Beyond the Graveyard

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24.5)

The Third Day

We know the story all too well, which is only proper, as the entirety of our faith hinges on it. The disciples are struggling to absorb the blow of Jesus’s sudden execution. They’re hidden out of sight, fearful they may be next. Before dawn on Sunday, a group of women venture out to Jesus’s graveside with spices to preserve His corpse. His burial was a hurried affair. Since He owned no tomb, one had to be borrowed so He could be laid to rest before Sabbath’s sundown. In the dim shadows of early light, the women return to complete their task. They find the stone guarding Jesus’s body pushed aside. He’s gone. Two dazzling figures appear out of the blue, terrifying the women. The messengers can’t figure out why they’re there. Jesus repeatedly told them He would be executed and rise again three days later. It’s the third day. They ask the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24.5)

We can forgive the women their confusion. They’ve just witnessed their beloved Teacher’s gruesome death at the hands of their political oppressors, sanctioned by their religious leaders. In the midst of their grief, they face the hard reality that they are, for all practical purposes, enemies of the state and religious rebels. The rush to bury Jesus left their work undone. The men have gone underground. And their worst nightmare—that someone might steal Jesus’s body, perhaps as a cruel prank to visit further indignities on Him—appears to have come true. How can we possibly expect them to be clearheaded? They’re just doing what they know to do, following ancient tradition that burdens women with preserving their loved ones’ cadavers. Urgency and grief leave no room to think things through.

The Gospels’ compressed accounts of the Easter story leave the impression that everything happens quickly: Where is Jesus? He’s not here. He’s alive! Let’s run back to tell Peter and the rest of the guys. But that question—Why do you look for the living among the dead?—can’t be glossed over. It needs time to sink in. As the sun edges over the horizon, it dawns on the women. Of course. Why would we expect to find Jesus here, when He emphatically told us He would rise on the third day? This is the last place He’d be. What were we thinking?

Shadows

Why do you look for the living among the dead? It’s a question that won’t go away—particularly for those of us who find ourselves on the outs with the political and religious establishment. Our association with Jesus raises suspicions. We answered His call to follow Him. Yet we suffer intolerable sorrow as we witness constant attempts to mangle and destroy His gospel of unconditional love. Some of us go underground, fearing we’ll also be victims of religious hatred. In defiant grief, many of us summon false bravado that induces us to withdraw completely from the community of believers. Who wants to go where they’re not wanted?

But there are just as many, if not more, of us who fall into the same patterns that brought the women to an abandoned tomb. Although we don’t fit traditional molds, we persist in trying. We do what we’re told and risk whatever it takes to get the job done. So we travel silently in predawn shadows, taking care not to draw notice from anyone in a position to challenge our faith. We worry about not completing unsavory tasks that diminish our value. We fear the worst—that we’ll look for Jesus only to discover He’s been stolen from us. Broken-hearted and confused, we end up in a graveyard, ready to offer Jesus what He doesn’t need.

Even if the men mustered the nerve to accompany Mary Magdalene and the rest to the tomb, it’s doubtful they would have gone. Dressing corpses is women’s work. As it turns out, that’s not the work Christ needed them to do. Their spices and traditions are useless. When the reality of what’s happened finally dawns on them, the women are tasked with delivering the news of Jesus’s resurrection. This is a radical reordering of gender roles that many struggle with to this day. Had these extraordinary women slunk back into the shadows of tradition and fear, the Easter story might never have been told. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why indeed.

Free to Live

If we allow the Easter story to start and stop with Jesus and the disciples, we reduce it to a magical tale that ends with “they all lived happily ever after.” This unprecedented event is designed so that all who embrace it by faith will likewise live happily ever after. To get there, however, we have to break our addiction to shadows. We have to stop looking for Christ among the dead. Trips to the graveyard, no matter how sincerely they’re undertaken, get us nowhere. The Jesus we seek isn’t there. He is alive and well and present among the living.

In Romans 6, Paul tells us, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (v9-11) “Dead to sin” means “free to live.” Jesus accomplished this once… for all. Easter lavishes on us a fully inclusive faith that defies every demeaning label and tradition. The instant the stone rolled away it took the need for shadow-living with it. No believer has any cause for fear or shame. We are all free to live out our faith with boldness and clarity. So let’s put the spices away. Let’s forget our anxieties about being found out and settling for second-best. Let’s quit trying to do for Jesus what He doesn’t need. We answer a call higher than adherence to ancient tradition and religious exclusion. We have been entrusted with the unassailable truth of resurrection. We are alive to God. This is our story to tell and we can’t proclaim it until we realize the graveyard is nowhere we want to be.

If our search for the Risen Christ finds us clinging to shadows and abiding by demeaning traditions, we’re looking in the wrong place.

Post-Script: Benediction

Today marks Straight-Friendly’s 1001th post. When I began nearly five years ago, I had no idea where it would lead. I certainly didn’t anticipate this little project would bring so many blessings to my life, forging tremendous spiritual bonds and lasting friendships with so many kindred spirits. I cherish every one of you who have supported this effort with your prayers and encouragement. And I’m grateful to know the work we’ve done together in this place has helped many who were struggling to find their place in God’s kingdom.

Crossing this major threshold on Easter Sunday, it seems a fitting time for Straight-Friendly to take its leave. There are new areas of ministry I hope to explore, fresh horizons to seek out. While my heart will always remain with each of you, I feel myself being drawn to people and places the blog hasn’t reached. Setting it aside will provide time and energy to do that.

Should the time come to resume S-F—or set out on another online adventure—the first thing I’ll do is publish a post here. Meanwhile, I hope to stay in touch with as many of you as possible via Facebook, email, and other means of contact that have held us together all these years. If you’ve not found me on Facebook and care to, I encourage you to look me up.

I love you more than I can say. I’m grateful for all you’ve meant to Straight-Friendly’s success and to me. I hold each of you in my heart and pray God’s bountiful goodness will find you at every turn as you seek God’s will in all you do.

Now, to the One Who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of God’s glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. (Jude 1.24-25)

Many, many blessings always,

Tim

Eyes for Peace

As He came near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19.41-42)

There is no after-party following Palm Sunday’s parade. Jesus dismounts the borrowed donkey and goes to the Temple, has a look around at what’s going on, and returns to Bethany. We know what Jesus finds during His brief stop at the Temple upsets Him, since He goes back on Monday to oust moneychangers and merchants who gouge holiday worshippers with inflated prices. He unites two prophetic texts to condemn their criminality, saying, “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And we have a pretty good idea that Jesus returns the next day intent on shaking things up, in part because He’s in a foul mood. On His way into the city, He spots a fig tree that hasn’t yet blossomed. He’s hungry, but the tree has nothing to offer. So He curses the tree and it shrivels up. This is a side of Jesus the disciples haven’t seen—their first indicator that there’s been a shift in the atmosphere. Everybody’s tensed up.

Before all of this happens, however, Luke captures a poignant moment that helps us recognize the sorrow Jesus feels for Jerusalem. He pauses before entering the city and weeps for its decline. Jerusalem, the proverbial city on the hill, whose world-famous Temple sits atop its highest peak, has lost its vision. According to Isaiah 56, God has ordained Jerusalem’s Temple as a site of justice and inclusion. The chapter begins with a divine command: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for soon My salvation will come, and My deliverance be revealed.” (v1) The prophet lays out God’s vision for the Temple, describing a place where eunuchs and foreigners who were previously excluded would be welcomed and given places of honor. This is where we find the “house of prayer for all peoples” declaration. (v7) Gender and ethnic boundaries will be erased. Peace and unity will prevail in the Temple, which shapes Israel’s social and religious agendas. Jesus is entering Jerusalem to offer its people salvation and deliverance. But even before He steps inside the city, He isn’t hopeful. “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes,” He laments.

His reference to blindness invokes God and Isaiah’s displeasure with how the Temple is being run. In verses 10 and 11 we hear, “Israel’s sentinels are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all silent dogs that cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. The dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough. The shepherds also have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, to their own gain, one and all.”

Jesus weeps because this is an old, old story. The gulf between the Temple and its people continues to widen. The correctives issued in Isaiah 56 haven’t been obeyed. People are still turned away from worship. The rich get preferential treatment. Preachers and teachers continue to serve up God’s promises, yet they have no vision for what those promises will look like in a “new Jerusalem,”—the place Jesus has spent three years describing as “the kingdom of God.” And here He stands, looking at Jerusalem through tear-swept eyes, the very embodiment of God come to save and deliver Israel from its religious and political oppressors. Their promised Prince of Peace is with them, but they can’t see it.

We can see it, but do we really understand what we’re looking at? The cry from Jesus’s heart mourns the loss of community. God has endowed Jerusalem with power to become a singular place where no one is rejected, where God’s all-inclusive love can reign supreme. Jesus has come to offer this amazing gift to a holy place that has lost touch with what makes it holy. Seeing how many of our own churches reflect Jerusalem’s failure, we too should mourn. But mourning is not enough. We should walk into our places of worship with clear eyes for peace. We should recognize where our leaders and communities have failed and we should decry their resistance to change. God is calling for a house of prayer for all peoples. The redundant embrace—all peoples—stresses the expectation of uncompromised inclusion.

Any church or faith community that compromises God’s expressed vision should be regarded with suspicion. These are blind spots shepherded by people with no understanding. We will not be fed in these pastures. We will not find peace in them, even though they sing and preach in the name of Christ. So why are we there? It behooves every disciple of Christ to seek community among people who have eyes for peace and understand Who Jesus is. The glory of the Temple loses its luster when we realize it’s lost its way. The fancy robes and soaring architecture and showmanship that draw so many inside its walls lose their magic. When churches prefer some above others and deny entry to eunuchs and strangers, the ground they stand on is no longer holy. So weep like Jesus for their blindness. But follow Jesus’s example: declare your displeasure with their error and when they resist you—and they will—walk away. Find a home where people with eyes for peace live out God’s vision in tangibly faithful ways.

With God's Help

I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. (Isaiah 50.6-7)

How did Christianity morph from a collection of oddballs and misfits into the communion of conformity we know today? As we read the Gospels and Acts, we must wonder if we’d be all that happy to see the Apostles in our sanctuaries, let alone trust them to lead us. Can we imagine Peter, the leather-skinned fisherman, stepping into our pulpits? What about Paul, whose infamous “thorn in the flesh” urges him to overcompensate by showing off how smart he is? Would we attend his Bible class? Let’s not forget the Early Church’s far-flung membership. When we survey the rolls peppered through the Epistles, we find slaves and masters, couples and singles, widows and kids, people of all shades and expressions, every social strata, and a spectrum of personal histories that would give today’s most progressive faith community pause.

Of course, we understand why early Christians prize diversity. They belong to Jesus, Who founded His ministry on the radically inclusive doctrine of God’s unconditional love. But we also have to factor in the prophetic tradition Jesus comes from, where eccentrics and outcasts excel. Start with Moses, a Jew raised as Egyptian royalty, a murderer on the lam who worries about his stammer and works all kinds of miracles with a stick. You’ve got David, an adulterer and terrible father, who uses poetry as a therapeutic tool. Elijah’s a manic-depressive, and his student, Elisha, wanders the land in a raggedy coat Elijah tossed to him while being flown into heaven on a celestial chariot. And we can’t forget Isaiah, who walks around naked and shoeless for three years to indicate Israel’s enemies will be stripped of power. Finally, there’s John the Baptist. He sets up shop in the wilderness, survives on honey and wild locusts, wears a hairy shirt, and spends most of his time splashing around in the Jordan River.

With roots dug deep in this wild and crazy tradition, it’s no surprise that Jesus pays no attention to His followers’ idiosyncrasies and sketchy pasts. He looks beyond their quirks and shortcomings to see their potential. Yes, He does this because, as God Incarnate, He loves them without reservation. But He’s also doing something that we, in an age of Christian homogeneity, miss. He’s assembling a prophetic community, a far different thing than starting a religion or organizing a congregation.

So how do the first Christians look and act? They’re all over the map, literally and figuratively. Unlike today, when many Christians gauge who’s in and who’s out by appearance and behavior, in the first century both criteria were useless. Indeed, judgments based on surface observations were highly suspect. The only way to identify a true Christian was by prophetic witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Early Church’s connection to prophesy—i.e., the articulated mind and will of God—is so solid that first-century believers scour the Hebrew Bible to confirm Jesus’s legitimacy. His birth and death narratives are shaped to reflect Messianic clues strung across the texts. This is why Jesus’s statements from the cross echo Psalm 22 and the details of His torture and crucifixion mirror Isaiah. In the coming days, we’ll hear these passages and nod along, thinking, this is what the prophets said and this is how it went. But something gets lost when we limit the Hebrew texts’ meaning and import to Jesus alone. And that something is us.

The suffering and rejection the ancients describe are, in many ways, as universal to every believer as they are specific to Jesus. When we open Isaiah 50—which figures prominently in many Passion liturgies—and read, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting,” we can’t forget the prophet isn’t just talking about Jesus. He’s talking about himself, and he’s also talking about us. Gratefully, neither Isaiah (as far as we know) nor we actually experience the physical pain and humiliation he poeticizes. Yet we all know what it’s like to feel powerless, as conveyed in the image of giving our backs to those who strike us. We know how it feels to be stripped of self-worth, which, for Jewish men like Isaiah and Jesus, occurs when their beards are ripped from their faces.

The violation in these images is so hideous we have to ask why someone would do such things. Those who go to such lengths clearly have big problems with whomever they assault. It’s obvious that fear stirs up their anger since they have to be more afraid of the person they attack than penalties for their abuse. So what gives rise to such fear and hatred? Well, let’s see. You have Jesus, the Gatherer of oddballs and misfits. Then there’s Isaiah, the naked wanderer. And how do we fit into this pattern? By not fitting into conformist patterns and disrupting norms. Whether in the world or the Church—which, over the centuries, has grown dangerously at ease with adopting the world’s ways—we represent something other than normal.

How dare LGBT Christians expect faith communities to welcome and embrace them. How dare women honor their callings to ministry and ask to be respected on par with their male counterparts. How dare the poor and undereducated and abused and politically radical enter our congregations and expect to be treated as equals. How dare anyone insist prophetic witness to Christ’s life, death, and resurrection qualifies her/him for acceptance. All Christians are supposed to look, talk, and behave alike. Anything that doesn’t meet acceptable standards is something to fear. And anything that makes people afraid must be eradicated and stripped of value.

That kind of logic may work for country clubs, social orders, and political parties. But it bears not one glimmer of resemblance to the Church’s beginnings and its prophetic roots. Christian communities that genuinely heed their prophetic calling should be visibly, culturally, and spiritually diverse. Their commitment to Christ’s gospel of radical inclusion should be tested. And we who’ve been relegated to the margins are ordained to challenge the Church’s faithfulness to God’s will.

Not even Jesus could accomplish this without divine help. Nor could Isaiah. And neither can we. That’s why Isaiah’s prophecy doesn’t end with the backlash against nonconformity. “The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame,” he writes. As we enter Holy Week and witness the agony Jesus endured to remain faithful to God’s will, we must accept the same calling for our lives. We will not be disgraced. We will set our faces like flints, looking at the challenge before us without a moment’s hesitation, knowing we will not be put to shame. We can’t do this great work we’ve been given on our own. But thanks be to God, we have God’s help.

This coming week, as we stand before the cross, let us not only weep for the horrific suffering our Savior endured. Let us weep for what’s been lost by reducing the Church purchased with His blood to an insiders-only club. Let us commit our lives to reviving the Early Church’s vision of what a truly prophetic, radically inclusive faith community can be.

Good Sheep

I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. (John 10.15-16)

Take a moment and flash back on your school days. Pick a random grade and scan the classroom. Who do you see first? Whose names bubble up the quickest? When I tried this little experiment, here’s who rose to the top: the troublemaker, the clown, the pet, the flirt, the rebel, and the ne’er-do-well. What about the good kids? Where were they? By “good kids” I don’t necessarily mean the A students or the champs or the leaders of the band. I’m thinking of kids who did their homework, never caused any grief, and got along with everyone. They were good friends, good teammates, and did well in their studies without calling attention to themselves. I imagine they grew up to be fine parents and neighbors and probably achieved an enviable measure of success. But, in all honesty, I remember little about them. A few names surface, and there are several faces whose names I’ve lost. Other than that, I can’t recall much about them.

I’d guess you’re better at this game than I, because I’m terrible at it. But I put it out there to illustrate how easily we overlook good people. Because we rely on them to do what’s right and hold themselves accountable and not put themselves out front, we gloss over their virtues. This phenomenon follows us through life, at work, in neighborhoods, and, especially, in religious spheres, where two groups stand out: the super-faithful and the train wrecks. Those are the people we focus on and talk about. It’s just more exciting to stand in awe of the saints and sit in judgment of the sinners than to recognize how many good Christians we live with. And this disconnect is unfortunate, not as much for them as us, because our obsession with extremes results in a severely skewed—in some cases, badly scarred—picture of the Body of Christ. There is goodness all around us. But do we see it? And if we see it, do we take the time to let it sink in? I’m apt to think not. Otherwise, our impressions of what’s good and what’s not so good about the overall community of believers would be far less extreme.

In John 10, Jesus, once again, tries to explain His approaching death to His disciples. All along, He’s told them He will die and be resurrected. But His words don’t seem to stick. So He turns to metaphors that summon familiar images. He says, “I am the gate for the sheep,” invoking a leader who must be physically removed and then restored to corral and protect his flock. It appears that the visual doesn’t quite do the trick, because He expands on the shepherd analogy. This time around, He adds something new. After saying, “I lay down My life for the sheep,” He tells the disciples His flock is much bigger than they suspect. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice,” He says. In the gentlest of ways, Jesus assures the disciples that the community of believers they will shepherd after His departure is stronger, larger, and more inclusive than they imagine.

Chances are these “other sheep” are all around the disciples. They may even know many of them by face or name. But their experiences at Jesus’s side have conditioned them to focus on extremes. They’ve witnessed extraordinary feats of faith, as severely sick and unjustly marginalized people have reached out for healing and acceptance. They’ve encountered vile hypocrites and critics who embody all that’s wrong about “organized religion.” Yet between these two polarities, there is a wide swath of faithful believers who follow Jesus—not for the miracles and controversy, but simply because His voice calls to them in very real ways. They’re not stars. They’re not part of the touring company. But they’re there, even though our fascination with extremes blinds us to them. And, despite being overlooked, the Good Shepherd counts them as good sheep.

Many theologians read Jesus’s “other sheep” statement to mean the actual community of faith exceeds religious labels. They suggest it’s possible that Jesus is saying He claims all who abide by the principles of His teaching—whether or not they identify with Him by name. Our comfort with that matters little, however, because the basic idea leads us to realize there is more goodness around us than we’re apt to see. In the Body of Christ, superstars are few and far between. But it also turns out that scoundrels are equally rare. As we prepare our hearts to enter Jerusalem, where we’ll rehearse the final week of Jesus’s mortal life, we should open our eyes and hearts to millions and millions of overlooked, seemingly unremarkable Christians traveling beside us. “I must bring them also,” Jesus insists, “and they will listen to My voice.”