The Frown on God's Face

I was almost home yesterday, just having entered my beautiful and myopic suburb when I passed my favorite church.

Now my real favorite "church" is the one I am a part of, my brothers and sisters, but I love this church for its street sign. See, the sign is on one of the two main streets in a suburb of 60k, so it gets lots of exposure.

I have had so many laughs on my way home from work, I've also gotten pretty angry (at this specific church, and the church on the whole).

Well unfortunately this was an angry one.

America Bless God

We've all seen it/heard it before.

What the hell does it mean?

Because when I look at scripture and it talks about God blessing Israel, it meant bestowing certain gifts upon them. Now maybe blessing god makes sense to some of you (Just like saying, "God we pray that blah blah blah..." while you are praying), but to me I am lost. I certainly have nothing to give to god, other than that which he already owns (everything). Unfortunately I think that the word bless has come to mean, wish well.

And really, don't get me wrong, I want god to have the best week, so yeah, bless him up! but seriously, this phrase has no meaning. God has blessed us, blesses us now, and will continue to bless us, he has given us life, and everything in it.

I came across a post on Tony Jones' blog six months or so ago about meaningless statements. the discussion was about whether or not statements can be/are meaningless that reference the limits of god (I'm not explaining it well, but its not important).

It got me thinking about meaningless statements. America Bless God certainly holds some meaning these days, but that doesn't mean it isn't meaningless meaning...?

I think the author means America Praise God, which is nice, except we have no clue how to do that...

but how do we bless god?

Its just another example of christianity trying to be cute, thinking it somehow can be relevant to the society that already hates it.

Not sure what I'm trying to even say here, other than I'm frustrated.

Frustrated with every attempt to be relevant, without really being relevant. To me, relevance is an infinite term, limited only by the number of people you are trying to be relevant to, which, by definition, makes relevance a relational thing. Too bad the church can't learn to be relational. Even then, the times that it seems to get it, it is a shallow and meaningless relationship.

When will we learn to truly know people?