Can I Argue with Alec Benjamin?

“Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.” (Matthew 28:20b, CEB translation)

“Look! I’m standing at the door and knocking. If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to be with them, and will have dinner with them, and they will have dinner with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

“For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with great mercy I will bring you back.” (Isaiah 54:7)

“And it’s a crying shame you came all this way,

‘Cause you won’t find Jesus in LA.” Alec Benjamin, “Jesus in LA”

The first time I heard “Jesus in LA” on the radio, I immediately began the internal theological argument that sometimes happens in my head over songs. In the song, Alec Benjamin sings about meeting the devil in the midst of Benjamin’s own faith struggle as he has moved out to the West Coast. He is searching for his savior, and is having no luck. The devil recounts some of the spoils of the fame lifestyle, like parties and drugs and alcohol, and then basically affirms that Jesus is not present in those spaces, or in LA at all.

There is one theological argument that immediately jumps to mind – is the devil a trustworthy source for such an assessment? As interesting a question as that is, I am going to set that one to the side for right now in favor of the other one….

Is there anywhere where we don’t find Jesus?

First, let me say that I am going to treat Jesus as a fully integrated member of the Trinity here, so I will use Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God interchangeably. So is there anywhere we don’t find God’s presence?

My immediate reaction is, “No, of course not! God is everywhere! Of course God is in LA!” That theology has been with me as long as I can remember. There is nowhere God won’t go. Jesus revealed that as he walked through death and came out on the other side. Like in the final words of the Gospel of Matthew quoted above, he affirms that he will be with us until the end of the present age, so we can count on Jesus to be everywhere at all times.

Wait, can we?

In the first place, what promise does Jesus actually make in those verses? He makes that promise to the disciples gathered before him as he is preparing to ascend. Does that promise extend to us? Also, the CEB translates the last words as “until the end of this present age.” The word they are translating that way is aionos, from which we derive the word eon. But there is some debate about when an eon ends. So are these words still applicable to us? Are we still in the eon?

Ok, but that is not the only verse that speaks of God’s presence.  Those are scattered throughout the Bible. And then I also have my good Wesleyan theology of grace to stand on, and that theology affirms prevenient grace, which is God’s persistent call to be in relationship with all of us, to call all of us to God. That means God meets us at all points in our lives, reaching for us even – or especially – in those vulnerable places where we don’t know God is present. God is there. We just have to take notice. The passage from Revelation speaks of that persistence of God, standing at the door, knocking, waiting for us to invite God in.

But again, wait. That means God is outside of the room. Away from us. It may just be a door, but doesn’t that open up the possibility that we are somewhere where God is not?

And that is the tension throughout the prophets. The people have rejected God, so God, at least for a while, will reject us, just as Isaiah tells us God has done, even if that rift is in the process of being healed.

All of this swirled in my head when I remembered two experiences that I had lately. Two times in the past six months I have sat in worship in a church and felt the absence of the Spirit. Not just that the Spirit was quiet. I felt the tangible absence of God. And it wasn’t in LA. It was in church. The experience was so disturbing, both times I almost stood up and left. The second time it happened, my son read a poem he had written during church about how scared and upset he was that God was gone from the church. So I was not alone in my perception.

While my Sunday school theology wants to affirm that God is everywhere, both Scripture and experience bring that foundational “truth” into question. And honestly, I am more than a little uncomfortable. I have leaned on the idea that there is nowhere God would reject. That God would be present in everything and everywhere. And also, to return to the song that started this whole mess, I am certain that Jesus is present in LA. And again from stories of experiences of others, sometimes it is exactly at the bottom of bottle where Jesus is found, because that is sometimes the desperate place where someone finally turns and seeks their savior.

And that is the rub. The question is not whether God would be present somewhere. The question is whether we want God to be present there or not. It seems that a loving God, one who has given us freewill, has also given us the option to choose to reject God. To choose to push God out of the room. That doesn’t mean that God will stop knocking. It doesn’t mean that God would refuse to be in any space we welcome God.  It does mean, however, that God does give us the space and the freedom to choose for God not to be present in a space. And notably, we can choose that as a church. We cannot take for granted that just because we gather in a building with “church” on the sign out front that we have actually invited God into the house. God is absent from the places that hollow God’s name, even if we stand in the sanctuary and pretend to hallow the name. And knowing the God described in Scripture and encountered in a journey of faith, God is more likely to abandon such places than the empty spaces where people pursue fame and consumerism, simply because they do not know any better. We do know better, so our abandonment is an act of accountability for the choices we are, or are not, making.

So I will argue with you, Alec Benjamin, in that I don’t think the devil should be your source of truth about God, and that the places you name are still places where God can and will be present. But I will also agree with you that there are some places, especially those where people claim to know God and yet reject being moved and changed by a relationship with God, from which God will choose to depart. Return one day when hearts are changed, sure. But will leave us for a while to feel the palpable presence of a life overwhelmed by God’s profound absence.   

Photo by Joseph Ngabo on Unsplash