Prove It

The Devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Luke 4:3

If you are the Son of God... Saying you don't believe Jesus was/is the only Son of God will quickly land you in the Not Christian Club faster than just about anything. I have been asked to leave someone's home for admitting this. My rabbi friend Naomi defends me: If you don't believe Moses was divine, she argues, does that mean you're not Jewish? So there. I can think of all kinds of neat, smarty-pants arguments against Jesus' divinity. I am starting to think it's beside the point.

Believing too strongly that Jesus is the only Son of God also gets you in plenty of hot water. When I was a teenage fundamentalist (which I think would make a great movie title, by the way) I wanted a very real-time Jesus, a presence that I could sense all the time, like Casper the Friendly Ghost. I had something of a mystical bent even then, and odd things did happen. I believed that I spoke in tongues, and did so during prayer time at my junior youth group. I could start and stop it at will, though, which is a bit handy for an appearance of God. I actually don't know what was happening, but it felt like something I wasn't completely making up, either.

The problem was that I wanted more and more of this, these little miracles, these proofs that Jesus was the Son of God. The truth was, Jesus was becoming less real and my world was becoming more frightening. The twisted sort of comfort I felt in "blessed are those who are persecuted for my sake" was fading. I was a girl who carried her big, green Living Bible to school and witnessed for the Lord in English class. You can imagine how popular I was. Walking past other kids between classes felt like a blood sport. I needed the reassurance. Are you real? Are you really real? If you are the Son of God... I came to gradually realize that it wasn't enough. Jesus as a current, living presence left me altogether. And my heart broke. I gave up the whole thing.

And now I'm back. Little by little, he does start to live in me. I don't hear voices, I don't make strange utterances when I pray. He is more like the teacher that challenges and guides me, sometimes through other people, sometimes through the Gospels, sometimes through my own intuition. He holds up this daunting standard for loving everyone, even the people I can't stand. And then doing something about it. I don't ask if he is the Son of God, and I don't ask him to change stones into bread even when I'm as famished and taunted by demons. It's hard. And I feel him sometimes. Or I feel something of God happens when I pray and ask for help. It's enough.