Deconstruction

I have been toying with an idea lately that is related to my theological deconstruction journey. Should you read blog entry number one, you will catch a glimpse of the beginning of this journey. I confess I have struggled with how to present this idea. I promise it is not at all conventional. As a matter of fact, it goes against everything I was taught in Sunday School, church, bible college and seminary. While reading scripture, it is made quite clear that sometimes the God of the bible is portrayed as very loving. Sometimes this same God is depicted as very angry and vengeful. (Is it possible that we are projecting our own vengeance on to a loving God?) Growing up in church, hearing of this vengeful, angry God, taught me to be afraid of God rather than experiencing the Love of God. 

As I have reflected on my journey, the thought occurred to me that I have been in the process of disassembling a structure much like a house. As I started with the roof, I took off the shingles one at a time. There were a few people that noticed what I was doing but it did not cause much of a stir. Once the rafters were exposed, I began to take them down one at a time as well. Of course, this exposure left the house vulnerable to the elements like wind, rain, heat, cold and light. Because this structure represented my belief system, there were those who felt that I had turned to “the dark side” so to speak. With your imagination perhaps you can sense the house coming down as you read the various blog entries I have submitted.

Remember, this is a reflection. I have often indicated that those reading my entries should not take my word for what I share. Based upon my spiritual experiences with the Numinous however, I am personally convinced that God does exist and there is a Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ is the anointed Messiah. When I discovered that each of us were “born from above” and salvation, if you want to use that word, is an awakening to our spiritual birth or beginning in a God of Love, all of a sudden I began to recognize just how blind I have been to Truth. As I think about it, the structure I have been taking apart has now reached the foundation. I’m not writing this to convince anyone that what is suggested here is anyone else’s truth. Perhaps something written here could possibly raise an ounce of curiosity for them to step off into the invisible by asking the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth in their journey. 

As I walk down this path, I have come face to face with hearing God tell me to continue looking into that mirror mentioned in James the first chapter until I see what God sees. I thought God was wanting me to see what God sees in me. Talk about being near sighted. Then it dawned on me that to see what a God of Love sees is to see everyone in Love’s Light. I am becoming increasingly aware that scripture often makes God out to be the bad guy. Written by sinful mankind, the scripture tends to interweave our own shortcomings and trespasses into some of these passages while looking for a god who will justify our selfish actions that are not at all loving.

I am convinced that God IS Love. Any bible passage that portrays God any other way does not tell the truth about God. I have referenced Jeremiah 1:5 often in other entries. Basically it says that God knew us before he formed us in our mother’s womb. I would like to emphasize the word “knew.” In the sermon Jesus preached recorded in Matthew’s gospel often called “the sermon on the mount” it is reported that he said not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Obviously there were those who would come seeking to enter the kingdom with a kind of attitude that their entrance would be of their own doing, perhaps possessing a self confidence that because of what they had performed gave them some kind of right to enter. It goes on to report that God will say “depart from me you who work iniquity, for I never ‘knew’ you.” If God knew us before he formed us, how does this same God report that he never knew us? I have given this much thought. Here is where I am presently. Being that God IS Love the only thing that was foreign to God in this person coming to enter the kingdom was his or her selfish mindset. I am suggesting that what was being cast out was not the person but rather the egoistic mindset that works iniquity and seems to plague us all.  

Being this is a reflection, I am not suggesting to the reader how they are to believe. What I am sharing here are my own questions related to other conversation others have written that somehow found their way into a book we recognize as scripture. In the same sermon it is reported Jesus saying to not give that which is holy unto the dogs neither cast your bread before swine. Yet there is an incident where a gentile woman comes begging to Jesus requesting that her daughter be healed. Jesus says to her that it is not lawful to give the children’s bread to the dogs. To which she responds, “true, yet the little dogs eat the scraps that fall from the children’s table.” The result is that Jesus healed her daughter. Did Jesus go against his own sermon? 

What I am discovering in this deconstruction is perhaps similar to the journeys  of those who have gone before me. I wonder if the gospel writers were given the opportunity to edit their writings what would they change or would they even recognize their writings. How much editing has already occurred since these writings were first written? I can testify that as I live my life what I believed thirty years ago is not the same as today. I cannot emphasize enough the absolute essentialness of the Holy Spirit’s ability to hover over our chaos to bring about our awareness of the Light and Love that God has placed within each of us. We all are made in the image and likeness of our Loving Creator-God. Again I say, don’t take my word for it. Ask the Spirit. Take the chance that in asking you will receive!