living at the auction block

Perhaps a missing blog day could mean that no blogging is taking place. That is not the case this time. I have been blogging a lot lately, but I've not been able to get it into a form that I feel would make sense without my own context at the moment. It's been a couple of weeks of major assimilation, pulling together of different things that seem to make others make sense. I think I've been given some insight as to the source of some struggles and frustrations, and I've been newly frustrated, and also affirmed. I've learned a lot lately, at times, from unlikely teachers in unlikely places.
But I'm no closer to expressing this in a coherent way. But has that ever stopped me before?
I've decided that's what blogs are for. So I'm going to ramble a bit, and think that maybe in so doing, someone out there might be able to help me organize, cement, discard, or whatever is needed, some of my current thoughts.
I'm teaching a Tuesday night class this semester. In this week's reading for the course, D.A. Carson states that "this side of the fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provision that God has graciously made." I believe this is a true statement in that worship is a proper response to God's redemptive provision. But in the context there seems to be an implication that proper worship responds to God's redemptive provision. This seems to disallow that anything else warrants a response of worship. It struck me that a majority of criticism leveled toward contemporary worship finds as its subject the shallow, relationship-oriented focus. Carson speaks of the command to Peter to "feed my sheep" and laments that the sheep are being fed light-fare cuisine, the same criticism that I hear almost daily concerning shallow worship.
One of our class members, rightly observed that maybe this comes from a faulty understanding of redemption. I certainly agree, and have blogged on this from time to time. Our class member stated that redemption meant having been "bought back". I responded, of course, - so why are we so determined to continuously live at the auction?
Now I want to be very careful here, because I don't want anyone to think that I am not grateful for God's redemptive provision. But it seems to me that the provision was a means to an end, the means of bringing us back into relationship with God. If the cross was the end, we'd have been created fallen.
All week long I've tried to imagine why we wouldn't be able to get past the auction and into relationship. I've talked with a few people about it and I've heard, more than once, "but I don't think we can actually get back to a 'pre-fall' place. That statement shocks me, because frankly, I thought that was what the redemptive provision was for. If God's provision is not enough, what's the point? I feel like we have a guilt complex though we say we've been forgiven. Jesus has invited us to relationship, provided for that relationship and we still feel too guilty to follow Him. Isn't that what He asked? Follow me, He said. If we are determined to stay at the auction, and claim we are following Him, doesn’t that say that we assume He is still there as well? Isn't the good news that He didn't stay dead? Didn't He pay for us once and for all? Does he have to continue to pay? Do we worship Him because He died, or because He conquered death?
I constantly hear criticism leveled against shallow, relational, Jesus-is-my-boyfriend type songs. I'm told that the gospel is not present in these songs. But I am living post-provision. The gospel is that I've been bought back for a relationship, how can the gospel not be present in that relationship?
Why are we so afraid of getting past the auction and on to relationship? We've got to trust Jesus that his teaching is adequate for our living. He told us that He came so that we could have life more abundantly, and He taught for 3 years on precisely how to have it. But we do not study His teaching. We do not preach His teaching. We focus on the epistles and Pauline theology. We strain to think of effective ways to facilitate spiritual formation, but ignore the "how to live" teaching of Jesus.
I was lamenting to a friend about how little Jesus I hear from the pulpit at our chapels (talk about practical teaching), and he said it was because Jesus was too simple. We enjoy the epistles because they are deep and theological and challenging to grasp, and debatable. They are great fodder for study and publication, etc. Jesus is just not challenging enough to warrant our interest. Then it struck me. I remembered a statement by Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy when he was expressing our unwillingness to be disciples in our day-to-day. We are unwilling to look to Jesus as our daily teacher. We do not trust Jesus as an intellectual. His teaching is so simple that we don't consider Him an intelligent teacher. No wonder we are bothered by worship songs that focus on relationship – we have ignored the object of that relationship. We've forgotten the teaching of the One who taught relationship with Him and others.
Some encouragement came this past week from Stuart Briscoe who delivered 5 messages on the life of Peter. But really the messages used Peter to illustrate what Jesus desires from, for and in us. Briscoe stated that the only call that Jesus ever made to us was to relationship. That call is coupled with a summons to discipleship under His authority. In return, Jesus promises to transform us.
He bought me back, called me to relationship and now He is making me. How can I not properly respond to all these aspects by worshipping?