Rick Lee James critiques a local billboard reading "After you die, you will meet God," arguing it promotes fear-based theology that misses the incarnational God. Drawing on Matthew 25, he says we encounter the divine now, in the faces of patients and the poor, not only after death.
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Welcome back to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I am so glad that you are here with me again today. I know I say this every week and I apologize again, but work schedule being the way that it is, life just being crazy, as I close in on the end of my residency work as a chaplain at Kettering Health in Dayton, Ohio, I just haven't been able to have any guests on the show. That will be an exception coming up because I prerecorded an episode with the great Matt Lewis of the podcast Matt Lewis on the News. You probably see him on TV all the time as a commentator on different news shows. If you listen to his podcast, you know how how good his podcast is. Well, he has a new book called Filthy Rich Politicians that's coming out, and we recorded a podcast about that new book probably a month and a half ago with the understanding that I wouldn't release it until the book releases on July 18th. So be looking forward to that. That's going to be coming up sooner than later. So today is another episode where it's just me, and I'm in the car again, as you can probably tell from from the sounds around me. It doesn't sound like a normal podcast, or maybe it does. I guess this is just normal anymore, how it works. But I wanted to talk briefly today. There is a billboard that I drive by every day on my way to work. I'm on my way to work right now, and I absolutely despise this billboard. I hate it. I think it is based on a terrible understanding of who God is, of our relationship to God. And it says this in big, gigantic, scary-looking, fiery letters: "After you die, you will meet God." And I think if you could put on your best, like, horror film narrator voice: "After you die, you will meet God." God, you know. My goodness, is that really the way that we think about the One, the Divine Presence, who Scripture says is love, that God is love? If that's your understanding of what a loving deity is, then I think your understanding of a loving deity is warped on a couple different levels. One, because it just sounds so scary, for one thing. We see in Jesus the image of the invisible God. At least that's what we Christians believe. I know that we have several listeners to this podcast who are not Christians, and several who don't even maybe even believe in God. And I'm grateful for all of you that are here, but just coming from a standpoint of a Christian. As a person who does have a high Christology, I do believe that in Jesus we see the image of the invisible God. And I don't see this scary horror film deity coming through. If anything, if I were to have that billboard— first of all, I don't like the message, and I'll get into that in a second— But I don't like the message of "After you die, you will meet God." It should really be like— change the font. If that has to be the message, change the font and say something to the extent of "After you die, you'll meet God." You know, like, what a beautiful thing to say. What a wonderful reality. If you've never had the chance before, you get to meet God in this new and beautiful way like you've never seen Him before. But the real problem with the billboard to me is we see God every day. We don't know that we're seeing God, but we do, especially as Christians. Matthew 25, again, whatever you have done or whatever you have not done, you have done it to me. When you look into the face of another person, the eyes staring back at you are the eyes of God. And I don't mean that that person is God, but I kinda do. What I mean by that is each person embodies for us the presence of the living God. When I go into a hospital room and I visit with patients, I have to remind myself often that the eyes of Jesus are the eyes staring back at me. That I go into the room not so that the other people can see Jesus in me, but so that I can find Jesus in them. How is the Divine working? How is the Divine moving? This person who is also made in the image of God is right in front of me. That means sometimes I see God, as we are told in Scripture, we will find him with the poor, with the lame. When I'm in a hospital room and I'm with sick people, I find God there. I look lower, not higher, to see God because God has come to be with us. And in Jesus, that is so true, incredibly true. And when I see a billboard like that, that is purely intended to scare, for one thing, it's bad theology, in my opinion. For another thing, though, it's just designed in a way that shuts down the conversation. Who would even want to know a God like that? Who would want anything to do with a God who is that angry and wrathful and vengeful and you better get right or else. Jesus shows us the exact opposite of that. If anything, the only people Jesus seems to ever have a problem with are people who follow God. Every time you read in Scripture, that's who Jesus is always calling out. But he's not calling them out as much as he is calling them in. Anytime that Jesus calls someone out, we really should look at that as a calling in. A calling back into the fellowship. It's not a calling out like, "I'm gonna push you away." It's a calling in like, "Please come back into the fold. Your view is askew on this one." It's the same thing when we do it. Sometimes as Christians, we call out morality or issues like that in leaders or things like that. I so often get told, "Why do you always have to—" point out the sinful behavior of that person. Well, if that person is, you know, claiming to be some kind of a messenger from God and their life isn't matching up, it's not a calling out, it's a calling in. It's saying, "Come back to the fold." It's not a picking on a person, it's a pulling them back in, like, "Please repent. Come back to your first love. Come back to who you have been called to be. So today's podcast, again, it's another short one, but it was important to me. I just— that billboard bugs me every day. I want to change it, and I want to say instead of "When you die" or "After you die, you will meet God," I want to say, "While you are living, you will meet God." And after you die, oh, thank the Lord, you get to meet Him in a new way. You get to meet the Divine. And not through a glass but face to face. This divine being, this presence in the world and in the kingdom, and the presence who is on earth as in heaven, who we get to have with us, that we get to be with God rather. Love unbounded. Love divine, all loves excelling, as John Wesley and as Charles Wesley wrote about. Beautiful. I love talking about that kind of God who we see in Jesus, and I'm grateful for that kind of God. So that's it for today. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. My interview with Matt Lewis, I believe it's coming up maybe next week. I'll have to look at the calendar. But life is busy. Pray for me and I'll pray for you. Things are happening, and there's several things I want to tell you about I just can't yet. But hopefully in the next month or so, I'll be able to reveal some new things that are going on. Thank you so much, as always, for listening to Voices in My Head. You can find me on my website at rickleejames.com. You can follow me online on Twitter @RickLeeJames, also on Instagram @RickLeeJames, on Threads @RickLeeJames. If you do Facebook, facebook.com/rickleejames. Just look up Rick Lee James. You'll find me. I especially hope you listen to my music on Spotify. I actually did some recording last night. Late, late, early, late, early recording because the only time I have. But I have some new music that I hope to release this year. So, um, yeah, good things coming our way, hopefully. Thanks again for listening to Voices in My Head. God bless.
