Saturday Morning Musings

I like this. Writing about the theology of Augustine, Edmund Hill said:

Augustine seems to have perceived, though he never explicitly defined this perception, that it is of the essence of Christian truth to be dramatic, to be an encounter cast in dramatic form between God revealing and man believing.

This is as opposed to the abstract statement of truths about God and man. Yes, I like it very much. For more about Edmund Hill and his thinking per Augstine, go here.

Well, if it is not a drama I don't know what it is. Read the Psalms, you'll see. Yesterday I saw a drunk man get off a bus, then saw him stagger and stumble almost under the wheels of the bus. Inches, that's how close he came. He lay in the street for a few moments while his somewhat less inebriated friends gathered around him. He seemed to be okay, and was trying to pull the I'm-alright-it's-no-big-deal thing that people do.

Drama. A drunk falling down in the gutter, that's nothing, compared to the long story that lies behind it all. Hidden. Too sad, too full of hurt, wrong choices, crushed hearts. It is the glory of Jesus to demonstrate that our story can have a different ending than we have any right to believe possible, and show us why. But before he does that, we find ourselves at a very dead end, characters in a story that's going nowhere.

"Oh who can save me from this body of death?"

I know that God can save the drunk man in the gutter. Can lift him out of the mire, put his feet on a rock, as they say. If He does, it will be another story of God revealing, and man believing. This is why our calling is ultimately to be instruments of that revelation. That's the modus operandi of the Kingdom. Jesus is new wine. Talk about that.

I'm pretty sure I need to get back to church. Subdue by chronic dissatisfaction with things as they are (in churches) and get with some folks who love God. Because the drama of God revealing and man believing unfolds in the hearing. God revealing and man believing happens by hearing. In other words, speaking broadly, it happens relationally, among a hearing and believing people.