The Things God is Terrible At (And Why That’s Good News for Us.) Part 1

As I was listening to the sermon in church the other Sunday, I was moved by the absolute truth of the mercy and grace that God gives. The scripture came from the Gospel of Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23; The parable of the sower. This parable is not new to me and the connection between unbelievable grace and God was certainly not new. But this is sort of how the sermon went and where my thoughts have gone:

The parable of the sower has a farmer sowing seed in a field. Some of the seed falls onto good soil, some falls onto rocky soil, some falls onto the path, and some more falls into some thorny bushes.  

Once the seeds mature and start to grow, the type of soil they’ve been sown into affects their growth. 

The seed on the path is immediately eaten by birds. 

The seed in the thorny bushes grows a little but is choked out by the thorns. 

The seed in the rocky soil begins to grow but the roots can’t dig in and they die. 

The seed in the good soil grows up good and strong. 

The thing about parables is that they always have some sort of hook. There is something not quite right in a parable and that is meant to challenge the listener’s outlook. In the Gospels, the disciples are often left scratching their heads at the parables Jesus tells. However, that does not mean that their content was completely foreign to the audience, just the connection between the story and God. 

So in this parable, the disciples convince Jesus to reveal to them the true meaning behind it.

Jesus explains that God is the farmer sowing seeds.

The plants are people who hear the message about God.

The types of soil are their faith.

But the thing to note about this parable is not really about the fate of the seeds. 

Anybody who has done any farming would automatically know that seeds sown into anything but good soil don’t really have great odds at making it as a fully grown plant.

That fact comes as no surprise to the people to whom Jesus is speaking. 

What does come off as a bit shocking is the farmer’s actions.

This is our hook.

This is where we learn something about the nature of God.

This is where the audience discovers that God is a terrible farmer.

Now wait a minute.

That can’t be right.

Isn’t there some philosophical quandary about God and a rock so large that God couldn’t lift it, to help us demonstrate that the only real limits on God are the ones God chooses?

So how can God be terrible at something?

Well lets think about this parable.

Like I said, ANYONE who has ever farmed before would know not to throw seeds willy-nilly.

And here we inexplicably find God seeming to care for his seed like a happily careless child.

God doesn’t really seem concerned with growth models, harvest quotas, or the statistical advantages of the good soil.

God just throws caution to the wind and sows seed into every patch of soil around.

Now that is absolutely crazy.

That makes no sense.

Those numbers don’t add up, those odds are terrible.

Farmer God wastes energy, time and resources caring for seeds that have almost no chance of maturing.

And here’s the absolutely wonderful thing about God.

God isn’t us.

God doesn’t care about numbers,

or quotas

or growth models

or rates of efficiency.

God cares about creation,

for the chance of life,

for the beauty in overcoming the odds,

for the least of these.

When it comes to giving people a chance to be in relationship with God, God throws caution to the wind and sows like a careless child.

God doesn’t care where you’re coming from, what circumstances you’ve grown up in, the pressures of the world that surround you.

God loves you where you are.

God gives you a chance to grow.

God wants you to grow and mature.

God wants everyone to grow.

But here’s the thing.

Not everybody is in good soil.

Not everybody is ready.

But God knows that without the chance, 

Without that seed being sown in the rocky soil, 

No one would grow there anyway. 

So this was the central point of the sermon: What if we gave out the kind of grace that God gives out?

What if we threw caution to the wind and stopped caring about the right people to come along in order for us to show God’s grace and love?

What if we looked at everybody as a child of God,

A God that gives grace.

A God that sows seed like a child.

This all got me thinking, what else is God really terrible at?

Because odds are,

Whatever God is terrible at,

Is really good for us.

Critiquing Rob Bell

“In Bell’s theology, God is love, a love that never burns hot with anger and a love that cannot distinguish or discriminate. “Jesus’ story,” Bell says, “is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us. It is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love and it is for everybody, everywhere” (vii). Therefore, he reasons, “we cannot claim him to be ours any more than he’s anybody else’s” (152). This is tragic. It’s as if Bell wants every earthly father to love every child in the world in the exact same way. If you rob a father of his unique, specific, not-for-everyone love, you rob the children of their greatest treasure. It reminds me of the T-shirt, “Jesus Loves You. Then Again He Loves Everybody.” There’s no good news in announcing that God loves everyone in the same way just because he wants to. The good news is that in love God sent his Son to live for our lives and die for our deaths, suffering the God-forsakenness we deserved so that we might call God our God and we who trust in Christ might be his children. The sad irony is that while Bell would very much like us to know the love of God, he has taken away the very thing in which God’s love is chiefly known: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).” (16)

This is exactly the argument that Bell is writing against. You can take issue with his exegesis, you can take issue with his understanding of heaven and hell, and you can even take issue with how he portrays sin. All of that I understand and there is room to develop discussion around those issues. However, this argument, this belief, is incredible to me.

The above paragraph comes from Kevin DeYoung, out of East Lansing. He is writing an exhaustive critique of Love Wins from the perspective of “Evangelicals.” Kevin writes in his critique, that “Bell’s god is a small god, so bound by notions of radical free will that I wonder how Bell can be so confident God’s love will melt the hardest heart.” (17) 

DeYoung says that “Bell’s god” is small.

“Bell’s god” is bound.

And yet here I am reading this critique and the point that really sticks for me, is what he says right before that, that God CAN NOT love everyone. God is INCAPABLE of loving everyone. God HAS NOT THE HEART to care for everyone.

He says that “There’s no good news in announcing that God loves everyone in the same way just because he wants to.” 

That isn’t Good News?

That isn’t The Good News?

I guess I’m a little confused at this point. This is the part where DeYoung is ramping up to show how Bell’s view of the Cross and of God are perverted and weak. 

And the message I get is that God CAN’T.

Not only is God INCAPABLE here, but the message seems to be that Christians SHOULD NOT share.

After all, if the message of salvation in Christ was spread to the entire world, and accepted by the entire world, then God would be INCAPABLE of loving all the Christians.

So the Good News of Christ is that we can horde our faith.

We can hide out from the world.

God’s love is ours.

Not theirs.

This is what is disheartening to me. When I hear Christians proclaim like a spoiled child that God is not available, even for all who would wish to receive God.

I recommend that you read both Bell’s book and the critique by DeYoung, because they both have good points within them. What I have written here is not an exhaustive critique of any writing. 

I’m just pointing out where I see someone missing the point.

Here's a link to DeYoung's critique, courtesy of the GospelCoalition: Love Wins Review

Dying is Dangerous

A while ago I was sitting in my class on worship and we were talking about the images of Baptism. One of those images is death. In the original Baptism practice, full submersion, the baptized go from one state of being; as they were, to submerged, to coming out of the water anew. That practice of going under the water is meant to convey being put into the ground, the “final” act in life. However, the person is brought out of the water and back into life as something different. As we talked about this the sentence, “Dying is Dangerous” came up, and this got me thinking.

Regrettably, one of the biggest and earliest failures in my Christian understanding was to fail to answer a question from a classmate of mine. This person, seeking to challenge my faith and to explain her own problems with Christianity, asked how I could accept a faith that was bent on the concept of death. Paul clearly says, as recorded in the book of Romans: 

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:4-8)

To her these words seemed particularly negative and reminiscent of modern “cult” experiences like those in Waco, Texas during the 90’s. I hadn’t considered myself particularly knowledgeable about scripture or matters of faith when she asked, and my response was empty. I simply said that that wasn’t what was meant. Paul had been talking about something else. Christianity didn’t require its members to die. How could it? I thought of all of the church folk that I knew; they all lived fairly comfortable lives, in suburbs, in the U.S., and had been like that for a while. There was little that was actually dangerous about the faith.

Now that I revisit this conversation later in life, I come slightly more prepared. I think about what the life of a Christian was like as Paul is writing the letter to the Roman churches. 

This letter is his last. 

He is seeking help in pushing his evangelistic ministry further West. 

He is captured.

He is executed.

He never makes it West of Rome.

The church is not merely a building or a space where people gather to worship. It is literally the flesh and blood of a small group of Jews and Gentiles who have become convinced that there was something greater than a man in a carpenter that was executed in Jerusalem. 

This church is desperately trying to survive.

They are persecuted.

They are executed.

They are kicked out of their communities.

They are small.

They are weak.

There is little that is comfortable for the church during the first century and up until Constantine, when the church becomes the official religion of the state. Professing faith in Jesus of Nazareth was akin to treason. The choice for the early church was Caesar or God. Choosing Caesar meant some form of marginal existence under the empire. So what did choosing God leave someone with?

Death.

Paul goes on in Romans 6: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:9-14)

For the life that Jesus lived, a life that didn’t work with the first century understanding of law, he was executed. That life was so outside of the norm of the day that it didn’t sit right with those in power.

Not the Pharisees

and later,

Not Caesar.

To be a Christian is to follow the life of Jesus, which means accepting the earthly consequences of that life. However, the story of Jesus doesn’t end there.

Not on the Cross.

Not in the Grave.

There is one thing that Jesus and Caesar have in common. They are both conquerers. Caesar had conquered life, possessing the ability to end life on a massive scale. The story of Jesus reveals that Jesus has conquered death, possessing the ability to make death obsolete. When Paul says that we have been united with Christ in death, he is talking about being united in true life. 

Life that cannot be destroyed.

Life that cannot be conquered.

Life that Caesar does not control.

That which has separated God’s creation from God no longer has any power. God’s ultimate gift to humanity is the freedom from bondage. The first Christians were willing to put away the things that they had been doing, which had separated them from God, because those things could no longer persuade them that they were free. They were willing to follow God because they believed that while Caesar could end their immediate life, he could not have final victory. God had already claimed that prize.

Perhaps this all seems too foreign to so many today because the church in the U.S. is no longer persecuted. I believe that God’s vision for the church is one filled with things upside-down. The church is at its best when its members truly believe that professing their faith, that choosing to follow God, is a sacrifice.

When comfort is no longer found.

When flesh and blood are the church.

When we leave 99 for 1.

When we rejoice for the lost.

When we learn from the foolish.

When we embrace our enemy.

When we give all we have.

When dying is dangerous

and living is impossible.