Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my whole life looking for that rock, trying to find a place where I can catch my breath, see where I’ve been, and just be alone for awhile. Sometimes I wonder how other people live, people who haven’t found a rock. Sometimes I sense in the story of scripture a collection of people trying to find a rock, trying to talk about their journey and what they discovered along the way, trying to lead others into an experience of sanctuary. Sometimes.

Most of the time, it seems like I’ve missed the boat, lost my head, hands tied behind my back, barking up the wrong tree, washed up. People have stuff to do and places to be. There’s no time for side trips, no room for quiet, no space for space. And the Bible’s just a collection of dusty letters and foreign poems and depressingly inscrutable commands and old-fashioned feel-good stories. And the churches are PC clubs for white people with too much time (or guilt) on their hands. And Jesus is a TV personality who just wants to be friends with your kids and maybe try a little magic trick or two to lighten the mood. And then there’s the joke where Paul Tillich gets a letter from a critic of the faith. It’s filled with the details of a recent archeological find -- coordinates, descriptions, lots and lots of photos. It seems they’ve found the bones of Jesus, and the critic finishes with a mean-spirited postscript, “There goes your resurrection!” Tillich turns over the paper, confused, and breathes -- astonished -- “You mean, he actually lived?”

Do we live in a world that’s moved beyond belief? Are there no longer separate places? Have we been doomed to frantic, fear-fraught lives? to standards un-bending? deadlines pending? stress un-ending? Are we burned out on religion?

I was. But when I first started contemplating leaving my home church, back in 2002, I struggled with the fact that so much of my identity was intertwined with church. I volunteered with the youth, drove the bus, worked on committees, changed the sign board, cooked for potlucks, showed up at business meetings, represented the local church at denominational events. Surrounded by people, busy with ministry, I felt unloved and unappreciated. And I was lonely. But who would I be if I left? What, if anything, would be left of me?

I’d worked for several years on the staff of a local church. But I felt like a foreigner. I didn’t fit. So I resigned my position. And then I stopped attending. That’s when the questions started: was I in conflict with the pastor? was I depressed? did I have secret sin? I wish I could have articulated what was happening. But at the time, I only knew that I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I wish that I could have told them how frustrated I was with church. I wish that I could have told them that so many of the spiritual answers sounded to me like empty promises, platitudes. I wish that I could have pointed out that many of the practices of church speak to a culture that no longer exists. I wish that I could have told them that church as we know it and practice it is dying.

But I couldn’t say any of those things. I didn’t even know why I was unhappy. I was desperate for truth. I wanted to understand reality and learn to live spiritually. I wanted to know God. I wanted to be fully myself rather than just playing a series of parts. I wanted to integrate faith and vocation with community rather than continuing a kind of compartmentalized existence. And I couldn’t find a way to fit all this stuff into church. The box was too small. So I left.

But I kept coming back, kept hanging around and showing up, watching and waiting for others to exhibit some of the same symptoms -- not people who hate church but those who desperately want something bigger, something that transcends our limited notion of what it means to have faith. Today, I’m even on staff at another local church. Why am I still around? Because I know there’s got to be something better than what is. And I’m not smart enough to figure it out on my own. What I do know is that there’s something about places of sanctuary. What I do know is that people need separate spaces -- for quiet, for peace, for perspective. What I do know is that a rock, hanging off the edge of a hill, gave me a place to sit.

After a little while, I stood up, walked down the hill and drove back to town. But I keep coming back to that rock. One of these days -- some day soon -- I’d like to take others there with me.

Yet so many people are unhappy. In fact, clinical depression is the leading cause of disability in North America and is predicted by the World Health Organization to become the second leading cause of disability worldwide (after heart disease) by 2020.

Mother culture holds up an ideal for reaching happiness, claiming that any goal can be accomplished through hard work and determination. We call it the American dream. But it doesn't seem to be working, and millions of people are coming to their senses, waking up and realizing that there's something wrong with the way we've been living.

Unfortunately, we've learned to quiet the questions that bother us by removing silence from our lives. So we know something's wrong, but we can't or don't take time to think about it.

Listen to the voice:

When it asks, "Who am I?" turn off the noise.

When it asks, "Why am I here?" stop what you're doing.

When it asks, "What is the meaning of life?" listen.

"What's it gonna take
to slow us down
to let the silence spin us around?" — Switchfoot

"And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am;
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing." — Ezra Pound

At the beginning, the issue seems clear enough. I'm moving along under a full head of steam, when I suddenly spot a break in the track up ahead. I jump to another line, engine shuddering, as I try to maintain speed. But just around the corner, there's that same break. Except for now, it's a chasm. So I stop, try another metaphor, pull out a different analogy, hoping that this time I'll jump the divide. But there it is again, looming ever larger.

And I wonder at this gift of words that is also a curse. After all, language gives us freedom to relate, to connect and create. What is the Church? It's just a word. But the collection of our shared understandings, of our hopes, of our fears, of our deepest needs has made this word into a physical place of refuge for some, a family for others.

This same language, however, also confines. We are imprisoned in a society held up by words that are not our own, and we are isolated from those we love by a failure to communicate what we really mean, what we truly need.

What then can I do when my experience of God — of the very source of love, truth and life — transcends language? What dare I try when words fail me?

We were playing Risk, a board game in which players fight for world domination. My sister had publicly proclaimed, however, that her only aim was to destroy me, even if it meant letting my dad win the game. This, to my experienced judgment, seemed unsportsmanlike. But my thoughtful advice as to how she might improve her strategic position, coupled with a kick to the shins (subtly delivered under the table, of course), only succeeded in deepening her resolve.

So when Bethany finally lost, I rejoiced, even though I'd already been out of the game for an hour. In the midst of my quiet (and tasteful) celebration, however, I spotted a flaw in my position. During the game, I'd planned and plotted and sulked. I was consumed by my competitiveness, by my anger.

Please don't misunderstand. For the duration of the match-up, I looked and sounded like any other normal adult. I smiled and laughed and held up my end of the witty repartee required when playing parlor games. But it was a farce. Underneath the happy face, I was anything but happy.

It makes me wonder. If I could successfully separate inner experience from outward expression during a game — a kind of social schizophrenia — then doesn't that make me a liar in real life?

This caused a problem for me as I claim to be a Christian. If God is the source of all truth and if all truth is God's truth, then the Christian character must be marked by integrity.

I realized (once again) that I haven't yet become the kind of person I claim to be, and it's beginning to look as though this journey is going to take at least a lifetime.

The game is central to identity.

God made man in his image, and although we identify God as the source of love, joy, peace, and other virtues, what lies at the bottom of God's character is creative power. So it is in creative play that we discover God's image within us, waiting to break free from the oppressive propriety and maturity required in our day-to-day lives.

Imagine a 10-year-old boy teaching adults to wriggle around on their stomachs in a round of Snake-in-the-Grass. Imagine two friends on a road trip, reading billboard messages backwards, pretending to speak in a foreign tongue. Imagine a group of middle school students using dictionaries and a long cafeteria table to create a contemporary version of shuffleboard.

When we create and play new games, we discover God's creative power in our minds, his presence in our midst. We discover what God created us to do and be: fellow creators.

The game is central to community.

Jesus prayed that God might make us one with each other in heart and mind, unified with the Father so that we might truly worship him in spirit and in truth. But we live in a dog-eat-dog world where people are valued for what they accomplish, not for what they become. Our success-oriented culture pushes people apart, demands that each man and woman be an island, self-sufficient. Reliance is weakness. Need is next to sin.

But the game turns topsy-turvy the world as we live it. In British Bulldog, the strong and the fast become victims to the cooperative efforts of smaller and slower players. Tops and Bottoms - like Lemonade - is designed around the goal of getting everybody on the same team. And no game is complete without an after-opportunity for sharing stories.

When we play together, we create shared experiences that break down barriers to vulnerability and transparency in other areas of our lives. When we learn how to play all out - hard, fair and nobody hurt - then we cease to be islands. We tag shoulders in Elbow Tag, strip off socks in Knock Your Socks Off, wrestle each other to the ground in Whomp-Em or Bloody Wink Em. And every time we touch, we demonstrate that God is forming us into a living breathing body of believers.

The game is central to worship.

First, some background. Dualism is the ancient heresy that claims spirit is holy while the flesh harbors sin. In Western Christianity, we've given new life to this system in our practiced separation of sacred from secular. Why else would we believe (or live as if we believe) that worship is only worship if it occurs in a certain place (church) at a certain time (Sunday morning) with a certain group of people (other Christians)?

And what good does worship do as a shot in the arm, a kind of holy inoculation intended to keep us safe from the dangers of greed, sex and road rage? Shouldn't worship be central rather than tacked on? And must it always include music? Or a sermon?

Here is the problem. We cannot know God unless we know ourselves. We cannot celebrate God's goodness if we fail to recognize his beauty reflected in the lives of our fellow humans. In order to worship in spirit and in truth, we must know ourselves, and we must have community. Everything else is false.

But our churches too often engage in little more than parallel play. We are in the same place and doing the same things as other believers. But we are alone.

Games bridge the gap.

I once took a group of youth and adults to a grassy hill on the edge of town where we spent hours speeding down the slopes on blocks of ice. As the sun set that evening, we gathered at the top of the hill, recounting stories of close calls and heroic deeds. We dreamed up new adventures. We marveled at the orange-topped buildings in the city below set off by deepening shadows and fiery clouds that shifted from red to pink to purple to blue. We spoke of secret longings and of God. That night, we stumbled down that hill in the dark, drunk with the joy of connecting, of trusting, of being known. That night, we experienced worship.

Doing-oriented American culture tends to think of scripture in terms of prose (especially technical prose). We like to have a resource for easy answers, quick fixes, little pick-me-ups.

But scripture is poetry.

Poetry doesn't give up its answers so easily. It has to be digested bite by bite. Slowly. Repeatedly.

And then there's the silence. Lots of silence. Poetry takes time to unfold, and silence — serious meditation — is required if we intend to unravel meaning, find the source of our searching.

People don't have time for this kind of thing. No patience. So they settle for the Sparknotes version. Never take a minute to think (let alone listen).

Enough of that. I probably need to offer an example. What about this one? What if God doesn't really exist?

Wait.

Stop.

Pull your fingers away from the keyboard.

Hold off on the hate mail.

Think.

For just a minute.

And consider that God is not a thing. How could the Creator be as small as creation? How dare we try to objectify, classify, quantify that which is beyond, that which transcends existence?

But we dare to do just that every single Sunday because we live in little worlds. That's what prose does. It offers answers, entertains, informs. There's no challenge beyond the superficial.

But poetry!

Poetry couches each truth in a conundrum, in conflict, in the paradox. In poetry, the challenge is impossible (at least initially) because it pushes past human understanding, asks that we conceive of conflicting ideas working together to create . . .

something deeper,

something more meaningful,

something beautiful, which otherwise, we might never conceive.

But the kind of crazy I'd like to discuss here is the kookiest, scariest kind of crazy I know, the kind of crazy that doesn't know it's crazy: religious crazy.

In March, nine members of a religious militia were charged with conspiracy to "kill an unidentified member of local law enforcement and then attack the law enforcement officers who gather in Michigan for the funeral. According to the plan, [they] would attack law enforcement vehicles during the funeral procession with Improvised Explosive Devices."

The men and women involved in this group identified themselves as followers of "the testimony of Jesus." They claim on their Web site that they "live by faith" and that they have been called to "stand, stay and pray for the defense of the word." They claim Jesus has called them to a full-on fight with the government.

I can see that this kind of thinking is inconsistent with the message and witness of Jesus. So can you. Neither one of us is in danger of falling for such a specious reading of scripture. Or are we?

The real problem is that this fringe group wasn't as far out on the fringes as maybe we'd like to believe. Their ideas about faith (as promoted at their Web site) don't sound so different from things I've heard at my own church.

So how does this kind of crazy come about? It has to do with belief. Belief serves as a prism through which I filter experience. As a result, my beliefs also direct my interactions, dictate the ways in which I view others and the treatment they will receive from me.

Dr. Jerry Falwell, now deceased, held the belief that every event is an act of God. Not so crazy. Is it?

Here's how the reverend used that belief to filter his experience. He said the collapse of the Twin Towers in 9/11 was a God-ordained act that killed thousands of innocent Americans in order to teach the country a lesson about the evils of homosexuality, abortion, and feminism.

This belief justifies acts of terrorism. Definitely crazy.

Author and historian David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, published an online essay in which he indirectly called for the elimination of the capital gains tax, federal minimum wage, inheritance taxes, and the end of a progressive income tax: "In the Bible, the more profit you make the more you are rewarded. . . . The landowner had a right to determine the wages his workers received. . . . The current income tax structure in the United States mandates a higher tax rate or percentage the more a person makes. This tax system is contradicted by scripture."

This belief favors the rich over the poor, encouraging those who have to gain even more at the expense of those who have not. Might not be crazy, but it certainly is inconsistent with Jesus' teaching.

One of my favorite thinkers, Erich Fromm, claims the real problem is belief itself (although he refers to it as dogma). Fromm suggests that evangelical Christian churches created a problem for themselves when they decided to do away with high-church tradition and symbolism: "Religions which are consolidated by extra-religious elements are able to dispense almost completely with a system of dogmas."

What's wrong with a little dogma? It tends to control the mind. Again with Fromm: Dogma is a "powerful suggestion, which is experienced subjectively as reality because of the consensus among believers."

What he's saying is that if it's you that's crazy, it won't feel crazy. And if it's me that's crazy, I'll probably just call it "faith."

An example: Most of my life, I’ve heard the reasoning about why Jesus had to die on the cross, why it works, how I’m supposed to respond, what that will do for my life.

In one ear.

Out the other.

Something about the language never felt right. Like Jesus, who is fully God, had to die in order to satisfy his own wrath. He did it because he loved us so much that he wanted to be with us. But he couldn’t be with us because God can’t tolerate sin, so he came to be with us in order to die so the debt would be paid so he could finally be with us.

Confused?

I’ll try again.

See, God, who is omnipotent (that means all powerful) gave us the power to give Satan power over us, and in order to regain that power – the power he needed to save us from Satan who had the power that was meant for us – God had to trick Satan into trying to take even more power. When Satan fell for the trick, he forfeited what little power he had, and God got back all the power so he could give us enough of that power to make the right choice this time. Amen.

That’s more like Saturday morning cartoons than real life, and as you can see, it doesn’t work very well.

For a long time now, we’ve been reading the Bible through C.S. Lewis’s view of Wesley’s view of Luther’s view of Augustine’s view of Paul’s view of Jesus. Or, if we’re open-minded, postmodern and emergent, we’ve been reading the Bible with Jesus as the end result that makes the mess of the Old Testament make sense. Here’s the hang-up. Both views fail to offer an answer to the central question of human experience: suffering.

Don’t get me wrong. We have lots of answers. God is testing us to make us stronger. We suffer the consequences of poor choices. God is in control.

But how well do any of these answers actually work? If my best friend is dying of cancer, do I tell him that it’s part of God’s plan? that it’s punishment for secret sin? that there’s no need to worry because God is in control?

Friends don’t do that.

So I’m sitting next to Matt. And I realize that the story of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. I wonder if maybe this story might be THE story, if what comes after is commentary – a working through and a working out of the themes introduced in the first story, the story of Job. And what exactly is the story of Job? It’s a story of suffering.

Unexpected. Undeserved. Unexplained.

I ask myself some questions.

What is Satan’s role? He’s implicated as the cause of suffering, but he plays a bit part. Satan doesn’t even show up after the end of the second chapter. In a book with 42 chapters, Satan accomplishes little more than a setting of the scene. If the book of Job were one of Shakespeare’s plays, Satan would be the clown. He helps to transition us from one scene to the next, but he has no real role in the greater story. If the oldest book of the Bible gives us a frame for reading and understanding the rest of scripture, then Satan isn’t really that important.

Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen at all? The book of Job actually takes up quite a bit of space discussing the problem. Each of the friends introduces an idea as to the source of suffering and how we should respond. Job argues. The friends argue back. If the book of Job were a short story, the issue of suffering would offer the central conflict. The arguments for and against constitute the rising action. But it seems that suffering is not the moral, only the motivator. Without suffering, Job – a stand-in for humanity – might have no reason to consider his reason for being. If the oldest book of the Bible gives us a frame for reading and understanding the rest of scripture, then suffering is and always will be the central problem.

What, then, is humanity’s purpose? Why do we exist? What is it that we are designed to do? Job’s call for vindication implies that we have a need to know God, to see God, to speak to God. When God shows up to speak with Job, he doesn’t answer Job’s questions. But in the end, Job is satisfied. The book implies that it is God’s presence, God’s willingness to show up, that is important. If the oldest book of the Bible gives us a frame for reading and understanding the rest of scripture, then humanity’s central need is not an end to suffering (although that is our goal) but an experience of the presence of God.

And then.

Bang!

Pow!

Kablooey!

The answer.

“Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

We read the Bible as a series of answers to our questions. Who am I? A child of God. Why am I here? To be in relationship with man and with God. How ought I to live? As Christ.

It’s kind of a cute concept. And it sure does make me feel better. Mostly.

But the Bible isn’t a series of answers. It’s not a map or a constitution, a list, a handbook, or an instruction manual. And Jesus didn’t announce the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven as a solution to our problems (both spiritual and physical). The Bible is a set of questions. And God exists to challenge.

Job asks why, and God responds, “I ask the questions here.”

Who told you that you were naked?
Why are you angry?
Where is your brother?
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them?
But what about you? Who do you say I am?
Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?
Friends, haven’t you any fish?

May we fully experience and grow in the power of God’s presence. May we rise to God’s challenge. May we be ready for and sensitive to God’s questions. That's the point of the Bible, after all. When we read for questions instead of looking for answers, then we come to realize an important truth about scripture:

The story isn't over yet.