I blog here. A lot.
We've arrived at Laetare Sunday in Lent. It's also called Refreshment Sunday. In the middle of Lent, Laetere Sunday is the Sunday in the midst of all our reflection and penitence when we focus on the joys of following Jesus. So this blog, today, is meant not only to offer some of what I'm thinking about this Lent (I gave up gossiping and judgmentalism, after all, and took up the disciplines of humility), but also to reflect of the one joy that brings comfort to me these days.
I preach and teach and write and counsel. A lot. My vocation as a minister in the Church is at the very heart of who I am.
But in all my writing, preaching and teaching and counseling. In all my praying and reflecting. It all -- everything! -- comes down to one thing. None of it is about me.
It's not about me. It's about him. It's about Jesus.
That's all I've ever wanted to say as a minister. To remind us all -- even me first, by serving, visiting, preaching, teaching, praying, conversing -- in joy and in doubt, in clarity and confusion, in sorrow and assurance. It's about Jesus. His lordship. His friendship. His disturbance. His consolation. His grace. His obedience. His commands.
I know I fail at this. A lot. Because I think we preachers can't help but fail. I'm not sure what success would even look like. I'm such a fragile and incomplete crack-pot to display completely the full revelation of God that is Jesus. Success certainly isn't measurable in my case.
Failure is inescapable. In preaching, I know I should pray more and pontificate less. I should speak clearer and think harder. In leading, I should be more assertive here and less directive there, more discerning and more enabling and ennobling of baptismal ministries that aren't mine. In caring, I know I should be there more. In ways that make folks less inclined to say, "I'm sorry to bother you, but ..." In pretty much everything, I fail to decrease so that Jesus can increase. Too much Julius and not enough Jesus.
My first sermon when I preached in my preaching class was "Who is Jesus, Today -- For Me?" I was young. I thought it sounded good. I got compliments about my preaching. But I'd never preach that sermon today. Or I'd at least take out the "for me" bit. Because it's not about me. It's about him.
But, here's the thing: We can't really do that, can we? There's no such thing as a Jesus-in-general. There's no unmediated Jesus.
I can't know Jesus directly. He always comes to me -- to us -- through someone, through something. Ordinary people and ordinary things. A book, some bread, a friend. We always see Jesus through the lenses of the gospels, each with its own particular picture of Jesus; and, in turn, we never read the gospels neat, we always bring with us traditions of interpretation; and, in turn, these interpretations are always conditioned by context and perspective; and, finally, there is me -- yep, me again, darn it, always getting in the way -- me with my readings of Jesus inevitably distorted by prejudice and fantasy. This side of eternity, our knowledge of Jesus is always correctable, provisional; there's always more to know. Still, Jesus himself confronts us with the question "Who do you say that I am?" And equivocation won't do, the answer is urgent: Who is Jesus for me today (Bonhoeffer)?
Well, for starters -- the present is what the past is doing now -- Jesus for me now cannot be other than Jesus who was then. He must be the 30-odd-year-old Jew who lived in first-century Galilee, a Roman colony administered by a local despot, where there was systemic oppression and exploitation, as powerful and wealthy elites used religion to legitimate their place in the social order and violence to protect it. These were very troubled times in occupied Israel. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was a small agricultural town, population 400 max. The issues of hunger and debt dominated daily existence. Jerusalem was 70 miles south, population 50,000, swelling to a quarter-million during the Passover festival of liberation. There the high priest and his Temple colleagues collaborated with Caesar's minions. As for life 24/7, being Jewish, practicing the teachings of Torah and tradition -- food laws defining what you can eat; purity laws dealing with the body, its fluids and blemishes; the weekly sabbath, time set apart for worship, rest, and festivity too; all overseen and regulated by the scribes and priests.
This is the world in which Jesus appears, blazing like a comet across the night sky, clapping like thunder on a cloudless day. What was he like? He is the "man who fits no formula" (Eduard Schweizer). The engine room for this human dynamo -- his relationship with God, so intimate that, like a child, he calls God Abba. This Abba-experience of Jesus -- it's the source and secret of his being, his life-style, his mission, which is to announce the arrival of, and to get people ready for, the "kingdom of God". And, please, after nearly 40 years, I know that the kingdom of God is not some sanctum within nor a heaven above. I know that Jesus didn't come to bring us a quiet life, nor to flog fire insurance, that he came as the agent of God’s shalom, the personal and corporate experience of grace as forgiveness, acceptance, and inclusion, of social justice and the common good. God wants it all, God wants it now, and there ain't nothing going to stop it -- this divine invasion -- sweeping away all that opposes it, all that inflicts suffering and death, all that murders joy and hope.
Thing is, that flourishing vitality starts, not with the grand divine announcements from thunder claps and beams of light. It starts with 12 ordinary Jews, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. This new Kingdom brings a new world. And it starts with renewing Israel.
Jesus is, above all, a teacher, so he tutors his students -- that's what a "disciple" is. But he also gives public lectures, and the heart of his teaching is so simple that a child can understand it and so hard that only the empowered can do it. By provocative short sayings and absurdly counter-intuitive stories, Jesus challenges, teases, and shocks us to see the world radically differently from our conventional perceptions, which for Jesus are symptoms of an optical illness. Discipleship thus begins with vision, a vision of this new world that Jesus discloses, which, hidden in our old world, happens to be the real world; a vision that then inspires lives that embody the values of this new world in opposition to the values of our old one, cynical, pitiless, and nihilistic.
You see, because Jesus loves the world, he sifts the world. He has a special compassion for the little, the least, and the lost, and a particular beef with the movers and shakers. Jesus comes in love, not judgement -- he is, in fact, the love of God incarnate -- but when human beings encounter such divine love, there's a decision to be made and an outcome that follows: Either love kills you -- you die to self and live for others -- or you kill love -- which is exactly what the combined forces of church and state do, in the name of law and order of course: Love gets lynched.
We religious types are still lynching, too. Jesus gets in the way so often. We forget that it's not about us: Our fears of outsiders and others. It's not about what we want, about our spiritual comfort zones. It's about Jesus. It's God breaking down every wall and barrier that good, moral people seem to erect.
And, boy, does that make us mad. So either we kill love -- literally push Jesus off the earth on a cross -- or loves confronts and kills is.
And that's it. That's all I've ever tried to say.
Or, no, wait. It's not.
There's more.
God raises his dead son. The victim turns out to be the victor. The friends of Jesus, who in stupidity and cowardice betray, deny, and abandon him -- they re-experience grace as forgiveness. The enemies of Jesus, who in fear and malice torture and execute him -- well, in his risen life as in his earthly life, Jesus doesn't answer his killers with vengeance. Who knows, maybe one day they too will see the world otherwise, disarm, and drink deeply from the love God never ceases pouring into the world like lake upon lake of the finest Shiraz -- Jesus likes to liken the kingdom to a never-ending bit-of-a-do!
That, in short, is who Jesus is.
It's all I've ever wanted to say. All the preaching, teaching, caring, visiting, talking. It all boils down to that.
Does that answer every question? Hardly. But it answers all the big ones. Always the counter-cultural guy, following Jesus gives me more questions than it does answers. "You work it out", I can just hear him saying.
Does it keep me from suffering? Hardly. In fact, if there's one thing I've learnt from Jesus, it's this: You can count on it. Discipleship is dangerous. I end up connecting dots and acting in ways that really make me look weird. Obedience usually gets me in trouble with the same grace-busting religious types that crucified him.
Does he tell me to play it safe and cut my losses? I wish. But, again, hardly. This is the same guy who extols leaving all that costly, prize sheep for the one wayward runt. A father who delights more in his spendthrift kid than the respectable book-keeping brother. The heretic who empties his wallet and risks his life for the bloody nobody in the gutter. The farmer who pays the last-in part-time hired-hands the same pay those trusted, devoted workers get.
Does he love me? That's the silliest question I've ever been asked. That we Christians have left folks even asking this question means we've failed. Miserably. Of course he loves me. And he loves you. And he loves our enemies, too!
There's nothing I can do -- or fail to do! -- that makes him love me less. Same for you.
In prayer, God quietens my restless heart. I get anxious and depressed a lot. But it never lasts past my naming it for what it is -- looking at me and not him. In my life, there's freedom and purpose to be there for other people. In leisure, he teaches me to laugh and love it up -- a lesson I've been learning a lot over the past few months in marriage.
A high school friend of mine died recently. Death started stalking me again -- like it did a few years ago. "Don't be afraid!" Jesus says. Because even death is just the self-expenditure of love. He promises that since he made it through death alive, so will Fred. So will I.
What more could a guy want? Or ask for?
So back to those failures. Boy, have I failed. I couldn't even begin to take an inventory of all the ways I've messed up. I can be a real jerk. A mean, violent, vicious, self-obsessed jerk.
But he's patient with those failures. And he's given me a whole family of failures -- the church -- to keep me company.
It's not about me. It's about him.
Which also means, it's not about us. We Christians, who yell about our rights being taken away. Who scream about being oppressed. We're a gaggle of goofballs.
But we are -- or at least Jesus hopes we are! -- also a "community of character" (Hauerwas) that's serious about finding and focusing on Jesus. We're serious about the struggle of speaking truthfully about God. We'll hold up the mirror to ourselves and be honest about who we are and the questions we ask.
Because, let's be honest. So much of what we say these days about God is crap. It's froth and piffle.
We should be more serious about the talk of worship and Communion, Baptism and confession (of sins, sure, but also of faith and doubt). And let's not forget the Bible. Especially the Sermon on the Mount bit. (I'm not as concerned about the 10 Commandments as I am that Sermon.) It's a snapshot of the world that's coming. That world of which Jesus is both the promise and pioneer.
It all gets started with him. Jesus is the start. It's all about Jesus.
It's not about me. It's about Jesus.
But, here's the good news: Jesus is about us. He's about everyone.