Alive in Us

It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2.20) 

Easter Faith

Before you go to Easter service—before you don your Easter finery and review your holiday plans—pack up your rational mind and set it aside. Logic and common sense will be of no use to you today. You’re about to have a sacred encounter of the most mysterious kind. It will require you to leap headlong into pure faith. Life as you know it will bear no resemblance to the life you’ll discover in the hymns and texts, prayers and sermons, in the electrifying proclamation that death has been defeated, justice has prevailed, and triumphant new life has burst forth from the dark bowels of a chilly tomb. None of what you hear, see, do, sing, or say will make any sense. Yet every fiber of your being will galvanize you with stubborn assurance that all of it is true.

Easter faith is unlike any other type of faith, in that its power solely resides in mystery. Every question it raises—and they are legion—resists explanation. The Gospel accounts, as well as subsequent references to Christ’s resurrection, insist we take its legitimacy at face value. Jesus died on Friday. The world went dark until early Sunday morning, when He got up and walked out of the grave. That’s it. How it happened, the changes Jesus underwent, exactly what transpired while He was dead, and every other question we may have goes unanswered. Either you believe it or you don’t. Which makes Easter faith the best kind of faith, because it expects us to stop making sense and start believing with boldness and clarity that transcend sense-making. Easter is life. That’s all there is to it. Life is. Easter is. The Easter equation worked out is 1+1 =1. Now you get what I mean when I say, “pack up your rational mind.”

Are We Alive?

Oddly enough, the Easter questions we need to consider don’t come from us. They’re put to us. And chief among them is “How do we make Easter come alive in us?” What that really asks is “Is Jesus truly alive in our lives?” Can we truthfully say, like Paul, in Galatians 2.20: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ Who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me”? Does the resurrected Christ live and move and breathe through us?

This is a question each of us can only answer for ourselves, as the living Christ we embody collectively is expressed uniquely in our individualism. Not one of us is exactly the same, which means not one of us believes, behaves, or bears witness to the Resurrection in identical ways. The common attitudes and aspirations we share as followers of Jesus are stepping-off points for each of us to bring Christ to life in us—in our daily thoughts, actions, attempts, and responses. So we must ask ourselves, when we say, “Jesus lives in me,” what does that mean? Or better yet, what do we mean? Or even better, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to me? And that raises an ever bigger, tougher, and more confounding question that Easter invites us to ponder: Are we alive? Not in the biological sense as animate organisms—but in the spiritual sense of being alive to the resurrected possibilities Jesus makes available to us. 

Using Paul’s construct, how do we transform lives we “now live in the flesh” into ones lived “by faith in the Son of God,” Who loved us and gave Himself for us? The questions Easter puts to us are much more demanding and important than any we can ever ask about it. The Resurrection’s mechanics and historical accuracy fall by the wayside very quickly. Whether we interpret the empty tomb as a reality, metaphor, myth, legend, or folk tale—whether our literal-bound, rational minds accept Easter as an actual event or they reject it as naturally inconceivable—doesn’t matter. The Christ of Easter asks something far more compelling of us, something we must answer if we’re to follow Christ’s way. Are we alive? And in our living, do we bring life to those no longer alive—to people who’ve settled for survival rather than knowing the joy of life?

The Most Important Easter Question

Easter reverses death’s terrifying tide and launches Christ’s promise of everyday resurrection into a dying world. One need not be a theologian or Bible scholar to recognize Jesus’s central message is life. Jesus promises the woman at the well “living water.” (John 4.10) In John 6, He calls Himself “the Bread of Life,” and in the next chapter, He declares, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (7.38) In John 10.10, He says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” All of Jesus’s teachings point to life. They instruct us how to love one another so that we’re not infected with hatred, resentment, anger, and so many other deadly diseases. They retrain our responses to threat, conflict, and confusion to ensure new life will grow out of despair. They enlighten our awareness of what’s truly vital so that we don’t succumb to life-defeating temptations and desires. The entire corpus of Jesus’s lessons and the power He exemplified come together in the dazzling display of life that we call Easter. This is life unlike any ever known—life that refutes death’s fears and disproves its formulas once and for all. Easter is life. Easter is. Life is. 1+1=1.

So in the midst of our rejoicing that Jesus would not submit to death, let us answer the questions Easter puts to us by doing the same. Let our resurrection anthems be manifestoes of defiance that echo Psalm 118.17: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD.” Let our questions about the Resurrection give way to bold certainty that Jesus lives in us. John 1.3-4 tells us, “What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” Out of humiliating death, triumphant life. Out of entombed darkness, vibrant light. From One to all. Our rational minds will never get it. But every fiber in our being knows it to be true. Jesus is alive in us. It’s a truth of such overpowering magnitude that it raises the most important Easter question of all: How do we live with that?

Easter reverses death’s terrifying tide and launches Christ’s promise of everyday resurrection into a dying world.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/04/07/alive-in-us/.

Repost: Stripes

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53.5; NKJV)

 The Back Story

When we look at Jesus on the cross, what do we see? The brow mockingly crowned with thorns. The beard that is every Jewish man’s glory savagely plucked and matted with blood. Dried saliva and parched lips evidence dire thirst. We see hands and feet affixed to this torturous altar by iron spikes. His arms and legs convulse with spasms caused by the strain of supporting all of His weight. His torso is swollen and bruised from sadistic pummeling with rods. His chest heaves beneath the suffocating pressure of mid-air suspension. Blood and viscera ooze from an open stab wound in His side meant to finish Him off. And, as the day wears on, the blistering sun scorches every inch of flesh on His body. It’s a heartbreaking, hideous sight.

Circling behind the cross to observe the back story, what we see is equally gruesome. Lashes from leather whips strung with shards of metal and bone have flayed Jesus’s back into a shredded curtain, exposing His muscles, sinew, shoulders, and ribs to the fetid air, heat, and scores of flies nesting the wounds with freshly laid eggs. If we’re able to stomach looking at such horror at length, we can count the stripes hashed across His back—39 in all, one short of 40 prescribed for whipping executions. We’re stunned to realize before the cross was thrust on His shoulders, before the hammer struck the first nail, before the spear pierced His side, Jesus was beaten within inches of His life. Then, remembering Isaiah’s prophecies, we realize He endured each aspect of His suffering for a specific purpose, including His stripes.

Passion’s Elements

Isaiah 53.5 breaks down the Passion’s elements like this: He was wounded for our transgressions. When we transgress, we expose wrongful motives and desires by actively pursuing habits and pleasures that cause piercing pain and leave scars. “The soul who sins is the one who will die,” Ezekiel 18.4 says. Sin is lethal. It leeches the life out of us, just as Jesus bled to death through His open wounds.

He was bruised for our iniquities. Harmful attitudes and emotions buried beneath the surface discolor our appearance when we’re buffeted by hostility. Resisting these impulses doesn’t mitigate the internal injuries they bring. Clotted hatred and resentment interrupt the flow of God’s love and forgiveness. They mar His reflection. This is why passive iniquity and active transgression equally displease God, why seeing Jesus covered in bruises causes Him to look away, and why the psalmist writes, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66.18)

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. The burden of humanity’s sin falls on Christ’s shoulder to restore our relationship with God. His punishment ends the war between our will and God’s purpose. It frees us from what we think to trust His mercy and grace. Romans 5.1 says this: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We’re Healed

And by His stripes we are healed. The lashes driving Jesus to death’s precipice represent the most extreme physical, mental, and emotional pain a human can survive. In a few hours, Jesus suffers more affliction and abuse than the vast majority of us experience in a lifetime. The blinding agony—the undeserved brutality—of the first stripe isn’t absorbed before the next lash tears into Him. Wave after wave thrashes Him, emptying Him of strength, crushing Him with confusion. Yet He endures, because dying beneath the whip will defeat the promise of healing. And here’s something very telling about Jesus’s stripes. After His resurrection, Jesus authenticates His identity by brandishing the nail-prints in His hands and hole in His side. Yet not once in any account does He point to the whip-scars across His back. Were they there? Scripture doesn’t say. But it’s not illogical to believe they were gone—that Christ Himself was the first to experience the healing they deliver.

Because the stripes were real, healing is real. Because Jesus suffered and recovered, we can also recover. Throughout Christ’s ministry, He performed healing miracles at the touch of His hand. Still, not every sick person who sought healing was fortunate enough to feel His touch. His stripes now make healing available to all. Unlike miracles, healing is a process, a gradual restoration of health and resurgence of strength. And, as in Jesus’s case, it often reverses suffering by way of the tomb, plunging us into darkness to rise again in new life and health, whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. Yet throughout our tomb experience, we believe life’s power works in us. We believe the prophet. By His stripes, we’re healed.

Healing is available through the whipping Christ survived for our recovery. 

(Troy David: The Whipping of Christ)

Repost: Willing Spirits, Weak Bodies

Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26.41)

The Last Word

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” surely sits in the Top 10 Jesus quotes. It’s said so widely and often it’s been diluted into a sighing apology that usually means, “I want to say yes, but I’m too tired.” When we revisit the circumstances prompting Christ’s remark, we’re liable to be shocked and ashamed at how casually we toss it around. Jesus says it at a time and place that lends it poignant gravity. But while the situation removes all doubt about its profundity, it also shrouds the statement in ambiguity about whom Jesus is talking to. It initially sounds directed to the disciples. Yet as we read on, it’s quite possible Jesus is speaking to Himself. If we re-read the entire passage, it’s sensible to assume He addresses the disciples’ error and His internal turmoil simultaneously.

Matthew records this as the last word Jesus speaks exclusively to His disciples as a mortal. They’ve left the Last Supper to pray in Gethsemane. Over dinner, Jesus has told them He’ll soon leave them and when they arrive at the garden, He distances Himself to pray secretly. He falls facedown and agonizes with God about His imminent suffering, asking to be spared and then submitting to God’s will. He appears to reach a point of acceptance, because He returns to rejoin the disciples—who are supposed to be praying with Him—and finds them sleeping. He chides Peter for not keeping them awake. Then He says, “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26.41) Knowing Peter will yield to temptation twice before the night ends, we automatically assume the Lord’s statement is aimed directly at him. But that may not be the whole of it. After Jesus says this, He turns back to pray a second time, repeating His first prayer: “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (v42; NIV)

Weakness on Both Sides

The admonition to withstand temptation with vigilance and prayer—overcoming physical fear and frailty that hinder spiritual trust and resolve—bridges the disciples’ carelessness with Jesus’s wariness. It confesses human weakness on both sides. The disciples are exhausted in body and mind. It’s been an unusually grueling week and they’ve spent the past few hours grappling with ominous news. No doubt they have every intention of praying with Jesus. But it’s late, they’re not quite sure how they should pray, and their Master has left them alone. Without Jesus to lead them, fatigue trumps their faith. On the other hand, being privy to the torture awaiting Him, Jesus’s body quakes with dread, urging Him to plead for a stay of execution. His Spirit is willing to see this through, yet His body is weak and reluctant. We find our lesson in the contrast between the disciples’ response to Christ’s warning, what He does, and how He and Peter handle themselves as the evening progresses.

Following His second prayer, Jesus finds the disciples have fallen back to sleep. He doesn’t wake them again, but goes back to pray the same prayer a third time. After that, He rouses them as Judas and his co-conspirators approach. Jesus puts up no resistance to His arrest. He sees His enemies coming and having prayed three times without any indication His fate can be avoided, His Spirit’s willingness to obey takes precedence over His natural impulse to escape. Jesus faces His fears. Failing to discipline His physical compulsions, Peter’s caught off-guard. He attacks Christ’s enemies and, later, cowers in fear of being associated with Jesus. His body’s weakness undermines his spirit’s willingness.

Willing and Willful

Our spirits are willing. Our bodies are willful. One guides us to please our Maker. The other drives us to satisfy our urges. The spirit and body engage in constant conflict, the former leading us to do what’s best in the long run and the latter pressing for instant gratification. It’s like dieting. When an enticing yet fattening treat is placed before us, we’re presented with a choice: eat now and pay later or sacrifice now and profit later. Choosing between our spirits and bodies is no different. Each choice boils down to this question: whose example will we follow, Christ’s or Peter’s?

When we follow Jesus, we’re watchful against reacting angrily and fearfully when confronted. We stay prayerful, continuously in contact with our Father, Who strengthens our resolve. When we follow Peter, we’re taken by surprise. We’re not watching for temptations and praying for strength. We lose emotional and physical control. Our bodies’ willfulness to survive overwhelms our spirits’ willingness to sacrifice. Willfulness is weakness, while willingness exerts true strength. If we desire to defeat temptation, we must watch and pray. Sleep can wait. Self-gratification can be denied. Weakness can be overpowered. It’s in our spirits to will it so.

 We follow one of two examples when dealing with temptation: Christ’s or Peter’s.

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/.

Faithful Acts of Hatred

He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill Him; for they were afraid of Him. (Mark 11.17-18)

The Things Jesus Hated

A couple weeks ago, our pastor came across a 1950 directory from our congregation and shared some of its contents with us. From a paragraph called “The Meaning of Church Membership” she read these words:

To be a worthy church member, one must have the temper and disposition of Jesus, taking His attitude toward God and man, looking at life from His standpoint, hating the things which He hated, loving the things which He loved, and doing in cooperation with others the kind of things which He did.

Hating the things which He hated? We’re not the kind of church that ascribes hatred of any kind to Jesus. God is love. Jesus is God. Ergo, Jesus is love. Yet in this context, paired with “loving the things which He loved,” I was struck with a new awareness that Jesus truly did hate many things about our world. Prejudice, false piety, selfishness, violence, callousness, political ambition, deceit, resentment—all of the things that destroy love for God and one another—He despised. He made no room for ambivalence about them. He hated them. What's more, He wasn’t reluctant to say so, regardless how difficult expressing His hatred made His own life.

In fact, as we retrace His steps through Holy Week, we’re initially stunned by what can only be described as conscious acts of hatred from Jesus. In the wake of the Triumphal Entry, we see Him return to Jerusalem on Monday morning, not to bask in the upsurge of adulation, but to express overt hostility toward the religious and political corruption of His day. His audacity and disregard for His popularity, which is at its peak, are breathtaking. And while three of the four Gospels report Monday’s main event—the clearing of the Temple merchants—Mark and Matthew couple it with a rather bizarre incident that shocks us, as it seems completely out of character for Jesus.

On Their Side

The Palm Sunday story ends with a cliffhanger. After the crowd’s enthusiastic hosannas die down, Jesus walks into the Temple, looks around for a moment, and leaves. All that’s missing from the scene is “I’ll be back.” Sure enough, come Monday morning, Jesus’s first order of business is returning to the Temple. He doesn’t even wait for breakfast. As soon as He can get the disciples together, He heads back into Jerusalem—having spent the night in an outlying village—and along the way, He gets hungry. He sees a tree and decides to make do with one of its figs. But the tree is barren because figs aren’t in season. Jesus knows that, which makes His response to not finding fruit curiously upsetting. He curses the tree! “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” He hisses—so loudly that the disciples hear Him. (Mark 11.14) What’s the problem here? Is Jesus in a bad mood? Is He overtired and impatient? Perhaps. He’s coming off an exhausting day and anticipating an even tougher one, given what He plans to do in Jerusalem. Still, His reaction seems weirdly out of scale.

The Temple is humming by the time Jesus arrives. It’s Passover week and many provincials have turned up early to attend to various sacrifices and offerings before the feast. In the courtyard, moneychangers and livestock traders are open for business, which is booming. As Jesus enters the Temple, He’s keenly aware of stepping into a seller’s market. It’s the ancient equivalent of a modern theme park, where out-of-towners pay ridiculous prices for things that would cost a fraction of the money at home. Jesus hates what’s going on. He goes on a rampage, overturning the moneychanger’s tables and livestock traders’ chairs. Then, in a stunning display of authority, He shuts everything down. Verse 16 says, “He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” You bet everyone who doesn’t yet know Who He is wants to find out what He’s all about. Jesus begins to teach right there on the spot, knitting prophecies from Isaiah and Jeremiah together as He indicts the price-gougers: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (v17) Mark says when the Temple establishment hears this, it stokes their determination to kill Jesus. They’re afraid of Jesus, we’re told, because His hatred of those who exploit the worshipers resonates with the crowd. Jesus is on their side and He’s unconcerned about what may happen to Him for standing with them. His deep hatred of evildoing gives Him power to confront it head-on.

New Wholeness and Holiness

So we understand Jesus’s actions in the Temple—and we understand how they seal His fate, which will play out in agonizing extremes on Friday morning. Now, what about the fig tree? On Tuesday morning, returning again to the city, Peter notices that it’s shriveled down to its roots. It’s not dead. But it will need to be revived before it can yield fruit. When Peter points out the tree, Jesus explains the situation by saying that faith’s power is double-edged. It can build things up and make things grow. It can likewise cause things to crumble and wither away. “Truly I tell you,” He says in verse 23, “if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.”

This mountain—the Mount of Olives, which they’re descending to reach Jerusalem—is a holy place. According to the prophets, it’s the site where the Messiah will first appear and His appearance will split the mountain wide open. (Zechariah 14.4) Jesus is saying that nothing is ever so sacred—or sacrosanct—that it’s immune to being dismantled and remade. A barren tree can be reduced to its roots to regrow and yield new fruit. A holy hill can be torn asunder and thrown into the sea to make way for a New Order. A Temple defiled by exploitation of captive believers can be cleansed and reestablished as the house of prayer that God ordained it to be. Jesus tells us when we couple hatred of what we know is unhealthy and displeasing to God with faith that it can be replaced with something better, what we say will come to pass. Faithful acts of hatred spring forth in new life and new growth—new wholeness and holiness.

As believers, we are called to hate the things that Jesus hated. But our calling doesn’t stop there. Jesus teaches us to speak to those things, to act against them—and to pay no regard for the consequences that may befall us. We are called to decry and oppose poverty, prejudice, exploitation, violence, hypocrisy, and every other ill that defiles God’s creation. Love that ignores harm or tolerates indifference is harmful and indifferent. It’s no love at all. The world’s evils justify our hatred and the actions we take to dismantle them. As we will learn next Sunday, destructive hatred will never defeat its righteous counterpart. Why? Because hating the things that Jesus hated is an act of love. And love always wins.

In cleansing the Temple, Jesus teaches us that evil merits our hatred—and nothing is so sacred or sacrosanct that it can’t be dismantled and replaced by new life, new growth, new wholeness and holiness.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/04/02/faithful-acts-of-hatred/.

Untying Colts

Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” (Mark 11.2-3)

Deleted Scenes

There is, in the Palm Sunday story, a wondrously mundane detail—a bit of logistics, if you will—that captivates my attention every time I revisit it. If we were making a feature film of the Triumphal Entry, chances are the second unit, the crew that collects the nature shots and transitional scenes with minimal dialogue, would be charged with shooting it. Two disciples, played by unknown actors, enter a non-descript village, find a young donkey, and begin to unknot its tether to a hitching post. The owner rushes out, yelling, “What do you think you’re doing? That’s my colt!” One of the disciples answers, “Jesus needs it.” “For what?” the owner asks. The disciples look at each other for a moment. “We don’t know,” they admit. “Jesus told us to come get it and to tell you we’ll bring it right back when He’s finished.”

The owner wants more information. “When He’s finished doing what?” he asks. The second disciple replies, “With whatever He plans to use it for.” His matter-of-fact tone irks the owner, yet also intrigues him. The year-old colt, whose master has not yet broken it, is remarkably—miraculously—docile. No braying, no bucking; it’s just standing there, as if it’s waiting to be ridden. The owner doesn’t know what to say. After a pause, he tells the disciples to take the colt. They thank him. “But bring it back!” he shouts as they saunter off. They nod and disappear over the ridge of the first low-slung hill outside of town.

Cut to the establishing shot of the climactic sequence. Jesus sits atop the colt as it ambles toward Jerusalem without a hint of resistance or skittishness. Missing are two brief scenes deleted from the original script. There’s the tense, slightly comic moment when Jesus first approaches the donkey. Everyone stands back, expecting the colt to rebel violently. When it allows the Lord to mount it, there’s amazement all around. Jesus doesn’t make a big deal of it. He rolls His eyes at everyone’s consternation and says, “Let’s go!”

The second deleted scene catches the two disciples en route to retrieve the colt.

DISCIPLE ONE

Should we be doing this?

DISCIPLE TWO

What do you mean? Jesus told us to do it.

DISCIPLE ONE

But we're stealing the colt. How is this not stealing?

DISCIPLE TWO

We're borrowing, not stealing. Jesus specifically said, "If anyone says, 'Why are you doing this?' to tell them, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back immediately.'"

DISCIPLE ONE

What if nobody asks? What if nobody's around? What if nobody says anything, but they see us do it? Besides, how does Jesus even know about this alleged colt? What makes Him think the owner will let us have it? I don't get a good feeling about this.

DISCIPLE TWO

I hear you. But what else can we do? Jesus told us to get the colt. Obviously, He needs it for something. He said it would be there waiting, and He told us what to say if somebody questions us. Are you ready to go back to Jesus and say, "You know, Lord, we thought this out and it's not such a good idea. Why can't You do like always and walk into town today?" Are you ready to do that?

They pause momentarily while DISCIPLE ONE thinks things over.

DISCIPLE ONE

We should take the colt. Whatever happens, Jesus can handle it.

Vital Roles in the Redemptive Narrative

In the midst of the Palm Sunday hoopla—the fronds and Hosannas and excitement of high praise—we might consider stepping into the two disciples’ shoes for a moment, to ponder what Jesus asks of us, to contemplate the logistics of living by faith, and to question our reluctance to do as Jesus asks. None of the Gospels bothers with detailing how Jesus knows about the colt or why He’s confident the owner will lend it to two strangers. Is it just another of those clairvoyant things Jesus is apt to do—something akin to Him telling Peter he’ll find money to pay taxes in a fish’s mouth or instructing the disciples how to net an entire school of fish by throwing their nets off the opposite side of their boat? Has Jesus noticed the colt during His travels to and from Jerusalem, perhaps even met its owner, and suspects he’ll release it to the disciples’ care? Is the colt so necessary to Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem that He’s comfortable sending the disciples to take it, knowing it will be returned before the day’s out? We don’t know. And that’s the point. Had Jesus asked two disciples to take a big risk for His sake and they reneged, the Triumphal Entry very well might have been something far less triumphant.

We know why Jesus needs the colt. He’s provoking the religious authorities who seek to destroy Him by staging a Messianic moment foretold in Zechariah 9.9-10: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus’s arrival atop an untried beast is a political challenge to the powers that be, the first in a one-two blow that will knock their socks off when He dismounts the colt and turns the Temple courtyard upside down. Whatever minor drama may result from procuring the colt is secondary to a greater drama taking shape—one that Jesus instigates to honor God’s purpose for His life.

To the disciples’ credit, they set aside their doubts to play vital roles in the redemption narrative. They sacrifice logical and personal concerns in deference to Christ’s instruction. And we can trace Easter’s triumphal exit from the tomb—and hence our own resurrections—back to their faithfulness. No trust in Jesus, no obedience; no obedience, no colt; no colt, no challenge to the establishment; no challenge, no reprisal, no execution, and no victory over death. Though it sounds exaggerated to say so, it’s true: without the two unnamed disciples, it’s possible the events we’ll rehearse during Holy Week would not have transpired. Without them, the rejoicing of Palm Sunday and Easter might not exist.

The Little Things

The disciples’ compliance echoes a much earlier episode in which ordinary people ignore logic and attend to a logistical detail that sets Jesus’s career in motion. At Cana, we hear Mary tell the host’s servants, “Do whatever He tells you to do.” (John 2.5) Filling six huge jars with water, as Jesus tells them, puts the servants at risk of making a fool of their employer. They have no idea what Jesus is up to; no one’s ever turned water into wine. It’s ludicrous to imagine they’ll pour out a magnificent vintage from water jugs. Yet they do as Jesus asks and their faith sets the standard for everyone who comes to know Christ’s miraculous power by obeying His illogical directions: the blind man whose sight is restored by washing mud from his eyes; the child who offers his meager lunch to feed a multitude; Peter, who becomes the only human other than Jesus to walk on water by following Christ’s instruction to leave the boat.

The little things that Jesus asks of us matter the most. And that’s because they inevitably tap into our biggest fears. The littlest things place us at greatest risk. Loving neighbors risks loss of power and pride. Welcoming strangers risks inviting trouble into our lives. Forgiving those who’ve injured us risks getting hurt again. Giving without hesitation risks hardship. Untying colts that Jesus needs risks being misunderstood and mislabeled as dishonest or presumptuous. Yet nothing Jesus ever asks of us is without reason. In doing the little things—in facing our fears and proceeding despite them—we assume pivotal roles in greater dramas than those we imagine will result if our obedience goes awry.

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments,” Jesus tells the disciples during the Last Supper. (John 14.15) He could have pointed to the two disciples who procured the colt as a perfect example of what He’s talking about—a love that dares to believe without fear of consequences. This is the very same kind of love and faith that Jesus describes in His parable of the talents, when the master of trusting servants rewards them, saying, “You have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25.21)

Untying colts results in triumph. Amid this weekend's palm waving and outcries of “Hosanna!” may we breathe a prayer of gratitude for two disciples who dared to do what Jesus asked. Had they resisted, we might have nothing to celebrate. And in blessing them, may we also pray for similar courage, faith, and love to do as Christ asks.

Procuring the colt for Jesus’s Triumphal Entry seems like a little thing. But it constitutes a tremendous act of faithfulness on the part of the two disciples charged with the task. (James Tissot: The Foal of Bethpage; ca. 1886.)

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/31/untying-colts/.

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?