The Forecast Isn't Good

Evan Almighty

D’you ever have that thing where you love a movie even though all the evidence suggests you shouldn’t? In spite of the fact that all the critics pan it and no one really goes to see it – you just can’t help yourself. Well, that’s me with Evan Almighty. I know I know. Bruce Almighty it ain’t. And you can’t even win with Bruce because if you don’t like Mr Carey…
But I just can’t help it. I know it’s not a great movie, and it’s not as funny as it might have been, or as profound… But I just really like it. I can’t help it. It makes me laugh and think and maybe I’m alone here – but I reckon it beautifully illustrates how embarrassing it must have been to be an Old Testament prophet. I mean let’s face it – Evan has everything a dude could want and has to swap that for a bad beard, uncool clothes, bird excrement and er… a bonkers hobby. At least he didn’t have to cook his food on human crap, or walk around naked, or bury his underpants. You see we have this strange notion about the OT dudes, that they were cool heroes who towered above normal folk. We forget that their life was rather embarrassing and we probably would have scratched them off our party list. We talk about people being prophets today – well be warned if you’re praying for that gift – be prepared for a full scale move into crackersville. Cause it ain’t so much about talk talk talk – but look stupid, look stupid, look stupid. You see prophesy, it seems to me, is about doing something which will stop people in their tracks. Noah tried to do it with a big boat and it did stop people – but not for long enough – only for a nudge and a wink and witty riposte. Jonah reluctantly did something bonkers and wow! the people did stop. And God changed his mind when he saw that people were taking him seriously. Which begs the question – would God have actually sent the flood if everyone had got on the boat? And where would that have left the hapless Evan/Noah?

Blog 7 - Downsizer God

As Christmas approaches (and New year and Easter and Pentecost and Harvest) it puts me in mind again of the downsizing nature of the Boss. Ever since he made a perfect planet and then chose to entrust it to people like me it seems he displayed this tendency to go downmarket rather than up.

Have a good look at any of the renegades in the Bible and you see this trait again. Jacob, Samson, Solomon, (1000 women in his life and not one of them gets their name in the good book), Rahab - they're not really the people you'd expect to find ina who's who of the most Holy dudes on the planet.

Yet the One who is above all other contenders picked a bunch of misfits to pass on glimpses of the truth. Watched a lot of The Nativity Story movie again last weekend and it's an amazing moment when Joe holds up this tiny baby covered in goo and you remind yourself this is the Big Man himself, disguised as a child who'll die without the next feed from his mother and some old clothes from his dad.

The other thought I wanted to throw out is one Ive been musing on for a while and featured in a book called The Road Trip - that I reckon God lived on the earth for a good few years when he first made it. Or if not lived here had a holiday home. I reckon it's true cause the Good Book notes that it was a few centuries before people started to Worship God. Why? Why the change? Well Cain and Abel took offerings to the Boss and knew beyond doubt that one was rejected and one accepted. Maybe they walked to his house and met him. And if you think that's daft let's not forget that this is a Creator who walked in the garden with the first people and made 'em clothes out of the first sacrificed animal. So there ya go.