Creator.Of.The.Cosmos
“Theology on the lawn is tonight!” my friend Tess said with glee.
“Billy you’re coming right?”
“Well what is it?” I replied.
“Every Thursday night we go out on the lawn to discuss theology while making smores over the fire! Its so much fun you have to come with us!”
“The grass is pretty wet last I checked Tess.”
“We curl up in blankets silly. Come on it will be fun. You’re going to love it,” she exclaimed. So we grabbed our things and walked out onto the lawn that sat in the middle of her apartment complex. A few silhouetted figures sat around a fire in the middle of the grass. We made our way out to join them as college kids began to pour out of their rooms. Quite a crowd gathered for the event and the sense of community was awesome. As we curled up into our cloud of blankets to keep warm while we chatted about the meaning of life, a typical topic at a Christian college with a bunch of twenty something’s who are living on their own for the first time. My friend Tess pointed out a very tall skinny gentleman who belonged on the water polo team. His arms and legs were built to cut through the water with grace. “That’s my friend Ben, who is leading the conversation tonight,” Tess said. As my eyes met the gentleman her fingers were pointing at I began to over hear talks of a celebration. It seems that Ben’s birthday was near on the calendars horizon. The big 21 was coming quickly and talks of how he was going to celebrate began to interrupt everyone’s theories on why we exist here on earth. I shake a few hands and do my best to remember a few names. We all sat down as the soon to be birthday boy started the conversation.
“Tonight’s topic is about Alcohol and its relation to our faith.”
The crowd begins to buzz as people begin to share their ideas with the earth. The whispers under their breath express their stance on the subject as they collect their thoughts. I have a fairly conservative view on the subject but I like to consider myself a very open minded person and never want to be closed off to hearing other people’s views. I take a moment to collect my thoughts and prepare to listen to the collection of views yet to be shared. One brave soul breaks the tension.
“Well Jesus turned water into wine! So why can’t we drink it?” The crowd begins to chuckle as I think to myself Oh boy here we go. Arguments for drinking and arguments for sobriety begin to emerge from the crowd. Scripture comes from the sobriety standpoint and seems to fall on deaf ears as it hits those who want to drink. Our soon to be birthday boy leaps in and tries to define the line between being buzzed and drunkenness. He tries to get the crowd to agree that drinking is acceptable as long as we don’t get drunk. And that being buzzed isn’t a bad thing. He attempts to get the crowd to agree with this line in the sand that he has drawn. He is trying to take the issue as far as he can without crossing this line into the realm of sin. He’s pushing the limits and with his 21st birthday on the horizon I’m not to surprised. Arguments against his line in the sand are shot down no matter how valid they may be. This theology night has an agenda. Unfortunately it wasn’t an agenda to allow all views to be heard and discussed. It wasn’t the agenda to dive into what the bible has to say about the topic. More it was the agenda to define opinions as boundaries. If scripture was used it was used to help fight for pre conceived values and concepts.
I left the night feeling angry at what had taken place. I found myself feeling self-righteous. Feeling like I was right and they were wrong. After cooling down and letting it sit for a few days I realized that I’m guilty of the same thing. I think we all have been at one point or another. Using scriptures to justify certain parts of our lives. Taking God’s words out of context to fit them into our own, just to feel safe. To feel like we on the good side of the line in the sand that we’ve drawn without asking God in the first place.
When we approach the scriptures with our own ideas first looking for God to fit into a box we are trying to draw, we run the risk of never getting to know God. We end up creating a God that works for us rather than a God that we serve. But its when we approach the scriptures with an open heart, an open spirit, and open mind and invite God to show us what he’s saying that we get to enter into a relationship with the creator of the cosmos.
When you’re in a relationship with someone you love do you ever enter into a “line in the sand conversation”? Do you ever ask that significant other how much you can flirt with others before it’s cheating? So you can creep up to that line but not cross it. So you can have your cake and eat it to. So you can get the satisfaction of cheating with out “technically” cheating… without “technically” sinning. If your asking God where the lines in the sand are to fit your agenda then I question weather or not you know the God that wrote the Bible. I question weather you love the God that fits in your box more than the Creator.Of.The.Cosmos
-Billy
