“What if God was one of us?”
The words to the song by Joan Osborne always put me off,
“What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the
bus trying to make His way home?” It
irritated my sense of the “dignity of the human person” to call us
“slobs.” And, at least from a Christian
perspective, we do in fact believe that God became “one of us,” so by way of
respect I wouldn’t want to use the descriptor “slob” in the same sentence of
theological pondering about the nature of God.
It just doesn’t sit right with me.
But in view of some recent experiences I am starting to wonder about how
God walks among us in some ways that are less than majestic and yet very
obviously, um, godly encounters.
My friend Sandy used to pester me to watch the show “Joan of
Arcadia.” As I admitted previously, I
don’t have television service. Well, I
might get a couple of channels if I bothered to hook up the antenna, but that
is another issue also. File it under the
category of “Avoidable Nuisances.” A few
seasons of “Joan of Arcadia” came and went and I never saw them. Then recently I figured out how to watch the
re-runs on You Tube and I feel like I am getting a mini tutorial on those godly
encounters I referenced above. In fact,
for just this one instance, television is actually supporting or clarifying
some of my personal experiences. I will
tell you how and give you an example.
In every episode of “Joan of Arcadia,” they start the show
off with that annoying song I reference above:
“What if God was one of us?” And
then in each episode Joan encounters a human person who speaks to her as if
he/she is God. Joan always knows who it
is that is really giving the message
when the person uses her name, “Joan.”
And then follows a commission.
It’s like, “Joan. You really
should join chess club.” And then Joan
protests about how she is busy, or how it will make her a social outcast to
follow the directive, and finally gives in and does what “God” asked her to
do. And always Joan learns something
from it.
So I will tell you about one of my godly encounters. But I must preface it by saying, “please
don’t try this at home.” You know how
your parents taught you not to pick up hitchhikers? Yeah.
I did.
This happened about 20+ years ago when I was “between
jobs.” I was struggling with not knowing
how to get gainful employment in my field (Theology, English, or Ministry) and
was hating the new city I had moved to because it seemed to be void of
opportunity. Generally speaking, I was
in a miserable mood about where I was in life.
I had moved back to the Northeast for a dream that blew up
in my face before I even found an apartment to live in. In fact, my dream imploded precisely within
hours of moving to the city. The reason
I moved here – well at least my reason
– no longer existed. So, as the
expression goes, I was making lemonade out of life handing me lemons. I had left behind a beautiful southwestern
state where people actually move to in order to flee the frozen tundra of the Northeast. It was mid-winter and I was driving to my
friends’ house for dinner. The
temperature was in the single digits but more accurately in the negative digits
due to wind chill. Snow was frozen all
around us. It felt like a ghastly,
unromantic scene from Dr. Zhivago. I cringe just remembering that kind of cold.
I was driving my Chrysler down one of the main streets of
the city when I saw a lone figure walking along the side of the road. I could tell it was a skinny woman in a coat
that was bulky and big for her. Hood up,
she was walking briskly along. When I
say that no one was out, I mean it. NO
ONE WAS OUT. I was the only person on
the road aside from the walking woman.
And then I knew. I had to pick
her up. She was not even hitchhiking,
really. I pulled alongside her and
rolled down the electric window with the touch of a button and asked, “Ma’am
can I give you a ride somewhere?”
She leaned toward the car and said, “you’re not going the
direction I’m going in.” I said, “That’s
okay. Where I am going is not
important. I will take you where you
need to go. It’s not fit for man nor
beast out here.” She got in the
car. I looked at her tired, drawn
face. She looked older than what she
probably was. It appeared that smoking
may have aged her face. She at one point
had a single drop of moisture on the end of her nose and I wondered if she knew
it was there or had it frozen there.
Weird. I asked her, “Where do you
need to go?” She replied, “Do you know
where Wolf Street is?” I turned the car
and headed toward Wolf Street. I began
an attempt at small talk.
My question: “Where
on Wolf Street?” led her to ask if I
knew where a certain establishment was.
It was the name of a place where frustrated men go. I replied, “Yes. I know where that is. Please don’t give me a heart attack and tell
me that you are a dancer.” She candidly
said, “No. I did that once but they
threw a chair at me.” (You are reading
this and you are also getting an education, right? The western movies never make it seem that
the saloon girls are in danger, do they?)
She admitted she was unable to find a job because she only had a sixth
grade education and no one would hire her.
I offered her some advice on how to get a job at a local
garment factory. I said to her, “Look,
not everyone is entitled to hear your whole story. But you can go to an interview and, so to
speak, throw yourself on the manager’s mercy and say the truth: you are trying to make a fresh start and need
a chance.” I myself was both wondering
if and hoping that people still are receptive to honesty.
As she got out of the car, she turned to me and said, “I
guess I just have to trust, right?”
It was then I realized that God had just tricked me. He used HER to give me HIS message. It was a quintessential one-liner urging me to
trust. Here I was being a baby about not having a job
I felt suited my skill set; whereas, this woman had virtually NO skill set at
all. I was telling her to trust, in
effect, when I myself who had all this talent and education going for me,
wasn’t following my own logic. I turned
the vehicle toward my original destination and ran that encounter through my
mind trying to absorb it all. My friend
who had dinner waiting kind of laughed at me when I told her the story. That’s okay.
Laugh away, I just met God and He was pretty direct with me. And He really didn’t look anything like I
thought He would. And I don’t find that
funny at all.
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