Jacob’s Last Words

by phichijacob

Dear Readers,

 

The command of scripture is to speak the truth in love. However, when love no longer lingers and mirth becomes cold mocking and delight becomes devoid of desire to see growth in grace, the joke must come to an end. For this reason, we the writers write to you.

 

Often has satire been utilized to address the problems of a particular context. It would seem that our adventure in story has been sorely misused and has been used as a means of degrading those of a particular brand of faith. The narrators seek to remind themselves as well as others that though it be a different brand, it is true faith nonetheless. Jacob and Esther’s quest for true love was never meant to serve as a platform to espouse superiority of faith or to condemn some among us. Rather, the fable was meant to point out certain errors of faith lived out by sinful people in the midst of an overly “spiritualized” culture – a culture that largely misses the point of the faith it boldly claims.

 

I would ask you to consider a few things.

 

One, the Lord has deemed it appropriate that every person be in process. Thus, as the other narrator pointed out, Jacob and Esther are Christians pursuing true faith, though many can look and see the ridiculousness of many of their thoughts and actions. Professing Jesus does not immediately grant one a certain level of theological training nor does it automatically alter certain thought patterns or emotions. Instead, the Holy Spirit works in and through ordinary life to teach us the beauty of the everyday, true faith, and deep friendship. It does not happen over night. Jacob and Esther are simply ones in process along with the rest of us.

 

Two, let us consider how to spurn one another on to good deeds, right faith, and a proper understanding of Jesus in the midst of process. Imagine Jacob and Esther a year, or two, or even ten removed from their escapades together. Consider what growth the Lord might have done. That growth is the beauty of the gospel; it’s a growing awareness of the love of Jesus and how He has called sinful people sons and daughters. “An Exchange of Rings” was an attempt to spurn born out of love for the campus, concern for the souls of those among us, and a desire to see Jesus rightly proclaimed rather than used as a magic 8-ball of sorts. Have you considered recently that He who created the cosmos condescended to His creation for the purpose of redeeming them? I

 

It is the sincere hope of the narrators that you, the reader, have walked away both stung with conviction but also spurned on to love those around you despite where they may be in terms of processing their faith. This writing adventure has served the same function for the writers. It is with great humility we apologize to those rightly offended and ask God to teach us to love our campus, our neighbor, and to pray for their welfare and growth.

 

 

-Jacob’s Narrator.

esther’s last words

by esthergracemeyer

Dear Readers,

What started as bit of farce quickly spread into something more. When it comes to writing, content and context must always be held in delicate tension. The Narrator had hoped that these posts would begin conversations about the nature of the Gospel, the problems of Greek Life, and serious reflection on the flippancy with which people use the Name of God. This, alas, was not the overwhelming case. Instead, those who already had bitterness toward Holy Church used it as an invitation to perpetuate their hatred for the Bride and those who saw themselves in its reflection were not inspired to change and self-awareness but were instead driven farther into abstraction.

Apologies, accordingly, to those who, for legitimate reasons, were so offended.

It is thus that, what had hoped to be a laugh with a poke, must come to a close. In the service of God and not ourselves, even good intentions must be weighed against a Righteousness too great to bear. To this avail we all stumble, but when it is within our power to honor and obey our Lord and Master, in all times and in all places, we are called to submit.

However, before this brief encounter is wrought closed, The Narrator of Esther would like to pose these final thoughts, at the close shall come an insight into how the story would have ended, next semester:

—ONE—

Esther really wasn’t that bad. In fact, her faith is to be commended. For all her failing, for all her misunderstanding, she was, in the least, trying. She was, in the least, seeking. Does that cover everything? It does not. Dogma, true dogma, should be at the center of all people who seek and chase our beautiful Lord; however, all is but grace. All are on journey. All. Give space to chase the Infinite and you’ll realize just how far each and every one of us has to go. Through the ministration of Holy Ghost, somehow it all comes out to His good.

—TWO—

The above being true, it is also true that Greek Life on the campus of a professed Baptist university is a serious problem. In particular, fraternities and sororities that claim the name of Christ as masthead. Should a group claim Christ, as certain fraternities and sororities do, they should claim the whole of Christ.

Do we forget? Love your neighbor as yourself.

Though the Narrator admits culpability in frequently failing this command, nonetheless, as stated above, when it is within obvious power to correct, we as servants of Christ are called to do so. Organizations that are based on ostracizing, on the mindset of the cluster against the non-cluster, have forgotten the sting of not belonging.

You’re the child whose just dropped their ice cream cone in the sandbox and everyone is laughing at you. For a moment, would you be that child again? Consider what it means. Consider how it feels. Laugh this away, if you will, but there is hope you feel your heart bruised, that this causes a wound as old as this aching cosmos. Laugh at this too? It’s but Scripture.

Where would our Lord Christ be? Amongst the hungry and poor, the outcast, or with those assured of feeling that they belong?

This is not to suggest, however, The Narrator is without fault. The Narrator, instead, recognizes this failing and admits, in part, that this is the reason for truncating this fable.

But for those of you in the clusters, in the safety of group identity, is it fair to ask:

Shall you be the one to answer, yes, you on your own, for those who did not get to join the whole?

Shall you be the one to answer, yes, you on your own, for those who were never made to feel that they could try?

“Comfort ye my people.”

Where is your comfort?

—THREE—

Should this blog have appealed to you for it satirized a group that you do not like, should this have been a delight to your soul because it made you feel superior in your faith—are you not tired?

Have you not wasted enough of life hating the Church, all that energy that amounts to hating yourself? Are you broken, bruised, and wounded? The Narrator has a place for you here, come sit! We can chat about it, laugh at our foolishness, at our false superiority.

Come rest, at last, rest in the arms of Christ. Stop hating and being spiteful to the means by which Holy Ghost chooses to manifest. All is but grace and while dogma must be central, there is no negating this, we all need friends for the journey.

Come rest; come rest. Are you not tired? Do you need friends for the journey? Come play here with us, repentant misfits ourselves.

—THE ENDING—

This ending was planned several weeks ago, long before the bit of trouble …

Had the story gone on, next semester, Esther and Jacob (Phillip) would have broken up after a man on the street told them that he had a word of knowledge that they shouldn’t be getting married. Devastated, Esther sets off on her own to establish Bethesda Ministries–a clinic specializing in providing children who are deaf and living in Kenya with resources to live productive, active lives (yes, prayers for healing are included, but along with immediate care as well). On the plane, Esther contemplate the alleged promise she felt from God so long ago, about Bethesda and the names Andrew, Phillip, and Peter. She lets it go, telling God that she is willing to follow, even if it seems uncertain.

At that moment, an attractive man about her age is passing through the plane and takes the seat beside her. They start to chat. He explains that he’s going to Kenya as well to work with a mission church. Esther’s heart quickens, but falls quickly when he, taking out his in-flight reading, happens to pull out a Book of Common Prayer. Everything in her revolts, except a small part which, curiously, desires to know more. She watches him open the book, looks to the prayers within it, and when she sees how many Psalms are there, she begins to wonder if she’s missed something, if this, too, isn’t part of God. The man seems so nice, so open, so faithful, yet he is totally other than what she has been led to believe faith should look like. Yet, she considers, Christ is the same. She shoos the thought away, deciding that she doesn’t want to mistakingly read God into situations anymore.

Suddenly, the man apologizes for his rudeness in not properly introducing himself sooner, sticks out his hand, and says, “I’m Andrew.”

For you see, though it is not advisable for Esther to have thrust her finger down in Scripture and read the first verse that popped out for guidance, St. Augustine was converted by “turn and read.” God can use whatever He wills. Holy Ghost violently breaks in, sudden and beautiful, and does all sorts of beauty with our mangled messes. Esther included.

—CLOSE—

Now to Him be all glory, all honor, all power, now until the end of the age and the words passed here be found in the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, to whom be all glory and honor, now and forever, world without end, amen.

— Esther’s Narrator

esther, chapter five

by esthergracemeyer

Esther woke around noon to find Lydia lying atop her, hands carefully pinning Esther’s arms back, while Lydia murmured cereal names against her forehead.

“What are you doing?” Esther asked, images of Jennifer Knapp suddenly flooding her mind. She rebuked them quickly, just as Lydia finished a slurred, “LukycharmfrostedflakesgrapenutsOapplejacksreesespuffs!” and fell silent

Lydia loosed her grip on her best friend’s arms and sat back on her heels, still straddling the other. “I’m trying to perform a spiritual resurrection, Esther, in the style of Elisha.”

“Ja.”

“Sha.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s ja—“

“Irregardless!” Lydia snapped, eyes alight, “You’ve spent the past week moping around because of that guy and enough is enough.”

Esther felt a prick in her heart and she looked away, studying her wall where the Mandate poster still hung from September. Its distinctly African vibe stirred the flesh within her, pounding drums and animal instinct, and she suddenly found her thoughts turning to Jacob, his Christly biceps, the way his pecs bulged just slightly under his North Face vest when he lifted his NIV Study Bible ever so slowly as it slipped open to the Song of Sol—

“Esther?”

Esther’s eyes snapped shut. She opened them slowly, turning back to look at Lydia, a slight flush in her cheeks.

“Are you going to stay in bed all day or are we going to do something about all of this?” Lydia looked at her intently, never seeming to blink. Esther realized that she was not going to be able to avoid the issue any longer. Despite having spent the previous evening at an all night prayer vigil against Halloween and All Saints Day—two birds with one stone in Esther’s mind—and pretending it had everything to do with her piety, Lydia had seen through and recognized Esther’s spiritual business as avoiding her problems.

“Come on,” Lydia encouraged, “What would Joyce do?”

“What would Joyce do?” Esther repeated, taking a deep breath. Suddenly the Spirit brought the words of Joyce to her lips: “‘Complain and remain. Praise and be raised!’”

“Be raised!” Lydia affirmed, grabbing hold of Esther’s arms and pulling her back up off the bed so that she was sitting upright. Esther was laughing, the joy of the Spirit spilling out from her, but then it began to slowly fade and her smile turned into a soft line across her face. “Oh come on,” Lydia sighed, shaking her head, “You keep letting Satan steal the Jesus joy from your cookie jar!”

Esther let out a soft sigh. “It’s just I really wanted it to be him, Lyd. I wanted it to be Jacob. O—” she cast out her arm in a wide sweep, ‘Jacob have I loved!—’”

“Stop that!” Lydia insisted, shaking her head. “Esther, you keep thinking that because God gave you a word that it means that everything is set in stone. So what if his name isn’t Andrew or Peter or Phillip, it could still be him.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course!”

“Even though his name is Jacob?”

“Oh no! No, of course not.” Lydia shook her head. “No, he’s not it if his name is Jacob. But I was praying this morning over my Alphabet Cereal and the Spirit opened my eyes and I saw all those letters stirring in the bowl in front of me and do you know what word of knowledge came?”

Esther considered, not for the first time, that Lydia might be brick short.

“Um,” Esther muttered tentatively, “No?”

“The swirling letters formed new words again and again with all sorts of variations. Jhghjyu, Lophgsfdt, Hythdgan, and all sorts of words like that. So what if his name is Jacob? Jacob’s name was Jacob before God touched his tender place and he was renamed Israel. A name is just a name, but God is sovereign! If Jacob is to be the one, God will rename him. Right now he’s the wrong letters. But God owns all of the letters! He can do whatever He wants with them!” She clapped her hands together as a slight mist settled in her eyes. “Isn’t God beautiful?”

Esther considered her friend for a moment before deciding that it was best to nod, though she did so slowly. “Absolutely,” she agreed, though her heart ached. She wanted to believe that it was possible, but she couldn’t bring herself to accept it. At that moment, she felt the whisper of the Spirit to her heart, sudden and immediate, that she needed to go to the coffee shop. She slipped out of bed, Lydia looking slightly surprised, as she grabbed her clothes and changed quickly.

“Are you going to see him?” Lydia asked.

“Maybe,” Esther murmured, pulling a pair of tights over her legs so that they wouldn’t be exposed as she wore her ankle-length dress. “I just feel led to go.”

“With God!” Lydia declared as Esther turned, “Go with God, dear sister!”

As Esther walked down the side streets toward the coffee shop, she found herself praying, once more as she always did, for the campus. The spiritual life organization had recently taken on offering a personality test, which though she was unsure of what it was, she knew was inherently evil because it came from China, which she was fairly certain hated God and silverware.

“How long, O Lord?” she whispered, repeating the lines of Habakkuk, which she had read by the Spirit the day before when she had been seeking an answer about the Jacob situation and had the unfortunate folly of landing her finger repeatedly in Old Testament passages about circumcision, spilled seed, genocide, and something to do with an animal in Leviticus that she did her best to not think on again.

When she arrived at the coffee house, entering from the back, her expectation to find Jacob there, waiting, ready to tell her that he had changed his name, suddenly faded as she saw the deaf girl that she had recently healed talking on the back porch to the boy that had been with her when it had happened. They had been joined by a loud a woman who gesticulated wildly, as did the boy. Esther identified the woman as the one who claimed to be able to be a pastor, despite being a deceived Daughter of Eve. She was brandishing a Dr. Pepper 10 can and yelling something about sex trafficking, which Esther only presumed she was in favor of.

Esther slowly walked past them, lingering just long enough to watch as the girl laughed and listened, able to hear when she had never been able to do so before. Suddenly the feeling of blessing burned in her chest, how God had used her, could use her, and Spirits words were quiet: Bethesda.

She needed to spend time thinking about her ministry and less about Jacob. But as the sun spilled into the door as she pushed it open, she caught for a moment the brief smell of musk and bad life choices hastily repented of and her heart leapt in expectation.

The light passed into darkness and she was face to face with a Pi Kapp.

“Hey,” he muttered, looking her up and down, both confused by the length of her dress and that she was a woman standing upright.

A soft laugh escaped Esther’s lips. “Wrong letters,” she whispered, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at herself. “Wrong letters.”