The Gospel and the Big Gray Rock
Saturday Night Live had a sketch back in the 90s in which a contestant with a gift for clairvoyance was participating in a game show. He kept buzzing in and expecting his foresight to give him the answers to the questions on the show. All he could enunciate, though, was "big gray rock." At the end of the sketch, indeed, the set was demolished, you guessed it, by the meteoric arrival of a big gray rock. His sense of impending crisis was taking priority over any chance the contestant had to show off lesser knowledge.
Thus I come to this week's opportunity to come up for air. This isn't supposed to be a particularly religious space. I have another blog for that at BrianEsh73.LiveJournal.com where I faithfully, and enjoyably, get to pray my way through a verse in the Gospels where concerns for people's clicks and reactions are decidedly secondary. I've even gotten confirmation this week from a trusted source that my language overly saturated with biblical metaphor, can, well, keep my yes from being yes and my no from being no. Clarity and relateability to the wider world are works in progress here. My one-man game show allowing me to show off my wide reading on the chance that others might grow from it is a side benefit. I've managed, at least occasionally, to talk about something other than the big gray rock.
Within about the last hour life reminded me that the big gray rock is indeed coming. Within the last hour, I've been reminded of the brevity of health and maybe life for those I care most about. When windows of opportunity in my longest lasting and closest relationships come to a close, how will I characterize the overriding theme of my conversations? Has my scattershot knowledge been on display? Has my capacity with analogies to relate trivial facts to some theme continued to step in front of THE theme of life? If so, Christ's assurances that I will be accountable for every word are sobering not just in terms of gossip, spewed anger, or outright denial of Him. Each of us will face our moment with our own big gray rock when further opportunities to submit to Christ in this body are no more. Have I continued to hit that note because I love Him supremely and because I care about those who do not acknowledge His supremacy, or have I prioritized recognition my cleverness to someone's eternal detriment?
Until the big gray rock came close enough to cast the shadow it casts still, I thought it had Acts 15 etched on it. I expected tomorrow to bring this text into the believing echo chamber that is church, so the preoccupation is understandable. It is telling, though, that I kept trying to see around the majesty of Scripture to catch a glimpse of a cuter topic that might get more clicks. I wanted some observations about parenthood, our jobs, our marriage, or reading, to which the just and the unjust could relate, and for which they would stand up and call me blessed. Repenting in print, I give Acts 15 its rightful spot in the chorus proclaiming that there is hope in Christ that we find nowhere else. In that text, Paul and Barnabas anticipate more flak among the religious than I could ever expect to receive if I were more forthright in sharing Christ with the secular people I care most about. They anticipate that the infant Church will be divided over a crucial question, and yet Acts 15:3 gives us a glimpse of the expression on the faces of the characters that is pretty rare in Scripture. Defensive? Nope. Avoiding the subject in preference to lesser issues with cultural cachet as they looked down sheepishly and shifted from foot to foot? No way! These messengers who had every right to expect difficulty ahead effused in joy in the Gospel so much that these erstwhile respectable Jews shared that joy with Samaritans they so recently despised.
Is my joy in Christ that irrepressible? Will it bubble over in season and out of season, with brethren who share the same outlook AND with people I know who do not? If the source and center of my speech is this joy in Christ that cannot be denied, I'm convicted that the reaction I anticipate from people will be decidedly secondary, tertiary, or even less important. If a fanatic is someone who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject, is my writing, are my word choices in conversation, suitably fanatical toward the One Who is worthy of all fanaticism? Or, do I, do we, put Him on and take Him off in accordance with the spirituality of the occasion and the company? The big gray rock is His to command, and life in Him which will last even when the big gray rock is turned to dust is His to offer. Who am I, who are we, to change the channel or change the subject?
Thus I come to this week's opportunity to come up for air. This isn't supposed to be a particularly religious space. I have another blog for that at BrianEsh73.LiveJournal.com where I faithfully, and enjoyably, get to pray my way through a verse in the Gospels where concerns for people's clicks and reactions are decidedly secondary. I've even gotten confirmation this week from a trusted source that my language overly saturated with biblical metaphor, can, well, keep my yes from being yes and my no from being no. Clarity and relateability to the wider world are works in progress here. My one-man game show allowing me to show off my wide reading on the chance that others might grow from it is a side benefit. I've managed, at least occasionally, to talk about something other than the big gray rock.
Within about the last hour life reminded me that the big gray rock is indeed coming. Within the last hour, I've been reminded of the brevity of health and maybe life for those I care most about. When windows of opportunity in my longest lasting and closest relationships come to a close, how will I characterize the overriding theme of my conversations? Has my scattershot knowledge been on display? Has my capacity with analogies to relate trivial facts to some theme continued to step in front of THE theme of life? If so, Christ's assurances that I will be accountable for every word are sobering not just in terms of gossip, spewed anger, or outright denial of Him. Each of us will face our moment with our own big gray rock when further opportunities to submit to Christ in this body are no more. Have I continued to hit that note because I love Him supremely and because I care about those who do not acknowledge His supremacy, or have I prioritized recognition my cleverness to someone's eternal detriment?
Until the big gray rock came close enough to cast the shadow it casts still, I thought it had Acts 15 etched on it. I expected tomorrow to bring this text into the believing echo chamber that is church, so the preoccupation is understandable. It is telling, though, that I kept trying to see around the majesty of Scripture to catch a glimpse of a cuter topic that might get more clicks. I wanted some observations about parenthood, our jobs, our marriage, or reading, to which the just and the unjust could relate, and for which they would stand up and call me blessed. Repenting in print, I give Acts 15 its rightful spot in the chorus proclaiming that there is hope in Christ that we find nowhere else. In that text, Paul and Barnabas anticipate more flak among the religious than I could ever expect to receive if I were more forthright in sharing Christ with the secular people I care most about. They anticipate that the infant Church will be divided over a crucial question, and yet Acts 15:3 gives us a glimpse of the expression on the faces of the characters that is pretty rare in Scripture. Defensive? Nope. Avoiding the subject in preference to lesser issues with cultural cachet as they looked down sheepishly and shifted from foot to foot? No way! These messengers who had every right to expect difficulty ahead effused in joy in the Gospel so much that these erstwhile respectable Jews shared that joy with Samaritans they so recently despised.
Is my joy in Christ that irrepressible? Will it bubble over in season and out of season, with brethren who share the same outlook AND with people I know who do not? If the source and center of my speech is this joy in Christ that cannot be denied, I'm convicted that the reaction I anticipate from people will be decidedly secondary, tertiary, or even less important. If a fanatic is someone who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject, is my writing, are my word choices in conversation, suitably fanatical toward the One Who is worthy of all fanaticism? Or, do I, do we, put Him on and take Him off in accordance with the spirituality of the occasion and the company? The big gray rock is His to command, and life in Him which will last even when the big gray rock is turned to dust is His to offer. Who am I, who are we, to change the channel or change the subject?
Comments
Post a Comment