Creative Team Building and Leadership Resources - In our Elements

Testy and Cross

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Fellow Passengers: This week’s Poetry Passage* (Psalm 78:56-72) transports me to the headline copy editor’s desk at any newsroom across the country, where apparently there is a dire shortage of thesauruses. In the absence of such a resource, and in the absence of imaginative word-smithing, there is the temptation to overuse certain words. I’ve noticed that the word of the season now is testy. It’s used to describe people who are irritable, tetchy, cranky, ornery, cantankerous, irascible, bad-tempered, grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, petulant, crabby, crusty, curmudgeonly, ill-tempered, ill-humored, peevish, cross, fractious, pettish, prickly, short-fused, snappish, snippy. There is certainly no shortage of people fitting these descriptions in the news today. But the news writers must not like any of these other adjectives. They like testy. So we read in headline after headline that Herman Cain got testy with a group of reporters questioning him about sexual harrassment charges. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and President Obama got testy with each other on an airport tarmac. Mitt Romney got testy with Fox News reporter Bret Baier. Newt Gingrich got testy with CNN’s John King. Donald Trump got testy with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. Rick Santorum got testy with a group of college students. Ron Paul got testy and walked out on CNN reporter Gloria Borger (but it’s hard to say how you’d tell if Ron Paul got testy, given his normal curmudgeonly demeanor).

Were there a headline to today’s Psalm passage, it well might be God Gets Testy. The covenant people have put God to the test, rebelling and building high places for idol worship. They have been disloyal and faithless, ignoring the commandments, as unreliable as a faulty bow. At some point they cross a line and push God over the edge. God gets snappish and snaps. We see the bad-tempered and ill-humored God rejecting Israel completely, abandoning the tabernacle they had built in Shiloh, sending the ark of the covenant with all its power into the hands of the enemies. Victimized by the fury of God, there are no wedding songs for the young women to sing, and no priests left to officiate even if there were any weddings. No miraculous turning of water into wine here. And then, the irascible God wakes up as if from a drunken stupor and really lowers the boom, beating back enemies and establishing a new center of power in the land of Judah, with boy wonder David chosen to take the helm.

From the line of that king would eventually come a new king preaching the virtues of love and grace and peace and a decentralized presence of God. When I look at the thesaurus list of words for testy, one word that jumps out at me is cross. This new king of the Jews came and turned water into wine and cleansed the temple and taught us to love one another, all on his way to take on all the testiness of humanity, on the cross. I’m not sure how the word cross came to mean angry, annoyed, irate, irritated, vexed, irked, piqued, put out, displeased, irritable, short-tempered, bad-tempered, snappish, snappy, crotchety, grouchy, grumpy, fractious, testy, crabby, cranky, mad, hot under the collar, peeved, riled, on the warpath, up in arms, steamed up, sore, bent out of shape. Perhaps  one of the functions of the cross of Jesus is to help bend testy people back into the shape of grace, through the power of transforming love.

How about you? Where does this Poetry Passage take you on your journey of faith? Feel free to comment.

Comments

  • February 15, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    To me (and Robin Meyers in SAVING JESUS FROM THE CHURCH), the cross is utter futility. Jesus went through life preaching, teaching and healing and introducing people to who God truly is. After such an incarnate life, for Jesus to end up on the cross is seemingly utter failure. Yet through the centuries there have been glimpses of light and hope in the lives of the saints who carried his message and acts. As I work with the Baptist Peacemakers of RI and our churches, my prayer is that I can in my own little speck of the world bring the teachings of Jesus to mean something not only in myself but in those close to me.
    By the way there are times when I am testy at the lack of compassion in the words and actions of our ultra conservative brothers and sisters in the Tea Party.

    Comment by Janet Davies

  • February 15, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    Yes, Janet, I’ve read that theology as well. I think the gospel writers understood it as being the ultimate defeat of all sin, failure, futility, and as such the ultimate act of sacrificial love that can transform the world. And we all get testy at times!

    Comment by Stan Dotson

  • February 20, 2012 at 6:18 pm

    For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us that are saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18

    Comment by jim munsey

  • February 20, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    Amen Jim!

    Comment by Daryl

  • February 20, 2012 at 6:42 pm

    For as in Adam all die, so in Christ we who are saved will be made alive! 1 Corinthians 15:22

    Comment by jim munsey

  • February 20, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    It makes me ” testy ” when people are irreverent to my God and the Cross of my salvation. I repeat 1st Corinthians 1 18 and add 2 Cor 4 1&2

    Comment by Shannon

  • February 20, 2012 at 7:30 pm

    Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,that we being dead to sins,should live unto righteousness:by whose stripes ye were healed. Praise God for sending Jesus to pay the price for us,we could not see heaven if Jesus didn’t come to take our sins on that tree!!!! All we have to do is confess,Christ as our personal Savior,pick up our cross and follow Jesus!!!!!!!

    Comment by Daryl D


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  • Psalm 78:56-72

    Daily Passages

    This Week's Theme:
    "Good News, Bad News"

    This week's Daily Passages blog theme takes its cue from the juxtaposition of Jesus' miracle of turning water into wine and the cleansing of the temple.

    Monday's Primary Passage–
    John 2
    Tuesday's Promise Passage–
    I Kings 9:10-25
    Wednesday's Poetry Passage–
    Psalm 78:56-72
    Thursday's Prophetic Passage–
    Isaiah 1:21-31
    Friday's Pastoral Passage–
    Acts 21:17-36

    “They put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High; they did not keep his statutes. Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow. They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols. When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely. He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans. He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy. He gave his people over to the sword; he was furious with his inheritance. Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs; their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep. Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine. He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame."
    –Psalm 78:56-66

    *I love how we call snippets of scripture “passages,” and I love imagining these words as actual passageways that transport us to all sorts of places in our journeys of faith. Daily Passages is a weekday trek through scripture, connecting the ancient sacred words with everyday human words from personal history and culture: music, art, film, politics, literature, religion.

    As a part of In Our Elements, the blog most closely associates with the element of Fire. Think about how the Bible speaks of God’s word as a fire, and how it also describes the human tongue as a fire, for good and ill. These fiery passages connecting the sacred text with human experience remind me of the “floo network” in the Harry Potter series. This means of transportation in J.K. Rowling's wizarding world uses the fireplace and some “floo powder” to quickly get folks from one place to another. Unlike the Harry Potter floo network, though, the destination of Daily Passages is not known until we take the plunge into the fire.

    My hope in this blog is that a daily adventure through scripture and experience will provide a different starting point for our everyday conversations. What would happen if we took our cues for what we talk about each day from a passage of sacred text, instead of the set agendas we carry around with us each day? What if our talking points came from a story of Jesus, or a Psalm, instead of the talking heads on radio or reality tv? I’m not sure where that kind of shift would take us as a culture, but I’m betting that it would head us in a better direction than our present course. So join me in the fire, join me in the floo network of faith. Join me in the Daily Passage to God knows where. And if you find these passages useful or meaningful, please pass them on and share them with your networks of family and friends.