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.

Inverting the Totem Pole

He took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in His arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes not Me but the One Who sent Me.” (Mark 9.36-37)

Jesus: The Documentary

We’ve all seen at least one Hollywood treatment of the Jesus story, and despite variances, they all boil down to scene upon scene of cinematic spectacle: multitudes and miracles and meaningful encounters of tremendous narrative import. Knowing the Gospels’ grittier side, however, deflates these epics. By and large, Jesus runs a small-time operation and spends much of His time (especially in the early stages of His ministry) avoiding the spotlight. He and His disciples mostly work the villages and countryside. They never establish a headquarters, as John the Baptist does when he sets up shop on the Jordan. They don’t settle down for extended periods in one place. Jesus’s reputation as a healer and teacher precedes Him, which enables Him to attract big crowds wherever He goes, yet also allows Him to move on once He finishes whatever He came to do. Unlike the big-budget movies—in which an invisible cathedral, complete with choir and orchestra, seems to float above Jesus’s head at all times—the Gospels portray a lot of scrambling and improvising and figuring things out on the fly. They read more like a low-budget road picture than The Greatest Story Ever Told.

This prompts me to wonder what a behind-the-scenes film might look like. Shot with a hand-held camera, Jesus: The Documentary focuses on conversations and logistics that keep things moving, rather than the epic events Hollywood memorializes. Mark 9.30-37 (Sunday’s Gospel) gives us a snippet of this reality. It catches up with Jesus on the heels of two spectacular sequences: the Transfiguration and healing of a profoundly troubled boy. As often happens, Jesus whisks His followers away to teach them privately. He tells them He’ll be betrayed, executed, and rise from the dead after three days. The first half of His prediction perplexes them, as it seems highly improbable that anyone would conspire to destroy Him. Even if that were so, it’s unthinkable His public would allow it. Add to that His mention of resurrection and the disciples are totally befuddled. “They did not understand what He was saying and were afraid to ask Him,” verse 32 says. Their worried looks are pure documentary gold.

Redefining Greatness

But their confusion isn’t the half of it. As they proceed through the provinces, the filmmakers capture an argument brewing among the disciples. If, as Jesus says, they’re headed for serious trouble, it stands to reason their character and loyalty will be tried. A contest for bragging rights breaks out. To this point, they’ve functioned as a company of equals. Now they splinter, with each insisting he has the right stuff to be named the greatest among them. Mark doesn’t record their comments, but we can fill in the blanks. Peter, Andrew, James, and John pull rank as Jesus’s first followers. Thomas prides himself on keeping a cool head that insists on rational proof to understand what’s going on. Matthew points to his political savvy as a tax collector. Judas boasts of his commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. Every disciple’s claim to greatness rests on the presumption that he’s indispensible to Jesus in ways the others are not.

Evidently the disciples haven’t been as discrete as they hoped. When they arrive at their next stop, Jesus asks, “What were you arguing about?” (v33) They clam up. Jesus doesn’t condemn their position-jockeying outright. Instead, He turns their debate upside down. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” He says. (v35) It’s not about who will take charge when things fall apart. It’s about who will honor Christ’s charge to serve others in humility and self-sacrifice. Jesus inverts the totem pole and in the process forever redefines greatness. He draws a little child into His arms and tells the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes the One Who sent Me.” (v37) Returning to our imaginary film, the camera slowly pans around the room, resting momentarily on each disciple’s blank stare. This is not what they want to hear.

Willingness to Welcome

Now, as then, we define greatness by a person’s following—not only in number, but also in the quality and status of those in one’s camp. The pastor with the biggest church filled with the most influential members must be the greatest. The politician with the most votes and powerful allies must be the greatest. The neighbor with the most friends and enviable success must be the greatest. While these achievements may be admirable, Jesus makes it clear there’s more to it than popularity and impressiveness. He defines greatness by a single, completely unexpected trait: willingness to welcome the least attractive, impressive, and powerful into our ranks.

Jesus: The Documentary ends. The theater lights come up. And the image of the little one nestled in Jesus’s arms is seared into memory. This child isn’t the freshly scrubbed, angelic tyke from Central Casting. It’s a frail, grungy kid who’s constantly begging for attention and complaining of hunger and getting in our way. By extension, it’s the maligned adult and starving believer and inconvenient interloper. It’s everyone who doesn’t fit our romanticized picture of what religion looks like. Jesus’s greatness paradigm turns the worldly success adage on its head: it’s not who you know, but what you know. And what Jesus wants us to know is opening our arms to everyone—embracing the most vulnerable and naïve among us without restraint—results in greatness. It is what makes us indispensible to Him, to God, and one another.

In redefining greatness, Jesus turns the worldly success adage on its head: it’s not who you know, but what you know.

Protecting Our Faith

If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them. (Mark 6.11)

Talking a Big Game

Quickly in the Western film’s evolution a standard scene became a fixture in its grammar. It comes soon after the movie establishes that the good people of a dusty outpost have suffered greatly under an intimidating gang. A meeting is held—usually in the town’s little church or schoolhouse—to figure out what can be done. The citizens pressure the sheriff to confront the villains. But when he asks for help most refuse, leaving him and a handful of irregulars to the big showdown. Providence sides with the good guys and the thugs are routed. Yet these films typically end on a sour note. After restoring order, the sheriff moves on. He knows this won’t be the last time outlaws besiege the town. Once again, he’ll appeal to the people for support. Once again, they’ll resist and expect him to do the impossible. But the next time may not go his way. The sheriff rides into the sunset, looking for a town where his talents and courage aren’t taken for granted—where doing the right thing isn’t left solely to him and a ragtag few.

This is the situation in Mark 6.1-13 (Sunday’s Gospel). Jesus comes back to his hometown, Nazareth, trailed by a ragtag crew of disciples. He stands in the synagogue to teach the good news of God’s kingdom. Yet the villagers don’t warm to His message. Something about Jesus has changed during his time away from them. He’s talking a big game—overcoming evil with good and trusting God’s power instead of relying on tradition—and His far-fetched ideals offend the Nazarenes’ pious complacence. “Where did this man get all this?” they ask. (v2) With news of Jesus’s exploits preceding Him, His friends, family, and neighbors expect Him to do great things for them, too. 

What they don’t anticipate is Jesus isn’t a one-man show. His ministry centers on recruiting other people to assist in the world-changing task God has given Him. When the Nazarenes—who should be first in line to rally around their local boy’s cause—learn that, the show’s over. Jesus rings down the curtain with a scathing observation: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house,” He says. (v4) Mark points out that their disbelief amazes Jesus and ties His hands so that, other than a few simple healings, He “could do no deed of power there.” (v5) Like the sheriff who can’t rely on the townspeople for support, Jesus gathers His disciples and moves on.

Dust-Shaking

Rather than end with Jesus riding into the sunset, Mark does a sly bit of narrative splicing that makes us privy to how the Nazarenes’ rejection affects His ministerial philosophy. Realizing He’s dangerously close to leading a cult of personality that makes Him the star and reduces His following to a fan club, He decides to send out the disciples in pairs, deputizing them as teachers and healers to wrest control from unclean spirits they meet. (v7) He instructs them to travel light. They’re to carry staffs and wear shoes for self-protection. Everything else—bags, bread, money, and changes of clothes—must be left behind. If they enter a welcoming place, they’re to remain there until their work is done. No doubt smarting from His shoddy reception in Nazareth, Jesus stresses the disciples don’t need to hang around where they’re unwanted. “As you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them,” He says. (v11) The disciples do as told and have much success. They proclaim the gospel, cast out demons, and cure many who are sick. (v12-13)

This dust-shaking business speaks to the bruised kids in all of us, I think. There’s a bit of “that’ll teach ‘em” in it, perhaps even a little immaturity in liking how Jesus approves a gesture to signify we want not one speck of filth that collects around places where we’re not wanted. And Jesus frankly says that shaking off the dirt of hostile people is meant to be “a testimony against them.” Yet it’s possible there’s more to this than proving a point—particularly since Jesus is always far less concerned with condemnation than consideration for others. So in this case, we must also ask who might these “others” be? And He answers our question before training us how to react to unfriendly people. In part, we shake off the dirt of rejection for the sake of those who welcome us. To understand this, we need to know a little about social courtesy in Jesus’s time.

Safe, Healthy Places

Today, when welcoming outsiders to our homes, we take their coats and give them something to eat and drink. It’s a ritual of hospitality designed to make them feel at home and know we’re eager to spend time with them. In Jesus’s time, the hospitality ritual includes washing guests’ feet. It’s meant to alleviate visitors’ concern about tracking dirt into the home—to mitigate the possibility the host will regret opening his/her door. Thus, when Jesus tells the disciples to shake off the dust of unwelcome places, He’s directing them not to burden good people with filth they pick up elsewhere. Moving on means letting go. Finding more hospitable company requires us to shake off people and places that reject us. In a way, Jesus tells us to avoid behaving like spurned lovers who pollute—and in some cases destroy—healthy relationships by clinging to pain and outrage we should have left behind long ago.

Yet Jesus is talking about more than relationships. He’s teaching us how to protect our faith. When seeking kindred spirits and communities of faith, He emphasizes we should find places where we’re accepted and work there. We don’t have time to waste on people who doubt our witness or question our legitimacy. Our calling comes from Christ, Who sends us to those eager to welcome us and hear our message. They don’t deserve the dirt of hostility any more than we do. Hanging around where we’re not wanted is of no benefit to anyone. But in moving on, we must take care not to track the filth of past rejections into havens of hospitality and burden those who welcome us with messes they didn’t make. Moving on means letting go of past harms and making ourselves at home in safe, healthy places.

In our search for welcoming faith homes, we take care not to track the filth that collects around hostile people and places into safe havens of hospitality.


Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/07/07/protecting-our-faith/

Say "Yes" to the Yes

He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith!” (Matthew 15.26-28)

Not His Kind

Today, Gay Pride is traditionally observed around the world, marking the 43^rd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that gave birth to the LGBT rights movement. While many communities opt to celebrate Pride on other dates throughout the year, the last weekend in June touches a global nerve. With or without parades and festivals, we pause to consider how far we’ve come together and the distance we’ve yet to go.

In light of today’s celebrations, we’re going to break from the Sunday lectionary to consider a truly amazing event in Jesus’s life and ministry. In fact, it’s one of very few times when we witness two altogether extraordinary things: someone whose needs are too great to countenance rejection and Jesus, the Great Teacher, learning an invaluable lesson that changes how He sees and thinks. The story, told in Matthew 15.21-28, is deceptively simple. A mother, whose daughter is tormented by an evil spirit, seeks Jesus out. Expecting to be ignored, she makes a ferocious squall that disturbs the disciples. They urge Jesus to send her away. He agrees, not because she’s too loud and obnoxious to merit attention. Jesus wants nothing to do with her because she’s not His kind. She’s a Canaanite from the pagan tribe Israel conquered to claim the Promised Land. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Jesus says matter-of-factly—as if the woman should know better than to ask Him for anything.

Unimaginable

The Canaanite woman will not be ignored. She kneels before Jesus and prays, “Lord, help me.” We imagine her desperation and humility will touch Jesus. Given the racially charged climate of her day, she is, after all, making a fool of herself to prevail on the kindness of a Jew. But Jesus’s reaction is unimaginable to us. He rejects the woman’s plea in a most degrading fashion. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” he says. For all practical purposes, He tells the woman she’s worse than a beggar; she’s a thief, an ill-mannered mongrel trying to steal what doesn’t belong to her. Where is the love that Jesus is so famous for? Where are the compassion and acceptance He’s always talking about?

Surely the insult wounds this woman to the core. Surely her hopes crumble and the pain of hearing her daughter won’t be helped slices her in two. Still, in the face of outright bigotry, she refuses to be refused. She grants Jesus His point. Her request is unorthodox and, in the eyes of Jewish traditionalists, indefensible. She really has no right to ask, or expect, Jesus to intervene. But none of it matters. Her need is too urgent, her agony too real. So she absorbs the insult and then turns it on its head. “Yes, Lord,” she says. “Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Her simple statement takes Jesus aback and compels Him to rethink His position. He’s stunned into a new understanding of what God requires of Him, and everything God wants to do through Him to eradicate religious, social, and cultural boundaries that deny God’s grace to all but a select few. Suddenly Jesus is moved on a level far more profound than merely accommodating an anguished mother’s request. The woman’s belief that Jesus will help her constrains Jesus’s belief that He must. He declares, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” Matthew finishes by informing us, “Her daughter was healed instantly.”

All-Inclusive

This is the Gospel in action—the good news of God’s kingdom that calls us to repent from narrow-mindedness that seeks to limit God’s grace to people of a certain kind, namely, our kind. And our astonishment with this episode springs from witnessing Jesus repent from the exclusionary mindset of His faith tradition. God vests the Canaanite woman with holy boldness to teach Jesus that God’s grace is too big for labels and boundaries. The time for religious bigotry and rejection has ended. God is doing something new that debunks members-only myths about faith and acceptance. Up to this point in Matthew, Jesus has been pushing the envelope by healing Jewish outcasts and performing miracles on the Sabbath. But this precious Canaanite mother presses Him to go all the way—to ignore all the rules and include her among those whose lives are forever changed by His power. And perhaps the most thrilling aspect of this event emerges in Jesus’s immediate response. He doesn’t tell the woman to come back after He’s had time to consider whether or not He should honor her request. He doesn’t consult the religious establishment about what’s “right.” He doesn’t poll His followers to see if they’ll be comfortable with His decision to help the woman. He answers her prayer with an all-inclusive “Yes.”

Christ’s all-inclusive “Yes” is the Canaanite mother’s legacy to us. And she has much to teach us about laying claim to it. We may have to come to Jesus in a big way, making a lot of noise that disturbs His inner circle. We may have to endure social and religious humiliation caused by our insistence that Jesus take notice of us. We will have to humble ourselves before Christ and beseech Him to help us. But God vests each of us with holy boldness to believe that God’s grace is too big for labels and boundaries. Great is our faith—so great that Jesus will reward it without hesitation. Jesus will never ask us to come back after He’s considered our worthiness. No traditions or powers need be consulted to ensure our acceptance. Christ will never poll His followers to get their approval of His decision to hear us and do amazing things in our lives. Regardless who we are, where we come from, and how others label us, Jesus answers us with an all-inclusive yes.

On this Pride Sunday, I pray that LGBT and alienated believers everywhere will summon the courage to overturn every hindrance and boundary attempting to deny their right to believe. I pray that we all will say, “Yes” to the Yes.

Christ’s all-inclusive “Yes” is the Canaanite mother’s legacy to us.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/06/23/say-yes-to-the-yes/

Revolutionary Inclusion

We end our contemplation of Psalm 139.14 with a final thought.

I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; that I know very well.

It’s true. You and I are fearfully, wonderfully made. We are distinctively awesome, handcrafted reflections of a God Whose infinite reasons and creativity surpass all knowledge. Those we love and those who care for us are also fearfully, wonderfully made. But it’s no less true that people we struggle to love and people who care nothing for us—even those who hate us—are fearfully, wonderfully made. And we honor our Maker when we see God at work in them. By faith, we trust what God is doing in them, and we take constant care never to diminish God’s ability to change hearts and minds. This is why Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who mistreat us. Acceptance of our making revolutionizes how we see everyone around us. We love our neighbors and enemies with the same tenacity with which we hope to be loved because they too are fearfully, wonderfully made.

Power to All

He came to what was His own, and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God. (John 1.11-12)

Mountaintops and Thin Places

Yesterday found me with way too many kettles on the stove. In addition to my “real world” responsibilities, I’d taken on all sorts of activities that frustrated me. Some were noble, others trivial. But they all left me with the sense that I was banging my head against the wall. And since I’m not a big fan of “rules for living”—all those truisms that make the short lists in self-help books—I offer the following less as a rule for living than an observation: If you’re mad at the world and enjoying your crankiness, don’t attend a Bible study. Because nothing puts the kibosh on holding a grudge against humanity like discussing God’s promises with people of faith.

Heading off to my weekly study group last evening, I was in full-blown lather. I nursed my churlishness down every block between my apartment and the church. Arriving a few minutes late, I took the first seat I could find at one of the tables, and asked, “What are we talking about?” The young lady beside me pointed to Question One on the evening’s discussion guide: “Some people call them ‘mountaintop’ experiences. Others call them ‘thin places.’ Share about a time when you experienced the presence of God.” I had to rejigger my head. After a day like I’d had, mountaintops and thin places couldn’t have been farther from mind.

Something Greater Than Us

The question drew us to consider that we all—at seemingly random moments—experience God’s presence. It may come in the company of others, in watching unforeseen blessings fall into place, in quiet appreciation of nature, or in a passing comment, sometimes from a stranger, that reminds us God is ineffably with us. And the bigger point behind the exercise was setting aside presumptions that God’s presence is made known to us because of us. No one group or person can corner the market on God’s presence. Christians are no more apt than anyone else to discover God’s presence in unexpected ways. Nor for that matter are people of faith—any faith—exclusively entitled to these experiences.

Whether or not we believe, God becomes known to us in ways, and at times, when we need God. We don’t have to call it “God” for it to be God. We may call it serenity, an epiphany, good luck, or what have you. But in every human life there are inexplicable moments when something greater than us announces its presence with us. In Philippians 4.7, Paul calls this “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.” Try as we might to explain it, rationalize it, and limit God’s presence to some rather than all, Paul essentially admonishes us not to bother with trying. It’s more basic than not getting it, he says. We’ll never get it.

God's Vision Statement

Since Paul is a Christian writing to Christians, he adds that this amazing peace of God “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Belief in Christ heightens our sensitivity to God’s presence in our lives. That’s all there is to it, which is why Paul finds awareness of God’s presence a no-brainer. We find what mystifies him about God’s interaction with humanity in Ephesians 1.9-11: “God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will, according to God’s good pleasure that God set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in God, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of God Who accomplishes all things according to God’s counsel and will.” (Emphasis added.) The mystery of God’s will is the unity of all things, a desire that puts an end to selectivity, labeling, and religious and social exclusion. We have also obtained an inheritance, Paul explains, inferring what we find in Christ isn't unique to us.

And we should note that Paul’s fascination with this prospect—which he addresses consistently in his letters—is not unique to him. It was the Early Church’s driving principle and sustaining hope. First-century believers lived every day for the day when God’s abiding presence would be enough—when the love and power embodied in Christ would explode and encompass all of humanity, when being called a Christian, a Jew, a Greek, a monotheist, a polytheist, and so on would no longer be relevant. The thesis statement John presents in his Gospel’s opening chapter verifies this: “He came to what was His own, and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God.” (v11-12)

In this text, “He” is “The Word,” God’s vision statement, spoken before the dawn of time, without bias based on our ability to understand, accept, or agree with it. Indeed, John—taking a jab at Jewish leaders, who ousted early Christians from their religious community—says The Word, made manifest in Jesus, was distinctly misunderstood, rejected, and defied. Those who received and believed The Word, however, were given power to become children of God. Not merely to become “Christians.” Not even “people of faith.” This vast diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and religious heritages would come together as children of God. “A plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in God, things in heaven and things on earth,” Paul says.

The Way

Jesus “didn’t come to start a new religion,” Rob Bell asserts in Love Wins, and we’re hard-pressed, I think, to dispute him. When Jesus sanctions “the Church” in Matthew 16.18, He uses the word ecclesia—i.e., a gathering of people around a common purpose, both to perpetuate it as well as deliberate its meaning and function. If anything, the Church was meant to blow the doors off of religion. That’s why its earliest members avoided religious identification. According to Acts 11.26, “Christian” was a term invented by non-believers to label Jesus’s followers. Within their ranks, they used terms like “disciples,” “believers,” and familial handles to denote their unity. And they called their purpose “The Way”—not, “God’s Way,” “Our Way,” “The Only Way,” or “The Best Way.” Just, “The Way.”

Lent’s affirmation of The Way leads us to the cross. But if we’re to grasp Calvary’s meaning to the fullest, I believe it’s vital that we divest it of all religious connotations. Jesus did not submit to a criminal’s crucifixion for the sake of branding the Church or its people with a members-only trademark. The cross is a milepost in God’s plan to gather up all things—and all people—in God. It’s where God’s presence at large in the world is boldly displayed, the moment when God irrevocably blows the doors off religion. It’s the entry point for God’s incomprehensible peace to enter our respective stories. Wrangling, as always, with this mind-bending mystery, Paul writes in Roman 5.8: “God proves God’s love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.” That’s The Way—power to all, opportunity for everyone to become and be seen as children of God, as proved by God’s great, gathering love.

Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion. Nor was the cross intended to brand the Church or its people with a members-only trademark. To fully grasp the mystery of God’s love, we must divest Calvary of all religious connotations.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/28/power-to-all/.

Postscript: New Questions

What must we overcome to open ourselves to the expansive, all-encompassing nature of God’s love?

When we divest the cross of its religious—specifically “Christian”—connotations, what do we see?

How does seeing the cross as a milepost in God’s gathering plan, rather than a symbol of our faith, alter how we view our faith?

Many would charge that Christianity has lost its way as “The Way”. If this is so, how do we return, as individuals and a church/ecclesia, to The Way?