Cnoc-a-Phobuill

Everybody is searching for something in one way or another, even Nemo’s dad went through a time of searchin, but sometimes its not enough to ‘just keep swimmin’ for we need to know where to look. Searching without some form of guidance is a bit futile, you remember in Acts 17, some of the people in Athens are searchin (unknown god) and Paul tells them where to find.

This is where you expect me to say a cheesy Christian cliché like, ‘the bible is our map for finding God’, well I’m glad to disappoint, the bible is not a guide book for finding God, and I don’t really know if we can find God in the Bible, we can read about God, see Him in Jesus, recognise his voice etc etc, but the Bible was never meant as a road map to the divine.

Sadly that is not a very neat conclusion, and we do like to have it all sewn up don’t we, you know how I mean, ‘chicken in a basket’, ‘burger in a bun’, ‘God in a box’, and yet it seems right to me to say that God does not inhabit boxes, never has, never will.

Oh yes I grant you that sometimes he parked his glory in a temple or tabernacle, but who was that for, him or his people, no God is not to be confined to man made structures, and part of this monologue is to show what happens when you put the creator of the universe in a box.

Let’s just say you could get God in a box first, how big would it need to be? Who is going to open it, or close it for that matter? For you can be sure that the one who opened it would become proud and exalt themselves as the God releaser. Come to that, who would dare open the box, you ever opened a jack in the box, the fright you get, imagine God coming out? I think Spielberg in Raiders had an idea, you know when all the Germans melt like wax when the Ark is opened, well that’s how it is; when God breaks free there is havoc and destruction.

Yet for some of us who have managed (?) to get God in a box, we now need to lift the lid, let him create a bit of havoc and destruction in our comfy mundane existence, let him wreak havoc upon our selfishness and let him wage utter destruction on our idolatry. It was Annie Dillard in ‘Teaching a Stone to Talk’ who said

"Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no-one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to pass a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ... straw hats & velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers & signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake some day & take offence, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.

I wonder if that’s how it is for you, God safely in the box and no chance of him getting out, Dillard says that ‘he may draw us out to where we can never return’, it is that which chills and excites my heart. Here’s the dilemma;

1. I don’t want to go where I cannot get back, because what if there is nothing out there.

2. I do want to go where I cannot get back because I don’t want to stay where God has long ago departed…this dilemma tears my soul and pulls at every nerve and thought.

Yet we have to, we must, we dare not refuse to let God break out in our lives, for what if, just what if, he is calling us and time is running out.

What’s your Sunday like, is that when you visit God, is it when you take him to the religious building. I once saw a picture of everyone sat in rows of seats, all with brightly coloured boxes under their chairs, the children carry theirs in little boxes. Every box is wrapped differently, and inside are a hundred million gods, each god a construct of the mind and will of the box owner, and their gods stay in their boxes, supervised and coerced into providing magical responses to the whims and moods of the owners. Year upon year of conformity has handed down more and more wrapping paper, and each god is wrapped till each owner simply becomes wrapped up in themselves because they are the gods whom they have created, and it is worship and service to self that is on the offering table.

So what does the real God look like when you put him in a box, well that’s the dangerous bit, for this is what happens when we put God in a box and take him to our temple.

You will know the story of the ark, the philistines and Dagon, the ark was captured and taken into captivity and placed in the temple of Dagon. Brueggemann tells the story (in his book ‘Ichabod toward home’, really well and some of his words mix into mine in what follows).

In 1 Samuel 4, the Philistines captured the Ark of God, we may read that passage quickly and miss the gravity of what had happened. Not only was the ark taken into bondage by God’s enemies, but YHWH himself, the great bondage breaker of the Israelites was now in captivity.

The story should wreak havoc and destruction in our safe zones of religion and theology, for we are not ready I don’t suppose for the fact that not only has the glory departed, but in fact it has gone into exile. YHWH is captured, humiliated and a trophy of his enemies, this is simply failure. We do not handle failure well do we as churches, success is the only option for the church of today, everything is measured in terms of success, numbers, mission, finance – the ethos of the world, and yet here in our text we are faced with failure in all its horror.

The narrative forces us to think and recognize that God has entered into bondage and subjection, the text begs and pleads with us to expand our theology of loss and have a robust doctrine of failure.

Yet here at the end of chapter 4 we have only loss, shock, bewilderment, abandonment and finally silence. It remains silent into the night, and now the reader and the narrator wait with fear for the beginning of chapter 5. Wait though, don’t jump into chapter 5, let the narrative speak for God’s sake, let the writer have his way and reflect on the loss and abandonment. God has gone, there is no hope, do you get it, do you see the force of the narration, the people of God were now as the nations, a godless society!!

Join me as we step into chapter 5, is there any hope, hold the loss, we need to enter into Dagon’s temple, we can only pray that we will come out the other side.

In the most ignominious, humiliating and reprehensible scenario up to that point YHWH the true God and ruler of the whole universe was presented at the feet of Dagon, and this demonic created power stood over the divine creator of the world. The Philistines delivered the God of Israel up to Ashdod. Now Ashdod was one of the five chief cities of the Philistines. The name means stronghold or fortress, some of the Anakim were found there in the days of Joshua (Jos_11:22), and the inhabitants were too strong for the Israelites at that time. It was among the towns assigned to Judah, but was not occupied by her (Jos_13:3; Jos_15:46, Jos_15:47). Ashdod was still independent in the days of Samuel. In the NT it is called Azotus, and is now a small village about 18 miles Northeast of Gaza.

More significantly this was the centre of Philistine worship, the very heart of false worship, and it is to this place that the source and object of all true worship is taken.

Five times we hear the words ‘the ark of God is captured’, the dwelling place of the almighty was in foreign hands and the cry went up ‘Ichabod’ – meaning – the glory has departed from Israel.

Walter Brueggemann comments on this passage saying ‘One can imagine the scene in the Philistine camp that night, celebration and liturgy to suit. Possibly they sang that great victory Psalm, 24 and verses 7-10 changing the words and saying

Lift up your heads, O you gates!

And be lifted up you ancient doors!

That the King of Glory may come in!

Who is the King of Glory?

Dagon strong and mighty, Dagon mighty in battle, he is the King of Glory.

The celebration ends, the military officers retire for a last brandy, the lights are turned off in the temple, and the crowds go home. Have you ever stood in a church building at night, silence, eerie still somewhat cool silence? I have heard many reports from disaster zones, Aberfan, Pakistan earthquake, avalanches, tsunami’s, mud slides, and the one common thread is that after the initial disaster there follows a period (often short, sometimes long) of stunned, hopeless silence. Is this the reaction in the Israelite camp that first night, should this be our reaction in our days of departed glory? So now the ark of God, the dwelling place of YHWH resided in a tomb, a long night of darkness, sealed and locked in the temple of this false god, in the grave.

The next day dawns and the priests return to the temple, probably ready to begin victory parade day two, they open the door and what do they see ‘Dagon fallen on his face’. Where he fell he lay, his nose pressed to the floor in a prostrate state, this was no accident, possibly this was an act of genuflection. Dagon was bowed before the ark of God, somehow in the night, we know not how; Dagon had learned that YHWH is the God before whom every knee will bow. The priests set him upright again, maybe the celebrations continued, the priests saying to each other ‘Schhh, don’t say a word, something is wrong, but remember our reputation, let us pretend all is well’….sound familiar?

The night comes again, the temple closed, darkness, silence, just YHWH and Dagon locked in a place of worship. We know how round one finished, the battle for worship was YHWH’s victory, but what about round two, who will win.

Silence again, no preview of how this will turn out, no running to the bible to see how it ends, just another long and fearful night of cold darkness. The dawn breaks, the priests rush in, ‘Oh no! Not again’, Dagon is prostrate before the Israelite deity, this deity they worship with the words ‘Hear O Israel: The Lord our God; the Lord is one!

But this time it is worse, much worse, somehow in the night Dagon had been decapitated, his head is gone, maybe trying to maintain pre-eminence in the presence of YHWH had driven Dagon crazy, but wait, its worse, for here is Dagon like some pathetic Venus de Milo, his hands have gone and his arms are broken, all his power is gone.

The Philistine god has been utterly dis-armed, made weak, helpless and impotent. This is the end of Dagon.

So that was the end for Dagon, and that will be the end for all those who think they can fit this God into a box and dictate how and when he will act, and maybe that would be no bad thing. To be dropped off at the rail station that appears on the map as ‘the end of ourselves’. It is only in the complete recognition of the end of our power, our strength, our ability to be self sufficient, that we find God.

God is not the God of boxes, and Jeff Goldblum, a chaos scientist, in the film Jurassic Park proves this. When asked how the scientists in Jurassic Park inhibited breeding in the park the biologists said that only males had been created. Later on in the film we see egg shells in the park, proving Goldblum’s theory, that life will find a way. In the film life broke out and chaos ensued, and in the blockbusting film of your life, God desires to break out. Jesus will create chaos as he storms through the avenues and alleyways of safety that we have kept off limits. Yet his chaos is ordered in purpose, for he will bring to that life, a peace, out of the chaos he brings shalom, that Hebrew word that encompasses peace, salvation and justice.

I cannot recall how many times I thought I have had Jesus all sussed out, I believe I know how he operates, only for him to go and do something, in the gospels and out of them, that just messes with my head and what I have allowed him to do. You remember the disciples in Samaria, Jesus is tired and he sends them of to Burger King to get some chicken nuggets and one of those headache creating milkshake, only for them to come back and find him alone with a Samarian woman – Jesus stop it! – You cannot do that!

The futile cry goes up…this is not the Jesus we signed up for, I wanted the Jesus that danced on the puppet strings – you know the one I mean…the Jesus in a box that we try to give to sinners – you know the one with the offer on the box ‘get this Jesus and receive a plan for your life’

Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know…but the Jesus I got never came in a box, he just burst into my life. His appearance can perplex us, causing us to cry out ‘why did he not just stay in the box, why will he not be who we want him to be’ – Its almost as if mankind cries up to heaven with the vain words “I made you God, now do what I want”, conform to my will we cry, and yet this God we have so wrapped up and fitted to our interpretation of scripture moves and blows where he will, he changes his mind as it suits him, he has mercy on whom he chooses, he eats with lepers and spends the night with prostitutes, he heals on the Sabbath.

The real danger with having God in a box is that we will fail to recognise where he is working, and therefore we will miss the wind of the spirit…we will sit and sit and wait, and all the while our sails will be limp and we will fail to move. Where he does work we will not attribute it to him, we will say it is not his work, and we will say in our hearts, this is the work of the evil one, and we will place ourselves in deep exclusion.

I read of a group in Bournemouth opening one of those old gothic churches up to night clubbers, a bit of music being spun by a DJ, some candles and moody lights, and a prayer board. Between 10pm and 3am, 200 people came and went, but for those people in Bournemouth, in the dark of night, God had broken free, may He break free in my life.

# posted by Dave Lynch @ 2:47 PM