Why We Can't Make Friends and Influence People

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Deut. 6:5

"The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any who did understand and seek God. They have all turned aside; they have all become filthy. There is none that does good; no, not one." Ps. 14:2-3

"Jesus said unto him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.'" Matt. 22:37-38 (c.f. Mark 12:30)

"There is none righteous; no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seek after God." Rom. 3:10-11

Our "best" is dull anarchy.

To love God, to seek Him with all that you are, to desire Him above all others, saving yourself only for Him, obsessing yourself only over Him---that is the pinnacle and peak of all morality. If we are to be perfect (Matt. 5:48) and holy (I Peter 1:15-16), then that is the road we must take. And yet Scripture declares that "none do good," an absurd statement from our point of view. We see good deeds all the time. We may even have done a few ourselves. That, however, is our problem. We define "good" as doing "good things," any and every good thing, as many as we can as often as we can. Our view of morality is scattered and fragmented, with "good deeds" being a cobbled together collection of equally-sized stones that we pile upon the ground. Maybe if our pile is big enough, we'll be all right in the end.

God has a very different view of morality, however. It is not fragmented and scattered but hierarchical and structured. It is not like equally-sized stones piled upon the ground, but rather like unequally-sized stones built fitly together into a solid structure, like an arch. And just like an arch, there is a keystone, a singular prime good atop the hierarchy that holds the whole edifice together: love God, with all that you are and all that you've got.

Morality as hierarchical art.

This is one of the most offensive (and thus most easily forgotten) truths of Christianity: the "golden rule" is actually the silver rule. What we thought and have taught to be the first and greatest commandment is actually the derivative of another one greater still. And why shouldn't we have made such a mistake? To "love others as yourself" is easy enough to believe. It makes sense and has a certain emotional satisfaction about it. It is also easy to identify and easier to appreciate because it is very practical: it produces results that can be measured, and so we can quantify its success.

Thus, the so-called "golden rule" has become a cliche, an idol, a golden calf and sacred cow all across the world. And as with all idolatry, the truth brings the sword to it and leaves everybody outraged, for what is more outrageous than loving God first, above all others? Above your neighbors, above your guests (Luke 10:38-42), above the poor (Matt. 26:6-13), above your parents (Matt. 8:21-22) and all your family (Mark 3:32-35) including your spouse and children and all other relations (Matt. 10:34-38; Luke 14:26-27), above all your possessions (Luke 14:33, 18:22-25), and even above yourself and all your realization and fulfillment and discovery and aggrandizement (Matt. 10:39; Mark 8:34-35; John 12:25)? In any and every case, we are left with only one conclusion: God first, God only, and God always.

That is why we can't make friends and influence people, why we can never be respectable or fashionable. It is also why "none do good." Loving God is the perfection of all morality, the solid and sure foundation of all goodness and decency. To try and "be good" by "doing good" without this prime good is like trying to build an arch without a keystone, or trying to win a spelling bee without even knowing the alphabet. You may accomplish an impressive scattering of stones or string of gibberish, but it all falls short of the glory of God. You have forgotten the vital piece, the glue that holds the whole structure together and erect. You have forgotten God, and that  is what reduces your morality to rubble, and your righteousness to filthy rags.

 

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Hidden (Isaiah's Doxology, Part II)

"He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." Is. 61:10-11

Isaiah, continuing his jubilant doxology, now expresses the specifics of his joy in God. He first states that God has "clothed me with the garments of salvation" as well as "covered me with the robe of righteousness." There is some interesting word usage going on here in the Hebrew. The easy ones to get are "salvation" (which carries the idea of "deliverance") and "righteousness" (which carries the idea of "justification"). Isaiah is delivered and justified, i.e., he has been brought out of something and in to something, out of a state of bondage and into a state of innocence before one whom had been offended. This is all courtroom language: you were bound to some great punishment or fate but now have been released, because you were declared just before your accuser as well as the judge.

Gotcha covered.

Here's where it gets interesting. This state of deliverance and justification is described as being "clothed" in "garments" and "covered" with a "robe". In Hebrew, "clothed" literally meant "to wrap up" in, like a cocoon. "Garments" literally meant a "cloak," which carried the idea of "hiding" or "to hide". It sometimes was used to suggest treachery or deceit, an act of hiding your true intentions like a man hides under a blanket.  "Covered" and "robe" also carry these additional meanings. The idea is that this deliverance and justification was a complete covering, so complete that you disappear into it, and only the deliverance and justification are seen. Your life is hidden in it, wrapped up like a mummy, buried like in a grave.

The is the first source of Isaiah's joy: God has given to him a salvation and righteousness that is absolute and total, one which you disappear into and are completely covered, like a raindrop in the sea, like a single star in a supercluster. Your life is hid in God's salvation, wrapped up in His garments and hidden in His robe, and none can pluck you from His hand.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Homily 47: For the Love of God (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"I have formed this people for Myself; they shall show forth my praise." Is. 43:21

The universe dances for the love of God, and by the love of God, for by the love of God were all things created, flying forth from the bounteous, rapturous joy of His Being like light from the sun, like sparks from the furnace, like foam from the sea. We were built from love and for love: from the love of God most glorious so that we may love God most glorious and all His glorious creatures. This is the true way of worship: not in words or song or dance but love, love that is not less than and yet is greater than all expression. True, our halting metaphors are ever-inadequate to pronounce our great purpose, yet we cannot help ourselves. We must sing, we must say, we must do, for the aching desire will not leave us be. Our bones burn until we prophesy the love of God to us, to all, to every one and thing.

Herein is love: not that we created ourselves, but that God created us, and recreated us. He is in the old things and the new things, and newer and newer things still, renewed in deeper and starker shades of glory and grace. There is no bottom to Him, and yet there is no bottom without Him. The dark is endless, the void deep where His love is not, where all things are not. Outside of His love is No-thing, and those who turn to its noths will feel the burn of endless exile, rejection by and of the summit of all light and desire. Who are we to neglect so great a salvation?  If we would be perfect as God is perfect, holy as He is holy, then we should abide by the summation of his commandments and law: love God, and necessarily love others (Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:14).

But we are evil creatures indeed, for no one seeks after holiness, after righteousness, after God. No one seeks the way of worship, no not one. We have all of us turned astray, to our own way. Falling deeper and deeper into the abyss of our own isolation, our terrible loneliness, hard-won by our own spite and hell-born ignorance. God above, most brilliant and profoundest Being of the Deep Light, cleave our minds with Your truth, our selves with Your Selves. Strike us with Your love, your wild and reckless love; like a flash and crash of lightning against a dead tree, make your mark against our bark and spark the fire that burns towards Heaven once again. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Homily on the Beatitudes, Part 3: Fools for Christ and the Nature of True Persecution (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.... Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake...." Matthew 5:10-11

Persecution in a vacuum is always evil. If you are "persecuted" because of yourself, because of your obnoxiousness and blitheness, because you play the fool and call it "ministry," then what ever scorn you get is well deserved. Preaching and living the gospel is not about attacking or insulting people's common sense and sensibilities. Rather, it is about exposing the desperation that their pride wishes to hide. The Church continues to suffer under a parade of clowns, jesters, and village idiots who mistake abrasiveness for evangelism and then call every attempt to put them in their place "persecution". What damage has been done by those who act like Jesus needs help being a stumbling-block? Jesus is the controversy; we are merely distractions.

Persecution that entails divine blessing is always persecution in a context: "for righteousness sake" and "for my sake." When you are persecuted, not for being a pretentious blowhard, but for proclaiming and defending what is good and for preaching the man called Christ, then "blessed are ye." Persecution for the sake of an other's merit and virtues is blessed; "persecution" for the sake of our own lunacies and idiocies is natural justice. Pray that we will tell the difference before we push our petty pet arguments rather than preach Christ, the righteousness of God.

 

Epitaph: Let God be the fool, and every man a lyre.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010

Homily on the Beatitudes, Part 2: The Logical Progression of Desperation (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness..., the merciful..., the pure in heart..., [and] the peacemakers." Matthew 5:6-9

Divine blessing belongs to the virtuous. The "pure in heart" will "see God." As we saw in the previous verses (vs. 3-5), none of us are virtuous. This is not a mere matter of being "good enough" by our standards; it is about being "good enough" by God's standards. That is the secret to the mystery of Romans 3:12. We look at that verse in shock: "How can Paul say that? I see people do good all the time." You have seen our version of "good," our corrupt, fallen human version of it. It is only a shadow of true Goodness, the Goodness that belongs to God. Next to Him, our "goodness" pales and fails (Rom. 3:23). Next to His righteousness, ours is but filthy rags.

That, of course, is the point: it is not our righteousness that saves us, but His, His embodied in Jesus Christ (I Cor. 1:30 & II Cor. 5:21). That is the secret to the mystery of Matthew 5:6. We must hunger and thirst after righteousness because we have none of our own. It is the logical outcome of the desperation of vs. 3-5: if I have nothing, then I can only receive, and receive from elsewhere.

Epitaph: Those who follow the logic of desperation arrive at one conclusion: if I am to be a person of mercy, purity, and peace, then I must hunger and thirst for a righteousness not my own.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010