God's a Better Storyteller

March 07, 2021 by Marissa Compton

Many modern translations of the Bible don’t use the word “meekness” at all. They call it “gentleness” or “humility.” The new translations (justly) don’t trust us to know what the Lord meant by meekness, and attempt to clarify it for us using more common words, which would be more helpful if I thought I had a good grasp on what humility is, or if gentleness carried any connotative force.

“Gentle”means “not harsh or irritating to the touch; soft, tender; yielding to pressure, pliant, supple.” “Humility” means, helpfully “the quality of being humble or having a lowly opinion of oneself; meekness, lowliness, humbleness.” All this tells me is I don’t really know what “gentle” or “humble” is either.

Here’s my problem: “meekness” rhymes with “weakness,” which may be what lead me to connect meekness with the “turn the other cheek” part of Christianity. I’ve associated meekness with sweetness, with a willingness to suffer quietly, to go to gently into that good night. And it’s not that these things are bad, just that they don’t very clearly represent the servants of God that I admire most.

The Elder Prodigal: Sons and Slaves

February 13, 2021 by Marissa Compton

In the story of the Prodigals the younger son runs away with his inheritance and spends it all, only to come back to his father, humbled. His father throws a big party for him, which irks the responsible elder brother, because dad never threw him a party. “All these years I’ve been slaving for you,” he says, “and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends” (Luke 15).

We’ve heard a lot about this story and what it means in Sunday school over the years: in the extended metaphor, we are both the brothers, and the father is God. We are the obvious and the secretive sinners, and God runs to welcome us back no matter what kind of sinner we are on any particular day. It is the secretive sinner, of course, that is more interesting to me.

Hunger, Bread and Stone

October 05, 2020 by Marissa Compton

In Matthew, Jesus says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).

I read this a few weeks ago and thought, that is so not my experience with God. My experience is more appropriately summarized in a slightly altered John Green quote: “[God] is not a wish granting factory” (The Fault in Our Stars).

Lots of things I’ve prayed for did happen. My sister was safe on her mission. I got into grad school. My friends received some measure of healing. I received comfort. People were safe traveling, and I found friends. But these notebooks are also things I prayed for and didn’t get, including grad schools I didn’t get into and nights I didn’t feel comfort and friends I lost.

It’s worth noting that Jesus does not seem to promise that we will get what we will ask for, find what we look for, or that the door we’re knocking on will be the one that opens. Although Jesus does say “it” shall be given and “it” shall be opened, these pronouns don’t have an antecedent, at least in the English (Matthew 7:7). Verbs, not nouns, come before the pronouns, making it grammatically unclear whether or not the things that are asked for are the things that are given.