An Event

"Are you hosting an event?" 

That is the question that Facebook asks me every Friday when I post my Communion reflections from this space. I enter a few words about a table, about some food, about fellowship, and whatever it is in AI's brain that is always trying to be helpful (but is far less helpful than it thinks it is) comes up with its brilliant interpretation - I must be hosting an event! And, thus, it would like to help me invite others to attend. 

Most of the time, I'm mildly annoyed by this little pop-up. I have been writing in this space for somewhere around 16 years and sharing links to these posts on Facebook for nearly as long, always in the same format: title, quick synopsis, link. Just like millions of other bloggers/writers/creators around the world. So it's frustrating to me when Facebook doesn't simply recognize that I'm doing the same thing that I have done for literally thousands of days prior...without ever hosting a single event. 

But as I reflect on this minor nuisance, there's something inside of me that can't help but think that maybe that's the point. 

I joined a Communion-celebrating church 24 years ago. Every week for 24 years, I have fellowshipped with a church that takes time out of its Sunday morning service to reflect on the Upper Room, on the Cross, on the body and the blood, the bread and the juice, and to pass the plates and partake of this remembrance. Every week. We never skip a week. 

And then someone inevitably comes along (confession: it's usually me) and emphasizes all over again the nature of this remembrance as an event, as something we're invited to, as more than just a quiet, solemn moment between three songs and the sermon. Someone comes along and tries to remind everyone that this thing that we do every week is bigger than just being a thing that we do every week. 

Sometimes, that reminder is successful; sometimes, it falls on weary ears; sometimes, it doesn't even register at all. Such is the nature of being interconnected with human beings with all of their own experiences, circumstances, challenges...everyone brings their own energy and their own week with them to Sunday worship, so you don't hit everyone on every Sunday. 

But now, I'm thinking about this mild annoyance that I feel when Facebook asks me if I'm hosting an event and my first inclination is to say...don't you get it? Isn't your AI any better than that? I'm not hosting an event! I'm doing exactly the same thing I've been doing for days and weeks and years before now. Can't you see that? 

Can't you, indeed.... 

Because this is the reaction I think some of us have to the Table. And I'll be the first one to confess that sometimes, this is me, too. We come to the Table, we see the bread, we see the juice, we hear the words, but...it's not really anything. I mean, it's not really anything big. We miss the meaningfulness of it. There's something inside us that says this is just what we do. This is what we do every week, just like we've been doing it every week, just like we'll do it again next week and the week after that, and doesn't everyone just get this? This is just what we do. 

But what if it wasn't? 

What if...just for fun...we went ahead and clicked that box and said, you know what? It is an event. We are doing a thing. 

Go ahead. Invite everyone I know to this grand event I'm having. 

There is, after all, space at the Table for all of them. Every. single. one. 

God Knows You

While the sinful king Ahab ruled in Israel, Jehoshaphat sat on the throne in Judah, and occasionally, the divorced northern and southern kingdoms of God's people found a reason to come together. 

Battle was one such reason. 

Ahab asks Jehoshaphat if he will go into battle with him, and the southern king agrees, but he says they have to talk to a prophet first. Ahab calls together all of the prophets that he has, all of the men who call themselves men of God, but Jehoshaphat wisely looks around and says, "Isn't there a prophet of the Lord we can ask?" 

In other words, isn't there a real man of God here? 

So they find Micaiah, who Ahab knows but doesn't really care for, and the real prophet comes. When he gives a message that is contrary to what the other prophets have said, Ahab is like, "See? This is why I don't like him." Then, the king asks how the message came to be so different and why the other prophets said something else. 

Micaiah responds simply, "God's spirit agreed to come into those other prophets in order to deceive you because He knew you would listen to what they were saying."

Now, this story gets complicated by the judgment God has put on Ahab's life and the plans that are already in motion to end his reign; God is already working toward Ahab's defeat and death, so it raises some questions for us theologically, but those questions are not the point of today's reflection. 

Today, it's just important that we recognize that God knows who we will listen to. God knows which voices we've given the authority to speak into our lives. God knows where He can put a message and know that we'll hear it. God knows how to speak, individually, to us. 

That message through the fake men of God who were more people-pleasers than prophets is a message that Jehoshaphat didn't bother with, but Ahab bought hook, line, and sinker. God sent Micaiah because he was the messenger that Jehoshaphat needed, but He used the prophets to help further His judgment plan against Ahab because He knew those were the voices Ahab would heed. 

And He knows which voices you're listening to. 

I don't know about you, but sometimes, I spend a lot of time wondering if I would ever really know if I heard from God, if I would recognize His voice if I heard it, if I would be confident in what I was hearing. But stories like this remind me that God knows how I'm listening, and He knows how to get me to hear. And He will send the right voice at the right time to further His plan for my life, whatever it happens to be in any season. 

So as long as I'm listening, I can trust the Lord who speaks to help me hear. 

God is Clear

In the ancient world, every peoples had their own god, and their god was tied directly to their daily experience. So the god in Egypt was presumed to be a sun god because the sun guided their existence. The gods in other areas similarly reflected the areas in which their peoples lived and the things they depended on. And those things were the only things those gods were responsible for or had control over. Egypt's "sun god" only controlled the sun. Nothing else. 

So when the Arameans encountered Israel in the mountains and were soundly defeated, it only made sense to them to deduce that the Lord must be a god of the mountains. Thus, if they were to change the battlefield and draw the Israelites out of the mountains, their God would become powerless to help them and the Arameans would earn a decisive victory. 

Now, keep in mind that at the time, Israel (which indicates only the northern kingdom, as the two had long ago split) had a wicked king - Ahab. God wasn't particularly impressed with Ahab and was not exactly delighting in what Ahab was doing. God was already planning judgment against Ahab. 

But you do not just make presumptions that the God of the Universe, Lord of all Creation, is a little-g god only of the mountains. 

So God sends word to Ahab through the prophet and says, "Look. The Arameans said I'm only a god of the mountains, so I'm going to let you beat them and beat them badly in the flat lands, just so they get that I Am....God of the Universe."

In other words, God says - let Me be clear. 

And clear, He is. 

It's this kind of clarity that can give us confidence to believe the things we think we know about God. The things that we've been taught or have discovered through His Word. Sometimes, it's hard for us to hold on too tightly to these things because we have lingering questions or they're bigger than we can wrap our brains around or we're not sure they're exactly correct (and these hesitations are not completely unfounded - our understanding is limited by our finite human nature). 

But we need not worry about such things. Because as this story demonstrates, if we've got something wrong about God, He'll correct us. If we've made God too small, He'll correct us. If we have somehow turned God into a little-g god of limited domain, He'll correct us. And He'll be very clear about it. 

Israel didn't gain just a little victory over the Arameans on the flat land; they got a sound defeat and a full surrender. Why? 

Because the Lord our God is not some little-g god of the mountains. And He was out to make that one thing very clear. 

God of Life

There is a story in the Old Testament about a widow living in Zarephath, to whom the prophet Elijah is sent for provision during a prolonged famine. When the prophet meets the widow, she is preparing to make one last little small bit of bread to feed her and her son, then prepare them both to die. 

Elijah speaks from the Lord to the widow and God provides an abundance of flour and oil that lasts them through a very long period without any other food. Until one day, the widow's son died. 

She cried out to God and called out to Elijah and asked, "Why?" Why did this happen? Is God punishing me for some kind of past sin? 

If we were to use her approach today, we might cry out to God and ask, "Did this bad thing happen because of that little white lie I told in 2007?" This is what the widow was asking. 

It was common in those times that persons looked at tragedy, trial, and calamity as the judgment of God. It was common for them to understand that bad things happen to you because you did bad things. Sinners get what sinners deserve. So it was only natural, when this son died at too young an age (after, we must remember, her husband had also died - she was, after all, a widow), she started to wonder...is it because I'm a sinner?

But then, she didn't have the Cross.

This is the difference between Old Testament law and New Testament grace. Back then, the widow couldn't imagine any other reason for death than sin (even though 1 out of every 1 persons will die). Today, we understand that God does not remind us of our past sin through death; Jesus already took care of that. And He would not dream of using death to condemn you. Not when He's already defeated it. 

So if you're looking at that bad thing that's happened in your life and wondering if it's God's way of punishing you for that thing you did that one time (or even that many times or even just five minutes ago), remember: that's pre-Calvary theology. On this side of the Cross, God is not punishing you for that thing you did. 

He's too busy loving you through it. 

God of Direct Communication

In 1 Kings, there's the story of two men of God. At least, that's who we're told they are.

The first goes to Judah to talk with the leadership, but he says very plainly what God has asked him to do. God has told him to go, speak the message, not dilly-dally, and leave a different way than he came. The instructions are clear. The direction is precise. Go, speak, leave. And the man of God says plainly what God has told him, not only the message, but the method. When invited to stay, he says he cannot; God told him not to stay, but to leave.

On his way out of town, he encounters the servant of another man of God who has been sent to track him down. This servant says that the other man of God has been told that the first man of God should come to his place - back in the city he just left - and have a meal. 

So we have one guy who knows what God has said to him and seems perfectly clear on that, but then we have a second guy come in and say that he knows what God has said to him, and it's an entirely different message. 

If you know this story, you know how it ends - the first man of God goes back because the second man of God claimed a divine revelation telling him to do so, he is cursed and killed for disobeying God, and the second man of God (who confesses that he lied) buries him in his own tomb. 

Man, that's a lot of third-person pronouns. Did you follow that?

This story always gets me because the first man seemed so sure. How was he so easily persuaded by the second man? Where did all of his surety go? How was he so certain when speaking boldly to those with human authority and then so easily fooled by another man?

Yet, we do this all the time. We're sure that we know where God is leading us, what He wants from us, that He loves us, that He's redeeming and restoring us...whatever it is that we know about God, but then someone else comes along and says something about us that they believe, tacks God's name onto it, and all of a sudden, we question what we knew. "Well, gosh, if God is telling this other person this other thing, then do I really know God at all? Would I recognize His voice if He spoke to me?" 

Then, we get ripped apart. 

Friends, I want to tell you this, and I want to be perfectly clear: God will reveal Himself directly to you. When you get that feeling in the depth of your spirit that feels strangely warm and tingles and dances and you know that you've heard from God, He will never go tell someone else something different. He will never have someone else bring you a different message from Him that contradicts the one He's already given you. He is never gossiping, speaking more about your life to someone who isn't you than He is to you directly. 

And let's be honest - why would He? He wants a relationship with you. And anyone who has time to manage anyone else's relationship with God...is a liar. I know because I know how much energy it takes to manage my own relationship with God; sorry, I don't have anything left to be responsible for yours, too. 

So do what God calls you to do. Be firm in what He's spoken to you. And don't listen to anyone who invites you to turn back and do something you already know God spoke against.