Word of God for the people of God - Thanks be to God

Walter Brueggemann was being interviewed on the Home Brewed Christianity podcast a few episodes back. In the interview/discussion it was brought up in some form or fashion the reason Christians say, "The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God."* after the scripture is read in worship. 

Bruggemann brought up that a reason we say this after the scripture is to affirm that the scripture is our story/text. It is the text which helps define and identify us as a community and a people. This is the Word above all other would be authoritative words in our world.  Not the Constitution. Not the Bill of Rights. Not the philosophical thought of Marx or Locke or Dawkins or "the Market" or Plato or Rand. There are devotees of these sources which will elevate these authorities to demi-god status.

For the Christian to say, scripture is the Word of God is not only to say that these other sources are not authoritative in our lives, but it also says that these other sources are in fact not God.

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*It is worth noting that we say the Word of God, and not the words of God. This public affirmation of the Scripture is not an affirmation of the idea that what was just read are the literal and specific words of God. 

What if the "God shaped" hole was actually God?

We have heard it said that humans have a "God shaped hole" in our souls that we try to fill up with different things. We are then told of the many different material things we seek to fill that hole: money, sex, power, etc. It is a common sermon and a common beginning to a Bible tract.  

Recently Peter Rollins has been asking the question, what if the God shaped hole was not a void at all, but what if that hole was God.

Part of what he is getting at is that the church is set up like a market place. The church says there is a void in your life and we (the church) have the solution: Community, God, Love, etc. 

This is a problem, because God is not a commodity that we can "sell".

So rather than trying to "fill the hole", the questions are raised: What if God is not something that we 'plug into' our lives like a new technology to fill a (fabricated) void? What if God is the hole in our lives and we are called to embrace that emptiness and chaos and darkness? And when we embrace that chaos within us, then does death lose its sting? 

Is our understanding of evangelism counterproductive?

D.T. Niles in his famous book That They May Have Life stated "Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food".

For many of us, this definition is helpful because it takes a lot of pressure off of the one doing the sharing. All we are required to do is bring people to the source of the food we have found and let the source take care of the feeding part. This makes evangelism about the spiritual and not so much about the material.

Christians are great at talking about Jesus as the bread of life and that God gives spiritual food and the Spirit is that living water from which we drink and do not thirst. But spiritualizing the problems of the world is not very helpful and in fact is a bit counterproductive to the mission of the Church. 

Perhaps the problem that I have with this understanding of evangelism and church work in general is that showing people the location of food is not bringing people out of poverty.

Yes, we show people where the food is. But we also are the ones who are called to help educate and equip the poor so they no longer are dependent upon our directions to the food source.  

Evangelism is the sharing of Good News. And for some people at this point in their life that Good News is Jesus Christ's message of forgiveness and reconciliation. For others at this point in their life that Good News is I know of a place that can get you a job or I will help you find money to go to school. 

Sometimes, many times, the Good News is much more material than we think.