The Bar Enasha

“You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26.64)This week I want to talk a little about a phrase Jesus uses repeatedly in the Jesus stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This phrase is “Bar Enasha.” This is a Hebrew phrase that even Historical Criticists of the Jesus Story admit is original to Jesus. It is used more than 81 times in the four versions of the Jesus story that we have today. It is the only phrase Jesus used anywhere nearly as much as the phrase “the Kingdom.” Modern translations translate this Hebrew phrase (Bar Enasha) via its Greek version into the English phrase “Son of Man.” However, this is a transliteration from the Greek, which in turn was a transliteration of the Hebrew “Bar Enasha.” What did this phrase mean, not in the Greek, but in the Aramaic that Jesus spoke? This Hebrew phrase comes directly from Daniel 7.13.

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a SON OF MAN coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. (Daniel 7.13, 14)

The Hebrews rightly understood this phrase applied not only to an individual but also to a “community” founded in this individual. Notice the following context of Daniel’s phrase “son of man.” It is not an individual but also a “People” who are “birthed” from this “individual.”

“The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to THE PEOPLE of the holy ones of the Most High; THEIR kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey THEM.” (Daniel 7.27)

Pay close attention to verses 13 through 14 and verse 27. You will see clearly that Bar Enasha (what in English is translated as “Son of Man”) is much more than a mere individual, and is a new humanity that finds its source in that individual.

“Son of” is merely a Semitic idiom meaning “Of or pertaining to the following genus or species.” Translating Bar Enasha as the “True Humanity” or “The Human Being” or the “Divinely revolutionized humanity,” or, as some historically have called it, “beloved community” would be better than merely “Son of Man.” Here is a side exercise. Go back and reread all the times Jesus uses this phrase “Son of Man” and try to see what Jesus is saying “communally.” In other words, look at this phrase, not as merely talking about Jesus himself as an isolated individual but rather as Jesus himself AND this new humanity he has come to give birth to. It’s not Jesus or the New Humanity, but Jesus AND His New Humanity.

Now I also want to be clear about something else. I don’t want, for a second, to be misunderstood on this. I believe wholeheartedly in a literal second coming, a literal physical return of Jesus our Lord to this earth. This was clearly promised by the angels that accompanied his ascension:

“While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1.10-11)

Yet we must also be honest that when Jesus referred to the “coming” of the Bar Enasha, he was not always referring to his literal physical return but to the coming of that must precede his literal, physical return. He was pointing, in many of his uses of Bar Enasha, to the coming of this “Bar Enasha,” the coming of this new Humanity that must and will precede his literal, physical return. Which leads us to our featured text this week:

“You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: FROM NOW ON you will see the Son of Man [the Bar Enasha] sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26.64)

Notice, here Jesus is not talking about some event in the future on literal clouds. (Although Jesus will return on literal clouds.) Jesus here is quoting Daniel 7 and saying, “What Daniel is referring to in verse 13 taking place at that moment, “right now” before your very eyes! Jesus said, “from now on!” Jesus is quoting Daniel 7.13 and applying it to that very moment and from that very moment onward! Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, which was at that moment set in motion, He would be giving birth to this new humanity, the Bar Enasha. This is what Jesus had been referring to throughout His entire ministry as the coming of the Kingdom.

How does this apply to us today?

We must make no mistake here. We, as followers of this Jesus, are not only invited to be a part of this new humanity birthed through Jesus’ death but are also called to put on display what this new humanity is all about. We are called to be the world changed by Jesus! We are not called to force, through legislation, change over the world around us. No, no! We, as the church, are called to BE this whole new world radically changed by Jesus Christ. To put on display what that looks like! We are called to put on display what this new humanity birthed out of Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about, NOW!

HearGroup Application

1.This week I want you to look at these texts not individually as is all too often done. I want you to look at these next three passages in their original communal meaning, which scholars today see that Paul actually intended them to be read in:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, THE NEW CREATION [the Bar Enasha] has come: The old has gone, the NEW is here! (2 Corinthians 5.17)

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is THE NEW CREATION [the Bar Enasha]. (Galatians 6.15)

By setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself ONE NEW HUMANITY out of the two, thus making peace. (Ephesians 2.15)

This is not to exclude the truth that Jesus makes each one of us “new” as we continue to encounter what He and His Kingdom are all about. Certainly, He does that for us personally. These texts are specifically referring to the communal nature of the new creation, the new humanity, the “new community” so to speak of which Daniel’s “Bar Enasha” foretold, and that Jesus death gave birth to: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12.24)

I want you to consider what you looked at last week in Matthew 5-7, where Jesus describes what his Kingdom, which he had come to establish, would be all about. Make the connection in your hearts that this “Kingdom” IS the Bar Enasha, this new humanity, which claims Jesus as their King, and reigns alongside with him; “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5.10, emphasis added. Cf. Daniel 7.13-14, 27. Remember “reigning” in Jesus’ Kingdom is a radically different type of reigning than the reigning that the Empires of this world practice.)

2.Meditate on the following four passages this week concerning the literal, physical return of Jesus, and write down any insights Jesus may give you as you look at each one:

[Jesus] who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. (Acts 3.21, emphasis added)

Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every [competing] ruler and every authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15.25, emphasis added)

He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. (Luke 19.12, emphasis added)

As you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. (2 Peter 3.12, emphasis added)

3.Be prepared to share with your HeartGroup not only what you just wrote down but also, according to the Sermon on the Mount, what you perceive this New Humanity, this Bar Enasha, to be about. Remember, it is Jesus’ first coming that gave birth to the coming of the Bar Enasha whose coming in turn gives birth to Jesus’ return, cause and effect.

Remember, the Bar Enasha, Jesus’ Kingdom, is a radical new way of doing life. This new way of doing life is based on a radically new picture of the character of God, a radical change in how we view ourselves, as well as a radical change in how we see everyone else around us. Jesus gave us a way to heal our world. The only alternative, according to Jesus’ parables, is annihilation, but we are not there yet. There is still hope. Jesus would not have come had there not been. There is still work to do. This world is right where WE belong. This is our home, given back to use through the death and resurrection of Jesus. (See Revelation 21-22.) And we are called to put on display the coming of the Bar Enasha, the coming of this new humanity rooted in the person and the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are called to invite all who are willing to be a part of this revolution. In a phrase, we are called to “enlarge the Kingdom” that arrived with Jesus’ first coming, so that Jesus as King can return to shepherd this new humanity at his second.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be looking at Jesus’ two alternative “end of the world” scenarios. This world is set on a collision course with death. But Jesus gave us a way out. Jesus, in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, gave us a way to heal our world, if we will only listen. We’ll get to that subject in the upcoming weeks. Until then, keep living in love (Ephesians 5.1-2), keep loving like Jesus and keep enlarging the Kingdom! The Bar Enasha has come, and if you are willing, you are welcome and invited to be a part.

I love you guys. Now go build the Kingdom. Long live the Bar Enasha!

I’ll see you all next week.

The Deeply Obstructed Kingdom Has Come (Part 2)

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. (Matthew 9.35)This week I’d like to finish up our look at Jesus’ “already present,” but deeply obstructed Kingdom that we began to consider last week. In the above verse, we find once again, the picture of Jesus as an itinerant teacher, traveling from place to place within Israel, proclaiming “the Kingdom” has arrived. What we also find in the Jesus story is that there was, what many call today, negative “kick-back” to Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom’s arrival. In short, the Kingdom was a radical reorientation of how humanity does life, based on a radical paradigm shift in how we see God, ourselves, and everyone else around us. But there were many who were benefitting by how life was already oriented. To Jesus’ new reorientation, they did not feel positively in the least. Jesus met deep resistance from the very beginning (see Luke 4.28-29). He met anger. (see Luke 13.14) He was bringing what He considered to be “good” news, but He was met with suspicion, accusations of his teachings being dangerous. Crowds too, voiced “complaints” about what Jesus was teaching. While some saw what Jesus was sharing as truly good, others felt he was “deceiving” everyone. (see John 7.12) Jesus met, time and time again, stubborn resistance. Sometimes he faced censure and rebuke by the religious leadership of his day. Sometimes he endured being labeled as a heretic, an outsider, whose views, if were adopted, would bring about the end of the entire nation of Israel. And the bottom line is that many to whom Jesus brought the good news of the Kingdom to, initially, by their responses, betrayed that in reality they were very afraid.

Which leads me to why, I believe, we see in Jesus, so much compassion and genuine sorrow for his rejecters. (see Luke 13.34) All the rejecters desired was for the promises made to Israel of long ago be fulfilled. They longed for “the restoration.” They believed the covenant made with them involved their being “obedient.” And all they really wanted was to be obedient enough so that the promises, according to their understanding, could be finally fulfilled. This too is why Jesus was viewed as such a threat. Jesus was, in reality, the fulfillment of each of those promises, but it involved changing some significant things as well. And this they could not handle.

THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS were in effect until John came; since then the good news of THE KINGDOM of god has been being proclaimed, and everyone is attacking it. (Luke 16.16, personal translation, emphasis added.)

Jesus had already assured them:

“Do not think that I have come to nullify or demolish THE LAW OR THE PROPHETS; I have come not to nullify or demolish THE LAW but to fill in the areas in which it is deficient, to bring it from incomplete to a complete whole. (pleroo). For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until the whole is brought into existence. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of the commandments I am about to teach here, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in THE KINGDOM; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in THE KINGDOM. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees [which was rooted in the law and the prophets], you’re not even going to be able to enter THE KINGDOM. (Matthew 5.17-20, personal translation/paraphrase)

It was time to move from outward rule keeping to inward heart realities. (murder to even anger; adultery to even lust). But it was also time to move from demanding “an eye for an eye” our enemies, to now learning how to radically forgive our enemies and to love even them as indiscriminately as the sun shines and the rain falls. It was time to move to seek the restoration of our enemies from their victimhood to the real Enemy, and no longer desire their punishment, but their restoration too. It was THIS that repeatedly caused the religious leadership of Jesus’ day to violently reject him. For where they Law and the Prophets demanded punishment of “sinners”, Jesus continually circumvented the required punishment, and sought instead, the restoration of those the law and the prophets condemned. (See John 8.1-11; Luke 8.40-48)

What response did Jesus get in return?

These changes threatened too much. In response to his “Kingdom,” Jesus found fear and anger from the very ones who claimed to be “the people of God.” All the while, in Jesus, God was standing right in front of them, the very God, whose people, they claimed to be.

But here is the beautiful part.

Jesus met their anger with compassion, because he knew they didn’t know what they were doing. To their intolerance, he sought to explain their intollerance as simply the result of their ignorance. To their fear, he saw only infinitely valuable souls to be won from fear (not fear of God, but fear of change) to love. To those who were so addicted to their certitude to embrace the questions that following this new Jesus would bring in its tow, Jesus felt sorrow. To their closed system that was now being threatened by Jesus’ radically inclusive love, Jesus simply loved even more. To a system that had become stagnant, a protecting and guarding of the old ways rather than a continual movement along side of God into the “new”, Jesus, incomprehensibly, continued to sow the seeds of hope. While the religious leadership of Jesus’ day had become oppressive, Jesus saw in their plight, a plight common to all humanity, and not unique at all. They were not alone. To their tactics of manipulation and control, Jesus excused them as simply being blind, immature and inexperienced. To there extreme religious dysfunction which would ultimately turn into full blow homicide, no Deicide, Jesus understood they were simply . . . afraid.

So what did Jesus do? He continued to actively love them so much so that the only way for them to escape the insecurity that the religiously zealous, and nationalistically dedicated felt in response to Jesus’ radical nonviolence and radical inclusivity was to crucify him:

“You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (John 11.50)

But what does all of this mean for us?

1)The gospel was to Jesus the announcement that the Kingdom (the new creation, the new humanity) had come.

When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about THE KINGDOM of God, and healed those who needed to be cured. (Luke 9.11)

2)Jesus’ commission to those who were his followers was to proclaim this SAME gospel.

Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘THE KINGDOM of God has come near to you.’ (Luke 10.9)

3)We see the first century followers of Jesus actually carrying out this commission, teaching Jesus’ same gospel:

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed THE KINGDOM of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance! (Acts 28.30-31)

4)Jesus’ intention was that this gospel, the good news announcing that his Kingdom had come, would be proclaimed to each and every nation.

And this good news of THE KINGDOM will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come. (Matthew 24.14)

The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me [and my Kingdom] in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” (Acts 23.11, emphasis added)

What is this Kingdom? Why was is so threatening to the religious leaders of Jesus day that they had him crucified? Why was it so threatening to Rome that Rome had Jesus’ followers crucified (or beheaded)? The answer is in the fact that whatever Jesus’ Kingdom encounters, this radical reorientation of how we do life, based on a new way of seeing God, ourselves and everyone else around us, seems at first to be threatening.

They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is ANOTHER KING, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17.7)

They were proclaiming, not the Pax Romana (the Peace of Rome), but the Peace of Jesus’ Kingdom. (See Acts 10.36) They were not praising Caesar as Lord, but proclaiming different Lord, the Lord Jesus. (See Acts 10.31,36) They were not chiming in with all the rest, proclaiming Caesar as “Son of God,” but this new Lord Jesus, of a different Kingdom as “Son of God.” (See Acts 9.20) The were not proclaiming Rome, and more specifically Caesar, as the “Savior of the world,” but they claimed that Jesus and his Kingdom was the “Savior of the world.” (See 1 John 4.14)

What does this mean for us today?

Does following Jesus ever feel, to you, as if it threatens to change everything about your life too?

Well, I’ll tell you a little secret. It does. But the changes that Jesus brings are changes that lead to life. The course that this world is on is one that ends intrinsically in death. Jesus came that we might have life.

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day WHAT WOULD BRING YOU PEACE—but now it is hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19.41-42)

HeartGroup Application

1)Read, prayerfully and thoughtfully, DAILY, through Matthew 5-7 for the next seven days. Be mindful of the voices in your headspace that will try and marginalize, or explain away, what Jesus was actually teaching.

2)List some ways that Jesus’ teachings feel threatening to you. Then list how those same teachings could also set this world on the course toward a “new humanity” (Ephesians 2.14-15), a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5.17; Galatians 6.15), life rather than death, if those teachings would be embraced by us.

3)Be prepared to share openly and mutually your insights and discoveries with your HeartGroup, dialoging with each other and discussing each respectfully. Remember to practice the fifty plus “one anothers” of the New Testament most of all.

Wherever this finds you today, remember, the Kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom in heaven, but the Kingdom OF or FROM heaven, come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us a way to heal our world, one person at a time. So today, go out and love like Jesus did, think like Jesus did, feel like Jesus did. Embrace Jesus’ picture of the Father, how Jesus taught us to see even ourselves. And continue to embrace how Jesus taught us to see, also, everyone else around us.

Keep living in love (Ephesians 5.1,2), and keep enlarging the Kingdom.

I love you guys, I’ll see you next week.

Herb

The Deeply Obstructed Kingdom Has Come (Part 1)

Once, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17.20–21)This week I want to take a moment to share what has the potential to be truly revolutionary if you can get your heads and hearts around it. In fact, not only is this revolutionary, but it seems so obvious when one reads the Jesus story that it is truly bizarre how so many today miss it. I’ll be splitting it into two parts over the next two weeks. So let’s begin with part one.

What I want you to notice in the following passages is that the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke was not proclaimed to be coming at some point in the future, as some event to which we look with anticipation. No, the kingdom, of which Jesus is king, had come, then and there, with the arrival of Jesus Himself, and Jesus’ followers were invited to participate in the proclamation of its arrival.

Matthew 3.2: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven HAS come near.”

Matthew 4.17: “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven HAS come near.’”

Matthew 10.7: “As you go, proclaim the good NEWS, ‘The kingdom of heaven HAS come near.’”

Matthew 12.28: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God HAS come to you.”

Matthew 21.31: “Which of the two did the will of his father? They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes ARE GOING into the kingdom of God ahead of you.’

Mark 1.15: “And saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God HAS come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Jesus was not announcing that His kingdom would arrive in the future; He proclaimed that it had come, rooted in his own arrival. He saw His purpose as traveling from one city to the next, proclaiming it’s arrival!

Luke 4.43: “But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’”

Luke 8.1: “Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”

Luke 17.20, 21: “Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” for, in fact, the kingdom of God IS AMONG YOU.’”

With the arrival of Jesus, a new Kingdom had arrived. This Kingdom, at the time of Christ’s proclamation, had yet to measure up against the kingdoms of this world (particularly the Roman Empire), but it would, and it would conquer them. Not the way though, we typically think of how kingdoms conquer kingdoms. Jesus, through the weapon of nonviolent noncooperation (see the eSight series The Active, Nonviolence of Jesus), would establish his Kingdom in the very territory claimed by “the Satan” who claimed to be “ruler of the kingdoms of this world.” (see Luke 4.5; John 12.31) As N.T. Wright states, “The birth of this little boy is the beginning of a confrontation between the kingdom of God—in all its apparent weakness, insignificance and vulnerability—and the kingdoms of this world” (N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone).

Today, we live on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ Kingdom is here now! It is all around us! Paul called it the “new creation”! But it is not readily recognized or obvious to all at this time.

John 3.3: “Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can SEE the kingdom of God without being born from above.’”

Now I can already hear some who are familiar with the following verses begin to ask, “Well, what do we make of all those places where Jesus speaks of His Kingdom not a present but as a future reality?”

Pay close attention to these next verses:

Luke 21.31: “So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is NEAR.”

Luke 22.18: “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God COMES.”

This is how I understand these two passages in Luke 21 and 22, and, as always, we are all in process of understanding, but today, this is how I understand them.

a. Jesus arrived and with Him arrived a New Kingdom.

b. Jesus became the new ruler of this world through His death and resurrection. (cf Luke 4.5 and Matthew 28.18-19)

c. Jesus then, after His death and resurrection, conferred this new Kingdom on us.

Luke 22.28–30: You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel

d. And we are called to enlarge the boarders of this Kingdom until all opposing dominion, authority, and power to Christ’s dominion, authority, and power has been removed, and then the age of the UNOBSTRUCTED reign of Christ’s Kingdom will begin.

1 Corinthians 15.24–25: Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

No, I want to be clear; we do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom through methods that are foreign to His Kingdom. We do NOT enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by the methods used by kingdoms of this world. No, no! We do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by the power of “the sword” but rather through the power of the cross. We do not enlarge Christ’s Kingdom by seeking to obtain and use power over those in opposition to Christ’s Kingdom, but by humble, servant love, coming under and serving those in opposition to Christ’s kingdom (See Paul’s use of the word “submit” in the context of slavery, unbelieving, patriarchal husbands, secular government, etc.) We do not slay Christ’s enemies, but oddly enough, as counter intuitive as this is, by allow ourselves to be slain BY Christ’s enemies, thereby, through our own death, conquering them through our unconditional forgiveness and our humble servant love for them. This is the history of the first three hundred years of the Jesus movement, without exception. Thus, we becoming, like He who died on a Cross before us, conduits and subjects of this Christ.

Let me illustrate what I have just stated so that you can understand it with pristine clarity.

First, notice the words of Christ:

John 18.36: “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting TO KEEP ME FROM BEING HANDED OVER to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’”

What I want you to notice in this passage is that we do NOT fight to prevent ourselves from being killed but that we fight THROUGHBE killed. Understood correctly, the cross, or nonviolent-noncooperation IS a weapon. But it is a weapon of an entirely different nature. It is a force more powerful.

2 Corinthians 10.4: “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

And as our weapons are different, so is our enemy:

Ephesians 6.12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

In other words, the first century followers of Jesus did not view those who were killing them as their enemies but rather as those being used by the real enemy. And through their own being slain, they would be won away from service to the enemy to obedience to Christ.

In church tradition the story is told of the beheading of James, John’s brother, in Jerusalem. It is said that the Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, as the officer accompanied James to the place of execution, he became overcome by conviction. He declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James and, as a Christian, offered to be beheaded too.

The blood of the martyrs was seed. Not only did these followers of Jesus live well, they died in such a manner that even their enemies were won over.

Jesus was explicit about the methods we are to use:

Luke 9.22–24: “‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’ Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.’”

To the early followers of Jesus the cross was something that he was doing for them; yes, but NOT instead of them. The cross was something that they too were to embrace as followers, or disciples, of Jesus.

So the Kingdom is both future and present. The future/present paradox is not either/or, but both/and. It is here now, and it will reach a time, when it is UNOBSTRUCTED in the future. A war, according to the New Testament, is coming. But it is the war of the Lamb. A war where, contrary to all the fairy tales, a Lamb defeats a dragon! This Lamb has an army too! But it’s an army that fights with the same methods used by the Lamb himself. In other words, this war will not be a war in which Christ’s followers slay their enemies but rather a war in which Christ’s followers conquer in the same way that Christ himself conquered—by allowing themselves to be slain by their enemies. (For more on this topic, see the new series on our website entitled Follow the Lamb at https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=35)

As Lincoln said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

The promises remain as follows:

Revelation 15.3–5: “Great and amazing are your deeds, Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, King of the nations! Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.”

Revelation 21.24: The nations will walk by its [the New Jerusalem’s] light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

HeartGroup Application:

1.Go back and prayerfully reread Luke 9.22–24 in context.

2.Mediate on Matthew 5.38–48 each day for some time. Even if it’s only for fifteen minutes a day this week, spend some time pondering Jesus’ words. Gandhi used to meditate on the Sermon on the Mount for two hours each day, and though Gandhi used these methods to enable his own nation of India to drive out the nation of Britain, it is obvious that there was wisdom we must rediscover in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Write down any thoughts, fears, questions, or insights that Jesus shares with you as you do this exercise. Remember that Jesus’ teachings on living non-violently are rooted and grounded in His radical new way of perceiving God and what He is really like.

3.Be prepared to share any insights this exercise brings you with the group.

I want to be clear, I absolutely believe in the literal second coming of Jesus, but I refuse to use Jesus’ second coming to deny all that Jesus accomplished in his first coming. God’s plan is not relocation (getting us out of here) but restoration (using us to heal this world). The Jews call it, Tikkun Olam. Jesus called it enlarging the Kingdom.(See Matthew 10.8) Remember, God is not taking us somewhere else to spend eternity with Him; He is coming HERE to spend eternity with us! (See Revelation 21-22) We are not just passing through; this place has been won back through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and given back to us as a gift, as our home once again.

I do believe in Jesus’ literal second coming, but we must not use it as an excuse for not taking Jesus’ teachings seriously, as difficult as they may be, in the here and now, today. It is through following way of life of Jesus’ Kingdom today, even if it costs us our very lives, that Jesus’ Kingdom will reign UNOBSTRUCTED in the future. They are connected, and it is vital that we get the chronology correct. We are not waiting on Jesus’ return to create a world where we will be able to follow Jesus’ teachings at some point in the future. Rather, the age to come, in a deeply obstructed form, has actually already begun with the first coming of Jesus. We, as followers of Jesus, and just like we see Jesus doing in the actual Jesus story itself, we actually get the privilege of bringing about it’s unobstructed era in the future by the way we choose to live our lives today.

Much to ponder for sure. We’ll take a look at part two next week.

Keep living in love and loving like Christ.

I love you guys. Now, go enlarge the Kingdom!

Jesus’ Definition of Salvation

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house . . .” (Luke 19.9).After almost a whole month of being on the road, I’m happy to be sitting in a hotel this morning writing this eSight for next week. For those of you who have been missing these over the last four weeks, I have something to make up for it. We have a brand new series on the book of Revelation which I’m guessing will be a different approach to that book than what you may be used to. Out of all the major documents we possess today from the early Jesus community, John’s Revelation has received the least attention from scholars. The picture we get from the early Jesus story of the ?rst century is that of a traveling teacher, traversing the countryside pioneering a new moral ethic based on a radically different way of seeing God, ourselves, and others. Take away the lens of alarmist prediction, use instead the lens of the ethical teachings of Jesus, and Revelation becomes a whole new book! It ceases to be so much about predicting the future and becomes a message of hope, coming down to the followers of Jesus in the first century from a not-too-distant possible future. It promises new possibilities for people tomorrow if they will but listen today. Jesus gave us a way to heal our world. The question we must ask is whether the ethical teachings of Jesus and his unique picture of God, ourselves and others remains relevant to us in the 21st century. In the fourth century, Christianity, in signi?cant ways, laid aside the ethics of Jesus, its founder. Much good, but also much abuse, has since been done in Jesus’ name. The ethical teaching of Jesus are still calling to us today. The question that still haunts us is whether anyone, Christian or non-Christian, will pick those teachings back up and follow the Lamb.

You can find this new series at:

https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=35

Now, let’s get into this week’s eSight.

This week, I want to take a look at the story of Zacchaeus. Specifically, I want to take a look at a detail within the narrative that I believe gets passed over far too often today. I want to also encourage you to actually go back and reread the entire story in Luke 19.1-9.

The part that I’d like to focus on is the moment of decision for Zacchaeus and Jesus’ response.

We’ve already looked at Jesus’ radical inclusivity. Remember, the label “sinner” in first-century Judaism meant someone living outside the Torah and someone who had been “excommunicated” or “disfellowshipped” from the covenant community.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner” (Luke 19.7).

And in the very next passage, Luke reveals to us Zacchaeus’ converting moment:

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19.8).

I have been told countless times by sincere people that they felt their ministry was not to reach the poor, but to reach the more affluent in our society. And while I do hear what they are saying, I think it is ironic that the conversion moment for this affluent man was a decision to help the poor. It could be that we don’t help the poor for what it does for them, but for what it does for us. It could be that we don’t help the poor in order to reach them; instead, we “reach” and bring salvation to the affluent by teaching them to partner with us in helping the poor.

Which leads me to my point:

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19.9).

Jesus, at least here, does not define salvation as some legal transaction. He does not here define Zacchaeus’ salvation as simply being pardoned or let off the hook. In this story, Jesus defines salvation rather as a healing which had come to Zacchaeus’ soul. Let me explain. When we view salvation as merely being forgiven, as if salvation was accomplished by convincing God to let us off the hook, we actually are defining salvation differently than Jesus did in the story. For Jesus, salvation was not getting a person from a state of being unforgiving to forgiven. No, Jesus’ forgiveness was an already done deal. And it was not the end goal. It, rather, was the means to reach his goal. Forgiveness, radically inclusive forgiveness, was actually the medicine Jesus used to bring about the healing and restoration of those he was endeavoring to reach. Again, salvation for Jesus was healing and restoration. Forgiveness was what he used to accomplish it. Remember, as we’ve said many times before, a person can be forgiven and still be lost. This is why it is important to realize how unconditional Jesus’ forgiveness really was, because only this type of forgiveness is powerful enough to heal. When salvation is defined as simply legal pardon, if it is only about getting free of some heavenly legal charges rather than healing and restoration, then even salvation that is labeled as “by grace” is just another form of LEGALISM. I’m quite sure that, if Zacchaeus was like any of us, he did not get it right every time after that. But what we see in his story is a person whom the religious of his day had written off as hopeless, one who made a radical change of direction in his life and became of follower of Jesus. It’s not the failures or successes, victories or mistakes, that make us a follower of Jesus, it’s the direction of our life. And what we see in Zacchaeus was a definite change of life direction.

There are two more things I want to mention, then we need to wrap up.

First, Jesus, through inclusive forgiveness of Zacchaeus, brought about his restoration. Then Jesus says to those who, just two verses earlier were standing in judgment against Zacchaeus, “this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” Zacchaeus may have been living outside of the requirements of the Torah, but when he responded to the ethics of Jesus, Jesus called him a “son of Abraham too.” (Remember, Moses only required 120% restitution. Zacchaeus, in following Jesus, pledged far above Moses’ requirement with a whopping 400%, plus giving half of all his possessions to the poor! Following Jesus, in this case, far exceeded Moses’ requirements.)

Secondly, Zacchaeus, although affluent, embraced what the religiously affluent had made fun of Jesus for two chapters previous (see Luke 16.14). Helping the poor is NOT an optional requirement for those who desire to become followers of Jesus. Helping the poor is at the core of the beauty of God’s love we are to display to the world around us. And Zacchaeus got this.

In the early church, they understood this too. They had no buildings to fund, they had no staff to support. The took up offerings, but they did not even spend the funds on evangelism. The early documents we have today prove that 100% of their offerings, with very few exceptions, were simply given to the poor.

Tertullian provides us with details of the church services in North Africa. He spoke of every person bringing money, “whenever he wishes and only if he is willing and able. It is a free will offering. You might call them the trust funds of piety. They are spent on the support and burial of the poor” (F. F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, The Paternoster Church History, vol. 1, Exeter, Devon: Paternoster, 1958, 197).

Justin Martyr provides us with similar insight from the second century practice of the Roman church. Speaking of their services he says, “the money thus collected is deposited with the president who takes care of the orphans and widows and those who are in straits because of sickness or any other cause and those in prison, and visitors from other parts. In short, he looks after all who are in need” (Bruce, 196).

Justin explains that regular gifts were brought to the communion service to be used for the common fund. The church in the port city of Ostia, Italy, devoted as much space to storing goods to be redistributed to the needy as they did space for their worship services (Axel Boethius and J. B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, Pelican History of Art, Harmondsworth: Middx, 1970, 152–4).

The general rule, for both individuals and churches, was, according to Augustine, that “not to give to the needy what is superfluous is akin to fraud” and “when you possess the superfluous you possess what is not your own.”

The early church had only two great apologetics:

1) Their lives of nonviolence where they would rather die than inflict harm on another.

2) They not only took care of their own poor, but they took care of the poor who belonged to Rome as well.

In short, we need to take more seriously Jesus’ commands to help the poor if our authenticity about following Jesus is to be taken seriously in today’s cultural climate. We must be more than simply believers in Jesus. Jesus is inviting us to be FOLLOWERS of him as well.

Remember, the picture we get of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, is of an itinerant teacher, going around gathering those who will join him in a revolutionary way of doing life that he calls “the kingdom of God.” The “kingdom of God” is not some place in the heavens, nor is it a place some go to when they die. This “kingdom of God” is a radical rearrangement of how we see God, ourselves and everyone else. It leads to a radical rearrangement of how we do life in the here and now. It’s a radical rearrangement of how human beings arrange their society that is “of God” or “from God” . . . to us . . . through this person Jesus. To enter THIS way of doing life is entirely revolutionary. It is a radical break with life as we have known it, as it has been given to us, as we have been told, as we have been instructed is the natural way of life. It is a call to go against how we have been indoctrinated, to go against the scripts we have been handed, the rules we have been given on how to play the game. To “follow Jesus” is to break with all of that and say, “I want to live by an entirely different evaluation of what is important.” It’s radical. It’s revolutionary.

Today, Jesus is still extending the invitation to join his revolution. He is looking for those who are weak but daring, afraid but believing, unsure but willing to take a risk—people who are simply crazy enough to go for it with him.

To follow Jesus and live the Jesus way is the most revolutionary thing a human being can do. It’s not about getting a ticket to heaven. (How boring, tame, and domesticated.) It’s not about saying a simple prayer, going to a service once a week and then simply going back to the way things have always been done. To follow Jesus is to adopt a completely counter-intuitive way of doing life called The Way, of which Jesus is the template and upon which an entirely new way of looking at God is based. The “kingdom of God,” rightly understood, is an alternate society formed around Jesus, his teachings and his picture of God. It’s about learning to follow the Jesus practice of love, unconditional forgiveness toward others, restorative justice, mercy, nonviolence and fidelity to self-sacrificial other-centeredness. Jesus is still looking for followers today . . .

. . . and you just never know when someone might leap.

“Politics” is defined today as the arraignment of society deciding who get’s what, when and how. The Politics of Jesus are:

Give the poor the entire kingdom.

Give comfort to those who mourn.

Give the earth to the meek.

Give equity to those who hunger for things to be put right.

To the merciful, the peacemakers, and the persecuted a place with the Lamb on the throne.

The Kingdom is now. Love subversively.

HeartGroup Application

I want to share with each of our HeartGroups a document that was given to me recently by someone I highly respect. I want you to read it with an open mind. HeartGroups do not have all the baggage other forms have today. We can do this more easily then any other groups I am aware of. So I have only three steps for application this week.

1)Take some time to prayerfully read this study:

Click to access EmbezzlementPaper.pdf

(Don’t let the title scare you; it’s got some really good stuff in it. You’re going to love it.)

2)Take notes while you are reading of any thoughts that Jesus may impress upon you.

3)Use the notes you have taken as a springboard for each of you to share in your HeartGroup this week. Go to the head of our group (Jesus) and ask HIM to reveal to you how HE would like your group to respond to this. Some of you are already responding and this will be encouragement to you. Others of you are about to experience a whole new world. Let’s see if we can do something beautiful for the Kingdom. Also, if you are feeling extra zealous, let me recommend for you Trevor’s story entitled “Modesto, CA” on the news page of our website: https://renewedheartministries.com/news.aspx

And remember the words of Paul, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality.” (2 Corinthians 8.13)

For everyone else, keep living in love and loving like Christ. Now go enlarge the Kingdom!

I love you guys.

See you next week.

Older Brother Syndrome

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.” (Luke 15.28)This week I’d like to look at three events in Luke’s version of the Jesus story that reveal to us how radical Jesus’ Kingdom really is.

Let’s jump right in. The first event is the context of the most famous story Jesus ever told—the prodigal son. It seems everyone who knows about Jesus knows he told this story. But remember, I don’t want to look at the story so much as the context of the story. In other words, what was it that motivated Jesus to tell this story in the first place?

The answer is found in the first two verses of Luke, Chapter 15:

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. BUT THE PHARISEES AND THE TEACHERS OF THE LAW MUTTERED, ‘THIS MAN WELCOMES SINNERS AND EATS WITH THEM.’” (Luke 15.1-2)

So Jesus tells three stories, the last of which is the story of the prodigal. Pay close attention to how this story closes:

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ THE OLDER BROTHER BECAME ANGRY AND REFUSED TO GO IN. SO HIS FATHER WENT OUT AND PLEADED WITH HIM. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son OF YOURS [notice the brother here does not say “brother of mine,” but rather “this son of yours”] who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15.20-32)

I used to believe that the only reason anyone would not be a part of Jesus’ Kingdom in the age to come was because they had rejected God’s love for themselves. But the longer I ponder this story, the more I feel that to be no longer true. If the context of this story shows us anything, it shows us this: If any are left in “outer darkness” (see Matthew 8.12; 22.13; 25.30) it will not be because they could not believe God’s love for themselves. Rather they, like the older brother in this story (and the Pharisees and teachers of the law who muttered at Jesus’ welcoming of “sinners”), reject God’s radically inclusive love for someone else that they feel should be excluded.

(This makes perfect sense if one stops to consider it. If one of my children could not believe I loved them, I would not reject them but rather I’d spend eternity trying to show them and convince them. On the other hand, if they will not embrace my love for someone else, I cannot change to be something other than I am. It is the rejection of love for others, even those who are different than us, that causes us to be so out of harmony with the love of which God is.)

Next let’s look at the story we looked at a few weeks ago, but in our context this week.

“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian. ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE SYNAGOGUE WERE FURIOUS WHEN THEY HEARD THIS. THEY GOT UP, DROVE HIM OUT OF THE TOWN, AND TOOK HIM TO THE BROW OF THE HILL ON WHICH THE TOWN WAS BUILT, IN ORDER TO THROW HIM OFF THE CLIFF.” (Luke 4.25-29)

For the connection of Sidon and Syria to the Greek tortures under Antiochus Epiphanes toward the Jewish people, please see: https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/02-19-2013. In this story, Jesus has just read from Isaiah saying, this day, Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in their hearing.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.” (Isaiah 61.1-2)

Yet when Jesus reads from the scroll, he leaves off that last phrase, “and the day of vengeance of our God”:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4.18-19, emphasis added.)

It was as if Jesus was announcing that he would be travelling abroad proclaiming God’s favor, and leaving off all that vengeful God stuff. (And this is exactly what we see Jesus doing throughout his entire ministry.) Now at this stage in the synagogue that morning, everyone was rejoicing.

“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” (Luke 4.22) But they still weren’t “getting” what Jesus was saying. Oh they knew the passage in Isaiah. They knew it promised God’s favor on them and God’s vengeance finally on all of Israel’s enemies, but Jesus corrects them and virtually says, “No no. What I’m saying is that I will be announcing God’s favor not just for you, but on everyone, including your enemies.” Jesus was not going to walk the earth as the vengeance of God on all of Israel’s enemies, but rather, as G. K. Chesterton wrote, as “the pardon [and I would add favor] of God”, for all, including Israel’s most hated enemies. And how did they respond? They became furious and wanted to throw Jesus off the nearest cliff! (I would submit to you that if you have never had a moment where you were tempted to throw Jesus off a cliff, you probably haven’t met the right Jesus yet.)

Again, these folks rejected the kingdom, not because God’s love for them was too good to believe, but rather because God’s love for their enemies was too radically inclusive to embrace.

One last example should suffice.

“When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. ALL THE PEOPLE SAW THIS AND BEGAN TO MUTTER, ‘HE HAS GONE TO BE THE GUEST OF A SINNER.’” (Luke 19.5-7)

Here we have the famous story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector (see Luke 19.1-2). Typically if you are short, you simply go up to the curb to see a parade and all the taller people stand behind you. That is, they would unless by chance there were those who did not want you there and were shutting you out from getting to the front to see. So Zacchaeus, being resourceful, knew the procession route and ran ahead and climbed a tree. Remember, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die, and one last time he stops to demonstrate what the radical, inclusive favor that would characterize his Kingdom is all about. You have to imagine the people objecting, saying to Jesus, “But Jesus, this man is a sinner!” And Zacchaeus standing right there waiting with baited breath to hear what Jesus would say.

“Will Jesus change his mind once the people tell him who and what I am?” wonders Zacchaeus. And then Zacchaeus feels Jesus’ hand squeeze his shoulder, while he says to the people there, “The only thing I care about is whether or not Zacchaeus’ wife can make good lamb chops.”

How did Zacchaeus respond to such radical, unconditional acceptance and love?

During dinner, while Jesus and he are sharing some hummus together, Zacchaeus becomes overwhelmed:

“Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount’” (Luke 19.8). (Moses only commanded twenty percent restitution. Zacchaeus pledges three hundred percent restitution.)

Remember just a few days earlier, Jesus had experienced the Pharisees responding to his call to give their possessions to the poor by “sneering” at him. (See Luke 16.13,14.) You have to imagine Jesus with tears of joy in his eyes at seeing the irony of this chief tax collector’s response, and saying, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19.9).

But again, how did the people respond to Jesus going to Zacchaeus’ house to begin with?

Those who are left outside are not the heathens, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, or the sinners. No, the ones outside are the ones who cannot handle the heathens, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and the sinners being included in God’s Kingdom.

What is Jesus whispering to us this week?

If any are lost at last, it will not be because they could not believe in God’s love for themselves, but rather because they could not embrace God’s love for someone else—for someone whom they thought, for whatever reason, should not be included.

The age to come will, I’m sure, be existential bliss to those who have fallen in love with Jesus and what his Kingdom is all about. But consider what it would be like for a close friend of mine who considers himself a “gun-toting, Bible-banging, flag-waving, troop-supporting, standing with Israel, anti-abortion, Constitutional, Christian conservative.” If the age to come looks like Jesus, and Jesus looks like the one we find in the Jesus story itself, then, let’s just say, my friend MIGHT find himself making some pretty difficult adjustments when he discovers whose presence Jesus is celebrating.

HeartGroup Application:

1.Read prayerfully Luke 14.1-5, 15-23 in the context of this week’s eSight and write down any thoughts Jesus shares with you in your reading. Jesus didn’t just eat with sinners, but he included the Pharisees too. The only reason the Pharisees where eventually left out was that they could not handle who else was included with them.

2.Prayerfully consider this thought: Jesus practiced a boundary-pushing, kosher-challenging, line-crossing, Pharisee-infuriating, radical hospitality. The question we have to ask is, are we?

3.Brain storm with your HeartGroup how you as a group can apply Jesus’ radical inclusivity within your group. And then discuss with one another ways in which each of you can practice Jesus’ radical inclusivity in your personal interactions with others outside of your group throughout the week.

Keep living in love, loving like Christ, until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns. Now go enlarge the Kingdom.

I love you guys,

I’ll see you next week.

Enemy Love; A New Moral Ethic!

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” – Luke 6.27-36It is good to be back! I spent the last four weeks conducting two ten-day series in both Paradise, CA and Raymond, WI (a little north of Chicago), with only one day home in between both. Last week, I was catching up with my much-missed family. But this week, I’d like to continue where we left off with our third and final pass at Jesus’s words here in Luke 6.

Again, so much could be said about Jesus’s teachings on Active Nonviolence or Nonviolent Noncooperation. I want to encourage each of you, if you have not had the chance, to, at bare minimum, check out part 3 of the eSight series I wrote last year on this at https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/06-12-2012. In Part 3, I share the cultural context of turning the other cheek, giving away your tunic, and going the second mile.

Most of the world’s great leaders, ruling societies, or dominant cultures successfully united people around the rallying point of a common enemy. It’s effective and easy. Actually, it’s the easiest way known to us to produce unity. Produce a common enemy, and people who were once themselves enemies with each other, will unite and join together against their now-common enemy. An example of this is found where Shakespeare has Henry IV give similar advice to his son, who will become Henry V after him:

“Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,

May waste the memory of the former days.”

(Henry IV Part II, Act IV, scene V)

Another ironic example of this principle is found in the very story of the betrayal and murder of Jesus. A friendship was struck between Herod and Pilate, who, until Jesus appeared on the scene, were actually enemies.

“That day Herod and Pilate became friends — before this they had been enemies.” (Luke 23.12, emphasis added)

What I find breathtakingly amazing is that Jesus, in Luke 6, is announcing a new kind of society, a new way of living life together, a “kingdom” not centered around a common enemy, but around actually loving your enemies, whomever they may be. Love of the enemy, when one carefully combs the teachings of Jesus, is found to be at the core of everything Jesus was about as well as the kingdom he came to establish and enlarge.

This was a new commandment for sure.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus shares how love of the enemy goes above and beyond the commands that the Jews were used to — those received from Moses.

“For I tell you that unless your righteousness SURPASSES that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5.20)

Remember, Jesus is talking here not about “going to heaven,” but about being a part of his kingdom which is from heaven, and which is also a kingdom that is both here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven, of which Jesus here speaks, is not a kingdom in heaven, but a kingdom which is “of” heaven, or from heaven to Earth through Jesus. And to be a part of Jesus’s new kingdom here, now, you were going to have to embrace a morality that went far beyond that which was found in the old laws.

In the old laws, we do find a positive moral and ethical progression, starting with where Hebrew culture was at, and moving them forward along a trajectory. (They needed laws that limited their thirst for retributive vengeance as we’ll see next, but also laws that told them to not to sleep with their mothers, sisters and their livestock; see Deuteronomy 27.20-23.) Moses was the starting point. But the end point to which the Mosaic trajectory was pointing was Jesus and his teachings. Notice the trajectory in the following two passages:

“SHOW NO PITY: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Moses, Deuteronomy 19.21)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.” (Jesus, Matthew 5.38-44)

Paul also understood this when he wrote, “Christ is the culmination [ultimate destination] of the law.” (Romans 10.4) I want to be clear here: this is not in the slightest way saying that the law was something bad. Nor are we nullifying or invalidating the law by moving from it to follow the higher, more complete ethical teachings of Jesus. It is actually in perfect harmony with the original intention of the law; now that Jesus has arrived, you are genuinely following the original intention of the law fully only if you now move away from the level of morality the law commanded to the higher morality found in the teachings of Jesus and His ethic of “enemy love.”

“Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3.31)

“So the law was put in charge of us until Christ came.” (Galatians 3.24)

A few years ago, I placed my 16-year-old daughter on an airplane and she flew from West Virginia to Colorado all by herself to visit her grandmother. The way flights worked then, especially with her being underage, she was assigned a flight attendant to watch over her. The intention of the attendant was to get her safely to her grandmother’s care. Once my daughter was in the company of her grandmother, it would have been foolish for her to cling to the flight attendant. Now before she reached her grandmother, it was imperative that she comply with everything the flight attendant asked her to do. But once she reached her grandmother, it would be in perfect harmony with the desires of the attendant that my daughter go with and listen to her grandmother.

But what if, over the course of the flight, my daughter had become fondly attached to this flight attendant, and when she arrived in Colorado, had refused to go with her grandmother, desiring to stay “under” the authority of the flight attendant? Though in one sense she would be desiring simply to stay “submitted” to the flight attendant, in actuality, she would have been in utter violation of the attendant’s original intention all along. You see, by staying under the law and refusing now go and live “under” the new “law of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 9.19-21), we are actually violating the original intention of the old law. The opposite is also true: in now following Jesus over and above the old law, we are not insulting, negating, or “nullifying” that law; actually, now that Jesus has come, we, in following Jesus, are following fully the original and ever-present intended purpose the law had all along.

Look at it this way — this is one of Paul’s statements that I consider to be a traditionally misunderstood passage.

“You are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6.14)

In the past (thank God things are changing today), most have seen this verse as saying, “We are no longer under those demanding and oppressive rules of the past. Now we are under God’s permissive grace and forgiveness for our continual shortcomings.” But this isn’t at all what the context implies. What Paul is contrasting are two moral or ethical standards that we can choose to allow to govern how we should live. Now that Jesus has come, I have two moral standards to choose from: 1) the old laws delivered by Moses (eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the retributive justice of the law), or 2) the new, higher standard of morality found in the teachings of Jesus concerning grace toward our enemies (love your enemies; the restorative justice of grace).

These are our options in deciding how to live: the “law” of Moses (which was an improvement from the way his people had lived previously), or the “grace” teachings of Jesus (which are an improvement upon the laws delivered by Moses).

Let me use an example. When I’m wronged by someone, I have two options at my disposal, both of which are, technically, Biblical: I can choose an eye for an eye (the law ethic of Moses), or I can choose to respond by praying for, loving, blessing, and giving to those who have wronged me (the grace ethic of Jesus). Now that Jesus has come, as His follower, I am under the ethical requirements of the grace of Jesus in the same way that I would have been under the ethical requirements of the law of Moses before Jesus. The way of grace is now the new moral standard by which I choose to live my life. It’s not lawlessness, it’s simply that Jesus’s enemy love example has become my law, my ethic, my standard by which I now choose to live. (This is the whole point of James’s letter in which he mentions both Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and Rahab’s lie, acts considered by the Jews to be morally correct even though they were violations of the Ten Commandments. James was showing that following Jesus does not mean being lawless, but simply following a moral ethic higher and more imperative than the ethics found in Moses.)

Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to COMPLETE them [fr. Greek pleroo – to take something incomplete or deficient and fill it out or make it complete and more whole.]” (Jesus, Matthew 5.17)

This is why John wrote, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1.17,18)

And what was at the core of these new ethical teachings? Again, enemy love.

Notice Jesus’s frustration as he bumped into resistance in folks moving from the old ethics to the new ethics:

“The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone is attacking it. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.” (Luke 16.16-17)

Some things in the new ethics will overlap with the old ethics. In other words, some things both Jesus and Moses commanded, and they will remain the same. But even in these, I, as a follower of Jesus, will actually be following them because they were things Jesus taught, and it just so happens that Moses taught them too. Some things from Moses I will not follow (Deuteronomy 19.21 — “Show no pity. Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth” — being a prime example), because I am a follower of Jesus, and Jesus calls me to a different, but also higher, ethical standard of love of enemy rather than retaliation. In this example, I will choose the restorative justice of Jesus (grace) rather than the retributive justice of Moses (the law).

I’ll close this week with Jesus’s own words in John, a story from Luke’s Jesus story as well, and some background on Acts 2.

“I am giving you a NEW commandment, that you love [i.e. enemy love] one another. JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, you ALSO should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have THIS KIND of love for one another.” (John 13.34, 35 cf. Romans 5.10)

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it … Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.” [He is here speaking of the Cross, the enemy love core of what the Kingdom is all about.]

About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah [who stood for “the law and the prophets” for first century Orthodox Jews such as Peter, James, and John], appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem … then a cloud appeared and covered them, and they [Peter, James and John] were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” [i.e. Just as you have based everything you believe about Me on Moses and Elijah, (the law and the prophets), just as you have based your moral ethic of how to live on these two, Moses and Elijah, now, this is my Son, follow HIM! Base everything you believe about Me and how you should live on HIM!] (Luke 9.21-35)

Lastly, the feast of Pentecost, celebrated fifty days from Passover, was a celebration of the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai some fifty days after the exodus. According to Jewish tradition, the law was supernaturally uttered from Sinai in the 70 languages of the nations of the world. But in Acts 2, what is proclaimed on this Pentecost is the life story of Jesus told by the apostles, and heard in every language present in Jerusalem that day.

Much to ponder, for sure.

HeartGroup Application

1.Prayerfully, go back over the verses shared in this eSight, paying special attention to the context of each.

2.Write down any thoughts, questions, or personal challenges with which you are faced, submitting each question and challenge in prayer to God, asking Him to give you deeper insight this week as you meditate on the Jesus teaching of love-of-enemy.

3.Divide up what you have written down into two categories, “Insights/ Personal Challenges” and “Questions.” Then be prepared to share each with your HeartGroup, especially any questions that have remained unanswered, and discuss these as a group.

“When they have come together, they teach one another the divine Word and one asks the other: “how do you understand this saying?” Thus there is among them a diligent living according to the divine Word.” (Ambrosius Spitelmaier, an Anabaptist under interrogation in 1527.)

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and COMPETENT TO INSTRUCT ONE ANOTHER.” (Paul, Romans 15.14)

Keep living in love, enemy love, loving like Christ. And keep enlarging the Kingdom. Till a world where love reigns is the only world that remains.

I love you guys.

I’ll see you next week.

White Horse, Red Horse, Black Horse, Pale. Loving your enemies, till Love prevails.

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:27–36)This week I want to continue from where we left off last week and hover over these verses for a bit more. But I want to take a slightly different tack and come at this from maybe what some would say is an unconventional, angle.

I want to look at a related passage in the Book of Revelation. Now, if you’re like me, the moment “Revelation” is mentioned, your eyes roll so far into the back of your head that you can actually see your brain. So, I’m making a promise to those who have suffered religious abuse by the manner in which some have used this book: what I’m about to share will be dramatically different.

What does the Book of Revelation have to show us about the teachings of Jesus, especially the love-your-enemy element? Everything! I’m convinced that unless we embrace the nonviolence of Jesus’ peace teachings, we can never truly begin to understand what the book of Revelation is really all about. (There are two ways to look at Revelation. The most common way over the last fifty years has been to obsess about the meaning and direction of history and to treat Revelation as a series of detailed predictions. I contest that version and argue that Revelation is much more concerned with how to move history in the direction of the Kingdom [and how not to—with which historically, Christianity has, sadly, been quite proficient].) Unless we do this, we have missed the whole point of the book and have ended up doing exactly what it warns us against; but that is an entirely different study for an entirely different time.

Let’s jump in.

What does the Book of Revelation have to do with the love-your-enemy and peace teachings of Jesus? Everything.

There is absolutely no consensus about the seven seals of the Revelation within Christianity today, so what better place to start that right there in Revelation 6 (white horse, red horse, black horse, pale horse). Remember, I promised you that this will be different. Hang in there.

With the breaking of the first seal in verse one, it’s as if all hades breaks loose. There are some (Kuper, Ladd, and Morris) who see this rider on the white horse in verse two as Christ. White, they argue, is always a symbol of Christ, or something associated with Christ, or of spiritual victory. F. A. Jennings rejects this adamantly:

“The whole context and character of these seals absolutely forbid our thinking of this rider being the Lord Jesus, as so many affirm. His reign shall not bring war, famine, and strife in its train.” (Studies in Revelation, p. 201)

But, I want to be quick to add, where many (including Jennings) then interpret this white rider as a false Christ, I want to ask that we stop and first place ourselves in the sandals of the original audience by asking what these images would have brought to their minds. If you were a part of one of the seven churches, who were the originally intended audience of this letter, how would you, back then, have understood these seals? What would you, in your culture, have initially associated with this image we see in this first seal of Revelation? Once we establish that, then maybe we can extrapolate principles that apply to Jesus’ followers in every generation.

But before we get there, let’s return to Luke 6. Any time I present the love-your-enemy chore of the teachings of Jesus (Jesus’ teaching on nonviolence), I am, without fail, met with the objection, “What about the threat of a foreign invasion.” It comes in one of two forms, one more personal: “What would you do if someone broke into your home,” and the other national: “What about national threats today such as Al-Qaida, or what would you have done with Hitler in World War II?” (For more information on these, please see the 11 part series on nonviolence at https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/05-27-2012.)

What I want you to notice is that this has been the objection in every age when the teachings of Jesus on this subject are encountered. In the sixteenth century, it was the Turks. Protestants used the threat of the Turks to reject Anabaptist teachings on the necessity for Jesus’ followers to actually follow His teachings on peace and nonviolence. They used this “foreign threat” (the Turks) to incite fear of the Anabaptists in the masses. (“If we follow what those Anabaptists are saying, the Turks will overrun Europe and our way of life as we know it will be over.”) This very same “foreign threat” argument was used to turn the populace against such Anabaptists as Michael Sattler, a significant contributor to the Schleitheim Confession, and to have Sattler arrested by Count Joachim von Zollern, regent of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. Sattler was severely tortured and then executed on May 20, 1527.

Also, I believe that “foreign threat” was genuinely why Constantine allegedly embraced “Christianity.” Christianity was growing at such an exponential rate that if everybody in the Roman Empire became Christian (at this time in Christian history, that meant becoming a pacifist), then there would be no one to defend Rome’s borders and Rome would be overthrown. Christianity must be infiltrated and changed from within; thus, Constantine’s alleged vision and conversion and the Constantinian shift that changed everything within Christianity for the last 1,700 years.

“Foreign threat” was the basis for the original rejection of Jesus and His peace teachings by the Jews as well. In this case it was not a potential foreign threat but the current foreign threat of the Romans, by whom they were already oppressed and from whom they desperately desired to be liberated. The argument in Jesus’ day was that if they followed Jesus’ teaching on “loving our enemies,” they would never escape from the oppression of the Romans. This in turn caused them to reject the teachings of Jesus for a messiah who would be willing to take up the sword, and look much more like “The Hammer,” Judas Maccabaeus of old.

Now, let’s look at this first seal again, this white horse, which is followed by the red (bloody) horse with a sword. (This four-horse imagery was originally used in the prophecies of Zechariah.) This first seal is of a mounted archer on a white horse, crowned from conquest! What image would this have conjured up in the minds of the original audience of the Book of Revelation? The dreaded Parthian Empire was the “foreign threat” of the day when Revelation was delivered to the seven churches. The Parthian Empire was the most dreaded enemy of the Roman Empire at the time when Revelation was penned. The Parthians were to Roman citizens what Al-Qaida is to American Christians today, what Hitler was to the Allies in the twentieth century, and what the Turks were to Europe in the sixteenth century. They were the resident “foreign threat” of the day for the original audience of this vision. The Parthian Empire resided beyond the eastern borders of Rome’s dominion. And they were “the only mounted archers in the first century; white horses were their trademark” (Boring 1989: 122).

One possible interpretation or application of this vision of the seals could be that foreign threats from our enemies (first seal, whether Parthians, Turks, Hitler, or someone breaking into our home) in any era will cause us to question whether or not to follow Jesus’ teachings of nonviolence, and if we reject Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence, it will always lead to a red horse and all that this horse brings (6:3–4), which produces the next two horses and all that they bring (6:5–8), in any and every era. The question for us today is, will we, as Jesus followers, be found crying out from under the altar (6:9–11), or will we find ourselves mounting the red horse, and sometimes, even in Jesus’ name? I’m hoping the lights for some have just turned on.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”— Jesus (Luke 9.23,24)

Again, the greatest significant objection from those to whom I present Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence is “foreign threat” from our enemies. Just last night after a presentation, I received this question, written on a piece of paper and handed to me:

“By living as Jesus did, we become vulnerable to being used or manipulated or deceived by others. Should we be “on guard” for this, and if so, how do we live generously and still protect ourselves from manipulations that can seriously hurt us?”

I’ll answer this question this week in a balanced way, but please notice the psychology of what took place in the heart and mind of the listener as we looked at the teachings of Jesus. Immediately, we most often move to the emotionally charged possibility of “foreign threat.” This has always been the “white horse” (or “foreign threat”) which has historically always led a red horse, which has led to a black horse, and then a pale horse.

If this is correct, then the white horse isn’t, as some would say, a false messiah; it’s the “wars and rumors of wars” that threaten us and make us choose a false messiah (which is actually the red horse) that will use the sword to protect us, rather than embracing the true Messiah and the way of the cross. The white horse rides through every day in each of our lives.

Will we choose the red horse, which leads to the black and then the pale? Or will we be found crying out from under an altar, having been slain for putting on display the beauty of the Father as seen in the teachings of Jesus. The relevance of our message concerning our God and the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 6:9) is dependent on answering this question correctly.

Israel chose the red horse, took up the sword, and died by the sword. Western Christianity, with only one exception that I am aware of historically, has done the same.

Something to ponder.

HeartGroup Application

1) Prayerfully and honestly consider what is your “foreign threat,” right now in your life, that causes you to be reluctant about following Jesus’ peace teachings in a practical way.

2) Prayerfully consider Part 3 and Part 8 of the eSight series, The Active Nonviolence of Jesus at:

https://renewedheartministries.com/series

3) Write down and be prepared to share any concerns, fears, convictions or paradigm shifts Jesus is leading you through on this subject currently. Be respectful of where each person is. And remember we are all in process. It’s a journey, and we are all at a different place.

Lastly for all, if you are interested in more information on this subject and answers to many frequently asked questions regarding the love-your-enemy teachings of Jesus, please see the series that begins at

https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/05-27-2012

We’ll take one more swipe at this passage in Luke 6 again next week.

Keep living in love and loving like Christ till a world where love reigns is the only world that remains. Now, go enlarge the Kingdom.

I love you guys!

I’ll see you next week.

Herb

A Seven Day Challenge

“But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” –Luke 6.27–36I want to hover over these verses a bit for the next few e-Sights. Jesus’ teaching here is critical. The “love your enemy” ethic of Jesus was the deal breaker for many who initially desired to be His followers. Let’s look at some background first this week and then wrap up with a seven day challenge.

Let’s go back to Luke 4, which we covered a few weeks ago, where Jesus first began to teach “love your enemies” in the Gospel of Luke, and take another look. This will be from Luke 4.16–28:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

What I find profound is that if you go back and look at the original statement in Isaiah 61.1-2, Jesus was virtually saying, “I will be announcing the favor of God and leaving off all that ‘vengeful God’ stuff.” But what those in Jesus’ audience did not catch yet was that Jesus would be proclaiming God’s favor on all . . . even their enemies. Follow closely:

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Initially, everyone was speaking well of Jesus at this stage, but it’s as if Jesus was saying, “You guys aren’t getting what I’m saying. Let me make it a little more clear.” So he dropped two stories from their history that, because of their location, were loaded: the widow of Sidon and Naaman the Syrian.

To really get the importance of what Jesus was doing here, we have to take into account what this was saying to those present. This was not so much about Elijah and Elisha as it was about Sidon and Syria. Jesus was referring to the history surrounding the Maccabean revolt. Here is just a little bit of history:

Judas Maccabeus’ father was Mattathias. Mattathias’ dying words to his sons were, “Pay back the Gentiles in full, and obey the commands of the law.” (1 Maccabees 2.68). Judas Maccabeus, in standing up to the Seleucids (Greeks), earns the nickname “The Hammer” for the very reason that he is fulfilling his father’s dying wish. A messiah, “Judas Maccabeus’” style was the expectation when Jesus arrived on the scene. Sidon was a significant city under the Seleucid Empire, and the memory of the torture of Hebrews by the hands of the Seleucids was recent history (Read 1 and 2 Maccabees). In addition, the gentiles of Sidon would have been associated with the history of the Seleucid tortures (1 Maccabees 5.15); Syria was where the Seleucid Empire was based. Rome simply referred to the Seleucid Empire as “Syria.” In Luke 4, when Jesus announced he would proclaim God’s favor but not God’s vengeance, and then drove it home by mentioning that it included even their tormentors, it was too much for them to take.

It was like telling Cubans that God’s favor applied to Fidel Castro, too. Or to Venezuelans that God’s favor applied to Hugo Chaves, too. Or to Israel that God’s favor applies to the Palestinians, too. Or to Americans that God’s favor applied to Bin Laden and Al-Qaida, too.

NO WONDER they wanted to throw him off the cliff.

“All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff.”

At the heart of Jesus’ teaching about God, ourselves, and others (as well as how we are to live), was a loud cry to now love your enemies. It was as if Jesus were saying, “I know you’ve been taught to love your neighbor. Now I’m going to teach you how to love your enemies. I know it’s new. But then you’ll be like Him who sent me,” (Lev 19.18; Matthew 5.43–45; John 13.34).

This teaching of Jesus has, ever since the “conversion of Constantine” in the fourth century, never proven to be popular. Following Jesus has become tamed, domesticated, and conventional. But the picture we get of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is of an itinerant going around and gathering those who will join him in a revolutionary way of living life that he calls “the Kingdom of God.” The “Kingdom of God” is not some place out in the heavens, nor is it a place some go to when they die. This “Kingdom of God” is a radical rearrangement of how we see God, ourselves, and everyone else that leads to a radical rearrangement of how we do life in the here and now. It is a radical rearrangement of how human beings arrange their society that is “of God” or “from God” . . . to us . . . through this person Jesus. To enter THIS is entirely revolutionary. It is a radical break with life as we have known it, as it has been given to us as we have been told; as we have been instructed is the natural way of life. It is a call to go against how we have been indoctrinated, to go against the scripts we have been handed, the rules we have been given on how to play the game (personal rights, tit for tat, etc.). To “follow Jesus” is to break with all of that and say, “I want to live by an entirely different evaluation of what is important.” It’s radical. It’s revolutionary.

Today, Jesus is still extending an ongoing invitation to join his revolution. He is looking for those who are weak but daring, afraid but believing, unsure but willing to take a risk; people who are simply crazy enough to go for it with Him. To follow Jesus and live the Jesus way is the most revolutionary thing a human being can do. It is not about a ticket to go to Heaven (how boring, tame, and domesticated). It is not about saying a simple prayer, going to church once a week, and then simply going back to the way things have always been done. To follow Jesus IS radical and revolutionary. It is to adopt a completely counterintuitive way of doing life called “The Way,” of which Jesus is the template. The “Kingdom of God,” rightly understood, is an alternate society formed around Jesus, His picture of God, and His teachings. It is about leaning to follow the Jesus practice of love, forgiveness, restorative justice, mercy, and fidelity to self-sacrificial, other-centeredness.

We are too skilled at taming revolutions and making them conventional. Too skilled at turning things like the Sermon on the Mount and the teachings of enemy love into a blasé blessing of the conventional life we have always known.

As Brian Zahnd was recently quoted as saying, “The seeds of revolution will always be present as long as the Jesus story is always around, and you just never know when someone might leap.”

HeartGroup Application

1)Prayerfully and thoughtfully reread Luke 6.27–36. Since I want to add something extracurricular, so to speak, I would like you to read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous Christmas sermon from 1967. You can find it at http://endsandmeans.org/2010/01/18/martin-luther-king-jrs-christmas-sermon-1967/

What I find interesting about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is that as a Baptist minister, Christianity had so domesticated the teachings of Jesus that he had to go to India and meet Gandhi to encounter the Jesus teachings of enemy love. Wow.

2) A Seven Day Challenge:

This part will not be easy for you. I want you to picture in your minds eye the person on this planet you like the least. Do you have them in your mind? Good. Now, I want you to simply pray for them for the next seven days. That is all. Once a day, for the next seven days, pray for them, sincerely. Pray blessings on them for just seven days. And then make sure you do number 3 next.

3)Prepare to share with your HeartGroup this week your struggles, your challenges, your insights, your convictions, and your commitments with regard to this aspect of Jesus’ teachings this week. Then, as a group, spend some time in prayer over what it truly means to follow Jesus.

Last, for everyone, I want to recommend the 11-part series from RHM that we did last year on the active non-violence (or enemy love) of Jesus. If you would like to listen to them, the title you will be looking for is The Active, Non-Violence of Jesus, Parts 1-11. You can find this podcast series at:

https://renewedheartministries.com/Podcasts.aspx

Or, if you would like to simply read through the series, you can find the same E-sight series at:

https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/05-27-2012

through

https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/10-03-2012

Today, wherever this finds you, love subversively and dedicatedly. Do not wax cold until a world where love reigns is the only world that remains. Vive la resistance. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!

The Good News of the Kingdom wasn’t “Good News” to the “Religious”

“He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. Looking at his disciples, he said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.’” (Luke 6.17-26)My two daughters, and I are presently going through the teachings of Jesus every morning as I drive them to school. I love hearing their thoughts, love to hear them openly share what Jesus must have meant to those in the culture of Jesus’ day as well as what he could mean to us today. Both my daughters go to our local public schools and it is exciting to let loose “little Jesuses” each morning onto a hurting world. I can’t help but be proud of them.

This week, we have been looking at Jesus’ sermon on the plain in Luke 6. What we’ve decided is that the good news of the Kingdom (as we looked at two eSights ago from Mark) wasn’t good news to everyone. Let me explain.

In this passage, Jesus is uttering both blessings AND woes! Let’s break this down.

When you look at the two groups that Jesus contrasts, what you begin to see—if you understand the contrast—is that these two groups are the “religious” of his day versus those whom the religious of his day have marginalized, that is:

The Poor,

The Hungry,

The Weepers,

The Hated,

The Excluded,

The Insulted,

versus

The Rich,

The Well Fed,

The Laughers,

The Spoken Well Of.

You see, according to Deuteronomy 28, if you obey then God will bless you. If you disobey, then God will punish you. The rich, the well fed, and those whose lives were filled with laughter became so because they were blessed by God, because they were righteous. These people were spoken well of.

On the other hand, those who were poor, hungry, and mourning were not less fortunate, but were morally inferior. They were sinners. In their world view, they were being punished by God because they were sinners and therefore hated, excluded, and insulted. These were not those looked on as less fortunate and in need of compassion and help, but rather those that the religious of Jesus’ day felt morally superior to.

However, here Jesus has turned the old order of things on its head! He has challenged people’s preconceived pictures of God and what God’s Kingdom is really all about. He has challenged the “boxed in” opinions people have about what type of a being God is. He has portrayed God in a way completely and utterly outside of their boxes. And for those who were poor, hungry, heartbroken, hated, excluded, and insulted, the coming of Jesus’ Kingdom WAS going to be good news. But those who were rich were going to be called to share with those they felt to be sinners. Those who were well fed, would be called to feed those whom they felt to be morally inferior. Those whose life was filled with laughter and celebration would be confronted with their judgment and condemnation of those they were now called to weep with. And those spoken well of would have to disregard the value they placed on people’s opinions of them, as they too were now called to eat with tax collectors and sinners.

Please remember, again, these woes were not words of condemnation. Jesus realized those who would reject him; he was lamenting their condition, not judging them. There is nothing wrong with being rich, having food to eat, and a life filled with laughter. Jesus wasn’t condemning people with those things. He was simply lamenting that they were going to be the ones hardest hit by the kingdom he had come to establish. His heart was breaking for those who had misunderstood what Deuteronomy 28 was all about. They would not understand, and they would reject him. They would claim his teachings to be too radical and dangerous, challenging the status quo and the way things had always been.

From the very beginning, Jesus stood in the shadow of the cross, knowing full well that the God he has come to demonstrate to us (John 14.9) would have him killed. But he goes through with it anyway, lamenting all along for those who are his enemies. (He speaks of these next in Luke 6.)

All of this leads me to the central point. If God looks like Jesus, then it changes everything for us today just as much as it did for people back then. But ultimately, it means that if any are “tossed out”, in the end it will because they have rejected God’s love for others. This applies even for those whom we deem are not living or believing the way we think they should. In reality this is a rejection of God’s unconditional love for themselves as well.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, so you must love one another.” (John 13.34)

When Jesus said “new” he meant it. It was new because they had never—even through Moses—been taught to love the way Jesus was going to teach them. It was all rooted and grounded in a radically different picture of God than what they had gotten through Moses and Elijah.

“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 17.1-8)

When Jesus said “new”, he meant it. Again, he meant it. He presented a God, who, contrary to everything they had been taught, didn’t look at them as transgressors deserving of punishment (contrary to the religion of both Jesus’ day and ours), but as victims who had been deceived, taken captive, and were in need of a Savior. He taught us to see others (as well as ourselves) the way God sees us. He revealed a God whose love was not only unconditional and indiscriminatory but—most importantly—non-condemning. This was a God whose justice was restorative rather than retributive; a God who, rather than demanding the death of his enemies, would rather die at their hands to set them free. The religiously superior, both in Jesus’ day and ours, will always have objections to this way of viewing God. It’s dangerous, they say, and they’ll crucify it every time if they can. But those who are poor, hungry, heartbroken, hated, insulted, judged, condemned, pushed down, and marginalized . . . well . . . they get it.

Nothing destroys one’s empathy for others more completely than seeing them as “hellbound,” under the judgment of God. Jesus would challenge their most cherished assumptions about their God. It was a time of deep upheaval for people, religiously. The kingdom Jesus had come to establish would be filled with paradigm shift after paradigm shift concerning God, themselves and others. It would not be a time of peace for some, but deep questioning and change as everything, again, was being turned on its head. (John the Baptist, in warning the religious leaders of this day, referred to the powder keg Jesus was about to light as “the wrath to come.” Matthew 3.7-12). Again, Jesus would challenge their most cherished beliefs. . . and the risen Jesus is still doing the very same thing . . . today.

HeartGroup Application:

1)Prayerfully and thoughtfully read through Matthew 5.1-11 and Luke 6.17-26.

2)Take some time and write down how Jesus had changed your own preconceived pictures of God, yourself and others since the time you began following Him.

3)Share at least one of the most significant changes Jesus has brought to your picture of God with the group this next week.

As always, keep living in love, loving like Christ, enlarging the Kingdom, till a world where love reigns is the only world that remains. (see Luke 13.18-19)

I love you guys,

I’ll see you next week.