2
P.F.J.
On the way to the beach a few years back, we saw an enormous billboard overlooking multiple lanes of highway. Pictured along the top of the giant rectangular was a storm cloud, with a huge caucasian hand protruding from the underside. The hand was pointing at us all, the thumb and forefinger extended like a pretend pistol.
It read, “Jesus has your number. REPENT NOW!”
I felt angry and embarrassed. I began to imagine the decision to rent the billboard being made by some evangelism committee in some dank church basement and the concept art being passed around and endorsed with nods of eager approval as they finally segued to a discussion about the allotted budget for this “ministry” to beach goers. I felt angry that thousands of people a day were being told Pistol-Finger Jesus and my Jesus were the same.
I wondered irritably for several dozen miles. Which of us can be wooed to God by threat? And to whom exactly was their Je-Zeus supposedly speaking? All drivers or just liberals? Those who enjoy a good IPA here and there or strictly those with footed fish on their bumpers?
I got over it after half an hour or so. But I’m sure there were other drivers who never did. Because for many of us, this is the god we grew up fearing. And we hide and estrange ourselves from what we fear. Peter did. Adam and Eve did. Most of us still do. We hide from it, anxiously performing it back on its heels. We don’t want to be close to anyone who thinks badly of us, let alone a god who knows our thoughts and decisions and whose mood is negatively altered by them. There is nothing more frightening and terrible than a god whose disposition we can sour with our foolishness. The god who when presented with the reality of our deficits gets angry enough to seem caught off guard by the power of our sin. Like a gasping mother who just walked in on her kids quietly trying out some new potty talk despite being commanded to quietly watch Little House.
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Some of us feel compelled to argue for this god. That fearing this god is what makes us take this god seriously. How else would we sinners be impelled to the holiness this god calls us to unless confronted with the vision of his terrifying volatility? As if the bank robber is understood to be creating in the bank teller traits like generosity by his pressing a pistol to her forehead.
I would gladly help fund a billboard that spoke more to the heart of the non-anxious, servant Christ:
“Jesus has your number. Pick up the phone, he’s calling. Hello? He already knows your junk and what you really believe. None of it scares or angers God. Relax. Stop letting his calls go to voicemail. Wanna go fishing? Hello?”
I suppose the verbiage would need tightened up for those reading at highway speeds.
Proverbs which reasonably apply to a deity as well as a human being:
“Make no friendship with a man given to anger,
nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways
and entangle yourself in a snare.”
“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”
“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.”
“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
“A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.”
Peter had the one and only Jesus Christ in his boat. And, unless omitted by the gospel writers, this olive-skinned Jesus didn’t aim pistol fingers at him. Peter heard only his own voice judging and condemning. I try to remember “Satan” is a hebrew word that means “accuser.” I have to be careful who I assign that role.
Christ didn’t validate what had Peter in a frightened cower. He told Peter to relax. Because God must know at least as well as seasoned employers that though fear may create immediate results in the workplace, in the longterm it has a very negative, embittering effect. It creates anxious duplicity and division. And frankly, it creates a growing hope that the fear-mongering boss will someday be replaced.
So, instead of feeding on the fear of a quivering self-flagellator, he hired Peter. Then he said he’d build the church on Peter. And then he came across a woman who better understood how good it is when Christ gets a sinner’s number.