comes at the cost of needless suffering in this life for far too many. To wake up each morning and fear  you’re going to hell unless you expend all your emotional and spiritual energy denying who you fully are sounds like hell without a need for dying. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200.00. Go directly to hell. Do not die. Do not fully live.

And from where I sit it sounds like nothing short of hot flames and sulfur-tainted air to face the death of a child and be “comforted” with the well-meaning assurance that God has allowed it to happen for a greater purpose, or to be told God must have a reason after being given the diagnosis that a debilitating terminal disease has invaded your body. Spare the purpose and give me my child back! Keep the disease and the reason and let me live!

The pain behind all these very true to life human experiences of suffering comes down to, as C.S. Lewis experienced through the dying and death of his beloved wife, our contradictory notions. We know what we are experiencing in the moment. We’re living it, breathing it, feeling it; and we know what we believe about who God is and what God can do and at times the two smash head-long into one another and leave us either doubting what’s right before our eyes or doubting in the existence of a God who truly loves us and has our best interest at heart.

I don’t know what the chuckle in the darkness came to be for C.S. Lewis but I can tell you what it is for me, and I’m so convinced that I have this one right that I’m willing to tether my entire life on it even before having it confirmed before being measured for my form fitting white robe with matching feathered wings.  The chuckle in the darkness, the real answer that will shatter all our questions is….oh come on….say it with me….the love of God.

What do we continue to muck up the most one true thing? What is this human need we have to complicate it, burying such a priceless radiant treasure under the murky mire of Christian beliefs and notions that repeatedly weigh the scales on the side of human agency rather than on the side where Divine Love and Grace reside? Honestly, there are days I just don’t get it and this is one of those days.

Everything we believe, however long we’ve believed it, however strongly we believe it, however sure we are that we have it right must, absolutely must be held up to the lens of God’s love if we have any chance of knowing anything at all in this life and experiencing any deep sense of peace. How I understand the stories and teaching of the Scriptures, how I view suffering in this life, what I believe of the life that follows this one, what I think God requires of me, how I comprehend who God is in character and in relationship with me, how God sees me, how God values me, how God judges me and everything else.  Every speck of an idea I have of what it means to faithfully walk the path of Jesus must be held up to close examination through the lens of God’s love and should any belief I value or idea I hold as true to the Christian faith conflict with or tarnish by a single shade the perfect love of God then the other thing must change but never never the unconditional love and extravagant grace of God.

For far too long and for far too many when a conflict has arisen between traditional Christian teaching and the love of God, it’s been the love of God that’s been compromised and cheapened, if it was ever considered at all. When that happens we run the risk of ending up with a God who would make a lousy parent. I mean seriously, we call God our Heavenly Father and yet if my earthly father had ever reflected the kind of parent that God is often made out to be, I would have either run away from home or been removed by Family and Social Services. Think about it. What kind of parent would permanently disown their child for breaking the rules of the household whether they were broken in ignorance or in willful disobedience? For crying out loud, there are serial murderers on death row whose parents visit them in prison and yet we live with the idea that we’ve given our lives over to a God who should we error will cast us into eternal torment before returning to the party in heaven surrounded by his good children. And what would any of us think of a father who stands in a corner while his child is being tortured at the hands of others without doing everything in his power to intervene? What would we have to say about a mother who provides ample food and protection for her daughter while allowing her son to live out in the cold starving to death? Both of these would appall us, and yet some Christians espouse a concept of God that’s even more negligent and cruel.

Please hear me on this. I’m not saying throwing out everything you believe and hold dear to your faith. What I am suggesting is that you hold each belief up to the lens of God’s love and ask, “How does what I believe about this reflect upon the love of God?” and “How is God’s love seen here?” I’m saying that before we respond to someone elses painful questioning of why me? or why now? we ask ourselves how the words we would speak to them would exude the infinite, matchless love of God rather than offering a familiar answer that rings empty in the soul of the one who is suffering more than we might ever know.

I don’t know what doing such a thing will do in your own life but in mine, it brought about a monumental shift in my theology that’s taken place over a number of years. Some beliefs remained the same, others shifted to encompass a wider understanding and a few were abandoned altogether. And still, it’s a work in progress. It always will be because I’m a slower learner who has a lot of questions remaining.

Re-evaluating faith is for some a scary proposition. When faith has always been central to your life, there’s a fear of looking too closely and questioning too much, but if I can, let me offer you this bit of comfort if you can take it as such. When the love of God is the litmus test for what you believe, all that you’re risking is failing on the side of love. The worst you can do is give the love of God more credit than it deserves, conclude than it reaches farther than it really does or fail to take into account some pre-existing conditions to the unconditional love of God.

If I’m going to be wrong then I’d rather be wrong in thinking too much of the love and grace of God than too little of it.

But then, that’s me.

And by the way, the title of this post expresses the God that’s sometimes communicated through our contradictory notions but not the God who really is; and certainly not the God I worship and adore.

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Posted in Love and Grace, Theology