As Christians we lament how commercial Christmas has become. Yet despite our lament, we succumb to the frantic consumerism of the season, buying gifts for people who have enough already and in return receiving gifts we do not need.
Why?
As much as we know Jesus to be unaffected by the mindset that has made Christmas so commercial, we have been affected. We take the path of least resistance calculating it costs us less to buy presents than to be like Jesus in our world. We resist the grace which characterized Jesus from the manger onwards:
he became poor so that others might be rich.
But I think another reason that has us buying gifts is we undervalue the real gifts we are to one another.
Who can put a value on the gift of somebody praying us through a dark time or standing with us when everyone else has given up?
Who can put a value on the gift we are to others by affirming their divine spark or sticking with them through periods of unemployment or illness?
Who can put a value on those who by faith venture into new territory at great personal cost, breaking new ground that will benefit future generations?
What price can be attached to ‘the faithful wounds of a friend’, or on those who work for peace in troubled communities, or to the wise counsel of someone who really cares, or to a prophetic word that keeps us going when we’d otherwise give up?
Put in that context, we begin to see the shortcomings of gifts we wrap.
Nothing Jesus gives us can be gift-wrapped. His gifts are found where no one expects gifts to be found. The woman who finds his forgiveness just as she's about to be stoned for adultery; the mother whose young son is restored to life again after his funeral procession had begun; the criminal who is guaranteed paradise by the person dying on the cross next to his. These are the real gifts of Christmas regardless on what day they’re given!
Thinking of the Christmas gift the prophet Simeon gave to Mary foretelling the life story of her son; that because of him: the deepest thoughts of many will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul, the real gifts of Christmas are not sentimental but filled with truth and grace.
These are the gifts that last, the gifts that began with Christ's birth. If we could sell them we would, but God be praised, they can't be bought or sold!
They are exchanged solely by the grace Christ freely gives.
Freely you have received, freely give.
Merry Christmas to you and to all those who are the real gifts in your life!
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Preaching to the Minister
Whoever claims to live in God must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:6
I have quickly written down these thoughts as a compliment to what you’ve written rather than to throw a wrench in the works. They are late night thoughts – which are always risky – but these days have too few quiet spaces for reflection…
To me the topic of 'living like Jesus' must answer the question 'what is it about the way Jesus lived his life that we are meant to replicate?'
Thinking of your sermon last week and its emphasis on 'incarnation', I think that concept is worth repeating. Last week you powerfully made the point - the way Jesus looks to the world is the way we portray him in our attitude, nature, and demeanour. We are, as heady as it seems, meant to make Jesus visible to the world we live in.
This week you move from looking like Jesus to living like Jesus. Again we are taking about incarnation, but the incarnation we're talking about is 'active' i.e. doing as he did.
Defining our future direction as a church, it is helpful to take stock of where we are and where we should be heading. If our church is 95% Christian, then the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a near universal already. But for some reason many of us have learned to make that confession without it really impacting the way we live. What was once potentially life changing fails to affect us much. Like a ‘Hail Mary’ we say the words but they have long since defined the way we live.
How do we change that?
Repentance helps.
And by spelling out how Jesus lived and committing ourselves to living as he did. To reinforce what you’ve written...
We must live as Jesus did in deep relationship with His Father.
We must venture out, as he did, from the safe confines of the church, to where we’d otherwise fear to tread. We plead for the heart and courage to seek out our generation’s equivalent of the mad-man of the Gadarenes; we are committed to the people on life’s margins.
We choose to enter into the heartache of humanity and respond as Christ did to its sorrow, its injustice and its suffering. We choose to become fully present in the lives of those around us as Jesus was fully present for those he knew. We seek friendships with people of other faiths, of other races, of other socio-economic status. We are not waiting for them to show up at our door, we actively seek them where they are - the same way Jesus found Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot.
We are missional. As Jesus sent out the seventy, so are we waiting to be sent out. We are committed to being ‘a movement’ – actively ‘on the move’… initiating Christian community wherever Jesus is unknown.
We will put our lives on the line for others, because that’s how Jesus lived.
We are prepared to be maligned for the company we keep - as Jesus was.
We are willing to become poor so that others might be rich. We are committed to re-enacting that grace which makes Jesus truly visible in our time.
We will love our enemies, most especially the enemies we know regardless of looking like fools to do so.
We will forgive as he has forgiven us and accept others as he has accepted us.
We are committed to be no more the status quo than Jesus was.
We resist the complacency and slumber that would otherwise deafen us to the agony of injustice and the anger of inequity. Our Lord overturned the tables of the money-changers. We will, to quote Martin Luther King, ‘drive spikes into the wheels of injustice’; even if in doing so, it costs us privilege, reputation and rights.
We will give ourselves to prophecy and not flattery. We will not shy away from the hard words most especially when they are aimed at us.
We will seek peace and not war; unity and not uniformity, diversity and not conformity.
written to the minister of our church in January 2008
I have quickly written down these thoughts as a compliment to what you’ve written rather than to throw a wrench in the works. They are late night thoughts – which are always risky – but these days have too few quiet spaces for reflection…
To me the topic of 'living like Jesus' must answer the question 'what is it about the way Jesus lived his life that we are meant to replicate?'
Thinking of your sermon last week and its emphasis on 'incarnation', I think that concept is worth repeating. Last week you powerfully made the point - the way Jesus looks to the world is the way we portray him in our attitude, nature, and demeanour. We are, as heady as it seems, meant to make Jesus visible to the world we live in.
This week you move from looking like Jesus to living like Jesus. Again we are taking about incarnation, but the incarnation we're talking about is 'active' i.e. doing as he did.
Defining our future direction as a church, it is helpful to take stock of where we are and where we should be heading. If our church is 95% Christian, then the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ is a near universal already. But for some reason many of us have learned to make that confession without it really impacting the way we live. What was once potentially life changing fails to affect us much. Like a ‘Hail Mary’ we say the words but they have long since defined the way we live.
How do we change that?
Repentance helps.
And by spelling out how Jesus lived and committing ourselves to living as he did. To reinforce what you’ve written...
We must live as Jesus did in deep relationship with His Father.
We must venture out, as he did, from the safe confines of the church, to where we’d otherwise fear to tread. We plead for the heart and courage to seek out our generation’s equivalent of the mad-man of the Gadarenes; we are committed to the people on life’s margins.
We choose to enter into the heartache of humanity and respond as Christ did to its sorrow, its injustice and its suffering. We choose to become fully present in the lives of those around us as Jesus was fully present for those he knew. We seek friendships with people of other faiths, of other races, of other socio-economic status. We are not waiting for them to show up at our door, we actively seek them where they are - the same way Jesus found Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot.
We are missional. As Jesus sent out the seventy, so are we waiting to be sent out. We are committed to being ‘a movement’ – actively ‘on the move’… initiating Christian community wherever Jesus is unknown.
We will put our lives on the line for others, because that’s how Jesus lived.
We are prepared to be maligned for the company we keep - as Jesus was.
We are willing to become poor so that others might be rich. We are committed to re-enacting that grace which makes Jesus truly visible in our time.
We will love our enemies, most especially the enemies we know regardless of looking like fools to do so.
We will forgive as he has forgiven us and accept others as he has accepted us.
We are committed to be no more the status quo than Jesus was.
We resist the complacency and slumber that would otherwise deafen us to the agony of injustice and the anger of inequity. Our Lord overturned the tables of the money-changers. We will, to quote Martin Luther King, ‘drive spikes into the wheels of injustice’; even if in doing so, it costs us privilege, reputation and rights.
We will give ourselves to prophecy and not flattery. We will not shy away from the hard words most especially when they are aimed at us.
We will seek peace and not war; unity and not uniformity, diversity and not conformity.
written to the minister of our church in January 2008
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The kingdom in our eyes
Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.
Luke 22:27
Imagine what a restaurant would look like where the servers were more important than the ones being served?
If we can, the kingdom is in our eyes.
Luke 22:27
Imagine what a restaurant would look like where the servers were more important than the ones being served?
If we can, the kingdom is in our eyes.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
When my faith falters
When my faith falters I bring to mind I love Jesus.
As complicated as life gets and how discouraged I am by the church and disillusioned by my own example, there is no explanation for any of it except I love Jesus.
And He loves me, the church, the world.
He is love, doing everything to rescue, everything to purify and everything to make all things new. He with His Father and the Holy Spirit. With or without us.
As complicated as life gets and how discouraged I am by the church and disillusioned by my own example, there is no explanation for any of it except I love Jesus.
And He loves me, the church, the world.
He is love, doing everything to rescue, everything to purify and everything to make all things new. He with His Father and the Holy Spirit. With or without us.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Politics of Jesus
Sermon Notes Prepared By: John Deacon
Sunday August 30, 2009
Introduction
Jesus died to atone for our sins and to redeem our sinful nature.
But he also died because he represented a threat to the way the world works, he stood opposed to the world system.
He was executed because of his politics...
His economic policy of debt forgiveness threatened to undermine the world’s financial system.
His defense policy of loving one’s enemies and praying for those who terrorize, would mean the end of all armies,
the end of all wars, the end of all empires and patriotism, the end of all kings and superpowers.
But most of all he was killed to eliminate the possibility of his example being replicated in others.
He was killed in the hope that the way he lived and the things he taught wouldn’t initiate a community of people like him...a community indifferent to the appeal of affluence and nationalism, fame and posterity...a community who by embracing his politics would live exclusively for the benefit of the world around it:
by caring for its sick
and providing for its poor
and welcoming its outcasts
and seeking to reconcile wherever there is division and discord...
This may be a new approach to considering Jesus for some of us.
My plan is to present the facts as best I can based on scripture references most of us would be familiar with.
I have made copies of my notes available for further study - only because there may be more here than can be digested in one sitting. Also, it will give those of you who are more studious the opportunity to work through these issues on your own and challenge me later should on any point you disagree.
But first - if we could pray...
Sermon
For the last year I have been overwhelmed with the thought my confession that Jesus is Lord is too shallow. It is a religious conviction, a theological belief which means I believe God is real, that he has revealed himself in his Son Jesus and to believe in him is my ticket to heaven.
This kind of believing has been identified as ‘personalistic faith’. It is the kind of faith which focuses on God and me, more on me than God...about God saving my soul, and about God causing me to spiritually grow.
It is about God making me into a better husband and father, a more honest businessman, a more decent, law-abiding citizen, doing what he can in the best interests of his community and his country.
But what troubled me was the realization there was very little in the way I lived that was different than my neighbour. For sure our beliefs about God differed with many of our neighbours being either Muslim or Jewish - but essentially everything else was the same.
We all wanted what was best for our children, we all wanted to live in a safe community, we all saw the value of community service and we all wanted to retire with enough money to live comfortably until we died.
What hit me was the realization that were Jesus to move into my neighbourhood - there would be more to him that would differ from my neighbourhood than just his theology.
And so I began to ask myself the question - what would make him stand out?
And the more I asked myself the question the more I kept hearing this answer: his politics.
By politics I mean, the policies and process by which we as individuals and a society are governed. A politician is someone who initiates and oversees the policies and process by which we are governed.
And although I am hesitant to call Jesus a politician because of the negative connotations associated with ‘politicians’, it would be fair to say Jesus is a politician in the sense that he came to initiate policies which are to govern us as a community of Christians. He came that God’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. That’s political! Think for example his policy on love - loving our neighbours, loving our enemies - confers on us huge social responsibilities. (see Matthew 25:31-46, 1 John 3:17)
Now combining religion and politics is a volatile mixture and many of us grew up being told they are the two topics one never talks about at social gatherings. With good reason it seems - given the Crusades, the wars in the Middle East, the slaughter of native and aboriginal peoples by European settlers in the name of ‘God and king’.
Add to that the abortion debate, the controversy surrounding gay marriage, the discouraging of prayer in public schools, the disaster that was the Moral Majority and think, there is no way to mix politics and faith.
And so the inclination for us as Christians has been to retreat to a personalistic faith - to a faith which is essentially apolitical, individualistic and private...focusing on ‘piety’ issues - being honest, decent citizens praying that God might do something significant with our lives.
The problem with this position is that basically the whole Bible stands against it. Jesus wasn’t just a religious figure, He is the Messiah, a title which speaks to his having political authority. As such he came to usher in God’s kingdom which is good news to the poor and the breaking down of the walls separating Jews from Gentiles , women from men, rich people from poor people etc. (ref: Ephesians 2:14-16)
Jesus had little time or patience for a religion that was about tithing and personal holiness and ignored the weightier issues of justice, mercy and faith. (Matthew 23:23)
He wasn’t just interested in changing individual lives; he was equally interested in creating a new society built on policies which reflected his character and his authority. (Matthew 6:10, 1 John 2:6).
Think of the political implications of the many words prophesied about him centuries before he was born:
from Psalm 72:12-14
He will rescue the poor when they cry out to him;
he will help the oppressed who have no one to defend them.
He feels pity for the weak and the needy and he will rescue them.
He will redeem them from oppression and violence,
for their lives are precious to him.
from Isaiah 59:15b,16
The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice.
He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed.
So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm.
In advance of Christ’s ministry, John the Baptist declared:
Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.’
The crowds asked, ‘What should we do?’
John replied, ‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food share with those who are hungry.’ Luke 3:9-11
As Jesus begins his ministry he announces in his hometown synagogue the prophecy
from Isaiah he has come to fulfill:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.’ Luke 4:18,19
All of these prophesies are undeniably political. And all of them Jesus saw as his mission.
Now to do a detailed study of the Politics of Jesus would take weeks. Reading the gospels one discovers he has policies on everything from aid to investments, from prayer to self-promotion strategies.
I have listed some of his policies available for follow-up study, but so as not to overwhelm, I am limiting my remarks here to his Economic policies and his policies on Military Defense.
The Messiah’s Economic Stimulus Policies
- forgive people their debts (Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4)
- lend without asking for anything in return (Luke 6:45)
- the sale of assets by the wealthy to provide for the poor (Luke 12:33, Acts 2:45, Acts 4:37)
With his overall economic objective:
those who have much don’t have too much and those who have little don’t have too little. (Exodus 16:18, 2 Corinthians 8:15)
The Messiah’s Defense Policy
- love your enemies, do good to them (Luke 6:35)
- pray for those who terrorize you (Matthew 5:44)
- do not retaliate, turn the other cheek, do not resist an evil person (Matthew 5:38,39)
The Messiah’s Policy on War and Disarmament
- those who live by the sword will die by the sword (Matthew 26:51)
- God’s children are those who work for peace (Matthew 5:9)
I’m not so sure were Jesus to run as a candidate in the area I live in - Thornhill - he’d get that many votes. I can’t imagine him doing well among the Bay Street elite or corporate CEOs.
This business of debt forgiveness, and the voluntary redistribution of wealth would be a real turn-off.
But I can imagine him doing well in the communities of Jane/Finch and Regent Park.
His non-retaliatory, no defense policy would make him unpopular in the military establishment whether here, or in Washington, Moscow or Tehran.
But in places like South Africa 15 years ago and more recently in Northern Ireland, his non-retaliatory policies have been instrumental in stopping years of bloodshed and healing huge racial and religious divides.
In a word, the politics of Jesus favour poor people and demand much of rich people. They side with those who are oppressed and demand much of those who are in power. As he put it: ‘to whom much is given, much is required’. (Luke 12:48)
This is why the gospel of Jesus Christ is repeatedly declared to be ‘good news to the poor’. (Matthew 11:5) It is not because when the poor die they go to heaven and enjoy what they couldn’t enjoy here. Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Luke 6:20) not ‘Blessed will be the poor for theirs will be the kingdom...’
Listen to what happens when the good news takes hold of a people and reshapes their community. These descriptions are taken from the book of Acts depicting the social impact of the gospel within the early church:
‘All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals...and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need...
‘There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.’ Acts 2:42,45; Acts 4:34
This is why the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news to the poor. Because when the good news takes hold of a people the poor are provided for. They are given an equal place among the wealthy from whom they previously had been excluded.
Before the gospel happens in a community the wealthy live in the rich part of town and the poor live in ghettos and on the street...
But when the gospel happens, the wealthy and poor live together, they eat together, they share their possessions together and among them there is unity, generosity and joy!
Christ calls us to be the social alternative to the way the world works, reflective of a different kind of rule, a different kind of economics and a different kind of social relations than exist in the world. His politics are not coerced, they are - without being sappy or melodramatic - the politics of love, freely adopted by a group of people committed to becoming poor as he had become poor, and loving their enemies the way he loved his enemies.
This is the life of the cross, the life he calls us to, the life by which God’s kingdom advances. This is the life that got him crucified.
But why? If the gospel is good news to the poor, then why was Jesus crucified?
Because of how it would change the world for those in charge.
Remember that passage in John’s gospel when Pilate tries to release Jesus, the response of those in charge?
‘If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.’
‘What crucify your king?’ Pilate asked.
‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests answered. (John 19:12, 15b - see also John 11:45-53)
In the end, the resident political and religious authorities chose Caesar’s rule over God’s.
Why?
Because of what they stood to lose were Jesus in charge and not Caesar.
The religious leaders were threatened by Jesus’ policy that among God’s people ‘there is to be only one Teacher, the Messiah, and all of us equal as brothers and sisters’. (Matthew 23:8)
The wealthy were traumatized by the news of a kingdom whose entrance requirements were to ‘sell all one’s possessions and give them to the poor’ (Mark 10:21)
The Zealots, the Jewish rebels looking to overthrow the Romans, were offended by a Messiah who rather than lead his people into battle would command his people to love and pray for their enemies. (Luke 6:35)
The Romans were threatened by someone other than Caesar claiming to be the Son of God. (John 19:8)
It wasn’t just the religious who had a part in Christ’s execution, it included all those threatened by his politics.
Years ago there was a book written by a Christian named Hal Lindsay entitled ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’. It was bad theology and even worse end times theology (eschatology) - but the combination of the two meant the book sold millions.
I was a young Christian at the time the book was released and I remembered being thoroughly raptured by it. But there was something in its content which even as a young Christian I sensed was wrong.
The book claimed that the cross for Jesus was Plan ‘B’. It was the route he had to reluctantly take when he realized Plan ‘A’ wasn’t going to work. Plan ‘A’ according to Mr. Lindsay would have been for the Jews to accept Jesus as their
Messiah and with their acceptance Jesus would mount the white horse of God’s Divine Wrath and kill all his enemies.
What Mr. Lindsay failed to grasp is that is not how the politics of Jesus work. That is not how the Kingdom of God comes.
The Kingdom of God comes when the Son of Man comes and gives his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)
The Kingdom of God comes when Jesus Christ, even though he is rich, yet for our sakes becomes poor, so that we through his poverty might be rich’. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
The cross is not Plan ‘B’. It is God’s Plan A’. As the renown American theologian John Howard Yoder writes:
Here at the cross is the man who loves his enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gave his robe to those who took his cloak, who prays for those who despitefully use him.
The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come. (The Politics of Jesus - John Howard Yoder, 1972)
This is the turn in the road as it applies to the unique way Jesus does politics.
In the very place where other people in authority establish their authority by flexing their muscles, Jesus exercises his authority by not resisting the injustice committed against him.
Rather than stake his claim as the Son of God, he accepts being punished as a criminal and is crucified with other criminals.
He rejects the option he has as God’s Messiah to lead a holy crusade to claim what is rightfully his.
He rejects the option of a ‘just war’ because He is the Prince of Peace.
He endures the poverty of being stripped of everything he has for the sake of making many rich.
This is how the Kingdom of God comes.
So what does this mean for us?
To answer that question I want to conclude with a story most of us have heard many times.
Reading from Mark’s gospel chapter 10: verses 17-27.
As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good.
But to answer your question, you know the commandments: ‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone. Honor your father and mother.”
“Teacher,” the man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”
Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him.
“Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!”
This amazed them. But Jesus said again, “Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God.
In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.
Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”
At the moment this man encounters Jesus his religion is the epitome of ‘personalistic faith’. He is decent, law abiding, wealthy and influential - the ideal candidate for church membership anywhere. But tragically, he has allowed his
religion to blind him to the social ramifications of what real faith in God means...providing for the poor and the loss of social status by accepting the radical call of Jesus on his life.
Possessions and social standing had so taken a hold of him they choked the possibility of his embracing God’s kingdom.
He was too caught up in his money to even imagine how he could ever live without it. Given the choice of either the kingdom or his money, the choice of God or his social standing, he couldn’t part with his money or his social standing even though he knew he’d be much happier if he could!
Is this passage intended for us?
Absolutely. There is no exempt clause in this passage. True it was said specifically to this one man, but then so too was the imperative to be ‘born again’ said specifically to one man. This passage about our forsaking all to follow Jesus is as much for us as the new birth is for us. Both are impossible without God but truly both are required.
If you’re squirming about now, you’re not alone. I have been squirming over this passage since I first heard it in Sunday School. Some things Jesus tells us are meant to permanently disquiet us and this is one.
It is as impossible to us as it was to this rich young man.
But only because we look at it the wrong way around.
If we were to take all we have and live among the poor, our exposure to the things they suffer and the things they don’t have would make us want to sell what we had even if we were left with nothing. This is how the love of God worked in Jesus and this is how the love of God works in us.
That is why Jesus gave this prescription to the rich man as to how one inherits eternal life. He prescribed what Jesus himself was doing...selling all he had for the benefit of many.
And this is his prescription for us: Go out and get among the poor. Sell what we have so the poor aren’t starving or homeless.
This is how the Kingdom of God advances. When our our actions mirror the politics of Jesus, we become the living evidence that Jesus is Lord, not only of what we believe about God, but Lord of what we do with our money, our social standing and our lives.
If following Jesus isn’t making us poor, if it isn’t causing us to turn the other cheek, if it isn’t reducing our rank in the world - then somewhere, somehow we have substituted our political agenda for his. We are pursuing our own interests and not his, our own kingdom and not his.
Our distinction as Christians - in our neighbourhood and in the world - lies in our willingness as a community to go and provide for the poor; in our willingness to go and be peacemakers where there is violence and social unrest; in our willingness to abandon social privilege to identify with those who have none.
Personally I believe we’re up to the challenge.
For the past 5 years I have had the pleasure of seeing up close how individuals and groups from our church are connecting with the homeless and with youth at risk, with the elderly and the institutionalized, with refugees and the poor.
I can’t begin to tell you what I have learned from those of our congregation who wash the feet of the poor, or who sing and do magic routines for those who are chronically homeless, or who serve those alienated by mental illness, or who befriend prostitutes and others living on the street; who connect with ‘at risk’ youth through sports programs and social agencies, or who go to faraway places like Mali and Bolivia to build community health centres or who host dinner parties for refugees or who lead conga lines of people in wheelchairs to dance; those who pray and those who remind us that church is not a building but a mission out there in the world with God in the lead...
But we have only just begun. The best is yet ahead, the real sacrifices still to be made, and joy beyond anything we can imagine still to be experienced.
As we increase our engagement with the poor, the economics of Jesus will kick into gear among us. Wealth will get re-distributed, rich and poor will eat at the same table and God’s kingdom will advance. The strangers we fear will become welcomed in our homes. Our homes will become theirs. And God’s kingdom will advance.
As we pray to bless our enemies, the politics of Jesus will kick into gear. We will learn how to be peace-makers even as others cry out for vengeance. And God’s kingdom will advance.
I mentioned earlier how the leaders in Jesus’ time chose Caesar over God because of what they stood to lose were Jesus in charge.
I think many of us are in the same predicament. If we had to choose between Jim Flaherty, the Federal Minister of Finance and Jesus as to who we’d prefer as our Finance Minister, we might choose Mr. Flaherty because of what we’d stand to lose if Jesus were in charge. Jesus we would just as soon assign to First Minister of Religion and Spirituality and leave the serious matters of Finance and the Economy to someone else more practical, less disruptive, more inclined to leave things be.
The question I want to leave us all to wrestle with...if Jesus isn’t our Minister of Finance, aren’t we being dishonest in claiming that in our lives he is Lord of all?
Sunday August 30, 2009
Introduction
Jesus died to atone for our sins and to redeem our sinful nature.
But he also died because he represented a threat to the way the world works, he stood opposed to the world system.
He was executed because of his politics...
His economic policy of debt forgiveness threatened to undermine the world’s financial system.
His defense policy of loving one’s enemies and praying for those who terrorize, would mean the end of all armies,
the end of all wars, the end of all empires and patriotism, the end of all kings and superpowers.
But most of all he was killed to eliminate the possibility of his example being replicated in others.
He was killed in the hope that the way he lived and the things he taught wouldn’t initiate a community of people like him...a community indifferent to the appeal of affluence and nationalism, fame and posterity...a community who by embracing his politics would live exclusively for the benefit of the world around it:
by caring for its sick
and providing for its poor
and welcoming its outcasts
and seeking to reconcile wherever there is division and discord...
This may be a new approach to considering Jesus for some of us.
My plan is to present the facts as best I can based on scripture references most of us would be familiar with.
I have made copies of my notes available for further study - only because there may be more here than can be digested in one sitting. Also, it will give those of you who are more studious the opportunity to work through these issues on your own and challenge me later should on any point you disagree.
But first - if we could pray...
Sermon
For the last year I have been overwhelmed with the thought my confession that Jesus is Lord is too shallow. It is a religious conviction, a theological belief which means I believe God is real, that he has revealed himself in his Son Jesus and to believe in him is my ticket to heaven.
This kind of believing has been identified as ‘personalistic faith’. It is the kind of faith which focuses on God and me, more on me than God...about God saving my soul, and about God causing me to spiritually grow.
It is about God making me into a better husband and father, a more honest businessman, a more decent, law-abiding citizen, doing what he can in the best interests of his community and his country.
But what troubled me was the realization there was very little in the way I lived that was different than my neighbour. For sure our beliefs about God differed with many of our neighbours being either Muslim or Jewish - but essentially everything else was the same.
We all wanted what was best for our children, we all wanted to live in a safe community, we all saw the value of community service and we all wanted to retire with enough money to live comfortably until we died.
What hit me was the realization that were Jesus to move into my neighbourhood - there would be more to him that would differ from my neighbourhood than just his theology.
And so I began to ask myself the question - what would make him stand out?
And the more I asked myself the question the more I kept hearing this answer: his politics.
By politics I mean, the policies and process by which we as individuals and a society are governed. A politician is someone who initiates and oversees the policies and process by which we are governed.
And although I am hesitant to call Jesus a politician because of the negative connotations associated with ‘politicians’, it would be fair to say Jesus is a politician in the sense that he came to initiate policies which are to govern us as a community of Christians. He came that God’s will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. That’s political! Think for example his policy on love - loving our neighbours, loving our enemies - confers on us huge social responsibilities. (see Matthew 25:31-46, 1 John 3:17)
Now combining religion and politics is a volatile mixture and many of us grew up being told they are the two topics one never talks about at social gatherings. With good reason it seems - given the Crusades, the wars in the Middle East, the slaughter of native and aboriginal peoples by European settlers in the name of ‘God and king’.
Add to that the abortion debate, the controversy surrounding gay marriage, the discouraging of prayer in public schools, the disaster that was the Moral Majority and think, there is no way to mix politics and faith.
And so the inclination for us as Christians has been to retreat to a personalistic faith - to a faith which is essentially apolitical, individualistic and private...focusing on ‘piety’ issues - being honest, decent citizens praying that God might do something significant with our lives.
The problem with this position is that basically the whole Bible stands against it. Jesus wasn’t just a religious figure, He is the Messiah, a title which speaks to his having political authority. As such he came to usher in God’s kingdom which is good news to the poor and the breaking down of the walls separating Jews from Gentiles , women from men, rich people from poor people etc. (ref: Ephesians 2:14-16)
Jesus had little time or patience for a religion that was about tithing and personal holiness and ignored the weightier issues of justice, mercy and faith. (Matthew 23:23)
He wasn’t just interested in changing individual lives; he was equally interested in creating a new society built on policies which reflected his character and his authority. (Matthew 6:10, 1 John 2:6).
Think of the political implications of the many words prophesied about him centuries before he was born:
from Psalm 72:12-14
He will rescue the poor when they cry out to him;
he will help the oppressed who have no one to defend them.
He feels pity for the weak and the needy and he will rescue them.
He will redeem them from oppression and violence,
for their lives are precious to him.
from Isaiah 59:15b,16
The Lord looked and was displeased to find there was no justice.
He was amazed to see that no one intervened to help the oppressed.
So he himself stepped in to save them with his strong arm.
In advance of Christ’s ministry, John the Baptist declared:
Even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.’
The crowds asked, ‘What should we do?’
John replied, ‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food share with those who are hungry.’ Luke 3:9-11
As Jesus begins his ministry he announces in his hometown synagogue the prophecy
from Isaiah he has come to fulfill:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.’ Luke 4:18,19
All of these prophesies are undeniably political. And all of them Jesus saw as his mission.
Now to do a detailed study of the Politics of Jesus would take weeks. Reading the gospels one discovers he has policies on everything from aid to investments, from prayer to self-promotion strategies.
I have listed some of his policies available for follow-up study, but so as not to overwhelm, I am limiting my remarks here to his Economic policies and his policies on Military Defense.
The Messiah’s Economic Stimulus Policies
- forgive people their debts (Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4)
- lend without asking for anything in return (Luke 6:45)
- the sale of assets by the wealthy to provide for the poor (Luke 12:33, Acts 2:45, Acts 4:37)
With his overall economic objective:
those who have much don’t have too much and those who have little don’t have too little. (Exodus 16:18, 2 Corinthians 8:15)
The Messiah’s Defense Policy
- love your enemies, do good to them (Luke 6:35)
- pray for those who terrorize you (Matthew 5:44)
- do not retaliate, turn the other cheek, do not resist an evil person (Matthew 5:38,39)
The Messiah’s Policy on War and Disarmament
- those who live by the sword will die by the sword (Matthew 26:51)
- God’s children are those who work for peace (Matthew 5:9)
I’m not so sure were Jesus to run as a candidate in the area I live in - Thornhill - he’d get that many votes. I can’t imagine him doing well among the Bay Street elite or corporate CEOs.
This business of debt forgiveness, and the voluntary redistribution of wealth would be a real turn-off.
But I can imagine him doing well in the communities of Jane/Finch and Regent Park.
His non-retaliatory, no defense policy would make him unpopular in the military establishment whether here, or in Washington, Moscow or Tehran.
But in places like South Africa 15 years ago and more recently in Northern Ireland, his non-retaliatory policies have been instrumental in stopping years of bloodshed and healing huge racial and religious divides.
In a word, the politics of Jesus favour poor people and demand much of rich people. They side with those who are oppressed and demand much of those who are in power. As he put it: ‘to whom much is given, much is required’. (Luke 12:48)
This is why the gospel of Jesus Christ is repeatedly declared to be ‘good news to the poor’. (Matthew 11:5) It is not because when the poor die they go to heaven and enjoy what they couldn’t enjoy here. Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Luke 6:20) not ‘Blessed will be the poor for theirs will be the kingdom...’
Listen to what happens when the good news takes hold of a people and reshapes their community. These descriptions are taken from the book of Acts depicting the social impact of the gospel within the early church:
‘All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to sharing in meals...and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need...
‘There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.’ Acts 2:42,45; Acts 4:34
This is why the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news to the poor. Because when the good news takes hold of a people the poor are provided for. They are given an equal place among the wealthy from whom they previously had been excluded.
Before the gospel happens in a community the wealthy live in the rich part of town and the poor live in ghettos and on the street...
But when the gospel happens, the wealthy and poor live together, they eat together, they share their possessions together and among them there is unity, generosity and joy!
Christ calls us to be the social alternative to the way the world works, reflective of a different kind of rule, a different kind of economics and a different kind of social relations than exist in the world. His politics are not coerced, they are - without being sappy or melodramatic - the politics of love, freely adopted by a group of people committed to becoming poor as he had become poor, and loving their enemies the way he loved his enemies.
This is the life of the cross, the life he calls us to, the life by which God’s kingdom advances. This is the life that got him crucified.
But why? If the gospel is good news to the poor, then why was Jesus crucified?
Because of how it would change the world for those in charge.
Remember that passage in John’s gospel when Pilate tries to release Jesus, the response of those in charge?
‘If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.’
‘What crucify your king?’ Pilate asked.
‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests answered. (John 19:12, 15b - see also John 11:45-53)
In the end, the resident political and religious authorities chose Caesar’s rule over God’s.
Why?
Because of what they stood to lose were Jesus in charge and not Caesar.
The religious leaders were threatened by Jesus’ policy that among God’s people ‘there is to be only one Teacher, the Messiah, and all of us equal as brothers and sisters’. (Matthew 23:8)
The wealthy were traumatized by the news of a kingdom whose entrance requirements were to ‘sell all one’s possessions and give them to the poor’ (Mark 10:21)
The Zealots, the Jewish rebels looking to overthrow the Romans, were offended by a Messiah who rather than lead his people into battle would command his people to love and pray for their enemies. (Luke 6:35)
The Romans were threatened by someone other than Caesar claiming to be the Son of God. (John 19:8)
It wasn’t just the religious who had a part in Christ’s execution, it included all those threatened by his politics.
Years ago there was a book written by a Christian named Hal Lindsay entitled ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’. It was bad theology and even worse end times theology (eschatology) - but the combination of the two meant the book sold millions.
I was a young Christian at the time the book was released and I remembered being thoroughly raptured by it. But there was something in its content which even as a young Christian I sensed was wrong.
The book claimed that the cross for Jesus was Plan ‘B’. It was the route he had to reluctantly take when he realized Plan ‘A’ wasn’t going to work. Plan ‘A’ according to Mr. Lindsay would have been for the Jews to accept Jesus as their
Messiah and with their acceptance Jesus would mount the white horse of God’s Divine Wrath and kill all his enemies.
What Mr. Lindsay failed to grasp is that is not how the politics of Jesus work. That is not how the Kingdom of God comes.
The Kingdom of God comes when the Son of Man comes and gives his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)
The Kingdom of God comes when Jesus Christ, even though he is rich, yet for our sakes becomes poor, so that we through his poverty might be rich’. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
The cross is not Plan ‘B’. It is God’s Plan A’. As the renown American theologian John Howard Yoder writes:
Here at the cross is the man who loves his enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gave his robe to those who took his cloak, who prays for those who despitefully use him.
The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come. (The Politics of Jesus - John Howard Yoder, 1972)
This is the turn in the road as it applies to the unique way Jesus does politics.
In the very place where other people in authority establish their authority by flexing their muscles, Jesus exercises his authority by not resisting the injustice committed against him.
Rather than stake his claim as the Son of God, he accepts being punished as a criminal and is crucified with other criminals.
He rejects the option he has as God’s Messiah to lead a holy crusade to claim what is rightfully his.
He rejects the option of a ‘just war’ because He is the Prince of Peace.
He endures the poverty of being stripped of everything he has for the sake of making many rich.
This is how the Kingdom of God comes.
So what does this mean for us?
To answer that question I want to conclude with a story most of us have heard many times.
Reading from Mark’s gospel chapter 10: verses 17-27.
As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good.
But to answer your question, you know the commandments: ‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. You must not cheat anyone. Honor your father and mother.”
“Teacher,” the man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”
Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him.
“Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!”
This amazed them. But Jesus said again, “Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God.
In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.
Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”
At the moment this man encounters Jesus his religion is the epitome of ‘personalistic faith’. He is decent, law abiding, wealthy and influential - the ideal candidate for church membership anywhere. But tragically, he has allowed his
religion to blind him to the social ramifications of what real faith in God means...providing for the poor and the loss of social status by accepting the radical call of Jesus on his life.
Possessions and social standing had so taken a hold of him they choked the possibility of his embracing God’s kingdom.
He was too caught up in his money to even imagine how he could ever live without it. Given the choice of either the kingdom or his money, the choice of God or his social standing, he couldn’t part with his money or his social standing even though he knew he’d be much happier if he could!
Is this passage intended for us?
Absolutely. There is no exempt clause in this passage. True it was said specifically to this one man, but then so too was the imperative to be ‘born again’ said specifically to one man. This passage about our forsaking all to follow Jesus is as much for us as the new birth is for us. Both are impossible without God but truly both are required.
If you’re squirming about now, you’re not alone. I have been squirming over this passage since I first heard it in Sunday School. Some things Jesus tells us are meant to permanently disquiet us and this is one.
It is as impossible to us as it was to this rich young man.
But only because we look at it the wrong way around.
If we were to take all we have and live among the poor, our exposure to the things they suffer and the things they don’t have would make us want to sell what we had even if we were left with nothing. This is how the love of God worked in Jesus and this is how the love of God works in us.
That is why Jesus gave this prescription to the rich man as to how one inherits eternal life. He prescribed what Jesus himself was doing...selling all he had for the benefit of many.
And this is his prescription for us: Go out and get among the poor. Sell what we have so the poor aren’t starving or homeless.
This is how the Kingdom of God advances. When our our actions mirror the politics of Jesus, we become the living evidence that Jesus is Lord, not only of what we believe about God, but Lord of what we do with our money, our social standing and our lives.
If following Jesus isn’t making us poor, if it isn’t causing us to turn the other cheek, if it isn’t reducing our rank in the world - then somewhere, somehow we have substituted our political agenda for his. We are pursuing our own interests and not his, our own kingdom and not his.
Our distinction as Christians - in our neighbourhood and in the world - lies in our willingness as a community to go and provide for the poor; in our willingness to go and be peacemakers where there is violence and social unrest; in our willingness to abandon social privilege to identify with those who have none.
Personally I believe we’re up to the challenge.
For the past 5 years I have had the pleasure of seeing up close how individuals and groups from our church are connecting with the homeless and with youth at risk, with the elderly and the institutionalized, with refugees and the poor.
I can’t begin to tell you what I have learned from those of our congregation who wash the feet of the poor, or who sing and do magic routines for those who are chronically homeless, or who serve those alienated by mental illness, or who befriend prostitutes and others living on the street; who connect with ‘at risk’ youth through sports programs and social agencies, or who go to faraway places like Mali and Bolivia to build community health centres or who host dinner parties for refugees or who lead conga lines of people in wheelchairs to dance; those who pray and those who remind us that church is not a building but a mission out there in the world with God in the lead...
But we have only just begun. The best is yet ahead, the real sacrifices still to be made, and joy beyond anything we can imagine still to be experienced.
As we increase our engagement with the poor, the economics of Jesus will kick into gear among us. Wealth will get re-distributed, rich and poor will eat at the same table and God’s kingdom will advance. The strangers we fear will become welcomed in our homes. Our homes will become theirs. And God’s kingdom will advance.
As we pray to bless our enemies, the politics of Jesus will kick into gear. We will learn how to be peace-makers even as others cry out for vengeance. And God’s kingdom will advance.
I mentioned earlier how the leaders in Jesus’ time chose Caesar over God because of what they stood to lose were Jesus in charge.
I think many of us are in the same predicament. If we had to choose between Jim Flaherty, the Federal Minister of Finance and Jesus as to who we’d prefer as our Finance Minister, we might choose Mr. Flaherty because of what we’d stand to lose if Jesus were in charge. Jesus we would just as soon assign to First Minister of Religion and Spirituality and leave the serious matters of Finance and the Economy to someone else more practical, less disruptive, more inclined to leave things be.
The question I want to leave us all to wrestle with...if Jesus isn’t our Minister of Finance, aren’t we being dishonest in claiming that in our lives he is Lord of all?
The Politics of Jesus as King
'Jesus is King' is a political statement of such social consequence that it costs us everything we have were we to believe it. Just as Martin Luther King triggered a political movement by initiating a political process built on the sermon on the mount (i.e. turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, avenging not, advocating for the least etc), so Jesus initiates in his kingdom a social ethic which changes our economics, our social order, so that those of us who are 'lords' in our society become 'slaves' in his.
As evangelicals, we feel uncomfortable with that and as a result resort to 'Jesus is Lord' to avoid the obvious political ramifications of Jesus as King.
'Jesus is King' is a threat to anyone in charge. Jesus is not merely a king we crown in our hearts, he is the king which in every age and by every politic is deemed a threat. His kingdom is threatening because it represents a new form of politics; the cross being the process (in him and in his followers) by which his kingdom comes.
The conspiring of both the priests and the politicians in Jesus' execution didn't happen because they disagreed with his theology. It didn't happen because they refused to believe in him 'in their hearts'.
It happened because riding on a donkey is no way for kings or high priests to behave. It happened because in God's kingdom, there was no special place for them, no privilege distinguishing them from the others, no authority by which they'd be heard or revered anymore than anyone else. In short, they crucified him because in the kingdom Jesus was advancing, they're no longer in charge. They're as poor as everyone else!
They killed Jesus to snuff out the possibility of his kingdom. They killed him to prevent the possibility of his being replicated in others. They killed him because in his world, they had everything to lose and nothing to gain other than in their minds, some nebulous form of 'common possession and brotherhood'.
It’s not just that Jesus is saying to us as individuals ‘crown me or kill me’, he’s saying to us as a community ‘accept God’s kingdom or reject it’.
I honestly think that were Jesus were to re-live his life story in our time, that we'd be among the first to reject him. Why? Because so little of what he'd be about are the things that we define as 'Christian'.
At one point you say: and yet we don't find him yelling, shaking his fist, threatening or shaming people. Really? How about that nasty episode where he turned the tables on the moneychangers? Or the time he called the religious 'children of the devil', or the time he said to the religious authorities that their converts were 2 times the children of hell they were? Or the time he cursed the fig tree, or the time he lamented over Jerusalem, or the time he looked on anger at the church leaders who took exception to his healing someone on the sabbath? Sometimes in our quest to make Jesus acceptable, we sterilize him. We can't. He offended his followers in his time and he would equally offend us.
The one thing I got about Jesus before I became a Christian is that he is different than anything I had ever heard in church. In church Jesus is a chaplain. In the world he's a revolutionary. In church he's pastoral, non-offensive. In the world he's a stand-alone, whose politics and economic policies are so radical, they rarely take shape in the world, least of all in the institution we call the church.
You make mention of Jesus claim to being 'I AM' as 'obnoxiously exclusivist' to the world. Frankly, I believe most of us Christians would say the same about 'Jesus is King'. We're okay with that as long as it's only a religious confession.
But we'd fight it as fiercely as would any Pharisee the moment we make a social, political or economic confession. Among the people we know, how many would be willing to put Jesus in charge of their chequebook? I am hard pressed to name 2 people and I'm not one of them!
Where you and I most differ is your statement: And now Jesus comes to our hearts. One at a time - because this isn't a gang decision. It is. Pentecost didn't happen to just one person. It happened to a gang of people who were committed 'to wait'. Martin Luther King didn't start a movement by waiting 'one by one' for people to change, but by convincing a 'gang' of people that to turn the other cheek when they were being fire-hosed and clubbed and imprisoned and falsely accused would only work 'if they were all committed to doing so.'
Jesus didn't preach the sermon on the mount one on one, nor did he do an altar call once he was done, he laid out God's politics and his economics and his social policy and his defense policy and said 'do this'. The expectation was communal because it can only be done communally. Jesus is King only means something if it involves a kingdom, which by definition means a 'gang', people committed to being 'the new creation', a new politic etc...
Sorry to rant on like this - but unless we understand and articulate the mission of God as political, fundamentally connected to how we 'behave as a gang', Jesus is no more to us than a personal Dr. Phil.
As evangelicals, we feel uncomfortable with that and as a result resort to 'Jesus is Lord' to avoid the obvious political ramifications of Jesus as King.
'Jesus is King' is a threat to anyone in charge. Jesus is not merely a king we crown in our hearts, he is the king which in every age and by every politic is deemed a threat. His kingdom is threatening because it represents a new form of politics; the cross being the process (in him and in his followers) by which his kingdom comes.
The conspiring of both the priests and the politicians in Jesus' execution didn't happen because they disagreed with his theology. It didn't happen because they refused to believe in him 'in their hearts'.
It happened because riding on a donkey is no way for kings or high priests to behave. It happened because in God's kingdom, there was no special place for them, no privilege distinguishing them from the others, no authority by which they'd be heard or revered anymore than anyone else. In short, they crucified him because in the kingdom Jesus was advancing, they're no longer in charge. They're as poor as everyone else!
They killed Jesus to snuff out the possibility of his kingdom. They killed him to prevent the possibility of his being replicated in others. They killed him because in his world, they had everything to lose and nothing to gain other than in their minds, some nebulous form of 'common possession and brotherhood'.
It’s not just that Jesus is saying to us as individuals ‘crown me or kill me’, he’s saying to us as a community ‘accept God’s kingdom or reject it’.
I honestly think that were Jesus were to re-live his life story in our time, that we'd be among the first to reject him. Why? Because so little of what he'd be about are the things that we define as 'Christian'.
At one point you say: and yet we don't find him yelling, shaking his fist, threatening or shaming people. Really? How about that nasty episode where he turned the tables on the moneychangers? Or the time he called the religious 'children of the devil', or the time he said to the religious authorities that their converts were 2 times the children of hell they were? Or the time he cursed the fig tree, or the time he lamented over Jerusalem, or the time he looked on anger at the church leaders who took exception to his healing someone on the sabbath? Sometimes in our quest to make Jesus acceptable, we sterilize him. We can't. He offended his followers in his time and he would equally offend us.
The one thing I got about Jesus before I became a Christian is that he is different than anything I had ever heard in church. In church Jesus is a chaplain. In the world he's a revolutionary. In church he's pastoral, non-offensive. In the world he's a stand-alone, whose politics and economic policies are so radical, they rarely take shape in the world, least of all in the institution we call the church.
You make mention of Jesus claim to being 'I AM' as 'obnoxiously exclusivist' to the world. Frankly, I believe most of us Christians would say the same about 'Jesus is King'. We're okay with that as long as it's only a religious confession.
But we'd fight it as fiercely as would any Pharisee the moment we make a social, political or economic confession. Among the people we know, how many would be willing to put Jesus in charge of their chequebook? I am hard pressed to name 2 people and I'm not one of them!
Where you and I most differ is your statement: And now Jesus comes to our hearts. One at a time - because this isn't a gang decision. It is. Pentecost didn't happen to just one person. It happened to a gang of people who were committed 'to wait'. Martin Luther King didn't start a movement by waiting 'one by one' for people to change, but by convincing a 'gang' of people that to turn the other cheek when they were being fire-hosed and clubbed and imprisoned and falsely accused would only work 'if they were all committed to doing so.'
Jesus didn't preach the sermon on the mount one on one, nor did he do an altar call once he was done, he laid out God's politics and his economics and his social policy and his defense policy and said 'do this'. The expectation was communal because it can only be done communally. Jesus is King only means something if it involves a kingdom, which by definition means a 'gang', people committed to being 'the new creation', a new politic etc...
Sorry to rant on like this - but unless we understand and articulate the mission of God as political, fundamentally connected to how we 'behave as a gang', Jesus is no more to us than a personal Dr. Phil.
If Jesus were King
What if there was one community somewhere in the world where Jesus was actually King?
What would it look like?
What would its priorities be?
Based on the sermon on the mount and the examples of both the community around Jesus during his ministry and the community that took shape in the early days of the church, these ‘political' characteristics would be in evidence:
- the proclamation in both word and activity of God’s kingdom
- # 1 expenditure: to provide for the poor (Acts 6, Galatians 2:10, Romans 12:13,16, etc.)
- radical worship, a fierce loving of one’s neighbour, especially the most despised and neglected of neighbours as a primary expression of worship to God
- the training of disciples not only for the extension of the gospel, but the extension of the life practices of Jesus into various cultures around the world
- justice - advocating for the widow, the refugee, the outsider
- righteous (as opposed to self-righteous) indignation against obstacles which impede the flow of God's love and grace to the world
- mercy - sacrificial living for the sake of welcoming the unloved (i.e. 'I was a stranger and you took me in')
- faith - living as though the Holy Spirit is our only resource and wisdom
fasting, prayer and reliance on the Holy Spirit for direction
- street ministry
- persistent downward mobility, becoming poor that others become rich
So then the question becomes: if that's what a community where Jesus rules looks like, how close is our church to that, and what would it take for us to get there? And how in the interim do we define our present allegiance to King Jesus? Is it more lip service or real worship?
I think for us to tackle this issue head on, we have to ask ourselves as a Christian community, are we living as though Jesus is King? The question of his being king elsewhere is immaterial. If he is not king among us, then our proclamation to the world outside of his kingship lacks authority and credibility...
What would it look like?
What would its priorities be?
Based on the sermon on the mount and the examples of both the community around Jesus during his ministry and the community that took shape in the early days of the church, these ‘political' characteristics would be in evidence:
- the proclamation in both word and activity of God’s kingdom
- # 1 expenditure: to provide for the poor (Acts 6, Galatians 2:10, Romans 12:13,16, etc.)
- radical worship, a fierce loving of one’s neighbour, especially the most despised and neglected of neighbours as a primary expression of worship to God
- the training of disciples not only for the extension of the gospel, but the extension of the life practices of Jesus into various cultures around the world
- justice - advocating for the widow, the refugee, the outsider
- righteous (as opposed to self-righteous) indignation against obstacles which impede the flow of God's love and grace to the world
- mercy - sacrificial living for the sake of welcoming the unloved (i.e. 'I was a stranger and you took me in')
- faith - living as though the Holy Spirit is our only resource and wisdom
fasting, prayer and reliance on the Holy Spirit for direction
- street ministry
- persistent downward mobility, becoming poor that others become rich
So then the question becomes: if that's what a community where Jesus rules looks like, how close is our church to that, and what would it take for us to get there? And how in the interim do we define our present allegiance to King Jesus? Is it more lip service or real worship?
I think for us to tackle this issue head on, we have to ask ourselves as a Christian community, are we living as though Jesus is King? The question of his being king elsewhere is immaterial. If he is not king among us, then our proclamation to the world outside of his kingship lacks authority and credibility...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
My God
There is reason for being cautious in taking up this subject. After all, we’re not talking about ‘my dog’ or ‘my mother’, subjects for which there are many variations of the same. Poodles and Saint Bernards, meddlers and saints, madonnas and moms come in varying sizes and temperaments.
Concerning God however, there is only one. There is no other. ‘I am that I am’ God told Moses; ‘before Abraham was, I am’, said Jesus. The One who is, is – regardless of our opinion or belief. For it is clear we do not live in a world of happenstance, but in a broad intricate universe of impeccable order and design, on a planet precisely the right distance from the sun, in a time and space precisely suited to who we are. From atoms to galaxies, even the most cursory glance at the precarious yet precise balance in which life is held is reason to sing: He’s got the whole world in his hands.
In life as in newsprint, to err is human. Every day we are reminded. Gods left to the design of either our imagination or intellect come out in more shapes and sizes than either dogs or mothers ever could. Moloch, Mammon, Nihilism, the Fuehrer or the Force; the lesson is hopelessly repetitive: bad gods only make for bad behaviour in the long run. We are too easily taken by things that look good, too easily consumed by envy for what we don’t have, and blind to the treasure we have already. Rather than appreciate what we have, we work ourselves into a tizzy to get what we think we want. And no sooner than the getting is done, when a new craving begins. In our haste to appease these gods of wants, we have no time for the One who invites us to be still and know I am God…who humbly answers to the only One we need.
For in him we live and move and have our being..
Like grains of sand in an hourglass, we are blind to the transparency which shapes us. We are his offspring but we can’t see him. Call it blindness, call it indifference, call it sin, we are cut off from the God who is.
Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.
Clearly some have and some do see him. Whether Martin Luther King, or Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa or Jean Vanier; there is a spell-binding depth to their convictions. They all tell of a moment when they could see something more in Jesus than what they had in themselves…a ‘my God’ moment when everything thereafter would be different. And drawing on his life rather than their own, they live life the way Jesus did. They became infatuated with the real life experience of feeling God’s pleasure by doing as Jesus did. Loving their enemies, taking care of the poor, they became the visible evidence of God’s ongoing work to liberate his people.
We have seen this ongoing work in our time. Ruthless dictators being disposed without a gun being fired; a dividing wall crumble without a bomb being dropped; the dismantling of apartheid without a torturous civil war; homes of refuge being built among the disadvantaged, more safe despite their fragility than what privileged people know. All which begs the question: Why them and not us?
The pre-requisite to our sharing in their convictions is not a matter of knowing. It is a matter of loving.
Simon, son of John, do you love me? ... Then feed my sheep.
This was the my God moment in Simon Peter’s life. The first pastor of the church would feed his sheep not because he ought to, but because of who he loved. The ‘my God’ moment came to Francis of Assisi when he embraced the leper who had until that moment turned his back on.
Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
My ‘my God’ moment came through embracing human need and like some mad impulsive lover, I yearn for more.
Concerning God however, there is only one. There is no other. ‘I am that I am’ God told Moses; ‘before Abraham was, I am’, said Jesus. The One who is, is – regardless of our opinion or belief. For it is clear we do not live in a world of happenstance, but in a broad intricate universe of impeccable order and design, on a planet precisely the right distance from the sun, in a time and space precisely suited to who we are. From atoms to galaxies, even the most cursory glance at the precarious yet precise balance in which life is held is reason to sing: He’s got the whole world in his hands.
In life as in newsprint, to err is human. Every day we are reminded. Gods left to the design of either our imagination or intellect come out in more shapes and sizes than either dogs or mothers ever could. Moloch, Mammon, Nihilism, the Fuehrer or the Force; the lesson is hopelessly repetitive: bad gods only make for bad behaviour in the long run. We are too easily taken by things that look good, too easily consumed by envy for what we don’t have, and blind to the treasure we have already. Rather than appreciate what we have, we work ourselves into a tizzy to get what we think we want. And no sooner than the getting is done, when a new craving begins. In our haste to appease these gods of wants, we have no time for the One who invites us to be still and know I am God…who humbly answers to the only One we need.
For in him we live and move and have our being..
Like grains of sand in an hourglass, we are blind to the transparency which shapes us. We are his offspring but we can’t see him. Call it blindness, call it indifference, call it sin, we are cut off from the God who is.
Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.
Clearly some have and some do see him. Whether Martin Luther King, or Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa or Jean Vanier; there is a spell-binding depth to their convictions. They all tell of a moment when they could see something more in Jesus than what they had in themselves…a ‘my God’ moment when everything thereafter would be different. And drawing on his life rather than their own, they live life the way Jesus did. They became infatuated with the real life experience of feeling God’s pleasure by doing as Jesus did. Loving their enemies, taking care of the poor, they became the visible evidence of God’s ongoing work to liberate his people.
We have seen this ongoing work in our time. Ruthless dictators being disposed without a gun being fired; a dividing wall crumble without a bomb being dropped; the dismantling of apartheid without a torturous civil war; homes of refuge being built among the disadvantaged, more safe despite their fragility than what privileged people know. All which begs the question: Why them and not us?
The pre-requisite to our sharing in their convictions is not a matter of knowing. It is a matter of loving.
Simon, son of John, do you love me? ... Then feed my sheep.
This was the my God moment in Simon Peter’s life. The first pastor of the church would feed his sheep not because he ought to, but because of who he loved. The ‘my God’ moment came to Francis of Assisi when he embraced the leper who had until that moment turned his back on.
Blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
My ‘my God’ moment came through embracing human need and like some mad impulsive lover, I yearn for more.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Two Doors
Every morning we wake up to two doors.
Open one and it leads into a wide open room of amusement. A theme park, a golf range, pinball machines, concerts, video games, virtual reality, splashy hotels, fine cuisine, movies, swimming pools, winter sports, summer sports, playgrounds, mansions, fashion, the beautiful people. Fun, frolic, amuse yourself to death.
Open the 2nd and it leads into a ward of people begging, bleeding, blind agony, open wounds, crushed hopes, crushed homes, broken families, gun shots and stab wounds, oppressor and oppressed, justice denied, no one to intervene, bones broken through the skin, people imprisoned, people without a home.
Every morning we wake up to Jesus who says to us: 'Choose you this day which door.'
Before we have any chance to say to him 'but', he enters the 2nd door and we're left standing on our own. If we remain still enough we can hear his voice saying 'follow me' but then the stillness is broken by the happy sounds coming from the room of dissipation, and we enter without him.
Open one and it leads into a wide open room of amusement. A theme park, a golf range, pinball machines, concerts, video games, virtual reality, splashy hotels, fine cuisine, movies, swimming pools, winter sports, summer sports, playgrounds, mansions, fashion, the beautiful people. Fun, frolic, amuse yourself to death.
Open the 2nd and it leads into a ward of people begging, bleeding, blind agony, open wounds, crushed hopes, crushed homes, broken families, gun shots and stab wounds, oppressor and oppressed, justice denied, no one to intervene, bones broken through the skin, people imprisoned, people without a home.
Every morning we wake up to Jesus who says to us: 'Choose you this day which door.'
Before we have any chance to say to him 'but', he enters the 2nd door and we're left standing on our own. If we remain still enough we can hear his voice saying 'follow me' but then the stillness is broken by the happy sounds coming from the room of dissipation, and we enter without him.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Don't turn the page
A street friend of mine named Iggy was telling me the other day about a meeting he had with his social worker.
The meeting was going well until the social worker suddenly excused herself to meet her next client. She had been taking notes of her conversation with Iggy, but as she got up to leave, Iggy said, ‘She turned the page. In turning the page to prepare herself for her next client, it was as though she’d forgotten me. All she could see was her next appointment and I didn’t matter anymore.’
Watching the images of the devastation in Haiti - the broken homes, the broken families, the broken neighbourhoods, there eventually comes a point where I turn the page, I change the channel, I move on to something else.
I’ve seen enough. I may write a cheque to one of the relief agencies helping the victims of this crisis, I may say a brief prayer, but ultimately I move on, I turn the page, I change the channel and watch something else.
But the people in Haiti - the ones mired in this crisis, can’t turn the page. They can’t be elsewhere. Their struggles will continue long after they cease to be a headline, long after the world’s attention has moved on to something else.
But God doesn’t turn the page.
‘Can a mother forget her nursing child?
Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
Even if that were possible, I will not forget you!
See I have written your name on the palms of my hands.
Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.’
Isaiah 49:15,16
Always in God’s mind, is the picture of Port-au-Prince in ruins.
He does not turn the page. He suffers with those who suffer. And he works with those who give themselves to alleviate the suffering.
God is bigger than poverty and famine. He is bigger than earthquakes. He is big enough to answer every cry of anguish, big enough to embrace every hurting person, big enough to make room for the millions now without a home.
And he asks us to join him in this work.
By prayer.
Prayer takes us to the places where God is at work.
Prayer takes us to the page where God is at work in Haiti.
We pray because without God’s help - there will not be the love that heals, nor the comfort that brings hope, nor the hope needed to give Haiti a future.
We are praying to the Lord God Almighty. He was the Lord of all before the universe began. He was Lord Almighty before there were such things as earthquakes or poverty or death. And He will still be Lord Almighty when earthquakes and poverty and death are no more.
Psalm 46 tells us that God is the refuge and strength of the helpless, always ready to help in times of trouble. The Psalm tells us that we are not to fear when earthquakes come, nor are we to fear when the mountains crumble into the sea.
Rather than be afraid, the Psalmist tells us, we are to be still and know that He is God.
We are to be still and know that he will be honoured by every nation - he will be honoured in all the world.
The Lord rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep
The godly will see these things and be glad
while the wicked are struck silent.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart.
They will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.
Psalm 107:41-43
The meeting was going well until the social worker suddenly excused herself to meet her next client. She had been taking notes of her conversation with Iggy, but as she got up to leave, Iggy said, ‘She turned the page. In turning the page to prepare herself for her next client, it was as though she’d forgotten me. All she could see was her next appointment and I didn’t matter anymore.’
Watching the images of the devastation in Haiti - the broken homes, the broken families, the broken neighbourhoods, there eventually comes a point where I turn the page, I change the channel, I move on to something else.
I’ve seen enough. I may write a cheque to one of the relief agencies helping the victims of this crisis, I may say a brief prayer, but ultimately I move on, I turn the page, I change the channel and watch something else.
But the people in Haiti - the ones mired in this crisis, can’t turn the page. They can’t be elsewhere. Their struggles will continue long after they cease to be a headline, long after the world’s attention has moved on to something else.
But God doesn’t turn the page.
‘Can a mother forget her nursing child?
Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
Even if that were possible, I will not forget you!
See I have written your name on the palms of my hands.
Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.’
Isaiah 49:15,16
Always in God’s mind, is the picture of Port-au-Prince in ruins.
He does not turn the page. He suffers with those who suffer. And he works with those who give themselves to alleviate the suffering.
God is bigger than poverty and famine. He is bigger than earthquakes. He is big enough to answer every cry of anguish, big enough to embrace every hurting person, big enough to make room for the millions now without a home.
And he asks us to join him in this work.
By prayer.
Prayer takes us to the places where God is at work.
Prayer takes us to the page where God is at work in Haiti.
We pray because without God’s help - there will not be the love that heals, nor the comfort that brings hope, nor the hope needed to give Haiti a future.
We are praying to the Lord God Almighty. He was the Lord of all before the universe began. He was Lord Almighty before there were such things as earthquakes or poverty or death. And He will still be Lord Almighty when earthquakes and poverty and death are no more.
Psalm 46 tells us that God is the refuge and strength of the helpless, always ready to help in times of trouble. The Psalm tells us that we are not to fear when earthquakes come, nor are we to fear when the mountains crumble into the sea.
Rather than be afraid, the Psalmist tells us, we are to be still and know that He is God.
We are to be still and know that he will be honoured by every nation - he will be honoured in all the world.
The Lord rescues the poor from trouble
and increases their families like flocks of sheep
The godly will see these things and be glad
while the wicked are struck silent.
Those who are wise will take all this to heart.
They will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.
Psalm 107:41-43
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Closet Space
No room in our closets? No room to pray. The teaching about our only having one coat, one shirt, one pair of pants having given the rest to those who have none is about making room in our closets to pray. Otherwise our possessions crowd out our prayers.
Possessions are about buying and selling, about holding on to what is ours. Prayer is about giving and receiving, about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly with our own. The emptier the closet, the bigger the prayers.
But sometimes an empty closet still isn’t enough room to pray.
I know a man who when he closes himself into his closet enters into an echo chamber of abuse and hatred and grudges and retained memories that suffocate the possibility of speech. He can’t ask, he can’t receive, he can’t forgive nor receive forgiveness. He can’t be present, he can’t be thankful, he can’t change nor be changed...he steps into the closet and when he comes out again he comes out wizened and beaten; energized only in his vow to continue the war which has ended for everyone else.
If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:15
Closet space is about finding the strength to follow Jesus. It is about making a place where we can talk to God and God can talk to us. It is about opening our hands to receive and to let go. Neither which a closed fist can do.
To not forgive is a closed fist. It is clinging to what is past. With a closed fist we can clutch, we can punch, we can bang the table to emphasize our complaint - things we can’t do with an open hand.
To possess is also a closed fist. It is to claim something as 'mine' or 'ours' and then build an entire security system around it to make certain it stays ours.
Whether grudges or possessions we must let them go. To open our hands.
For as long as our fists remain closed, we can receive nothing from God – whether bread or forgiveness or anything else God wants to give us. That is why the petition about asking for our daily bread is as much about forgiveness as it is about food as it is about selling all to follow him.
To find the strength to follow him takes open hands. It’s about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly in our own i.e. our next meal, our security, our future, so we are free to follow him unencumbered by our worry about such things.
Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. John 12:26
Where he is, is among the poor in spirit, among the persecuted and condemned, the despised and the outcast, the alienated and the weak...welcoming them with open hands, proclaiming the Kingdom, insisting we be free to do the same...
Possessions are about buying and selling, about holding on to what is ours. Prayer is about giving and receiving, about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly with our own. The emptier the closet, the bigger the prayers.
But sometimes an empty closet still isn’t enough room to pray.
I know a man who when he closes himself into his closet enters into an echo chamber of abuse and hatred and grudges and retained memories that suffocate the possibility of speech. He can’t ask, he can’t receive, he can’t forgive nor receive forgiveness. He can’t be present, he can’t be thankful, he can’t change nor be changed...he steps into the closet and when he comes out again he comes out wizened and beaten; energized only in his vow to continue the war which has ended for everyone else.
If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:15
Closet space is about finding the strength to follow Jesus. It is about making a place where we can talk to God and God can talk to us. It is about opening our hands to receive and to let go. Neither which a closed fist can do.
To not forgive is a closed fist. It is clinging to what is past. With a closed fist we can clutch, we can punch, we can bang the table to emphasize our complaint - things we can’t do with an open hand.
To possess is also a closed fist. It is to claim something as 'mine' or 'ours' and then build an entire security system around it to make certain it stays ours.
Whether grudges or possessions we must let them go. To open our hands.
For as long as our fists remain closed, we can receive nothing from God – whether bread or forgiveness or anything else God wants to give us. That is why the petition about asking for our daily bread is as much about forgiveness as it is about food as it is about selling all to follow him.
To find the strength to follow him takes open hands. It’s about putting into God’s hands what we otherwise clutch tightly in our own i.e. our next meal, our security, our future, so we are free to follow him unencumbered by our worry about such things.
Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. John 12:26
Where he is, is among the poor in spirit, among the persecuted and condemned, the despised and the outcast, the alienated and the weak...welcoming them with open hands, proclaiming the Kingdom, insisting we be free to do the same...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Two Rooms
In the first room were a lampstand, a table and sacred loaves of bread. This room was called the Holy Place.
Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a good incense altar and a wooden chest called ‘the Ark of the Covenant’.
Only the High Priest ever entered the Most Holy Place and only once a year.
From Hebrews 9:2,3,7
Two rooms.
One holy where anyone can enter. The other even more holy where only one can enter and only once a year.
The first room has the feeling of being sacred, as though one stumbles into a sunset, something worthy of reverence, moments more worthy than time.
But the other though more holy is like a sudden hole in the floor. It is a debasement, a being seized by darkness, an engulfment of fear. Death opens her mouth and there is nothing more to say. The ritual, the sanctimony, the mitre and the robes, the sermon and the books, the institution, the temple fellowship, the congregation, the liturgy, those things you do in the Holy Room have no place here. You are in the Most Holy Place, where only God speaks and there’s no telling what he’ll say. Everything is silent but for the echo of descent.
You come with blood in your hands, blood which is not yours but atonement nonetheless. Is it atonement enough?
You shudder and wait.
Mercy triumphs over judgment, but how that might sound in words, only God can say.
You shudder and wait.
And then the Man appears.
Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a good incense altar and a wooden chest called ‘the Ark of the Covenant’.
Only the High Priest ever entered the Most Holy Place and only once a year.
From Hebrews 9:2,3,7
Two rooms.
One holy where anyone can enter. The other even more holy where only one can enter and only once a year.
The first room has the feeling of being sacred, as though one stumbles into a sunset, something worthy of reverence, moments more worthy than time.
But the other though more holy is like a sudden hole in the floor. It is a debasement, a being seized by darkness, an engulfment of fear. Death opens her mouth and there is nothing more to say. The ritual, the sanctimony, the mitre and the robes, the sermon and the books, the institution, the temple fellowship, the congregation, the liturgy, those things you do in the Holy Room have no place here. You are in the Most Holy Place, where only God speaks and there’s no telling what he’ll say. Everything is silent but for the echo of descent.
You come with blood in your hands, blood which is not yours but atonement nonetheless. Is it atonement enough?
You shudder and wait.
Mercy triumphs over judgment, but how that might sound in words, only God can say.
You shudder and wait.
And then the Man appears.
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