I just had to include some commentary and actual text from Rob Bell's book Sex God- odd title I know. I picked it up in South Africa and it's one of those books you purposefully don't pick up because you don't want to finish it. I've limited myself to two chapters a week. The book is profound and everyone should read it...I've attempted to summarize Chapter Five. It's that good.
He begins the chapter by retelling a story from his youth of asking a girl to dance. Her response was running into the girls bathroom. But he tells the story to illustrate making a move toward someone and the risk that is involved. The person can say yes or no. In putting yourself out there you give them power. What happens when our love is not reciprocated? He then tells another story, one where a friend admits having an affair. Bell recalls being at this guys wedding and witnessing their commitment to one another. That evening, the betrayed wife comes to his door, sits on his couch between him and his wife, and cries and cries and cries. Bell writes that there are a lot of different cries, “someone I love is dying” cry and even the “I just hit my thumb with a hammer” cry. But her cry on that day was of someone who had had their heart broken into by a lover. “It comes from someplace else. Someplace far inside a person, deep in the soul. It’s a cry with a certain ache. It’s the ache of a broken heart” (91).
He then uses the Bible’s collection of love poems, Song of Solomon to illustrate risky love. The young girl sees her “beloved” and he is coming toward her but cannot get in. He is standing behind her wall and looking through the window. She most likely lives at home and is very young. Her life is safe and predictable. Her family is there to care for her. But he is calling her to a life away from them. It is a risk she has to take. It may not work out. He may not be who he appears to be. What if he says this to every woman? What if he cheats on her? Love is risky. “The heart has tremendous capacity to love, and to ache. And this ache is universal.
“You can put women from all over the world with nothing in common in a room together and they may not have a thing to talk about until one of them says, ‘And then he cheated on me,’ and instantly you have universal sisterhood” (95). They all have heartbreak in common. Heartbreak is not just about lovers, but parents and children, friends and co-workers. “It’s universal because we’re feeling something as old as the world. Something God feels” (96). In Genesis, God gives people freedom. They have freedom to love God or not love God. Genesis 6:6 reads God, “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled” and “then YHWH (God) was sorry that he had made humankind on earth, and it pained his heart.” God has a heart, one that feels, responds, hurts and fills with pain. And we are the source of His grief.
“People God made who have freedom. Freedom to love anybody they want. And freedom not to love anybody they want. God takes this giant risk in creating and loving people, and in the process God’s heart is broken” (97).
“The story the Bible tells is of a living being who loves and who continues to love even when that love is not returned. A God who refuses to override our freedom, who respects our power to decide whether to reciprocate, a God who lets us make the next move” (98).
“Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it. That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted.
Love is a giving away of power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose. They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step toward us in gratitude and appreciation.
Love is a giving away. When we love, we put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two- love and controlling power over the other person- are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship” (98).
So God, creator of the universe, doesn’t overwhelm us by showing up in great power with bolts of lightening and making things happen. If He did, he’d scare us away. “The last thing people would perceive is love” (99). So He expresses His love by stripping Himself of all things that come with power and authority. “That’s how love works. It doesn’t matter if a man has a million dollars and wants to woo a woman (or vice versa), if she loves him for his money, it isn’t really love.
If you were an almighty being who made the universe and everything in it, you would need to meet people on their level, in their world, on their soil…like them.
This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of Jesus” (100).
Throughout the life of Jesus, He chooses love, not power. “Connection and solidarity rather thank rank and hierarchy. Touch rather than distance. Compassion rather than control. He comes on a donkey, not a horse” (101).
In Philippians it says that Jesus, “who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:5-11).
“There is a weakness that is actually strength. And a strength that is actually a weakness” (102).
Managers and bosses who use their position to bully others to get things done have a strength that is actually a weakness. Their authority only comes from a title, one that can me taken away in an instant. They appear strong, but are actually weak.
Bell uses Ghandi as a prime example of this in his commitment to nonviolence. He was able to stand up to the British Empire!
And this is the approach of Jesus. “In His emptiness, He shows us how empty the way of the world really is. …Jesus is God coming to us in love. Sheer, unadulterated love. Stripped of everything that could get in the way. Naked and vulnerable, hanging on a cross, asking the question, ‘What will you do with me?’”.(105)
Thus the cross speaks to us of God’s suffering, pain and broken heart. “It’s God making the first move and waiting on our response” (105).
If you have ever given yourself to someone and had your heart broken, you know how God feels. If you have ever given yourself to someone and found yourself waiting for their response, exposed and vulnerable, left hanging in the balance, you know how God feels. If you’ve ever given your heart to someone you loved deeply, only to have them lie to you, cheat on you, use you and rip your heart into pieces, you know how God feels. The cross is God’s way of saying, “I know what it’s like”.
So often we get angry at God, raise our fists in the air and tell Him how unfair He is and how He has no idea what we are going through or how much pain we are in…But the cross is God’s way of saying that He does know.
In seeing Him in this way we come to a place where we realize we are not alone, “where we find strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking. A God who knows what it’s like. The cross is where we present our wounds to God and say, ‘Here, you take them.’
Our healing begins when we participate in the suffering of God. When we don’t avoid it but enter into it, and in the process enter into the life of God. When we see our pain not as separating us from but connecting us to our maker. And in this connection, there’s always the chance we’ll find a reason to risk again”. (107)
If you’ve had your heart broken, risked, offered, been lied to, deceived, used, there is something divine in your suffering.
“You know how God feels.
Really good people get hurt. It’s the way things are.
It’s when we choose not to love again that there’s a problem. A decision not to risk again is a decision not to love again. In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything- that’s what makes God, God. But God cannot do everything. He can’t make us love Him- that’s our choice. Love is risky for God too.
Which is a bit like a boy asking a girl to dance” (109).
He begins the chapter by retelling a story from his youth of asking a girl to dance. Her response was running into the girls bathroom. But he tells the story to illustrate making a move toward someone and the risk that is involved. The person can say yes or no. In putting yourself out there you give them power. What happens when our love is not reciprocated? He then tells another story, one where a friend admits having an affair. Bell recalls being at this guys wedding and witnessing their commitment to one another. That evening, the betrayed wife comes to his door, sits on his couch between him and his wife, and cries and cries and cries. Bell writes that there are a lot of different cries, “someone I love is dying” cry and even the “I just hit my thumb with a hammer” cry. But her cry on that day was of someone who had had their heart broken into by a lover. “It comes from someplace else. Someplace far inside a person, deep in the soul. It’s a cry with a certain ache. It’s the ache of a broken heart” (91).
He then uses the Bible’s collection of love poems, Song of Solomon to illustrate risky love. The young girl sees her “beloved” and he is coming toward her but cannot get in. He is standing behind her wall and looking through the window. She most likely lives at home and is very young. Her life is safe and predictable. Her family is there to care for her. But he is calling her to a life away from them. It is a risk she has to take. It may not work out. He may not be who he appears to be. What if he says this to every woman? What if he cheats on her? Love is risky. “The heart has tremendous capacity to love, and to ache. And this ache is universal.
“You can put women from all over the world with nothing in common in a room together and they may not have a thing to talk about until one of them says, ‘And then he cheated on me,’ and instantly you have universal sisterhood” (95). They all have heartbreak in common. Heartbreak is not just about lovers, but parents and children, friends and co-workers. “It’s universal because we’re feeling something as old as the world. Something God feels” (96). In Genesis, God gives people freedom. They have freedom to love God or not love God. Genesis 6:6 reads God, “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled” and “then YHWH (God) was sorry that he had made humankind on earth, and it pained his heart.” God has a heart, one that feels, responds, hurts and fills with pain. And we are the source of His grief.
“People God made who have freedom. Freedom to love anybody they want. And freedom not to love anybody they want. God takes this giant risk in creating and loving people, and in the process God’s heart is broken” (97).
“The story the Bible tells is of a living being who loves and who continues to love even when that love is not returned. A God who refuses to override our freedom, who respects our power to decide whether to reciprocate, a God who lets us make the next move” (98).
“Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it. That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted.
Love is a giving away of power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose. They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step toward us in gratitude and appreciation.
Love is a giving away. When we love, we put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two- love and controlling power over the other person- are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship” (98).
So God, creator of the universe, doesn’t overwhelm us by showing up in great power with bolts of lightening and making things happen. If He did, he’d scare us away. “The last thing people would perceive is love” (99). So He expresses His love by stripping Himself of all things that come with power and authority. “That’s how love works. It doesn’t matter if a man has a million dollars and wants to woo a woman (or vice versa), if she loves him for his money, it isn’t really love.
If you were an almighty being who made the universe and everything in it, you would need to meet people on their level, in their world, on their soil…like them.
This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of Jesus” (100).
Throughout the life of Jesus, He chooses love, not power. “Connection and solidarity rather thank rank and hierarchy. Touch rather than distance. Compassion rather than control. He comes on a donkey, not a horse” (101).
In Philippians it says that Jesus, “who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:5-11).
“There is a weakness that is actually strength. And a strength that is actually a weakness” (102).
Managers and bosses who use their position to bully others to get things done have a strength that is actually a weakness. Their authority only comes from a title, one that can me taken away in an instant. They appear strong, but are actually weak.
Bell uses Ghandi as a prime example of this in his commitment to nonviolence. He was able to stand up to the British Empire!
And this is the approach of Jesus. “In His emptiness, He shows us how empty the way of the world really is. …Jesus is God coming to us in love. Sheer, unadulterated love. Stripped of everything that could get in the way. Naked and vulnerable, hanging on a cross, asking the question, ‘What will you do with me?’”.(105)
Thus the cross speaks to us of God’s suffering, pain and broken heart. “It’s God making the first move and waiting on our response” (105).
If you have ever given yourself to someone and had your heart broken, you know how God feels. If you have ever given yourself to someone and found yourself waiting for their response, exposed and vulnerable, left hanging in the balance, you know how God feels. If you’ve ever given your heart to someone you loved deeply, only to have them lie to you, cheat on you, use you and rip your heart into pieces, you know how God feels. The cross is God’s way of saying, “I know what it’s like”.
So often we get angry at God, raise our fists in the air and tell Him how unfair He is and how He has no idea what we are going through or how much pain we are in…But the cross is God’s way of saying that He does know.
In seeing Him in this way we come to a place where we realize we are not alone, “where we find strength to go on. Not a strength that comes from within ourselves but a strength that comes from God. The God who keeps going. Who keeps offering. Who keeps loving. Who keeps risking. A God who knows what it’s like. The cross is where we present our wounds to God and say, ‘Here, you take them.’
Our healing begins when we participate in the suffering of God. When we don’t avoid it but enter into it, and in the process enter into the life of God. When we see our pain not as separating us from but connecting us to our maker. And in this connection, there’s always the chance we’ll find a reason to risk again”. (107)
If you’ve had your heart broken, risked, offered, been lied to, deceived, used, there is something divine in your suffering.
“You know how God feels.
Really good people get hurt. It’s the way things are.
It’s when we choose not to love again that there’s a problem. A decision not to risk again is a decision not to love again. In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do. God can do anything- that’s what makes God, God. But God cannot do everything. He can’t make us love Him- that’s our choice. Love is risky for God too.
Which is a bit like a boy asking a girl to dance” (109).
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