A Plastic New Year

 

“Two false images of God are particularly irresistible to many of us – mostly unconsciously. The first I’ll designate as God the negotiator and the other, God the Santa Claus. Though we have fashioned both to serve our interests, they are each other’s opposites. With one, we want to make advantageous deals. From the other, we want to get warm smiles and bagfuls of goodies. We run from one to the other. Some of their features are reminiscent of the God of Jesus Christ. But we’ve drawn these images of God mostly from two currents of the culture in which we swim – the current of hard and unforgiving economic realities, in which we exchange goods to maximize benefits, and the current of soft, even infantile, desires, in which we long to be showered with gifts simply because we exist.” 

― Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace

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Dear Kate,

The picture you see above is what I received just now from a good friend who genuinely wished me good.  I know her enough to know she meant only good, so much so that if what she wished is to come true for me she wouldn't feel bad for not having the same being realized in her own life.

You've probably received your fair share of genuine wishes, this time of year, religious ones too as if God is the one personally wishing the best and the most for you--and why would he not?  He means us good, not harm; this has to be the ultimate deal that pays off not only ultimately.

One time I was sitting in a big beautiful cafeteria of a big beautiful church, engaged with a lady in a conversation that by now I couldn't recall its initiation, but not so the caked-on face of this mother and the bare-bones one of her teenage daughter beside, the mother's animated, actually agitated at the time, and the daughter's reticent, resigned, as the mother bounced up from her seat while her arm bounced off from her side to reach the farthest with her index finger, called out one and all with a 360 around the room, proclaimed, "If these people are not trying to get something good from God, none of them would be here!"

Those were about the most honest words I've heard in a church.

She wasn't denigrating anyone, only justifying she was just like everyone, in for some good--and there's always good for the pious and pure, with virtues to invoke and match the faithfulness of God, as she personally no doubt has experienced the magic of such religious formula tried proven and true, for a church to grow so big and beautiful and her voice just the same, resounding in the chamber of every seeking heart.

I said I don't recall how the conversation started, but I do remember when it "ended" with her conclusive manifesto.  I was talking to her about the cross of Jesus and suggested maybe the whole big and beautiful thing has to do with more than getting what we think we want, what we think a good God must give.  Maybe 12 straight months of success wouldn't necessarily preclude 12 strenuous months of anxiety and depression.  Maybe 52 weeks of laughter is an anesthetic, not the best medicine.  Maybe 365 days of fun is frivolousness and forgetfulness medically induced, up the dosage every one of the 8760 hour to cancel the downs and perpetuate what feels like joy looks like luck smells like happiness but lives like plastic.

Maybe.

I turned to the daughter at the end and asked, So what do you think?  I could tell she was thinking and has been for a while before the moment.  She turned and looked at her mom, who's still the first and last man standing, and tried to say something to her, but, as I could imagine not for the first time, gave only a sigh.

Yours, Alex