God is not in the Crowd.

I haven't blogged for a while. The maelstrom of things in my own life, my work life, my church life, and my other lives have conspired to make me spend more time painting, gluing, drilling, crying, walking, reading, thinking about what it might mean to be somewhere else:

And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, theLord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains...

Throughout the whole time I've been asking God what He is saying. Where He is. What He's up to.

I've been part of crowds. On my own. Wondering. Certain. Doubtful. Desperate. Resigned.

and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord...

I wonder, though, if God is not in the crowd. What if he's in the lonely prophet, the thoughtful outcast, the ones who are not in power but instead speak truth to power? What if God is less concerned with our posturing, pretence and position: and more with our prayer, our presence, our passion?

but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake

The 'evangelical/christian' 'blogosphere' (I put both of those things in brackets because, in all reality, they are on the internet as dust before the wind) is often rocked by controversy. Indeed, it seems, humans of all faiths and none thrive on controversy. On earthquakes. On shattering revelations. On the falling of great heroes and the disappointment of those we love. One of those, I think, was someone called Mark Driscoll. A pastor in Seattle, a Secular American city (not that such a thing can truly exist) who grew a church and loved Jesus and yet fell. A man who loved the Bible but perhaps did not fully heed its injunction to love the people that a community of The Word would gather in a City.

And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice...

My friend went to protest a conference. She was one against a crowd. She was challenging the ways that people approach their leaders, a lack of discernment, a blind followership replacing thoughtful discipleship. Her banner was alone, and its words were powerful:

"weep with those who weep"

that is what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:15. Paul, the 'homophobic chauvinistic anti-Semite', writes this. A challenge. From the heart of God to those who claim to follow him. To weep with those who weep. With no qualification. With no agenda. With nothing but presence, passion, and pain.

And this is where Jesus calls us to be, I believe. In presence, passion, and pain.

Not in the crowd.

Not even in the noise. 

Savvy readers, readers who also read the Bible, will notice what I have been inter-weaving in my blog post. The powerful words of 1 Kings 19:11-13. Verses that warn us of bad religion and point us ultimately, I think, to Jesus. Think, then, with me, how this passage ends:

And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

I do not think that God is in the crowd. Sometimes God is in, and speaking through, and working with, that lone protestor in the face of the inevitable. Sometimes God's challenge to us is not complex, or even overtly theological, but ultimately personal and deep:

What are you doing?

I think Jesus' small challenge in the Sermon on the Mount is pertinent:

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jesus is with the victims. He is not in the crowd. Where are you listening?