jacob tucker

I went to an arts and jazz festival a few weekends ago and it was amazing. It had the kind of food that you tell people about for years (“I had Alaskan reindeer sausage one time…”). It had the kind of music that hits you in the soul (if you’ve never heard the tune “Hip Pickles” you know what to do as soon as you’re done reading this). As I sat underneath the shade of an oak tree, in the warmth an early Texas spring, enjoying all this fantastic artistic creativity, I noticed that I was surrounded by all kinds of different people.

  Some of them had long hair on one side of their head and short hair on the other. Others had more hair coming out of their ears than on their head. Some had tattoos on their necks and some had piercings through their noses. A few looked like they were from the IT department and had come to take a look at your modem. Some were up dancing and others were lying down on blankets on the grass. One guy had at least half a dozen empty bottles of Shiner Bock under his chair before the sun had set.

  When I take the time to notice all the people around me, I’m reminded of how creative God is. But sometimes I wonder, having created all these different kinds of people, does God really expect us to all believe the same things? Is there really just one way we’re supposed to think about the issues we’re confronted with? And my mind eventually wanders to the question of what kind of God is this God?

  When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me,” what did he mean by that?

  I’ve often heard this verse quoted as an attempt to prove there’s only one way to avoid going to the wrong place when you die. So you better believe certain things, think a particular way, or take specific positions on certain issues.       

  However, when I keep reading after that verse in John 14 what I think Jesus is really saying is if you want to know what kind of God this God is, look at me.  

  And when I look at Jesus I see someone who also said, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

  Quick side note: The word “yoke” is a Jewish term that means interpretation or way of seeing things.

  All who are weary and burdened. What might they be weary and burdened from?

  There are other places where Jesus describes the religious elite of that time as burdening the people. Among other things, he might be saying come to me those who are weary and burdened from certain religious people taking it upon themselves to decide who’s in and who’s out. Who give only one narrow, exclusivist way to think about all the relevant issues of the times. Who describe God as all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing, all-everything and yet ironically limit how God’s creation should exist.

  Maybe some of the people I saw at the arts and jazz festival were weary and burdened of this kind of way of seeing things. Jesus describes his way of seeing things as easy, which I think leaves room for our differences. He describes himself as gentle and humble in heart, which sounds to me like an approach to recognizing these differences.

  And if he describes himself this way, he describes God this way.

Another Easter has come and gone.

  “Jesus died for you!”

  I’ve heard it said most of my life.

  “He died for your sins!”

  It’s bellowed in sanctuaries across the globe.

  “He was offered as the ultimate sacrifice!”

  And even after participating in another Lenten season, I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding this. When I was younger I just accepted it, but over the years the more I’ve thought about it, the more it gets unwrapped from around my mind. The more I press and dig deep and scrutinize, the more I come up empty.

  Why did Jesus have to die a brutal death on a cross?

  I don’t know.

  But these past forty days I’ve been reminded that when Jesus walked the earth in the flesh, the people he came in contact with had certain perspectives from what they had seen and heard and for some of them, read.

  Their perspective on power and authority was probably one that had to do with force. Likely even violence. Their understanding of how to have a kingdom might have had something to do with invading someone else’s land and disturbing their way of life. Their idea of reigning could have been associated with oppression and forced submission.

  They had been passed down stories about the Egyptians and Assyrians and Alexander and others. Most of them had experienced the Romans.

  And then Jesus came along. He healed people of their wounds, cured their illnesses, and even raised some from the dead. If anybody could have successfully started a kingdom by way of force, it would no doubt be someone that could command an undefeatable army.

  And yet, Jesus let others defeat him. He was voluntarily oppressed and beaten up and on the receiving end of unthinkable violence. And in the midst of it, he forgave.

  His idea of kingdom was counterintuitive. It wasn’t at all how his followers wanted it to go down.

  But his way is different.

  And maybe that’s why I have such a hard time wrapping my mind around “Jesus died for you.”

We all experience trials at some time or other. In our weakest moments we often ask why. And if you’re a person somewhere on the spectrum of faith this sometimes leads to the question of why a loving God would allow people to suffer.

  It comes up in church settings from time to time. Sometimes it’s addressed authoritatively from the pulpit. Other times it’s simply talked about between two people in hushed tones over coffee. It’s often brought up somewhere in between – Sunday school, small group, book study – as a rabbit trail chased during a different topic entirely.

  It’s been blogged about, tweeted about, and Facebook statused about probably ever since those things have existed.

  But because we’ve all experienced suffering at some level, we all have something to say about it. And we want answers to that nagging why question.

  Those answers can be all over the map, but one I’ve heard repeatedly over the years is that God allows us to suffer so that we’ll be drawn closer to him. God wants us to be close to him so he puts suffering in our lives to make us trust and depend on him fully during it, thereby bringing about that closeness.

  When I first heard this, I probably nodded my head. It sounds nice. It’s a neat little well-crafted answer. It’s put in a perfectly rectangular box with pretty wrapping paper, tied up with a thin ribbon and a brightly colored bow on top. It’s ready to give to anyone who has the question. And we all like presents.

  The problem for me was that over time this created a vision of God that looked like a movie villain sitting in a tall leather chair with his arms extended out on the armrests looking at a wall of TV screens from surveillance cameras. He then turns to his assistant and says, “They don’t revere me enough. Let’s ration their food. Then they’ll be forced to turn to me for help.”

  “Yes boss.”

  As I’ve learned more about the culture and context of the time and place in history when the Bible was being written, this idea of God allowing suffering to make us closer to him sounded more like an Egyptian pharaoh to me. Or a first century Roman Caesar.  

  It didn’t really sound that much like Jesus.

  If when you go through trials that make you suffer you lean into God and feel closer to God as a result, that’s a wonderful response to the situation. I’m just not sure God is causing you to suffer for that purpose.

  So why do we go through these trials and suffer?

  I don’t know.

  That’s the best answer I can come up with.

  I don’t know.

  Maybe a more helpful response to one of life’s biggest questions is actually another question.

  What now?

  Something has happened that’s made me suffer, so what now? How will this shape me?

  This makes me think of one of the guys who hung out with Jesus and later wrote a short book. His name was James, and most think he was even one of Jesus’ brothers. In his book he says when you go through trials that cause you to suffer think of it as joy because it will create perseverance. And this perseverance will make you complete. He doesn’t answer why it happens. He doesn’t even say that God allows it to happen. He just says it happens and this is how it can shape you.

In the church I grew up, there was an older lady that I was afraid of. I didn't see her talk to very many people and hardly anyone talked to her. Her face had hardened into a scowl that seemed to say, “Don’t cross me if you know what’s good for you.”

  She was the type that sat in the same spot every Sunday. I think the wooden pew eventually took the shape of her body. Her spot was near the aisle so that she could get in and out more easily. It wasn't all that close to anybody. Someone might sit in the pew in front or behind her. There was usually someone who sat on the same pew but more toward the middle, far enough away that they would have to stand up and take a few steps to hand her the offering plate. Aside from her husband, nobody sat right next to her and after he died she sat there alone.

  During the obligatory “turn and greet those around you” time every Sunday she didn't move. She looked straight forward, stone cold, statuesque. If anybody wanted to greet her and be greeted by her they would have to do the initiating. I never did. I stayed away.

  But my brother was different. Every Sunday he would make his way across the church, stepping over other people, in and out of aisles, sometimes all the way around the entire set of pews to get to her. He would not only greet her, but give her a hug. And that face of hers that appeared to be frozen into a permanent frown would slowly light up into a smile that pronounced the creases around her cheeks and eyes.

  My brother has autism and one of the blessings of his disability is that he doesn't see others the way most of us do. He doesn't see anyone as having the potential to do something bad. He doesn't hold this expectation that he could ever be wronged by another person. He’s never met anyone that he feels is undeserving of a hug. He somehow sees past anything negative in people and zeroes in on whatever good there is deep inside. As a result, he shows them love.

  Many of us have been beaten down with a view of God that points out everything we’ve ever done wrong. We’ve been told that we’re depraved and unworthy. That our sin has caused God to be distant, separated, disappointed. Some have even said that God is tired of us, disgusted by us, and remind us of God’s all-powerful wrath that could easily wipe us all from existence. But if we say the right prayer and behave the right way maybe God will forgive us. For now.

  I actually think that God sees us more like my brother. I don’t think God sees us for what we aren’t but for who we are. When I read the Bible I keep coming across passages where the writers are trying to tell their audience how much God actually likes them. That they don’t have to be afraid. That this walking on eggshells kind of relationship with the divine doesn’t have to go on. That contrary to whatever ideas they might have had before, they’re actually in good standing with their creator. At times it sounds like the people then had the same problem that we do now. They, like us, may have been given this view of a God that doesn’t really love unconditionally. Some of us are in the process of recovering from that.

  Because when you first know that you’re loved unconditionally, everything else seems to fall into place.

  Eventually that older lady from church had to come in on a walker. She sat down in her spot a little more slowly. My brother had to hug her a little more gently. The smile on her face came with a little more effort, until one Sunday when her spot remained open.

  My brother doesn’t show a lot of emotion, but I could tell he was sad in his own way when he found out she was gone. There was a special kind of love there, one that most of us didn’t understand. One that didn’t fit into some kind of easily explained cause and effect equation.

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when someone, after having their life threatened by another but then being spared, actually ends up with positive feelings toward the person who did the threatening. They see not being fatally harmed as an act of compassion.  

  It’s a term most often used in hostage situations in which the victims, upon realizing that their captors will let them live, in an extreme state of relief, become emotionally attached to the people holding them hostage.

  It gets its name from a situation that happened in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973 where four bank employees were held hostage for six days by two ex-convicts who were trying to rob the bank. The ex-convicts threatened the lives of the bankers, but ultimately decided not to harm them, so the bankers developed warm feelings toward them, resisted rescue and even defended them in court.

  Stockholm syndrome can be summed up like this: because someone could have hurt you but decided not to, you develop an irrational form of love for them.

  So what does any of this have to do with a blog about thoughts on god?

  Because I think that sometimes the message of Jesus is communicated like that.

  Have you ever been given you the idea that we’re so depraved, so hopelessly sinful, so utterly terrible that we all deserve to suffer eternal torment in hell, but fortunately God decided to send Jesus and if we just confess how horrible we and believe in him, he’ll save us?   

  Or maybe you’ve been told that to understand how great God is, you have to first understand how bad you are.

  Maybe you’ve seen what I saw on the bulletin of a church I visited once:

  Interested in being saved?

  ADMIT YOU ARE A SINNER AND DESERVING OF GOD’S WRATH!

  And this type of message is supposed to make us fall in love with Jesus?

  Doesn’t that just make us all have a bit of Stockholm syndrome?

  It was summed up well in a cartoon that Brian Zahnd posted on twitter recently:

 His tweet that accompanied it read, “We need a better gospel than this. We have a better gospel than this!”

When I was in 8th grade my youth group went to a weekend conference. If you’ve ever been to one of these you know it’s like a mini-church camp. The music is always led by an awesome Christian rock band that gets you up on your feet, clapping your hands, and jumping up and down. The speaker has your undivided attention on every word and says something so relevant to your life that it’s like he or she is speaking only to you.

  And some combination of these things makes you want to change everything about your life from that point forward.

  The one my youth group went to was no exception. Part of the speaker’s message was about the secularization of society and how as Christians we needed to stand up for what we believe in.

  “Yes!” I thought. “We have to take a stand! We have to do whatever it takes and not back down!”  

  But on our way back to the hotel after one of the worship sessions, as he was driving our metallic blue 15-passenger church van with “First Baptist…” painted in black script on the side, our youth minister said something I’ll always remember.

  “If you work in a place that won’t let you display a cross on your desk, I don’t think you should quit your job.”

  I’ll always remember this because my reaction was, “You mean we can disagree with something the pastor says?”

  You may be thinking, “Well…yeah…of course it’s okay to disagree….”

  But in the evangelical youth subculture we held these pastors that we traveled so many miles to hear with such reverence that disagreeing with anything they said didn’t seem like an option. And they spoke with such authority, backing everything up with the word of God, in essence proving that what they were saying was true, that it wasn’t even considered.

  And these qualities are appealing in those we look up to from afar, right? Someone that can give us all right the answers. Without a shred of doubt. Tell us exactly how to think about an issue and what to do in the face of it.

  We can just take it in, apply it to our lives, and in every situation make the right choice or do the right thing. This sounds pretty great in the midst of the whirlwind that is adolescence. On the surface it doesn’t sound too bad to adults either.

  But when a friend comes to you and says that she can feel her marriage falling apart, does she want you to tell her exactly what to do to fix it?

  Or maybe you have a colleague that tells you how stressed he is between doing his job well, relating to his coming of age kids, taking care of his aging parents, and still showing his wife that he cares about their marriage. Is your best response three steps to handling all those stresses successfully?

  Maybe you’ve gone to someone at a crossroads of your own and they’ve said, “I think you should quit your job, go back to college, get a better job, buy a house and start a family. Good luck!”

  Was that what you needed? Or do we all just need to know that someone cares about us, loves us, and is there for us?

  Sometimes the best message leaves room for us to think about what it says about God and what that looks like in our lives and the lives of those around us.

  And maybe sometimes it’s that God cares about us, loves us, and is right here.

A couple of years ago I experienced some cognitive dissonance because I realized my thoughts on God and the Bible and faith were on a much different road than that of most Christians around me, the church I was in, and the general perspective I got growing up in the church.

  I had been veering that way for a while, but it was then that I finally took the exit only to look around and not see any other drivers. It’s then that you feel like maybe you made a mistake and are now lost and second guessing starts to happen.

  So I went on a search for other people, thought-leaders, writers, anyone who believed in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob but was maybe traveling somewhere on the same road I was, asking some of the same questions.

  At one point I stumbled across Rachel Held Evans. I started reading her blog and other articles she’d written. Then I read her first book Evolving in Monkeytown. Today she gave a talk on her second book A Year of Biblical Womanhood at Hardin Simmons University and I got to meet her.

The first time I ever tried the whole church search thing I was 22 and had just moved to a new city for grad school.

  One of the first churches I visited seemed pretty similar to the one I had grown up in – same name just a different town. I walked in, found a pew near the back and sat near the aisle. Not too close to anybody, but not too isolated so as to be easily spotted like an island on Google Earth.

  The music part of the service reflected the common problem of bridging the gap between a church steeped in tradition and moving forward into modernity. There was a choir and piano and small orchestra, but also guitars, drums, and keyboards. They did a mix of early 2000s worship songs in the vein of “In Christ Alone” interspersed with old hymns done in a contemporary style like “Amazing Grace.”

  There was, of course, a choir and orchestra special featuring a soloist during the offering just before the sermon.

  Then the pastor came up and announced that they were starting a sermon series on the family. He said that for the next several weeks they would be talking about being a godly husband and father, wife and mother, including childhood and adolescence and how to have this family dynamic in a Christ-centered way. 

  For some reason I pictured a nuclear suburban American family with 2.5 kids, a dog, and a minivan that lived in a cookie cutter housing authority neighborhood.

  Then he mentioned the caveat that it might not pertain to everybody every Sunday, but that we could get something out of it for that point in our lives when it would be applicable.

  At first I just thought about me, how I was 22, in grad school, with a girlfriend but not engaged, living a dumpster fire apartment with a friend from high school. We had just bought a black sheet at Walmart and hung it over the bedroom window with tacks so the street light wouldn’t shine in at night.

  And maybe I was being selfish and most of the congregation that day was in a traditional family or would be. But maybe there was someone there who was going to be single their whole life. Maybe there was someone who had just been divorced. Maybe there was a single mother or even a single father. Maybe there was a woman with young children who had just escaped an abusive husband and was living in a shelter. Maybe there was someone who was afraid they would never be allowed to get married and have a family.

  I didn’t know anybody else in this church, but I thought about Jesus’ teaching. And I remembered stories about how he was surrounded by widows and children. Single men and women. Lepers, people who were demon possessed, blind, handicapped, marginalized outcasts. Untouchables. Unlovables. And wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers.

  And his teaching was for all of them.

  I think there are appropriate venues to address things like the family. And I’m not just talking about the topic a sermon series.

If you’ve ever been asked this question you know the mixed bag of emotions that are conjured up before you can even utter a response.

  Annoyance. Nervousness. Pressure. Stress. Apathy.

  If the answer to the question is “No” you might feel like you have to prove you've at least been looking.

  If you’re like me, you might end up sounding like George Costanza in the unemployment office:

  “I’ve walked in and out of so many…there was one that I was so close to joining…uh….Vandelay Church….”

  And then, if you’re even more like me, fumbling, trying to justify yourself, with your words ahead your thoughts you might utter:  

  “It was just…um…a little too….well…conservative.”

  This while speaking to a CHL holding registered Republican.

  Painfully awkward.

  Why are they asking anyway?

  Maybe they’re keeping tabs on you to make sure you still want to be a churchgoer. Maybe they perceive you as church-homeless and are uncomfortable with that because, you know, everybody should have a church.

  Or maybe this person has been there herself and is praying for you.

  What if all of us, whether the entrenched churchgoer who’s looking for more ministries to volunteer for or the wanderer in the church desert without even a mirage in sight, gave each other the benefit of the doubt?

  Because those journeying away from a church may actually be journeying toward God. And those asking if you’ve found a church may have taken that journey before and are just trying to extend their empathetic arms.

Growing up in church, I inevitably spent some time in youth group. I had some great youth ministers, good lay teachers, made a few friends, and witnessed some things that should never see the light of day (I was a middle school boy at one point).

  There are some aspects of youth group that when you try to explain them to someone else, you end up having to say, “You just kinda had to be there.”

  So for all those who were there, I give you my top 10 signs you grew up in a church youth group: 

  10. You were challenged to do something like read the Bible every day for a week for at least 30 minutes.

  9. You heard more than one testimony by a middle school kid who used to cuss, but was able to overcome it.

  8. You played two truths and a lie so often with the same people that everyone immediately knew your lie.

  7. You wondered if Creed was a Christian band.

  6. You had a Teen Study Bible that practically glowed in the dark from all the neon colors.

  5. You turned more than one living room into a locker room during a Disciple Now weekend.

  4. You went to a lot of Super Bowl parties but never saw a halftime show because there was always a devotional/testimony/someone bringing a word during it.

  3. You had an unspoken prayer request.

  2. You had a prayer request that should’ve been unspoken.

  1. You went to youth camp, fell in love with the worship band, bought their CD, took it home, and were sorely disappointed.