Preventing Grace
Whatever the day is, I woke from a stupor to the sound of ice smacking against the window and several ridiculous youtube clips and terrible tweetings, even before I could grope my way to the Holy Scriptures. I thought the decent and right thing would be to share them with you.
Thing One
First up, something so wonderful and catchy I’ve been listening to it for a whole day. This segues into my jean rant of Wednesday. These nice ladies don’t have time for that kind of thing. Jeans are evil and bad, along with my favorite version of the English bible. Also, their voices are pretty great. It is a pleasure to hear them. Give it a listen: (the link keeps getting broken, so if you want to just click and listen, here it is–https://twitter.com/FakeSermon/status/1224523993866276870?s=20&fbclid=IwAR2Am1PkKB_3WOHkJ26YI0J5cMMzMfhTtBbo4IUFixGrnsO1HuRmtouosB8
I will just say, though, that having to go to church to hear constantly hear about what I, or anyone, should be wearing, is just as exhausting as constantly being lectured about it by the JLos of the world. I don’t know about you, and I don’t want to assume anything, and actually, as I try to put words around it I can see how wrong I am, but when I go to church, I really do want the Bible to be opened by the preacher and to be able to see and hear about what it–the Bible–says. I want the exegesis to be obvious enough that I know the preacher isn’t playing fast and loose with the text. I want the text of the sermon itself to hang together in some kind of narrative shape. I don’t really want three points and a poem and a puppy. I don’t want the preacher to riff or work off “notes.” I want to be able to see how the biblical text works, how it is connected to the rest of scripture, how the preacher came by the interpretation under view. I want the preacher to have studied, and to be confident about the truth being proclaimed. And then, also, I want the music on Sunday morning to be about Jesus. I know, that is kind of crazy, but I’m a crazy kind of lady–a Crazy Church Lady–and if I show up and am lectured about what you think I should be wearing and your grandma’s ye olde time religion, I’m going to flip my lid. Truly, the crazy can go in all the directions.
Thing Two
Ok, this isn’t exactly ridiculous–although it is a little–and Paul Washer, from all that I’ve heard, is a faithful preacher who doesn’t just sound off about his favorite pet issues all the time. And I’m pretty sure that he’s been super helpful to lots of people. That said, this clip is…well, watch it first:
https://twitter.com/mochamyke/status/1225094272841588738?s=20
This, truly, is why I am Anglican. My feelings, my sense of God’s presence, THANK HEAVEN, is not the measure of God’s real presence and work in my life. I can go to church for the whole tangled mess of reasons any of us go–we want to, we know we should, we feel guilty, we feel sad, we feel happy, we don’t even have feelings–and stand and sit and kneel in the pew, holding a book or a bulletin or something, and I open my mouth, and my mind, and say all the prayers, and listen to the bible, and then go forward for communion, and it doesn’t really matter if I totally get it all the time. The ground of my salvation is all in God’s hands and his work, and not in my feelings about it. If I have genuinely confessed my sins and entrusted myself to Jesus–which I can do no matter what my feelings are–I am saved. I do not need to stay up all night crying trying to get a feeling about anything.
Thing Three
Just to spread the love around, here is something tragic on the other end of the spectrum, someone who feels all God’s love, but is so confused, one wonders whence commeth all the happy feelings:
Having observed the internet for the last few days, apparently, someone said something unkind about marrying a single mother. Don’t do it, they advised. I’m not actually sure because I didn’t see the original tweet, only all the subtweets about how marrying a single mother is the best thing ever. I don’t really want to get into that. People are single and end up being mothers for a lot of different reasons, and also, there are a lot of reasons to get married or not get married. But I am gonna go ahead and say that marrying this particular woman should cause a hefty “check in your spirit,” no matter who you are, because the things that she believes about sex and Jesus are heretical and bad, and that even though she claims to be a Christian, she manifestly is not one.
Thing Four
This is pretty great:
Likelihood of Nancy Pelosi praying for Trump is about the same as the likelihood of Satan running around quoting the Scriptures. https://t.co/rdz7UdOEvu
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 6, 2020
Matt linked it and said this, “This is what you get when your dad makes Paula White his religious advisor.” I suppose no one wants to be the one to tell him that Satan quotes the Bible all the time. Like, if you know anything about Satan, you know that he knows the Bible better than you do. Like, the only person who knows the Bible better than Satan is Jesus, who would not be excited about…oh never mind.
Thing Five
I can’t help myself, I wasn’t going to do IFB Clips twice, but this is so fantastic:
https://twitter.com/FakeSermon/status/1225053835640610816?s=20
I mean, I’m speechless. You didn’t think it could happen but it did!
Thing Six
Have I not tortured you enough? Here is Rachel Hollis’ Morning Routine. Those nails, oof.
Thing Seven
And then, because you’ve suffered enough, here is Trollop on young preachers:
It often surprises us that very young men can muster courage to preach for the first time to a strange congregation. Men who are as yet but little more than boys, who have but just left what indeed we may not call a school, but a seminary intended for their tuition as scholars, whose thoughts have been mostly of boating, cricketing, and wine-parties, ascend a rostrum high above the heads of the submissive crowd, not that they may read God’s word to those below, but that they may preach their own word for the edification of their hearers. It seems strange to us that they are not stricken dumb by the new and awful solemnity of their position. ‘How am I, just turned twenty-three, who have never yet passed ten thoughtful days since the power of thought first came to me, how am I to instruct these greybeards who, with the weary thinking of so many years, have approached so near the grave? Can I teach them their duty? Can I explain to them that which I so imperfectly understand, that which years of study may have made so plain to them? Has my newly acquired privilege as one of God’s ministers imparted to me as yet any fitness for the wonderful work of a preacher?’ It must be supposed that such ideas do occur to young clergymen, and yet they overcome, apparently with ease, this difficulty which to us appears to be all but insurmountable.
[Lot’s of weird formatting and tech issues this morning. Sorry!]
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