The second in a series exploring the idol-toppling question, “What don’t you like about your faith?” Read the first installment of the series here.
The first thing I can recall seriously disagreeing with Jesus about was his patience.
The fire of the Old Testament prophets was burning in my belly. Some people in my community were really, really wrong. They were missing vitally important things about life and faith. The stakes were high. The ignorance was inexcusable. I wanted to rant, to shout, to grab shoulders and shake them. I wanted heaven to hurl a few lightning bolts—no deadly direct hits, of course, maybe just a close enough call to cause some first-degree burns.
I took my righteous frustration to Jesus, looking to commiserate. Okay, to be real, what I really wanted was one of those good-old-fashioned gripe-sessions where you and your best friend get together and agree on how truly awful other people are. But Jesus refused to play ball. Oh, he listened well enough. Yet all I could feel coming from him was an unbroken flow of patience—for me and toward my neighbors. Now it was his shoulders I wanted to shake. It’s a startling thing to realize you’re annoyed with God.
I’m not the first person to have this particular bone to pick with the God of Israel. More than 2500 years ago, a prophet named Jonah tried to quit his job because God’s whole “merciful and slow to anger” bit had become too much to swallow. I mean, everybody knew the Ninevites were a violent, brazen bunch who’d had more than enough opportunity to get their act together and learn some common decency. Surely the just course was to squish them flat and leave the world a better place. So what in the name of Michael and the angelic armies was with God’s irrational patience?!
Jesus maddens the right and righteous with the same inexplicable behavior. His most famous parable of the prodigal (see Luke 15) sums it up well. Honestly, there’s something in the story to set everyone’s teeth on edge. What kind of father, who can surely see his youngest son is behaving like a donkey’s behind, gives him an inheritance to waste? Worse yet, what kind of father welcomes him back after the fiasco, not with a penalty but a party? Or, depending on your vantage point, the really frustrating question might be, what kind of father leaves an important party to plead with the uptight, judgmental oldest who’s out pouting in the hedge?
Come on, dad. Forget that little rebel. He’s had more than enough chances. Come on, dad. Forget that snobby hypocrite. He should surely know better by now. Yet here is the God of Jesus. Apparently operating without any artificial deadline. Standing at the end of the road each day, watching and waiting for his youngest to finally figure out that pig food is not as good as home-grown steak. Waiting for his oldest to stop living like a slave and finally wake up and notice that he is a royal heir.
Love it or hate it, this is God. The one whose heart longs after those we write out of the will. The one whose feet smudge up our line in the sand running toward the rebel. The one who insists on going after sour-faced pharisees “because the party just won’t be the same without them.”
It grows slowly, like the discomfort of a sunburn—the dawning discovery that my enemies are not God’s. Not really. Not even the ones I choose to make for God’s own sake. They are just more prodigal sons and daughters, of the younger or older varieties.
Nor, I have come to learn, is my breaking point God’s breaking point. God’s not done with Nineveh just because I am. God is still dreaming dreams, planning third and fourth acts. God is still patiently coaching bungling drivers through 85-point turns.
Seriously, I hate it.
And also I love it.
And more than anything, I depend on it.
