What Challenges Your Brain?
There are many obvious answers to this question when you look at the grand scheme of things. Y’all know I love my whodunnits, especially those with a certain Belgian detective and his moustaches. For some the answers to this are sudoku (which I sometimes do), crossword puzzles (which I enjoy immensely), or jigsaw puzzles (which I will be drawn to like a moth to a flame). There are many things out there that can be a mental challenge and doing something everyday keeps your brain sharp.
However, this question has a second question to it. The sort of question to which there is not a clear answer. It’s what troubles your brain. What do you struggle to wrap your mind around? What is it that when you see it, you just kind of shake your head and say I will never understand ____. Those are the sorts of challenges about which we hope our faith will provide answers or clarity or something.
Scripture is full of examples of contradictions or things that don’t always make sense. We know that the first three chapters of Genesis offer two accounts of creation that are different enough from each other that both were left in Scripture over the last several thousand years. Then there were the verses this week from Romans that say that Abraham never doubted (uh, did we just collectively decide to forget about Hagar and Ishmael and that whole debacle? Apparently!). I’m not sure when I quit putting any sort of person on a pedestal besides Jesus- people will disappoint, God never does. Scripture is full of humans getting things wrong and leaving us learning the lesson of what not to do almost as often as we get the lesson on what to do when we look at Scripture.
Another example is King Solomon. King Solomon the wise, best king the Jewish people ever had. He was a mighty warrior, rich beyond belief, and had a huge harem. Which, if you read just a few chapters before in Scripture, a good king was supposed to have no stables as he was to be about the business of peace; to use his wealth, if any, to care for the people; and not marry into other nations, probably to prevent any introduction of other religious systems or dividing of loyalties. Basically, the man remembered as the “best” by many was actually the worst. Jesus on the other hand had all three qualities of a great king and as the king of kings, that’s what you’d want him to be.
And if we’re going to be really fair, I should probably talk about bashing the heads of babies on rocks. I struggled with those verses for years. And not just those, but any that encourage genocide or destruction. That image does not mesh with my understanding of God’s love for all of creation. The same loving God who is still creating today is not a God who would tell me to destroy others. We’re supposed to love our enemies. These stories of destruction come in a variety of categories, but many of them fit the theme of what not to do. Be like Ninevah, not Jonah. Repent. Don’t be angry that mercy was given- you’ll want mercy when you need to repent. Others, like the baby bashing, come in the Psalms. I have long considered the Psalms to be the song catalogue of Scripture which covers a broad array of human emotions which includes anger. Scorched earth kind of anger. And telling us to not feel emotions is not something I see in Scripture. I see the encouragement to process those emotions and let things go. Vengeance is mine says the Lord and all.
Therapy also might have something to say about that in Scripture which we find challenging. Does God really love me? Who am I that God cares about me? I’m nobody. (Nobody’s nobody, by the way. Check Psalm 8.) Those are the sorts of challenges that often arise during Lent. It is a season of self-reflection after all. And sometimes when we take a good look inside, we don’t like what we see. But don’t worry- God is still with you. God already knows all your flaws, all your sins, and all your failings. And that’s the last challenge I’ve come to accept as the best holy mystery- God loves us, just as we are, without us earning it, deserving it, or having anything to offer in exchange that comes close to being worth the same. And that’s something I can give all my mind to thinking about.
