Killing Rome.

 

Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself, “Do you know how old you’re acting right now?” I mean, let’s be honest. Sometimes I can be such a baby.

A couple months ago one of my very best friends was visiting with her hubby and their brand new, sups adorbs (“super adorable” abbreviation, FYI {For Your Information : )  }) first child. Being the great parents they already are, they provide for their child. They love on and rock-a-bye and bathe and clothe and feed the cutey little man. One morning, when it was daddy’s turn to feed baby, he was being great: he warmed up the bottle. He was getting it just right; just the way Little Mister likes it.

Yet Little Mister was having none of it.
He had decided about 37 seconds before it was ready that he was hungry and he was now done waiting. He came unglued. Irritated. Annoyed. Angry. Red in the face. Squirming and kicking and screaming.

Inconsolable.

The daddy- remember the one who was getting the food just right, just perfect for his son he loves so much?- looks over, smiles at his son and says, “Relax, child.” Then he turns to me and says “You never understand God until you have a kid of your own. You also never understand yourself until you have one either. Like, how, as an adult we still throw tantrums in front of God—a God who will always feed us and make it just right— because he is not feeding us fast enough on our recently-decided whim.”

Whoa.

Way to go, new daddy.
That’s insight right there, Wolfies.

But do you know what I mean? Sometimes (more often than I would like to admit, even to myself—ESPESCIALLY to myself) I just feel really young and hungry.

So I throw a tantrum. Because I don’t want to wait anymore. Forget the fact that God is probably warming everything up so that it’s the best.

Sure, maybe I don’t throw my head back and start wailing (although, that does sound like something I might do), but so annoyed that I want to scream? Or yell at whoever is closest? Or call my best friend and bawl….like a baby?

You bet.

All of that sounds like me.

Because, let me tell you a little secret about myself: I want what I want when I want it.

 
And I typically want it now.

 Right now.

 This instant.

No, now that I think about it, I want it yesterday.

If I could already be getting bored with it right now, like a child’s toy at Christmas, that would be great. Thanks.

And then when I don’t get it I get all sassy.

Because I am a baby.

All I am thinking about when I throw my adult tantrums is me. No surprise there. Things should be working into my hand, I think.
Why in the world do I think this? Am I not too old for such antics?

Besides the obvious answer of “sin,” I think I discovered a new answer this summer. I want what I want when I want it, I throw my tantrums, I demand my own way, I am a baby, because I am Western.

Roman.

Wow so very Roman.

And Roman means impatient-self-centered-I-will-bulldoze-you-over-if-you-don’t-do-what-I-want.

You know, I have traveled a lot in my life, but never before this summer was I out of the West.

I really realized I was “not in Kansas anymore” when I was at a Christian holy site in Israel and walked into a cathedral the Catholics had been nice enough to build on top of the site.
It was in that instant when I walked in and said to myself, “Now this feels like home…”  It was big and bold and beautiful and decorated and visually loud and all things that exemplify the west. It was built to commemorate something, celebrate something, make a big deal out of something. Suddenly in that building I didn’t feel foreign. It was what I was used to.

Here, let me show you.

Western-style Cathedral in the East.

 

This is what sacred sites look like in the west.

At a very dear friends' wedding in the States.



St. Mark's Basilica. Venice. My favorite church in the world.



The Vatican. Rome.

Sacre Coeur. Paris.

Cathedral. Budapest.

Hillsborough, Northern Ireland.

Il Duomo. Florence.

This is what they look like in the East.

Wailing Wall.

 

1st Century Synagogue.

Dome of the Rock

Mecca

 

Do you now see how when I saw the Western cathedral in the East I felt like I was right back in the West because nothing up until that point had looked familiar?

But, unlike reveling in the comfort of home, I found myself thinking, “Something feels off to me. How did it all get so loud? How did it all get so in-your-face? When did it start demanding attention?”

I think it’s when we went to Rome.

No, I don’t mean Roman Catholicism. Goodness sakes, I do not bash denominations on here.

I am talking the Roman Empire. You know, the conquerors of the world. The ones who came after the Egyptians, Israelites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians.
Like the Herods and the Caesars and Nero and all those guys on serious power trips.
Like all those guys who demanded their own way.
Who wanted what they wanted when they wanted it and took it by force if not immediately delivered on a platter.

See, here’s the deal: if unchecked, your culture molds your faith. And we all know that your faith molds your lifestyle.

And in the West, we’re Roman. We were founded by Romans. Our culture bleeds Rome.
Naturally then, we think Roman, we live Roman, we like Roman entertainment, we dress Roman, we eat like the indulgent Romans.
In the West we go and we conquer and we take what we want.
We are young and hungry and demanding and whiney and have never had our cages rattled.
We’re babies in relative comparison to the rest of the world.

But the East. The East is old. It’s seen empires rise…and empires fall…and rise again….and inevitably fall.

It’s patient. It knows this too will pass. They know a thing or two about enduring; waiting for God to move.
In the East they wander in hot deserts for 40 years or get put in exile in foreign lands for hundreds of years. They still—to this day— have quasi-arranged marriages because, like Tziry told me, “It’s worked for my people for 3,000 years. We have a less than 10% divorce rate; so we still do it that way.”
There are things about that culture that have been done the same way for like 4,000 years; they haven’t eaten pork since the Old Testament. I mean, seriously.
They know what you need to do to withstand all the rise and fall.

You wait. You don’t demand. You don’t yell. You don’t throw a tantrum.

You wait. And you pray.

I am Western. Roman. Same thing. Did I mention that?

I don’t wait well. I demand well. I yell well. I throw tantrums well, like the baby I am. Like the baby the West is. Like my friend’s little guy who hasn’t quite figured out that daddy will always provide; always feed him.

And so I come back from my trip, now knowing all that I just told you, and I see myself falling into Roman-faith patterns again, already praying about subjects of various kinds, “Jesus! How come this is not happening when I want it?!!?” Wah wah wah! I cry.  And I journal and boldly demand my own way to the face of a patient God.

To a God who isn’t Roman.

To a God who takes all eternity to accomplish his purpose. To a God who has no need to demand because he rightfully owns all, ergo, meaning that if I am demanding my own way, let’s just say that is not something created in me from his image, capiche?
To a God who says, “I work in the absence of time; to me a day is like a thousand years and the opposite is true, too. Time holds no constrain on me. I am held not by its power.”
I see myself trying to force a non-Roman God to do things in my Roman way.

WHO. DO. I. THINK. I. AM?

I am a Roman-saturated punk-baby throwing a tantrum. That’s who I am.

You will have guessed that that’s not working so well for me. Why would it? It’s not how God works and usually things only work when you work with God.

Rome is a fierce hold. Read history. They owned the world without thought. When they were creating the empire I live in they were not caring about me, they were not out for my good, they were forcing what they wanted. They took and they demanded and they conquered and they won and they ruled and feasted and gloried and then they did it all over again.

Until the next conquerors said to them, “Yeah, we’re done with you.”

See, the ones who came after knew something that you and I have to know if we are EVER going to get ahold of this situation in our lives; if that tantrums will ever stop:

                Either you kill Rome, or Rome will kill you.

My life is no different.

This demanding my own way. This wanting what I want when I want it. My tantrums. All that is in me that bleeds Rome.
Either I have to stop, wait, be patient, trust God, and let Jesus kill Rome, or Rome will kill me.