The Jesus Thing

Bible Text: Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 10:38-42

I have recently moved down here from the Boston area, where most of the UCC churches have a Congregationalist history, and where most of them also have a Unitarian church right down the street from them. This is generally because of a church split that happened about 170 years ago. So I’m not sure if it holds down here, but the joke in New England is that UCC doesn’t really stand for United Church of Christ, it stands for Unitarians Considering Christ!

While this not entirely accurate I think there is also a grain of truth in the statement, which is that it is not immediately obvious to many of us what Jesus should mean for us, how Christ should be a part of our faith picture, what he means in the larger context. In other words, we’re still working on the Jesus thing.

And it’s not like there aren’t competing visions out there for us to choose from. If you remember, there was the What Would Jesus Do phenomenon. Somehow I don’t think Jesus would have worn those bracelets, but we’ll move on from that. More recently, we had Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ show us images of a Jesus tough enough to take whatever inhuman suffering the Romans could dish out. And of course one of my favorite oddities comes from the movie Dogma. If you haven’t seen it, it’s something of a satire on religion in America. There’s a part in the movie where the Catholic Church decides on a new kind of an image for Jesus. Instead of the sacred heart of Jesus, for example, which is very serious, and something of a downer, they were rolling out the new, updated Buddy Christ, who is always ready with a thumbs up, like so. Okay so it’s only a movie—I don’t think we’ll be seeing statues like that in our neighbors’ churches anytime soon.

But when I think about it in my own faith life, Jesus has been something of a puzzle to me, too. Here is a human being that we worship, but in the Old Testament we hear that we’re not supposed to worship anyone but God. And how is it really possible for a human being to be born from the union of God and a woman? In other words, how can Jesus be both divine and human at the same time?

This is not a new question. Today we might have trouble with the divinity of Jesus, and want to think of him as only a human, but one who was very wise. But in the 3rd or 4th centuries, AD, the problem was often that people didn’t believe he was human. And further back, around the time of our readings from Colossians and Luke, people had plenty to say about who Jesus was and what he meant for the movement that followed him.

The writer of Colossians addresses the Jesus controversy of his own day. He writes against people who didn’t think that Jesus had made salvation possible, and who taught that believers needed to do other things, like worship other beings, for that salvation. So, central to this debate is who Jesus is, and the writer draws from an older text: an early hymn about Jesus. There are many images of the Christ in this hymn. In it, he is the visible image of the invisible God, first-born from the dead, the means by which God created the world, the head of the church, and the source of its life. And finally, through the blood of the cross God reconciled the world to God’s self.

All right, I’ll admit that I have a problem with this last image of Jesus as the one who saves by suffering and dying—the blood of the cross. Going back to Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ, if we focus only on this way of seeing Jesus, we are only seeing part of who he is, to begin with, and can lose sight of the resurrection. While there is a power in thinking of love in terms of the amount of suffering a person will do—it is very humbling to consider it, thinking of Jesus suffering for me, this is not a healthy basis for good relationships. Let me explain.

After I graduated from college, I spent a year as a volunteer in Washington, DC, working with immigrant survivors of domestic violence. I took a lot of phone calls from people who were suffering and in danger. I was shocked to learn in my work that sometimes members of the clergy were an impediment rather than a help in these types of situations, recommending that the person suffering the abuse continue to endure it as a way of participating in the suffering of Christ.

Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, caused by an oppressive Roman empire, is a tragedy and not something good, in and of itself. What makes the death of Jesus anything more than the silencing of yet another outspoken leader is this: what God does with it. God takes rejection, torture, and killing, and turns it into reconciliation for the whole world. Jesus becomes the firstborn from the dead—the first one to be resurrected—which makes it possible for us to experience that same resurrection, and that same experience of eternal life. That eternal life is life lived in the presence of God, free from the barriers of sin and guilt. Reconciliation

In our gospel lesson, Mary sits with Jesus and listens to him. Her relationship with Jesus is personal and affectionate. She can speak to him, ask him questions, and hear what he has to say. As the Colossians reading suggests, Jesus is for her the visible image of the invisible God. She is in the presence of God, without barriers. This relationship, this dwelling in God’s presence, is that better part that Jesus refers to.

Which brings us back to my question from before: how can Jesus be both human and divine? I admit that how this actually works is beyond me. But here’s my attempt at explaining why it’s important: Jesus is both human and divine because salvation is this relationship between people and God. But it’s hard to have a relationship with a symbol or an idea. Jesus is a human being who is also divine. A relationship with him is the substance of salvation. And because of the transformation of Jesus’ death, God has made it possible for us to have a relationship like Mary’s and Jesus’: one with both the intimacy of friendship and the freedom required for love. We can have this kind of a relationship with God, and in this way find our salvation.

This is indeed good news, and cause for celebration—that the creator of the whole universe is not only open to a relationship with us, but has already made the path open to us. What a gracious and tremendous gift!

Let me finish with a few suggestions of how to accept this gift friendship with God. First, recognize that like any friendship, it requires time and attention. If you haven’t been much of one for prayer, start small so that you’ll be able to keep it up for the long haul. Second, strive for honesty. God already knows everything about you, so there’s no use pretending something isn’t true. If you’re angry, say so. If you’re grateful, say so. If you’re worried, say so. If you’re elated, say so. The point is not to be perfect. The point is to be in a close relationship. Finally, listen as well as speak. Spend some of your prayer time in silence and waiting. Listen to the people around you who love you. Listen to the circumstances of your life and what they may be telling you about God’s will for you. And in all these things trust in the deep and abiding love of God. I’ll close with a part of a hymn you may know:

What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer

Please pray with me: God, you have sent Jesus to us, fully human and fully divine. And by transforming his death and resurrecting him from the grave, you’ve made it possible for us to have a life-giving relationship with you. Help us to trust in your love for us and accept your invitation to friendship. We pray in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.

Ignorant Love

Bible Text: Luke 10:25-37

My in-laws are originally from the rural Northeast corner of Pennsylvania, and while they don’t have any kind of strong accent—just regular Midwest—there are a few things they say that I’ve never heard from anybody else. One of these is the word ignorant. Okay, I’ve heard the word before, but in Northeast Pennsylvania, it takes on a whole new meaning—something like, big, over the top, ridiculous. As in, that ice cream sundae you’ve got there is ignorant. Or, Bill Gates’ 40 building estate is ignorant. Or, the rain on the afternoon of the 4th last week was ignorant. Or at least it was in Columbia, anyway.
And when we talk about the behavior of the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable today, I think we could also consider it ignorant. Not ONLY does the Samaritan stop to help the guy, not ONLY does he nurse his
wounds, not ONLY does he put him on his own donkey, and not ONLY does he leave an extravagant amount of money with the innkeeper to care for the man, but he does it for someone who normally wouldn’t give him the time of day. Ignorant.
So what’s Jesus going for here? What’s this story all about? The introduction we get from Luke tells us that Jesus uses this story to teach an expert in the law. He reminds me of a few of my fellow classmates in graduate school. They wanted to be in on the debate, and had a kind of glow of triumph whenever they asked a question that could stump the teacher. Or at least make her pause. In the mini-scene that leads into the parable, the expert asks Jesus “What do I have to do to get eternal life?” Jesus answers the question with another question and the expert comes up with his own answer. Love God with all your heart, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Then Jesus says, “that’s the right answer,” and so the guy realizes that he missed the chance to ask the smart question after all, and he’s not going to get a good grade in participation. So he comes up with a definition question: Who is my neighbor?
I actually feel kind of sorry for the guy at this point, because what he’s hoping for, it seems to me, is a good discussion: which people are neighbors? Which ones can be excluded? He wants some parameters. You can’t just love everybody, but then it probably also means more than the people living right next door. So what are the limits? What are the parameters? But Jesus takes things to a whole different level. He won’t draw the lines. He tells a shocking story about two people whose religious codes keep them from showing mercy, and an outcast who goes beyond the pale.
Indulge me for a minute. I’d like to retell this story with some more modern characters to try and communicate some of the feel of it for that first audience.
A businessman was walking down the street when he was mugged and beaten up by some thugs who left him on the sidewalk, thinking he was dead. A minister drove past, saw the man, and kept driving. In the same way a church deacon drove up, saw the man, and kept driving. But a drug dealer was passing by and saw the man and felt terribly sorry for him. He tore up his designer shirt to bind the man’s wounds. Then he put the man in his own car and drove him to the hospital. At the hospital he went to the front desk and said, “This is my good friend. I want him to get the best possible care. Please send all the hospital bills to my address. I’ll pay whatever you spend.”
Crazy, huh? Doesn’t make the religious leaders look good, that’s for sure. Now granted, in Jesus’ day the religious laws for priests and Levites included prohibitions on touching dead bodies, so if they thought the man was dead, then it would make sense for them to go around to the other side. And it’s true, too, that a Samaritan wasn’t automatically a criminal, like a drug dealer, but the Judeans did think of the Samaritans with contempt and spite.
So given that the Samaritan in the parable is someone that the man who was robbed would normally despise and avoid, his actions are that much more surprising. Especially compared to the religious officials, who carefully follow the rules that have been laid down for them. I mean, he LAVISHES his attention, time and money on this man. It’s downright ignorant.
And then the clincher is: Jesus turns to the expert in law and says, “go and do likewise.” What? I don’t know about you, but this is hard stuff for me. Go out there and find the really needy people, whether they might normally be your enemies or your friends, and spend ignorant amounts of time and money and heartache on them. That kind of a commitment might mean changing your whole life around.
My temptation here is to qualify this a little bit. Maybe find some of my own parameters, right? Figure out who is the most needy, or who will be most grateful, or who I like best. Figure out a way to screen some people out. But that’s just what the legal expert wanted to do with his question: have a set answer for who is included and who is excluded.
To be fair it’s hard to tell if Jesus is being entirely serious in this story. I think there may be a glint of humor in the whole confrontation. The legal expert, seems a little uptight. And then Jesus gives him this story, just piling it on—how great that Samaritan is, what generous things the Samaritan does, what a nice man the Samaritan is—and at the end, if you’ll notice, the expert still can’t even say the word “Samaritan” out loud. “The… the… the… one who showed him mercy,” he stutters out. Talk about rendering someone speechless!
So maybe Jesus is trying to get at a new kind of attitude. An attitude that expects anything to happen, and doesn’t try to hedge God in with rules. An attitude of mercy toward even our enemies. And maybe to loosen up a little and not worry some much about whether we’re being graded, or if we’ve got the answer right, or if our parameters are laid out correctly.
That being said, however, there is a deeper call here. A life-changing call, if we can figure out how to answer it. To find a way to love unreasonably, impractically, and to love people who might otherwise be our enemies.
How on earth could this be possible? I’ll tell you. It’s not something we can do alone. It’s not by our own power, but by trusting in God’s love that we can learn to give this ignorant love. I don’t know about you, but I am most kind-hearted and ready to serve when I myself feel loved. When I have felt that brush of the holy, that unexpected abundance, that surprising joy that is the reign of God in the world.
And if you’ll let me flip the parable over one more time, I’ll say this: the Samaritan in the story may be an example to us of how we should behave, but he is also an example to us of how God does behave. God’s love is downright ignorant. God’s love is LAVISHED on us every day. The whole of creation is given to us to care for and live from. The body of Christ is a gift to us for fellowship, learning, care and love. God is present with each of us, rejoices with us, challenges us, suffers with us. God’s love is ignorant. What a blessing.
May we be so blessed that we find a way to share that blessing with all our neighbors. Amen.