Fashioned from the Same Clay

This Eugene Peterson devotion was particularly  cool in light of my encounter with Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen yesterday morning at the ACE hardware with my chapel band kids.

All the same, we continue to have an unquenchable thirst for wholeness, a hunger for righteousness. When we get thoroughly disgusted with the shams and cretins that are served up to us daily as celebrities, some of us turn to Scriptures to satisfy our need for someone to look up to. What does it mean to be a real man, a real woman? What shape does mature, authentic humanity take in everyday life?

When we do turn to Scripture for help in the matter we are apt to be surprised. One of the first things that strikes us about the men and women in Scripture is that they were disappointingly hon heroic. We do not find splendid moral examples. We do not find impeccably virtuous models. That always comes as a shock to new comers to Scripture: Abraham lied; Jacob cheated; Moses murdered and complained; David committed adultery [and murder]; Peter blasphemed.

We read on and begin to suspect intention: a consistent strategy to demonstrate that the great, significant figures in the life of faith were fashioned from the same clay as the rest of us. We find that Scripture is sparing in the information that it gives on people while it is lavish in what it tells us on God. It refuses to feed our lust for hero worship. It will not pander to our adolescent desire to join a fan club. The reason is, I think, clear enough. Fan clubs encourage second hand living. Through pictures and memorabilia, autographs and tourist visits, we associate with someone whose life is (we think) more exciting and glamorous than our own. We find diversion from our own humdrum existence by riding on the coattails of someone exotic.

Living the Message: Daily Reflections with Eugene Peterson; April 16, pp. 115-116