“Come on! Stop trying to hit me, and hit me!”
Sometimes in the language of Christianity we are told that we need “a relationship with Jesus.” I find the phrase well-meaning but a little loose. What exactly are we talking about here?
I have a marital relationship with my wife, a fraternal relationship with my brother, and a predator-prey (facilitated by McDonalds) relationship with my grilled chicken sandwich.
When we first approach someone with this law, to have a relationship with God, we then have to spend time working with that person’s idea of what a relationship is. This can have its own foibles. What if a person has had bad relationships?
My relationship with Jesus? He’s my Lord and Savior; I am baptized into Christ. But does that drive home the point when I tell that to someone else? Talking about one’s relationship with Jesus makes the issue about that person.
In Luke 24:45-49, Jesus tells the disciples what to preach:
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Thus we better serve future disciples by telling them straight away what our problem is and God’s answer to that problem. Our truth is objective, historically accurate and independent of whether our hearts are ablaze. Christ died for us whether or not we have had bad relationships. We are striving for more than happiness found in a relationship. We are thankful that we are saved from eternal damnation by a merciful and holy God.
iggyantiochus on 
Dan
Exactly!
“What if a person has had bad relationships?”
Its funny that you put this out today. I am drawing another cartoon that is dealing with this same topic. It is a dig at The Shack and Young’s portrayal of a god that changes according to our bad experiences.
Ah, how sinful we are that we can turn “relationship” into law. I usually keep that language for a different sort of conversation and explanation. I haven’t used it in initial conversations about faith and conversion, but I’ve used it to explain why I don’t behave in certain ways to non-Christians who see what I do and say and believe that I am trying to earn my way into heaven. It’s not about making God happy or unhappy so that He does what I want him to, I want to do what He says because of my relationship with him. That relationship can only come through His grace and His spirit, it is nothing I initiate on my own.
I have heard this “relationship” talk one too many times, and it implied that YOU must make that relationship work by doing x, y, and z so God won’t let you down. It’s especially most dangerous when introduced in teen bible studies. That’s when this relationship talk morphs into the ridiculous:
From the Everything is Terrible site, a clip about dating God. (ACHTUNG! NSFW for commenters’ snark and blasphemy)
When “relationship” is the main category used, things get screwy. The idea that when we talk to God, He talks back often comes along with this idea. Now there’s a qualified sense in which I think this can be expected. If we are spending time in the Scriptures, I think there is a renewal of the mind such that the voice of God is at work, as His word is at work in our minds. But it is not there as the only voice. Our minds are never in this life only renewed minds. The “relationship” talk often leads people into a discovery of a kind of inner dialog that surprises them. But they aren’t taught to be critical of what results. I even had one friend, when I suggested he had to be a little more critical of where certain ideas came from, say he didn’t question the Holy Spirit. Quite circular. Yes, assuming this was the Holy Spirit, we should not question. But we should not make this assumption for that very reason. We must test first. And unless we end up back at one Bible passage that can only be interpreted or applied in one way, there will always be a question.
Excellent post. Relationships are soooo up-and-down, and literally change with a person’s mood. Yet God remains constant! His love, His forgiveness, His mercy, His baptismal promises, His body and blood, His absolution are always there regardless of our attitude, our mood, our doubt, our pride, and how “close” we feel to Him.
Moreover it is Christ who establishes a relationship with us. That relationship does not change, does not have ups-and-downs, and is always as close as The Word and Sacraments.
So, if one does end up talking about their relationship with Jesus (once in a great while this may be appropriate) there are still solid, concrete, even Gospel-centered ways to define it.
Afterall, the Law only tells us we need Jesus. The Gospel gives Jesus.