LETTERS
I have two letters in front of me [actually they are multiple part notes on one subject].
One is filled with agony
and unbridled anger and the other is about the niceties of understanding
this piece of theology or scripture or another.
One screams invective and
disgorges it all in the most insulting language that our Western culture
in this generation has come up with. Every vile analogy is used, every
sickeningly insulting word is used as the writer rages in his contempt
and fever—he's unhinged. This isn't bad temper; this man is consumed
with anger, an anger that has been building in him for years. Moderate
speech is out of the question; subtlety is despised. No word he knows is
vile enough, no swear word is crude or vicious or hate-filled enough to
express his scalding rage—it's a beast that feeds on his innards, a
savagery he wants to torment others with.
I know so little about him
but there's no mistaking the agony and the gnashing of his teeth. We've
had several conversations but I'm neither wise enough, knowledgeable or
influential enough to help him.
I can pray on his behalf
to the God he hates; I can only take my place among His people—a people
the writer despises with uncontrolled passion.
I can stand at a distance
[I can't enter his mind or circumstances] and sense his pain and
experience deep distress at an anguish that leads to such speech.
On my knees I've talked to
God about him and as I stumble around looking for words I see the
images of a poor soul living among the tombs, repulsed by the approach
of Jesus but down somewhere below the demonic hate there is someone who
would rejoice in freedom and would follow Jesus anywhere. [An
interesting piece of scripture that. One that's best left back where it
belongs two thousand years ago though the human condition it deals with
is exhibited before our eyes every day.]
So the other letter. It's
all about the biblical text in light of, say, "a careful reading" . It's
the kind of stuff that uses words like "conversation" or "thick"
description or preaching as "word-event" or "situational" or
"analogical" theology. I don't say it is without value. I know it
wearies me no more than the banal observations on this moral issue or
that that we hear week after blessed week from those who think they're
"preaching".
The stuff in this letter
isn't the kind of thing that on any occasion will drive us to our knees
to express our helplessness and confess we have been left speechless and
emotionally wrecked.
I don't know how to end this piece.
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