(continuation. Also, please note, most of what I say i do not believe; I'm just explaining the logic of the view I find myself holding, even though I think they are probably wrong. I'm just trying to be honest and face the assumptions I (and probably others) sometimes imbibe)
Some might say intimacy with God is what our Christian life is all about, but that seems
too self centered. I don’t exist just to
forget everyone or just use them to get closer to God. Being like Jesus as the
goal seems too unrelational. While we may
need relationship with God (addressing and attending to God himself), the
goal—taking on some character—is not relational.
Maybe the goal isn’t singular. Maybe it is two-fold. That seems to be the wisdom behind the
wesminster confession’s statement that the chief end of man is to a) glorify
God, and b) enjoy him forever.[1] To my mind, the marriage image given in
scripture of our relationship with God suggests the two-fold activity of giving
and receiving from God. We love God
through worship and service and through how we love eachother; we receive from
God by enjoying, savoring, thanking (this is getting into worship) and growing.
OK. So, maybe the
goal is giving and receiving, living in marriage with God through worship,
obedience,receiving, etc. This just
changes my inquiry and shows that I was never interested in the goal of the christian life in the first place. Rather, I just wanted to know, what is the life with which God is pleased? What is the life which he praises? What is the life that matters, is great, that
is most honored, that is above?
Is there
a problem with this question? Does it
show that I am still trying to gain social superiority (in the kingdom),
respect, a satisfaction in some affirmation, to be the best? I want to be in first place, or at least the
upper level (elite), in the kingdom.
For the God for whom everything is mission, and whose central
preoccupation is redemption of the world, it tends to seem that he wants me to
serve that mission, and values me in accord with how well a role I play in that
mission story. So, the key to praise and
value is performance of mission. And, as ministry tends to refer to public tasks, I thus need to accomplish something
great in the sphere. These are the
people some of us praise in the Christian community: brilliant thought-leaders, heads
of amazing ministry organizations, etc. We
praise world-shapers. That’s the measure
of stature, significance, value, honor, praise, etc in the kingdom.
The other God I believe in, besides the God for whom mission is everything, is the God for whom the church is everything. He cares about how much or how well people participate in serving this new community, the church. For both these gods, marriage is nothing. A husband (or father) (in his husbanding and fathering) is no world-shaper. His only value is in the hope of a spiritual assist. And nobody thinks that having a fun day with your wife or kids is ministry to the church.
We can be great world shapers without being great lovers and worshippers of God. And we can be great world changers for whom everything, including our love and worship of God, is for being great world changers. But what is the life with which God praises most? These world changers are great in our eyes for what they have done, but are they great in God's eyes, and if so, why? What are we to be growing towards as Christians? I’m so hungry for praise I can’t, like most
do, pursue it on the side and be content with happiness as my main dish.
Maybe this is all a problem of trying to find identity and worth in the church, rather than in God, or in God as a servant, whose exellence is in his work, rathther than as a wife or son, whose excelence is in love, affective (subjective) and enacted (obedience). I don't know.
[1]
Aside: ugh, I hate academics. I've put
the Westminster Confession (without reading it) into the box of naieve,
unenlightened, overly simplistic hermeneutics (they didn't read the Bible historically, but instead with that the more timeless, systematic, abstract, dejudiasized,
protestant scholasticism approach). Its not
of enduring value because it’s the product of its times. Unlike our theology today…