Blasphemy



Dear Eugene,

Last night my heart was disturbed.  A Leonard Cohen song gave her solace and she finally gave in and gave way.

She gave in to give way to The Way.

"Every time someone tells a story, and tells it well, the gospel is served," you once said. "I think the key word (...) is served.  I didn't mean (the gospel) is proclaimed every time someone tells a story; (I mean) it is served. When stories are told people begin to get a sense that life has value and meaning, and that they are significant. And then they start looking for the significance, 'Where's the meaning?' 'Where can I find significance?' But until people begin to realize their embededness in creation, and in suffering, that they aren't just accidents along the way, they really don't hear the gospel story. So, the important word is served."

Again I cried last night when I heard the lines:

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

Back in 2010 after k.d. lang sang Cohen's "Hallelujah" to a global audience at the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremony, at church I overheard a young pastor trying to explain to an older one: "Don't fall for it; that song isn't really about praising God...more like blasphemy."  And the older pastor replied, "Oh...I see...secular stuff, using God's name in vain!"

I wonder if the pastors had since have a chance to come around preaching on the Psalms, in particular Psalm 44:
13-16 You made people on the street,
    urchins, poke fun and call us names.
You made us a joke among the godless,
    a cheap joke among the rabble.
Every day I’m up against it,
    my nose rubbed in my shame—
Gossip and ridicule fill the air,
    people out to get me crowd the street.
17-19 All this came down on us,
    and we’ve done nothing to deserve it.
We never betrayed your Covenant: our hearts
    were never false, our feet never left your path.
Do we deserve torture in a den of jackals?
    or lockup in a black hole?
20-22 If we had forgotten to pray to our God
    or made fools of ourselves with store-bought gods,
Wouldn’t God have figured this out?
    We can’t hide things from him.
No, you decided to make us martyrs,
    lambs assigned for sacrifice each day.
23-26 Get up, God! Are you going to sleep all day?
    Wake up! Don’t you care what happens to us?
Why do you bury your face in the pillow?
    Why pretend things are just fine with us?
And here we are—flat on our faces in the dirt,
    held down with a boot on our necks.
Get up and come to our rescue.
    If you love us so much, Help us!

The Bible is full of blasphemy, Amen.  If not, I wouldn't read a word of it.  I didn't come for religion, and I don't read gospel tracts.

We come for healing.  We cry for answers.  We are overwhelmed with grief.  "All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us."

Who are we to complain that we do not deserve the cruelty...of a hurricane, a car accident, a divorce, a loss of wallet?

A loss of an only child?

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

If we see our Father as a bloodthirsty pagan demigod, then of course "atonement" can only mean Christ is a blood payment to set the record straight.  We can send in our lawyer for that one, the accused and the judge don't even need to meet, let alone having a "loving relationship."  And by that logic, we really have no ground to complain.  It really is blasphemy to say none of us deserves the cruelty, whatever has become of us.

We church people might say we don't deserve God's grace but everyday we act like God owes us ever more.  My will be done and if you would excuse me I might get to yours later.  Later.  Not today.  Apparently the blood of the sacrificial Lamb is not nearly enough to please the very wrathful Santa Claus and for us to get what is justifiably entitled to us.

We live blasphemous, dishonest life.

Praying for mercy (even if in arbitrary space), Alex

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