Led Away

Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews? For we observed His star at its rising, and have come to pay Him homage.” (Matthew 2.1-2)

Like all great stories, the Nativity saga gives us just enough information to set our imaginations aflame. Wherever we enter it, we find questions the gospel writers leave unanswered, opening windows for us to see ourselves in the characters they portray. Matthew’s tale of the Magi almost seems purposefully short on specifics about these men. We know they’re “wise,” they come from easterly pagan lands, and apparently they’re well heeled, possibly even renowned, because they have no problem getting an audience with King Herod. Beyond that, their background is vague at best. We’re told they journey from the East, led by a rising star, in search of the newborn King. But what compels them to seek Him out is open to speculation. They want to pay homage to Him, yet the nature of their adoration isn’t clear. Are they believers? Or are they diplomats? Could it be they’re the kinds of people who are always ahead of the curve—who sense a major shift is underway and go out of their way to be the first to show up?

In her sermon “Home By Another Way”, Barbara Brown Taylor imagines the Magi in this fashion:

They were all glad for a reason to get out of town—because that was clearly where the star was calling them, out—away from everything they knew how to manage and survive, out from under the reputations they had built for themselves, the high expectations, the disappointing returns. And so they set out, one by one, each believing that he was the only one with a star in his eye until they all ran into one another on the road to Jerusalem.

No one can say if her intuitions are more correct than anyone else’s. Yet the sensibilities she assigns to these mystery men seem right, as they reflect those we have during Advent. As the Bethlehem star comes into sharper focus, we can feel ourselves being led away. Gladly, we sense everything we predictably rely on—our knowledge and reputations, our ambitions as well as our shortcomings—falling behind us. All we bring to the manger are a compelling need to find Christ and gifts we offer. We start from different places. We’re moved by different ideas, desires, and beliefs. We’re clad in diversity. Yet somehow we run into one another along the way. At first, we are little more than traveling companions, beneficiaries of serendipitous timing. But when we arrive at Bethlehem, we become family, bound together for all time as we behold the splendor of the Word Made Flesh, Who has come to live in us.

Asking for It

He said to them, “What is it you want Me to do for you?” And they said to Him, “Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.” (Mark 10.36-37)

Are You New?

My favorite moment in the entire “Roseanne” series came when DJ, the financially strapped homemaker’s son asked his mother for some extra spending money. With classic sarcasm, she replied, “Are you new?” The laugh comes out of everything Roseanne’s answer telegraphed. Before he asked, the boy knew it was a long shot, at best—so much so that it sounded as if he had no idea how things worked in his family.

The scene instantly came to mind when looking at Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 10.35-45). James and John step forward to ask Jesus for a most unusual favor. They want Him to reserve places beside Him in God’s kingdom. From our vantage, it’s such a ridiculous, self-serving request—an idea so antithetical to discipleship—that we almost see Jesus roll His eyes as He fires back, “Are you new?” At every opportunity in Mark’s gospel, Jesus preaches self-imposed lowliness and service to others. There is simply no room in the kingdom for ambition and seeking status. Yet here are two of His closest disciples trying to secure positions of honor in advance of the events that will bring Christ into His glory. And we need to be very clear about the error of their intentions. Three times Jesus has explained He’ll be arrested, executed, and brought back to life. Getting to glory will be a gruesome, humiliating task and anyone who expects to arrive there with Jesus will have to go through the ordeal alongside Him. That’s why Jesus constantly emphasizes the importance of lowering oneself, of focusing on intentional service that embraces crushing demands. The right request would ask Jesus’s help in summoning courage to sacrifice one’s life and strength to endure unbearable pain. James and John, clinging to the fantasy of triumphal glory, discount what it requires. All they care about is landing the best seats in house after the worst of it is over. If Jesus decided to play it for laughs, perhaps giving the so-called “sons of thunder”—as He somewhat sarcastically calls James and John—a foretaste of the meanness that awaits, He would dismiss them with ever-so-dry incredulity. Are you new?

Personal Costs

But the trials and presumptive defeat that will bring about Christ’s glory are no laughing matter. Jesus sternly tells the Thunder Boys, “You don’t know what you are asking.” He turns their request into a question for them: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (v38) Now comes the passage’s real shocker. James and John immediately reply, “We are able.” (v39) The question changes from “Are you new?” to “Are you nuts?” Strangely, Jesus goes a different route. He seems to find their confidence reassuring and reinforces the fact that they will most definitely join Him in the fear, suffering, and death that must be conquered to bring about God’s kingdom. Yet, even then, He withholds any guarantee of greatness. “To sit at My right hand or My left is not Mine to grant,” He tells them in verse 40. “But it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And let’s look closely at this: Jesus refuses to pre-judge James and John either way, good or bad. Their place in the kingdom depends on them. If they honor its principles and endure its hardships, they will achieve the prominence they seek. What they want isn’t Christ's to give. It’s up to them.

Obviously this outbreak of status craving infuriates the rest of the disciples. Who do James and John think they are? Instead of trying to explain the sincerity of their motives—essentially apologizing for the Thunder Boys—Jesus returns to the same lesson He’s been teaching all of His followers: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” (v43) The New Order He’s come to institute is all about giving, not getting. He makes Himself the prime example, explaining, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (v45) Jesus is upholding the principle of selfless exchange: our sacrifice for others’ redemption, our loss for others’ restoration. It is a radically new idea that, to this day, is nearly impossible to comprehend. It is an ideal that carries tremendous personal costs that we must assess and accept if we are ever to gain access to the kingdom of God.

Ready to Serve

It’s been said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sunday’s Gospel tells us the path to glory is a rocky one that can only be navigated by intentional goodness. There is no express lane, no shortcut that gets us into God’s kingdom ahead of the rest—no means of arriving early to snag the best seats in the house. Nearly every step we make presents us with decisions that ask more of us than we’d ordinarily give. Every day confronts us with choices that put our comforts and desires in direct opposition to those of others. And those choices would be easy if they merely boiled down to being nice and agreeable—to acting polite.

But it’s not that simple. To be servants of all, we must seek what is right for those we serve. That means we are often called to humble ourselves in pursuit of justice and demonstrate compassion with boldness that reflects God’s righteousness. We must be willing to endure the hardships and criticism that accompany swimming against popular trends and tides—not for the sake of self-aggrandizement, but because it is our calling. As it turns out, we are new. We are new creatures in Christ. Old thinking about success and prominence doesn’t work for us. Old ideas about getting ahead don’t sway us. And whatever glory we may receive for our commitment to Christ is irrelevant. Like our Savior, we are ready to serve, not to be served. We give our lives in exchange for the lives of others. If we ask more of our faith than that, we have no idea what we’re asking for.

The path to glory is a service road—and a rocky one, at that.

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.

Our Place in This World

I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but I ask You to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17.15-17)

Where Does This Leave Us?

Sunday marks one of those strange partings, when liturgical congregations split according to which lectionary they follow—standard or revised. Some of us will focus on the Ascension (Acts 1.1-11; Luke 24.44-53), while others contemplate Jesus’s parting prayer for His disciples (John 17.6-19). And while each passage’s nuances will invite varying observations, I believe both lead to one question that the disciples surely wrestle with: “Where does this leave us?” For all practical purposes, Jesus has become their world and with Him gone, they have no idea where and how they fit. Once they absorb the blow of this sudden—though not unanticipated—goodbye, they must recalibrate their place in this world. It will be no easy task.

Approximating how the disciples feel is key to navigating these passages. Since none of us has experienced anything remotely like either event, we might compare them to the end of a concert. We’ve just spent an extended period of time in the presence of an artist whose words and music found us where we were, spoke to us in very real and meaningful ways, and challenged us to see ourselves differently. From the first note, the concert has steadily built to its climax—the most beloved song in the artist’s repertoire—followed by an encore that extends her/his stay. We’re grateful beyond measure for these extra few minutes, even though they’re filled with poignant awareness that all of this will end soon. The artist says goodnight, exits the stage, and the house lights come up. Our eyes remind us the outside world awaits us. It’s a hard thing, accepting it’s time to move on. But the artist is gone. Our time with him/her is passed. High-flown emotions are dissipating, replaced by implacable, workaday realities.

More than “Goodbye—we’ll meet again” is going on here. The disciples who overhear Jesus pray on their behalf and see Him ascend into Heaven have internalized His teachings. Every word He said is stamped in memory, not as text, but as spoken. As they relive their time with Jesus, they hear His voice—the tone, phrasing, and cadence of His actual speech. They associate certain statements with events that bring back all the emotions and personal significance. It’s every bit like the way that we tie songs and conversations to major moments in our lives. The disciples have relied on Jesus’s voice to enlighten, comfort, and guide them. His physical presence and the music of His speech have rooted their beings. Now Jesus is being taken from them. The silence must be crushing. More than that, their sudden sense of disconnectedness surely terrifies them. Where does this leave us?

Not Easy

Turning to Jesus’s prayer  in John 17, it’s all too evident that the Lord recognizes how jarring His departure will be. “Now I am no longer in the world,” He prays to God. “But they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them in Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one, as We are one. While I was with them, I protected them... I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost [i.e., Judas Iscariot].” (v11-12) The concern that Jesus expresses is overwhelming. He’s keenly aware of how dependent the disciples are on Him. As He prays, He’s mindful of all the instances when their faithfulness to Him placed them in jeopardy—times when standing with Jesus exposed them to hostility and ridicule. “I protected them… I guarded them,” He reminds God. Yet, at the same time, Jesus is no fool. He knows that He’s leaving the disciples in a dicey spot and they’ll need God’s protection once He’s gone.

As David Lose points out in “The Other Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus knows that things haven’t been easy for the disciples. “The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world,” He says. His acknowledgment primes us to expect He’ll beseech God to fix things in their favor, to lighten their load—especially in the coming days, when dealing with His absence will be plenty to handle, let alone coping with His (and now their) enemies. But Jesus doesn’t ask God to lighten the disciples’ load. “What does He pray for?” Lose writes. “Not that it will be easy. He knows it won’t. This world is captive to a spirit alien to God’s spirit. It is animated by a sense of scarcity instead of abundance, fear instead of courage, and selfishness instead of sacrificial love…. So Jesus doesn’t pray that it will be easy, but rather that God will support the disciples amid their challenges and that they will be one in fellowship with each other and with Jesus and [God] through the Spirit.” Returning to our concert analogy, Jesus is all too aware He’s filled the disciples’ hearts and minds with unpopular music that puts them at odds with the world’s same old gimme-gimme song. Before He leaves, He’s going to charge them with singing His new song with all they’ve got. It’s a song the world most definitely does not want to hear.

One

Sunday’s reading stops short of the truly revelatory moment in all of this. In verses 20-21, Jesus expands His prayer, saying, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one.” Here Jesus confesses two amazing articles of faith. As He looks ahead, He sees you and me. He recognizes us as people who will sing His new song. He trusts we will be there. Furthermore, He believes that the disciples will withstand the hardships of their world to teach His new song to those of us who’ve not heard it first-hand. Finally, He prays that we “may all be one.”

Thus we find our place in this world—not as lonely outcasts sentenced to the fringes of society, or as dissonant voices in a culture that doesn’t like our music. We are called to be a harmonious, united band of believers whose song of love and hope magnifies Christ’s presence beyond our borders. After the Ascension, two angels appear beside Jesus’s followers and ask, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, Who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1.11) Jesus may have left the stage. The house lights may have come up. But the concert is not over. While we await Christ’s reappearance, our place in this world is out in the world—not hanging around, staring up at the stage, and wondering when Jesus will return. Christ has given us a new song to give the world. It’s not “Won’t You Stay Just a Little Bit Longer”. Not “Just You and I”. It’s “Takin’ It to the Streets”.

Jesus may have left the stage, but the concert’s not over. While we await His reappearance, we take His new song of love and hope to the world.


Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/05/19/our-place-in-this-world/. 

How High Minds Fall

Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. (John 13.29)

The Great Big Middle

This past Monday I joined over 1000 Chicagoans for CROSSwalk, a solemn, four-mile procession that mourned the loss of our city's youth to gun violence. We wore paper bibs that read, “632”—the number of minors killed on our streets since 2008—“more than we can bear.” In the time needed to produce the bibs, the number went up, as several more youngsters met with untimely death. The procession stuck to the sidewalks, where most of these inexcusable murders occur, where safety must be restored. It stopped at several points for prayer and remembrance before concluding at Stroger Hospital, where many of the city’s young gunshot victims are pronounced dead. The hospital’s imposing edifice reminded me of a tomb that was anything but empty. While we pledged to defeat this menace, inside its walls wounded teens and children were fighting for their lives.

The Right Reverend Jeffrey Lee, Episcopal Bishop of Chicago, closed the event with a quote from Martin Luther: “Pray like everything depends on God; work like everything depends on you.” It summed up the unspoken dilemma resting heavily on our hearts: how do we transform our sorrow and outrage into meaningful action? Yet throughout the walk, we were repeatedly told to “listen to what the Spirit is telling God’s people,” and the message rising in our spirits told us, “I’ll be with you to help you figure this out. You can do it.” I sensed none of the jittery impatience that often infects closing rallies at these kinds of events. The urgency to act was swaddled in calm assurance that, step-by-step, with God’s help, we can and will reverse this cruel tide of destruction and grief. Our commitment surpasses rushing to stop violence; we’re determined to eliminate it. That will take time.

Impatience is the natural-born enemy of kingdom work. All but a very few of Jesus’s parables—His lessons about restoring God’s kingdom on earth—involve patience. Seeds must have time to sprout; fruit and grain must ripen; investments must mature; lost children and sheep and coins must be found. In nearly every story, there is that great big middle where meticulous attention to growth must happen. The great big middle where we work and wait, where everything depends on God and us. The great big middle where we learn that time is on our side, offering a chance to tend to details that ensure bountiful harvests and lasting results. The great big middle is such a standard fixture in Jesus’s teaching that we wonder how Judas misses it. But he does. And that surprises us, as he’s the detail guy who keeps the books and manages the money. It’s his job to maintain what's needed to do the work of the great big middle.

Quickly

For obvious reasons, the Gospels downplay Judas’s role in Jesus’s ministry. Prior to his betrayal of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and Luke only mention him in passing as a disciple. They give his full name, Judas Iscariot, and note him as “the traitor.” John foreshadows his treachery by identifying him as the disciple who protests after a woman anoints Jesus with costly perfume that might have been sold to provide for the poor. We’re not really sure what John’s up to with this. Judas’s complaint at first casts him as a misguided activist. But then John discredits him by saying Judas wanted to bank the money because he skimmed from the coffers. That’s hard to swallow, though, since it seems unlikely he’d be given charge of “the common purse” if he were suspected of thievery. So there’s probably some revisionist shading in John’s accusation.

More reliable clues about Judas’s character surface in his surname, and even then, scholars aren’t sure what it means. Some speculate that “Iscariot” refers to a Judean town of no notoriety, while others believe it refers to the Sicarii, a group of Jewish assassins bent on overthrowing Roman rule. Still others theorize the writers assign “Iscariot” after the fact, alluding to Hebrew words that mean “the false one” or “choked” in reference to his suicide by hanging.

Perhaps the clearest window into Judas’s soul opens during the Last Supper when Jesus tells him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” (John 13.27) Quickly. The adverb misleads the other disciples to think Jesus is sending Judas on an errand—possibly to buy supplies to celebrate Passover (which begins the next day) or to donate some of their funds to the poor. In retrospect, of course, we know Judas has jumped sides in collusion with those who want to destroy Jesus. His impatience to see change he longs for (whatever that may be) burdens him with a false sense of urgency. Feeling stuck in the great big middle, forced to work and wait for lasting change, doesn’t suit him. His eagerness to speed progress along urges him to switch loyalties. Realizing He’s lost Judas, Jesus tells him, “Do whatever you need to do, and be quick about it.” Jesus has lost patience with Judas’s impatience. Jesus might have warned, “Rushing to judgment breeds injustice. Your plan is doomed to backfire.” Which is what happens. Both will be dead in 24 hours’ time. Only one will rise again.

High-Minded and Shortsighted

Succumbing to impatience with the great big middle is how high minds fall. The compulsion to make something happen soon distracts them from tedious tasks required to get the job done. Everything becomes expendable—ideals, people, loyalties, and even purpose—when the ends justifies the means. And when “any means necessary” becomes the justification for hasty, imprudent actions, we invite chaos and failure to the party.

We talk a lot of big stuff around here: truing our lives to Christ’s example and teachings, loving God and others without restraint, living by faith and not by sight, combatting Christian exclusion, striving for social justice and equality, eradicating violence and abuse, and on down the list of daunting challenges that come part and parcel with life in God’s kingdom. Every personal and social change we seek can’t come quick enough. Every step we make toward progress presses us to move quicker, to put less effort in the tedious necessities and more into giant leaps. We become high-minded and shortsighted and we fall. If, as some suggest, Judas was set on overthrowing Roman oppression, it clouded his understanding that Christ came to accomplish something far greater and more enduring. Jesus had no use for uprooting a regime. He came to plant the seeds of God’s kingdom in the hearts and minds of every human—a kingdom that would grow if carefully, patiently tended. The mission that plays out in His trial, execution, and resurrection is one of reconciliation and redemption, not revenge and replacement.

Faithfulness is lived in the great big middle, where we keep our heads down and do the hard work of God’s kingdom. Is that not Lent’s great lesson? Is it not epitomized in the agony of the cross? Is it not witnessed in the stalwart women who arise early in the morning to tend to Jesus’s grave? Judas teaches us where rushing to judgment and other acts of impatience lead. In our eagerness to reach the empty tomb, let us never forget that the road beyond it is long and difficult, that the work it calls us to do is tedious and time-consuming. There are miles of great big middle that we must travel—as individuals and the Body of Christ—to make good on Calvary’s promise of redemption and Easter’s restoration of life.

While we can’t say with certainty what Judas’s motives were for betraying Jesus, we can all relate to his impatience to act on his compulsions. His high-mindedness leads to shortsightedness and he falls.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/04/04/how-high-minds-fall/.

All Things Being Equal

“I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?” Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first. (Matthew 20.14-16; The Message)

Mixed Messages

“The word of God is alive and active,” Hebrews 4.12 says, comparing it to a double-edged sword that slices through the clutter to reach our innermost thoughts and feelings. Scripture’s immediacy to speak to each of us “where we live” is one of faith’s most elusive mysteries. When we’re alive to God’s Word, actively engaging it in open-minded dialogue, the Spirit draws our attention to what God desires us to see and pronounces what God wants us to hear. Not everyone experiences this phenomenon, of course, because not everyone believes Scripture is alive and active. First Corinthians 2.14 comments on skeptics’ lack of perception, saying, “Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” Thus, it’s no mystery why those who approach Scripture unaided by spiritual discernment criticize its inconsistencies and contradictions. And let’s not kid ourselves. When read as an inert, fixed document, the Bible is overrun with mixed messages. What’s more, one needn’t comb its pages to locate them. It’s not unusual to stumble on seemingly crossed signals in a self-contained passage or story.

Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 20.1-16) serves up a classic example. Undiscerning readers will find Jesus’s parable about a landowner’s compensation policy confusing, even meaningless. The employer’s logic makes no sense—it’s unfair and unrealistic. There’s no denying the workers’ fury about discrepancies in their pay is warranted. And it’s hard to say what prompts Jesus to equate the owner’s high-handed response to their protests with justice and righteousness. Unaided by spiritual insight, a reader can’t perceive the magnitude of the “Great Reversal” that flips the story to reveal what Jesus wants us to see. When we allow the Spirit to enliven and activate the text, however, what others view as mixed messages becomes readily apparent, multifaceted truth.

Whatever is Right

Jesus couches His “Great Reversal” in a premise as mundane as it is timeless, leading us to jump to conclusions about fairness and moral objectivity. He even tosses in a few red herrings to spur us down the garden path. He likens the kingdom of heaven to a vineyard owner who, early one morning, employs a group of field hands at a mutually acceptable, standard wage. Then, around nine o’clock, he goes into the village square, where day laborers gather, and expands his workforce by promising, “I will pay you whatever is right.” (Matthew 20.3) Already we’re ahead of Jesus. By saying he’ll pay the nine o’clock workers “whatever is right” (as opposed to what the text terms “the usual amount” for the first group), we assume the owner means they’ll earn a fair wage, based on hours worked. This assumption sets the trend for what follows.

The owner returns to the square at noon, three, and finally at five and hires more workers. With each addition, our sense of growing inequities sharpens. No doubt a pecking order evolves, with the first crew at the top and the five o’clock crowd at the bottom. Since later arrivals will be less productive than those who’ve been at the job longer, it stands to reason their pay will reflect their reduced service and productivity. We might even go as far as imagining the owner reduces the pay rate as the day goes on. In tracking the parable’s moving parts, though, we forget Jesus began by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like …” We’re about to discover what seems fair and realistic to us is often unacceptable and inconceivable in the eternal realm.

Six o’clock: quitting time. The owner instructs his manager to line up the workers in reverse order, from latest hires to the earliest. Watching the manager hand a full day’s wages to the five o’clock workers excites those farther down the line. All things being fair, they anticipate extra pay for working longer hours and producing greater results. But in the kingdom of heaven, all things being equal takes precedence. “Whatever is right” means no one is deemed less worthy or more deserving than the rest. Everyone who answers the call to work is equally rewarded, because God’s grace and favor can’t be earned. When the outraged workers confront the owner, he puts them in their place. “I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?” (v14-15) Before His listeners can object to the assertion greed drives the workers’ demands, Jesus closes the loop. “There it is once again, the Great Reversal,” He says, reminding them the divine dynamic habitually subverts human expectations and logic. “Many of the first ending up last, and last first.”

At the End of the Day

Time and distance encourage us to envision Christ’s tales of farmers, shepherds, and socialites in soft focus that glosses over the harsh realities of primitive provincial life. This parable retains its bite, though, as concerns for fair wages and workers’ rights figure prominently in our reality. Unlike other parables’ bucolic pastures, wheat fields, and banquet halls, this vineyard is in our backyard. And much of what occurs there makes us uneasy. We have a hard time overlooking the obvious: the owner’s generosity, admirable though it may be, seems grossly unfair to those who’ve earned their pay. Then we crash into the Great Reversal, and the Spirit brings the message home.

To see the world through God’s eyes, we must hold equality and acceptance in highest regard. Personal opinions about what's fair and reasonable obstruct our view of what's right and just. It’s nonsense to imagine the work we do and beliefs we hold make us better Christians than those who do less or believe differently. The call goes out and all who answer are equally entitled to God’s grace and favor. Obsessions with recognition and reward warp our understanding of the parable’s Great Reversal. “The first ending up last” isn’t a demotion; nor is “the last first” a hand-up. They’re a level set that abolishes vain prejudice and ambition. Jesus shows us—once again—at the end of the day, all things being equal is the kingdom of heaven’s governing principle. It’s what God wants and what we should be about.

O God, we get so caught up by relying on comparisons with others to gauge where we stand, we forget how You see the world and each of us. Forgive our nonsense and give us new eyes. Fire in us a heavenly vision that perceives all who answer Your call as equally worthy and acceptable in Your sight. Amen.

In the kingdom of heaven, the day ends with all things being equal.

The Discipleship Economy

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole word, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? (Luke 9.24-25)

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6.21)

Living This Lesson

A nasty head cold over the weekend sapped my drive to do little more than doze in front of the TV. (Efforts to pull together a Sunday post went nowhere, for which I apologize.) I did manage to reply to comments here and engage in a heated Facebook discussion sparked by a comment I posted last Friday about the current union controversies. As expected, conservative friends pounced on my remark about “free-wheeling ‘governance.’” They talked dollars, I talked lives, and in the end we agreed we didn't know what the best solution might be. On Sunday evening, Walt and I watched Inside Job, Charles Ferguson’s outstanding documentary about the global economy’s 2008 collapse. Its depiction of incestuous relationships between government, regulators, investment banks, and thought leaders dumbfounded us. The only response I could muster came from Luke 9.25: “What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?” (KJV)

So soon after a lost weekend peppered with money talk, I opened the 40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer to find the Facebook chat and film prepped me for today’s topic. “Goods are given to us to be used, but not to be stored away,” he writes. “The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God.” The text we’re asked to contemplate in light of these thoughts is Matthew 6.31-32—Jesus’s teaching to trust God’s daily provision based on provision we see in wildlife, recently discussed in Back to Nature. Bonhoeffer also reminds us of manna that spoiled when stored, the subject of Our Daily Bread, posted here in the wake of the 2008 meltdown. As I pondered all of this, I thought, “We’ve been living this lesson for nearly three years. And while I see little evidence the world has learned it, have we, as believers, taken it to heart?”

The Antidote to Fear

We’re not fond of discussing money and possessions. If we’ve accumulated an abundance of wealth, we’re concerned about appearing selfish and insecure. If we’re in need, we’re ashamed of not having succeeded. Either way, discomfort about finances is rooted in undue credence we give to the human economy’s metrics of success and security. We accept the market’s rules, methods, and measures without questioning its principles, which are blatantly founded on fear unique to us. Knowledge and logic—drawn from awareness of our mortality—compel us to offset uncertainty with trust in material goods, about as insane a notion as we’ll ever devise.

Do other creatures plan for old age? Do they amass fortunes for their offspring? At best, they stockpile food to sustain them through scarce times. When the seasons change, however, they leave their overstock for fresh pastures. They’re unencumbered by worry and ownership. They instinctively live day-to-day at the will and mercy of God. Yet we—who know God and cognitively recognize God holds our lives in hand—hang onto every shred we can collect, socking away “nest eggs,” saving for “rainy days,” and relying on “insurance” and “securities” and “real estate.” Surely by now we realize entrusting our future to possessions is a dubious pursuit. Not only must we admit what we own can vanish through none of our doing, we also must confess the value we place on wealth is illusory. The antidote to fear of want isn’t financial stability. If it were, we’d stop when we had enough to safeguard against its terrors. But we don’t stop, because fear of losing what we’ve got urges us to get more. The only antidote to a fear-based economy is trusting God to care for us in every circumstance. That’s why we participate in the human economy without relying on it. Instead, we invest our faith in the discipleship economy.

Losing is Saving

“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole word, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” Jesus says in Luke 9.24-25. In every way, the discipleship economy contradicts humanity’s fear-based economy by endorsing sacrifice, not security. It assesses wealth by what’s given, not gained. It measures success by the richness of heart, not portfolio. The discipleship economy’s fundamental law holds that losing is saving and saving is losing. Its standard of currency isn’t material. It functions exclusively on intangible exchanges and investments—sacrificial love, tolerance, kindness, grace, mercy, and so on. Its key objective has nothing to do with sustaining the physical body, which is futile, given its mortality and vulnerability to random harms. The discipleship economy’s sole intent is nurturing and maintaining spiritual growth. In realms where its principles are applied, there are no “haves” and “have-nots.” Everyone gives and everyone gains. No one is at risk of gaining so much that he/she loses or forfeits his/herself, because what is gained is passed on. Security for all is assured.

In Matthew 6.20-21, Jesus says, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And in case we’re not getting the point, He adds in verse 24: “You cannot serve both God and money.” We are called to make a choice. Do we permit the fear-based economy to dictate our worldview and shape our behavior? Or do we place our trust in the discipleship economy that’s immune to material loss and trades in intangible riches? Fearful hearts that store up material treasures are wedges between God and us. During Lent, with its talk about what we “give up,” perhaps we should consider giving all of it up—all the trust we bank in things that, in the end, will not cure our fears, and all the fears that urge us to trust anything other than our Creator. As we’ve witnessed with alarming vividness, the human economy steals the souls of its adherents. The discipleship economy pays eternal rewards that protect and prosper our souls.

The human economy puts its trust in the coin. The discipleship economy puts its trust in God. One is driven by fear; the other counteracts it.

Postscript: “Nothing Between”

Bonhoeffer’s comment about stored up treasure coming between God and us brought this old hymn to mind. Apparently it’s fallen from favor, as the youtube selection was pretty slim. As you listen to its lyrics, you’ll no doubt see why…