chapel lecturer

Another world famous lecturer came and spoke in our chapel today. It’s actually a normative thing as chapels go. I’m sure that it makes some people feel impressed, but something else has made an impression on me. The speakers usually participate in a section following the lecture, during lunch, in which the speaker dialogues with people who want to speak with them. This smaller area is used to foster an atmosphere where a deeper level of learning can take place. Beyond the annoying questions that people ask that make the lecturer out to be a god of sorts, there is a sense of learning that takes place.

The thing that most impresses me though is the way we all interact with these heroes that we get to meet, these men and women that have helped shape our thought and challenge us to look at the Scriptures in new and deeper ways. There is a sense in which we want them to know us. We want them to build a relationship with us. We want others to know that we have a relationship with this person. And it got me thinking about my motives. Why do I want a relationship with this person? What if my relationship with them was just behind closed doors, would I still want it? Am I after the publicity of being known as a friend or an associate of their work? And I can’t help but think that secretly, my motives are being driven by a need to feel important, to gain leverage to feel accepted by others. To make the world stop and say, “Whoa, that guy is special!”

And then I started to think about their source of wisdom; the source from which they blow our minds and bring us new insights. And I think, “it’s God!” God is the one empowering them, giving them insights.

And then I start to think about how God works in people. Granted he does give status and power to some. Yet, it seems to me, that throughout the Bible we are told not to seek such things, not to desire men’s approval and worship. I think of Paul and Barnabas running into the crowd and tearing their clothes, scarcely being able to stop the people from worshiping them.

And then I think, man, God is so counter-intuitive, so ironic. Only when you aren’t driven by the need for prestige, about man’s glory, then you will seemly get it. And if you do get it, you won’t want it, you’ll point back to the Creator, even at the point of getting mad at these men who are trying to ascribe glory to you. And you’ll beg them not to, and they still will. Secretly they think you want it, secretly you might even have the desire to get it, but with every fiber in you, you know you shouldn’t want it, and you glory in not getting it, but pointing them back to the one that is truly worthy of the glory.

What a God.