CLEDDIE: Hungry! Hungry! Hungry! I came out of a meeting of a bunch of pastors one time with two of my friends from Great Britain. And the wife came up beside me. She said, Cleddie, said how can these men and women be content with so little of God? How can you be content with so little of God? How can you be content when you know Peters shadow healed the sick? How can you be content when it says believers shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover? Oh my God! [speaks in tongues] Mm! It’s time to seek the Lord until He comes and rains righteousness upon us. We do a lot of that but we don’t do the first part. We don’t break up our fallow ground, that hard untended ground! If you really want to see a move of God you’re going to have to start breaking up the fallow ground of your heart! Don’t follow fellas! Don’t follow men and women who have not had their heart broken up by the Lord in some time! I have to have my heart plowed every day! I want to pray like David. He said, “The Plowers have plowed up my back!” How many are going through that right now? I want to show you, there’s so much more I could do with this, but I want to show you real quick, I’m going to show you what changed my life. What changed my life was the Word of God! Changed my life! I want to see if you understand this. You may not. I hope you do. I hope all of us do. I’ve wrestled with the Bible and it left me with a limp but I’m glad! I’m glad because this limp has slowed me down a bit. It’s humbled me. It has forced me to stop running so fast and sure down the path of certainty that I forget to listen, to pay attention, to ask questions, to build altars and to wait. I’ve wrestled and I love the Bible more now than I’ve ever loved it before! I love it! I love it more than when I demand that it answers all my questions. More than when I forced it to fit my cultural categories. More than when I tried so desperately to make all resolve. More than when I pretended like it never bothered me. I’ve wrestled with the Bible. I’ve spoken my fears out loud about the genocidal conquest of Canaan. About the slaves and about the untouchables and about the seven days. About the concubines and the sister wives and about the instructions on silence and submission and head coverings. I’ve lived in tension and I live in it still. I’ve wrestled with the Bible and try as I may I cannot make it my own Image. I cannot cram it into an adjective or force it into a blueprint or fashion it into a weapon to be used against my political and theological enemies. It simply will not be tamed, but oh how I’ve tried! Oh, how I’ve tried to tame the Bible because a blueprint would be easier. Because a to-do list would be easier. Because an inspirational desk calendar would be easier. Because an affirmation of anything and everything I already believe would be easier. But the Bible is not a blueprint! It isn’t a list of bullet points to be followed or to do, a list to be obeyed. It can’t be crammed into an adjective or forced into a theology. No. The Bible is sacred. It’s a collection of letters and laws, stories and songs, prophecies and proverbs, philosophy and poems spanning thousands of years and multiple cultures. Written by dozens of authors and inspired by God. It is teeming with metaphor and Imagery and tension and contrast. It defies our every effort at systemization. It defies our every attempt at mastery. Indeed it forces us into community with God and with one another precisely because it is difficult to understand! Precisely because it was never meant to be read alone. Differences in interpretation should not lead us to question one another’s passion or commitment to scripture, but rather invite us into conversation with a shared assumption that were all struggling toward the truth, all trying to figure it out. Those of us who have already wrestled know that no one’s interpretation is inerrant. Those of us who have wrestled know that we can be wrong. I love the Bible more now than I ever loved it before because I finally surrendered to the God stories!
AUDIENCE: Mm!
CLEDDIE: Have you surrendered to the God stories? God’s long, strange beautiful stories. We ask questions. God told stories. We demanded answers. God told stories. We argued theology. God told stories. And when those stories weren’t enough, when the words themselves would not suffice and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and laughed among us and wept among us and ate among us and told us more stories among us, suffered among us, died, among us, and rose among us the Word entered our story and invited us into His. The Word became flesh and said Watch me! Follow Me! See how I do it! This is what I desire! And this is the Word loved. The Word loved. It loved the poor. It loved the rich. It loved the sick. It loved the hungry. It loved the zealots. It loved the tax-collectors. It loved the lepers. It loved the soldiers. It loved the foreigners. It loved the insiders. It loved the slaves. It loved the woman. It loved the untouchables. It loved the religious. It loved the favored. It loved the forgotten. And it loved even the enemy. And when words were not enough the Word took on flesh and became a story. I love the Bible but I love it best when I love it for what it is, not for what I want it to be. When I live in tension and walk with a limp. The limp that slows me down. The limp that delights my critics. The limp that wouldn’t – .that I wouldn’t change for the world. But I’m glad because this limp slowed me down a bit. It humbled me. It forced me to stop running so fast! Today I love the Bible! Everything I do I push the Word out in front of me and I hide behind it! I’m telling you the Spirit and the Word always agree! And He’s here because He honors the Word! [time of silence] For those that are watching wherever you are in the world the Holy Spirit has fallen on us. And He’s fallen on you right where you are. Maybe you’ve fallen spiritually. Maybe you’ve fallen into Immorality. The one thing you have that the sinner doesn’t have is you fell into grace.
AUDIENCE: Mm. Jesus.