Doghouse

I apologize ahead of time...

With Faerie tales and myths we want a clean and sure ending found in happiness and justice. This is not how reality works.

No.

On the day after a despairing Christmas you wake up at 4 a.m. and the Holy Spirit within you whispers not "good morning...aren't you a good lad" but rather an obscure passage from the Word. That, and you forgot your laundry downstairs.

He starts out with the best part "the fellowship of His sufferings," and the only reason you feel sure this is the Spirit is because no one else has the audacity to say or mention such things at 4 a.m. after a day of despair. It's a chord the Spirit has played often and in timely fashion. It's one that is both sweet relief and also elicits immediate groaning. But it cannot be denied. "the fellowship of His sufferings." And it has the swiftness and certainty of all or any news that you get out of the blue at 4 a.m. The phone rings, it's your father. "Your uncle is dead, call me back at a decent hour." That's it.

But this obscure verse about the "fellowship of His sufferings" must be unpacked. And it is quite disconcerting (I warn you ahead of time...you will not hear any of this Paul nonsense at churches named SaddleBridge or RiverGorge or WillowTreats, etc...).

No. Paul is in prison in Rome. Well at least house arrest...at any rate, it's not fun but he seems relatively unaffected because he has the decided advantage of being unaffected. He simply does not care the way you or I do. Paul is weird.

So he writes to this young gangly church in Philippi the following (this mind you after the Kenosis passage in chapter 2):

"that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead..."

Well that's just about enough for anyone...I mean all that comes before is even deeper, as is what comes after. If this guy had been a boxer he would have been Cassius Clay in his prime.

Fortunate for me it was only the phrase "fellowship of His sufferings" at 4 a.m....which gives meaning in two simple ways: 1) the sufferings are real; 2) you have fellowship with Christ within them no matter how wuss-ified they are.

And our sufferings are wuss-ified. I suffered horribly yesterday watching movies with my roomate on the couch, petting the dog, cooking good food and talking with friends on the phone. Sure I had massive anxiety...but that is in my head dammit.

Terrible, terrible suffering.

Yet Christ would say to me (and does) "welcome to the fellowship". For beneath our layers of activities there is a deep sadness and an abrupt turn within and a lostness that wishes only to be found. And thus when the Spirit comes at 4 am and speaks of a fellowship that is real you listen because it is gutteral and true and their is no falseness anywhere near it because it is too clean.

It is too clean. Too real. Who else calls at 4 a.m.?

Now, like any good American, I am not too much into the "sufferings" part. It's like an aisle at the grocery store I never want to go down. Or, eh...it's like cigarettes...I proudly don't smoke them so who needs them?

But still I find myself drawing on one all the time, or I wake up at the store and I'm in the health food aisle and nothing looks like food.

But I digress.

The sufferings are not for no purpose, which is what differentiates them from an IRS audit or a detailed cavity search at the Oakland airport.

No. What is being said is clearly insane, and I'll prove it. Take this... "That I may know Him." is the first thing that sticks out.

Imagine going to SaddleBrooks or OrangeBoughs Church and the first thing they say is "welcome to the sufferings!". Then after the praise songs, small theatrical thingy and the sermon on possibilities you are ushered (literally...they have 500 ushers not for no reason) you get lattes and croissants, followed by the beatings.

Well that just is not going to work.

I mean when Paul talked about the "fellowship of His sufferings" he surely meant you having to sit through a badly written sermon...or maybe your Americano was cold, or your kids were forced to deal with an 8 to 1 class ratio.

Now I am sermionizing. Sorry.

"That I may Know Him".

This is what makes the suffering worthwhile. Why the suffering to the knowing? I have not much idea...but it seems to work for God. Just think about it...think of all those people you know you crush others underfoot and feel no suffering at all. Do they know God? Naw...

Not a one. You wanna meet God? Go meet a woman who has lost everything and is hanging by a thread. Ask her about God and you will get a straight answer. Ask a patient dying of cancer. Ask a man at the scene of an accident. Slump down next to someone at a bus station and ask them who God is. They will tell you.

It's on your mind...and if it is not it is because you are insulated.

I wake up cold and I hear "the fellowship of His sufferings" and the saddest thing about that is every religious person I know will pity me for this, or shake their head...and I am simply on the doorstep of Knowing Him.

Sweet Jesus...Just to Know you and your fellowship.






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posted by Obi-Mac BakDon @ 4:39 AM