The Scapegoating/Betraying of Jesus at Bethesda
“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’ ‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’” (John 5.1–8)
This week, I’d like to revisit the story of John 5. Even if you are familiar with this story, I want to encourage you to give it a fresh look and see if you don’t see what I’m seeing here.
Let’s dive right in.
At first, the story appears to recount another run-of-the-mill healing by Jesus on yet another Sabbath day. But there is something else going on that a surface reading won’t catch.
Follow the story carefully.
“At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’ But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.”’ So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.” (John 5.9–13)
It should be remembered that in Jesus’ day, those who were crippled, blind, or lame were not looked upon with compassion or viewed simply as less fortunate than others. This was a culture built on the assumptions of Deuteronomy 28, which states clearly that if you obey, God will bless you, and if you disobey, God will curse you. So if you are crippled, if you are blind, if you are a paralytic, you must be a sinner! What else could explain your current condition?
It should also be remembered that in Jesus’ culture, “sinner” was a very different term than it is today. Today, Christians are taught that we’re all sinners. “All have sinned,” Paul says. But before Paul and the early Christian movement developed the view that everyone is a sinner, this was not the case. The Jews belonged to a community to which certain promises had been made. And although you did not follow Moses’ teachings in order to earn a place in that community, you did follow those teachings, as well as the rules of the community, in order to put on display your decision to be a part of that community. The term “sinner” was a label used for Jews who, despite belonging by birth to the covenant community, lived contrary to the Torah and rejected their place in that community. In short, the term “sinner” was not applied universally.
If you were a paralytic, in addition to suffering from your condition, you bore the stigma of being a sinner, for why else would God be punishing you? Being a paralytic (or anyone with a disability) in the time of Jesus carried with it the stigma of moral inferiority, the stigma of being a “sinner” and all that included for a Jew.
This is why the first thing Jesus says to the paralytic in Matthew 9 is that his sins are forgiven. Jesus sought first to relieve the guilt/stigma that accompanied being defined as a “sinner” in contrast to everyone else.
In John 5, Jesus heals the man. He sets him free! This freedom involves more than just the ability to walk. It is simultaneously a liberation from the “sinner” label. And what happens next? The man bumps into some fellow Jews who question him regarding why he is carrying his “burden” on the Sabbath day. Do you see what’s happening? He had just become free of the “sinner” label, and his new status is immediately threatened! He is at risk of being classified once again as a “sinner,” and he panics. He throws Jesus under the bus, saying, “The man who healed me . . . it’s His fault!” But the man cannot give his accusers a name, so the matter is dropped.
This next part is where things get interesting.
“Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning [hamartia] or something worse may happen to you.’” (John 5.14)
What the Greek actually says here is, “Behold you have been made healthy! Be guilty of wrongdoing no more or you will become something worse than a paralytic!
I want to remind you of John’s “Sin no more,” which we covered in our study on John’s use of hamartia in the eSight/podcast just a couple weeks ago. You can find it here if you need to refresh your memory: https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/06-02-2014/
John uses hamartia differently than some of the other New Testament authors. He uses the term to refer not simply to the behavior associated with sin, but also to the guilt that comes from defining yourself as a sinner.
This man in John 5 had been a paralytic for 38 years. According to the Intervarsity Press New Testament Background Commentary, “The man had been sick there longer than many people in antiquity lived.” This means that although the man was not a paralytic from birth, he might as well have been. He had become a paralytic sometime during infancy—so there is no way this man’s own sin caused him to be a paralytic. Jesus isn’t saying, “Listen, last time you sinned, this is what happened. Now go and sin no more, or next time, something worse might happen to you.” It wasn’t the man’s personal behavior that brought about his disability. He was an infant, for crying out loud. What Jesus is doing for this paralytic is exactly what He did for the paralytic in Matthew 9. He is seeking to set him free from the moral stigma to which paralytics were subjected.
“Go and be guilty of wrong no more.” (John 5.14; Mounce’s Greek Dictionary)
Jesus is setting him free, asserting that he no longer has to define himself as a “sinner”! You don’t have to define yourself according to the way others have looked at you, Jesus is saying. But if you don’t stop defining yourself this way, if you don’t stop allowing others to determine how you see yourself, your fate will be worse than that of simply being a paralytic. What is that fate? What is that something worse? It’s in the very next verse.
“The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.” (John 5.15)
Why would this man betray Jesus—the man who had just healed him—to the very people who had accused him of breaking the Sabbath?
The answer has to do with the nature of scapegoating. When a person is scapegoated the way this man was—both for being a paralytic and, afterward, for presumably breaking the Sabbath—that person becomes desperate. There are two ways enemies become friends. The first is to identify a mutual/common enemy (see Luke 23.12). The second is to cultivate forgiveness and reconciliation. The first is very similar to how scapegoats seek to escape being attacked by the crowd. When someone is being picked on, they will instinctively endeavor to deflect the negative attention onto someone weaker than themselves. The result is that now, rather than being picked on, they have gained their oppressors’ acceptance by joining them in picking on someone else.
This is the “something worse” about which Jesus was warning the paralytic. He could be free from the “sinner” stigma in two ways. He could embrace the new identity Jesus was giving him and no longer define himself the way his religious community had. Jesus would become that which defined this man and gave him a sense of worth. Alternatively, he could convince his community to scapegoat someone else—and join his community in the practice of scapegoating. And who would this man choose to scapegoat? Who would he choose to throw under the bus? Who would he encourage his own oppressors to view as the real “sinner”?
He does exactly the opposite of the blind man in John 9, whom Jesus healed and whose story John is contrasting with this man’s. The man in John 5 chose the worse path. In an effort to be accepted by the crowd, he chose to betray, or scapegoat, the very Jesus who had just healed him.
“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5.16–18)
I want to draw attention to one more issue before we close this week. In response to the man’s attempt to divert the accusers’ scapegoating mechanism onto Jesus himself, Jesus does not refute the accusation, but embraces it. If he deflected the accusation, he would run the risk of turning the accusers’ attention back on the paralytic man. Jesus accepts the label of Sabbath breaker to save the man who had just betrayed him. He doesn’t deny that he broke the Sabbath. He doesn’t claim that “healing” is not a violation of Sabbath observance. On the contrary, Jesus quotes the Sabbath commandment of Exodus 20, in effect confessing that He was “working.”
In Jesus’ confession “I too am working,” the Greek word translated as “working” is ergazomai. It is the same word used in the Septuagint translation of Exodus 20.9: “Six days you labor [ergazomai] and do all your work.” Jesus is virtually saying, “Yes, I was working on the Sabbath, just as the commandment says not to.”
Just so you can get the truest sense of what Jesus is doing here, take a look at the way ergazomai is used in other New Testament passages.
Matthew 21.28: “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work [ergazomai] in the vineyard today.’”
Matthew 25.16: “The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded [ergazomai] with them, and made five more talents.”
John 6.27: “Do not work [ergazomai] for the food that perishes . . .”
Acts 18.3: “And, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked [ergazomai] together—by trade they were tentmakers.”
1Corinthians 9.6: “Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living [ergazomai]?”
2Thessalonians 3.8: “And we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked [ergazomai] night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.”
Revelation 18.17: “For in one hour all this wealth has been laid waste! And all shipmasters and seafarers, sailors and all whose trade [ergazomai] is on the sea, stood far off.”
And not only does Jesus embrace the role of scapegoat here, He actually drags God into it with Him.
“My Father is always at his work [ergazomai] to this very day, and I too am working [ergazomai].”
In John 5, God in Christ becomes the scapegoat to end all scapegoats. He, the innocent, embraces the label of “sinner,” of “Sabbath breaker.” Why?
The answer is found in the story of the unjust death and resurrection of God in Jesus. The resurrection proves that God is not to be found within the scapegoaters (whether political, economic, or religious). God is to found in the one hanging shamefully on the tree at the hands of those who put him there. This way of finding unity among ourselves by finding a common enemy and then justifying it by labeling them “sinners,” this way of organizing human societies around a common “evil,” this way of “making peace” among ourselves is capable of killing even God Himself.
We do it today. We do it economically with immigrants and foreigners. We do it politically with the Taliban. We do it religiously with the LGBTQ community. When are we going to stop? What we are doing led in the past to the unjust execution of God. We don’t see what we are doing. It is time for us to wake up.
When will we learn to abandon our preoccupation with “us” and “them”?
We are all children of the same Divine Parents. Jesus died for all of us. We are all God’s favorites. When will we learn that we don’t need to throw others under the bus to secure our place in this world?
HeartGroup Application
What does it mean to you that Jesus embraced the label of “Sabbath breaker” within a community that defined itself according to those who kept the Sabbath and those who didn’t?
In John’s contrasting story in John 9, the Pharisees say, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath” (9.16). When I was at the impressionable age of fourteen, I joined “God” in being “against” Sabbath breakers too. I was this paralytic, looking for the acceptance of God. And instead of receiving “acceptance” as a free gift, I found it in identifying a “common enemy.” God forgive me, not just for my gross ignorance of what God is like, but for my “baptizing” the way of the “accuser” rather than following the radically inclusive way of Jesus.
1. Sit with Jesus this week on the subject of scapegoating and defining others by their level of Torah observance. Jesus inaugurated a new community, centered on Himself. If there is any evaluation to be made, it is of one’s heart orientation toward Jesus. But what saves us from now scapegoating others because we feel they lack a heart orientation toward Jesus? The answer is twofold: (1) only God really knows the heart, and (2) even if another person’s heart is not oriented toward Jesus, Jesus Himself commands us to love as indiscriminately as the sun shines and the rain falls (Matthew 5.45). And in so doing we will be like God. Yes, there are those whose hearts are turned toward Jesus, and there are those whose hearts are not. But we are called to love the latter just the same. No distinction. No scapegoating allowed. There is no us and them. The sunshine proves it. The falling rain testifies to the truth of it. We are all children of the same Divine Parents. And it’s time to learn the way of love once again. Defining others by “the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” produces violence, bloodshed, death. It’s time to find our way back to the tree of life, which, remember, is for the healing of nations (Genesis 3.6 cf. Revelation 22.2).
2. Journal about what Jesus shows you as you sit with Him on these themes during your time in contemplation.
3. This upcoming week, share with your HeartGroup what you discover.
Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns. I love you guys. See you next week.
Not If They Are Wearing It Too
“And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.” (Matthew 22:12)
This week, I have to admit that I hate nametags. I’m often invited to an event to speak and I will, along with everyone else that attends, be handed a nametag to wear around my neck. I’ve spent some time trying to figure out what the big deal is. I mean, what is this aversion to nametag wearing? What is it that internally kicks and screams every time, refusing to allow me to hang this around my neck?
To the best of my understanding, I think there is something broken inside of me that always craves being different. If everyone else is doing something, I’m not interested. My kids are the same way. They will either love something before it becomes popular or when it ceases to be so, but they will never love something when everyone else is doing it too.
Okay, enough of this invasive introspection; I want us to consider this week a story in Matthew’s gospel that Jesus tells the chief priests and Pharisees.
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: “Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.”‘ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
There is much that could be said on this story, but the last thing I want to do is turn this into another commentary. What I’d rather do is simply point out a few statements in this story for your contemplation and see if Jesus doesn’t show you the same thing he showed me here recently.
The first part, no doubt, is a prophetic warning concerning the fate that was looming before Jerusalem if her path was not altered. What happens next in the story though, is an affront to all of us.
“Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready . . . Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.'”
Everyone? Everyone gets invited? Yep, the story is too pointed to evade. Jesus purposefully makes sure to add, “both good and bad.”
What happens next we don’t want to encounter. We’ll come up with any convoluted and complicated theological exposition of what the wedding garment is to evade what Jesus is saying here, rather than letting the story speak to us.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.”
Don’t define the garment to have some spiritual application that allows you to evade the story’s point. The question I want to ask you this week is why did this guest refused to wear a garment? What was it about wearing that garment, along with all those “bad people,” that caused something inside of him to kick and scream in resistance, not permitting him to bring himself to wear it?
A friend of mine wrote a response to last week’s eSight/podcast on Jesus’ radical inclusivity, which I believe captures what was going on inside our guest this week most eloquently.
“[Last week’s eSight] is the Magna Carta. It should be the 95 Theses nailed to the front of every church in North America. It will be rejected, however. If history tells us anything, the world will hate it, reject it, blame it—and destroy it. We are in love with exclusive offers, private clubs, the top of ladders and those that are good at climbing them . . . [This is] the perspective that we must carry as our light burden—the cross we carry on the trail he has given us. But hard dang work. Thanks for putting it all together. And then Spirit, to figure out how to apply it, and strength to keep it, against the inevitable tide that is coming.”
What I love most about this statement is the keen perception that we are addicted to systems rooted in exclusivity rather than inclusivity. This is true of us whether we are speaking politically, religiously, or economically. What Jesus is whispering to the religious exclusivists of his day is that if any are lost at last, it will not be because they did not accept the invitation themselves. It will be because they could not accept those who were also “let in.” They could not accept the absence of distinction between them and the other guests. The rejection of the king’s garments by this guest is not a rejection of the garment for himself. It is a rejection of the garment for all of those in the room that he feels should be excluded, a radical inclusivity that he will have no part in. This is not a rejection of “clothes.” This is an inability to accept those whom we feel should be excluded. It’s as if this guest is saying, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to where the same thing as them!” (Think of the words of the prophet Jonah.)
“Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Gnashing of teeth is not torture. It’s anger. (See Luke 13:28; Job 16:9; Psalms 35:16; Psalms 37:12; Psalms 112:10; Lamentations 2:16; Acts 7:54, cf. Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 13:50; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30.) It’s anger that someone you thought should be excluded is actually included. And anger that for all your smug assurance that your place at the table was secure, you find yourself outside looking in through the window at those you feel are morally inferior to yourself while they are enjoying the feast and you are not. It is the ability to accept the invitation for oneself in one hand while holding on with the other to an inability to accept that someone you feel should be excluded was not merely invited, but is enjoying the party instead of you.
The exclusion that this man sought to stand up for backfires against himself. This man could have been simply protecting the purity of the “wedding feast,” standing up for what he felt was right, doing something he considered to be expected of him, but in the end, the only one that ends up being left outside is himself.
This is the older brother of the prodigal. This is the Jonah that would rather be dead than in a world alongside those Ninevites. (Jonah 4:2-3) It is the “The Pharisee, standing by himself . . . praying ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:11)
The holidays are coming, and as we looked at last week, we are all children of the same Divine Parents. As we look around this world, we see our fellow siblings. And we are all going to have to learn what it means to sit side by side around the same family table once again.
The parable of Matthew 22 was not about a man’s rejection of a garment. It was about a man’s refusal to wear a garment along side of the others in the room who were wearing it as well. Clothing wasn’t being rejected . . . people were. If any are cast out in the end, it will not be because they didn’t accept the invitation themselves. The guest accepted the invitation for himself and showed up. But once he got to the party, he couldn’t stomach the lack of distinction made between himself and the kind of people who were his fellow guests (“Both good and bad”). If any are cast out in the end, it won’t be because of a failure to accept an invitation for themselves, it will be because they could not embrace the acceptance of someone else whom they felt shouldn’t have been invited along side of themself.
HeartGroup Application
1. This week, I want you to spend some time in quiet contemplation within this story. Who is it that if you looked around the wedding hall and saw standing there dressed just like you, would make you take off your wedding garment? Is it someone from your past? Is it a group of people in our present? Is it someone who has hurt you, from which you still need Jesus to bring healing? Is it someone who maybe hasn’t hurt you, but is someone who has committed atrocities toward others? Think deep. Is it someone different than you? A political persuasion? Economic philosophy? Ethical standard? Or religious belief? Is it someone of a different color, gender, status, or orientation? Who is it, in this world, that to see them included would send you over the edge?
2. Now take that person and sit with them and with Jesus during prayer each day this week and ask Jesus to show you what they look like from His eyes. Journal what He shows you.
3. If you can, please share with your HeartGroup this upcoming week what Jesus did in your heart this week.
Till the only world that remains, is a world where love reigns.
I love you guys.
See you next week
We are all Brother and Sisters of the same Divine Parents
“It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12.32)
I was caught off guard this past week by the convergence of multiple narratives like many streams meeting to produce a waterfall. In my heart, I was not expecting what I encountered. The strong currents of these narratives converged, lifted me off my feet, and washed me over the edge.
Narrative 1:
Two of my children (who will remain nameless to protect the guilty), were going at it over breakfast. One had sought to correct something the other was engaged in doing and the one being corrected was having none of it. What began as older-over-younger correction was quickly escalating to younger-under-older resistance and a verbal war was about to ensue. Being too early in the morning for these shenanigans, my wife Crystal broke in: “You are not his mother, I am! If you have a problem with something he is doing, you bring it to ME and let ME deal with him! Now apologize.” After a reluctant apology, Crystal then spoke to my son, “THIS is your SISTER! And although she was overstepping her place as your sister, she is still your SISTER and the words you said to her were unkind. You apologize to her now!” Another reluctant apology was given.
Narrative 2:
I had just picked up a copy of Brian Zahnd’s new book Farewell To Mars, which I was reading at the breakfast table while all of this was going on in the background. As Crystal was breaking up this rift between our children, I was reading these words concerning the beginnings of early Mesopotamian violence:
“This was especially true as conflict arose between the settled agriculture communities and nomadic shepherding communities who had differing understandings of land (which is one way of understanding the Cain and Abel story). In the Bible the genesis of homicide is told like this: Cain, the tiller of the ground, met his sheep-tending brother, Abel, in a field.” (Brian Zahnd, Farewell to Mars)
I went back to the narrative of Genesis 4 and checked it. And Zahnd was right on the money!
This could have been the “beginnings” of early land disputes.
“Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground.”
Ancient societal wars between stationary “tillers of the soil” and nomadic livestock “herders” is documented. Place yourself within that culture. Think of the older sibling and younger sibling dynamic in every family. Now, fall into the narrative where the older is the oppressive land owner and the younger is the nomadic herder. Imagine tillers of the soil being the dominant group, and the herders being the hated and marginalized. Associate the older sibling dynamic with the “tillers” and the younger oppressed sibling with the “herders.” Put those glasses on and then go reread the story.
“In the course of time Cain [who represents the older, oppressive, stationary land owners] brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel [who stands for the younger, oppressed, victims, the marginalized] for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.”
Just as with the crucifixion and resurrection narrative, God has regard for the victim of systemic injustice, over and against the often repeated “God is on our side” claim of the oppressors.
“So Cain was very angry . . .”
“Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.”
The LORD said, “ . . . Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!”
And here is the kick-in-the-gut point! Cain must now trade places with Abel, and himself become a “nomad” to learn, from experience, what it is like to be marginalized.
“And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil . . . I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth . . .”
Narrative 3:
I left the breakfast table to discover that the next section of Luke’s gospel where I would be spending time with my morning contemplation was the narrative in Luke 12 that culminates in our passage above, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12.32)
The story starts out with a brother asking Jesus to be his “arbiter” dividing up an inheritance between himself and his brother. Jesus then embarks on a radical story that pulls back the thin veneer hiding the fact that this squabble between brothers was just another repetition of history, with “Cain” about to kill “Abel” once again. Jesus contrasts the narrative of human societal arraignments with the narrative of His Kingdom. Walter Brueggemann defines the narrative of this world as scarcity, anxiety, accumulation, territorialism, and ultimately violence. In other words, we believe that there is a limited amount of what we all need, and that there is only enough for just a few. This produces an undercurrent of anxiety that leads to competitive accumulation. Once our accumulation reaches a comfortable level, our anxiety changes now to territorialism over that which we have worked so hard to accumulate. We then turn to violence to protect what belongs to us.
As I look around, this is the water we are constantly swimming in. We do this politically with land, economically with commodities, intellectually with intellectual property, socially with relationships, and religiously with the “favor of God.”
Jesus, in Luke 12, in the place of our broken Cain and Abel narrative of this world, is offering the narrative of His Kingdom instead. Jesus’ Kingdom narrative is abundance (there really is enough for everyone) rather than scarcity. This, if believed, will create gratitude rather than anxiety, sharing rather than accumulation, giving “freely” rather than territorialism, and peace-making in opposition to violence.
Jesus ends with, you don’t have to fight others for your place in this new world that I’m creating. “It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” You don’t have to fight each other for it. There is enough for everyone.
The culture war in America is just another example of the narrative of scarcity (of power), anxiety, accumulation, territorialism, and violence. As within any war (whether political, economic, sociological or religious) both sides will always have their proof. Both sides will believe they are right. Both sides will possess high levels of certitude in their evidence that their cause is just. But which side is right? Which side should we choose?
To try and find out which side is correct is to miss the point. God is not asking us to discover which side is right and then take that side against the other. God is asking us to throw the whole system away. He will not give us certitude as long as we are only going to use the certitude we receive to simply become another Cain. We will first have to learn to love, to make room for those who are different from us. Only then is it safe for God to give more light.
This is also what Wendy VanderWal-Gritter calls Generous Spaciousness. Another book that I cannot recommend highly enough.
Notice Jesus’ words here:
“It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”
Within the context of Luke 12, Jesus is saying, it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give it to you both. You don’t have to fight each other for it. There is enough room in Christ’s Kingdom for everyone. “Everyone?” someone might object. Yes, everyone. And it is this truth that transforms both Cains and Abels to no longer be a Cain or an Abel, but to be members of a radically new way of arranging life here on earth. In Jesus’ new world, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3.28). Notice that in each of these examples Paul is merely mentioning opposing sides (more “Cains and Abels” competing for a place in this world) that were vying for first place in the culture wars of his own day.
Our challenge today is to not be the “Older Brother” so smugly assured of the Father’s love for us. Our challenge is that we really cannot stomach our Father including those “Prodigals” whom we think should be excluded. (Go back and reread the parable of the prodigal son through the lens of the Cain and Abel narrative.) Jesus, over and over again, is whispering to us that if any are lost at last, it will not be because they could not accept God’s love for them, it will be because they could not accept God’s love for someone else that they thought should be excluded.
Can you imagine Paul saying today that there is no longer Republican or Democrat, Evangelical or Secular, Straight or Gay? No more “us and them,” for you are all one in this new world Jesus is creating? This is too much to stomach! No, No, NO! But Jesus is whispering, “Yes, yes, yes.” And it is the embrace of the “other” as a child of God too, that transforms all of us into the kind of people that will make up this new world. I’m not saying we are “allowed” into this new world no matter what we are. I’m saying that recognizing our enemies as children of God too, and giving them a place at the table beside us, whichever side you are on, changes us into the kind of people that will comprise this new world Jesus is creating. No one gets in without transformation. But the transformation is not to make them like us. The transformation is to see them and us as both, children of God.
If this causes Cain-like responses inside your heart space, I want to encourage you to spend some more time quietly contemplating this week’s passage in its context in Luke 12. It doesn’t matter whether the territorial accumulation is an inheritance between brothers (think Cain and Abel) or political power between ideologies, a chair position over intellectual ideas, or the coveted title that “God is on our side”; we are all siblings. We are all children of the same divine Parents. We spend our days, like my children at the breakfast table, in competitive relationships for top positions to “fix” the other, or in violent resistance to being “controlled.” In reality we are all children—sisters and brothers squabbling over which one is really favored by our “Parent.” Today our world is filled with Taliban Afghans verses American democracy; Republican corporate ideology versus Democrat social policy; or, closer to my daily world, Religious adherents arguing with each other to figure out which side is right in one religious debate after another.
Could it be that no new light will be given us if we are merely going to use that information as Cain, to just kill another Abel? For me this is a very present possibility. This is very real. I recently went through this myself. The evidence being touted by both sides of an “issue” looked convincing. Both sides had excellent points. I could not see. But when I sought to follow the Jesus story, to embrace the marginalized, to see those involved on both sides as people, with stories, as fellow siblings of our same divine Parents, clarity of understanding came. Things I had not seen before became overwhelmingly clear. I found the answers I was looking for. But only after I had learned not to use these new insights as weapons. Only when we learn to love our “enemies” is it safe to be given insights. And in the process, we may discover that the “enemy” is ourselves. (Think of the apostle Paul’s story.)
It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give the Kingdom to us all. We don’t have to keep fighting each other for it. It’s as if the holidays are coming, and it won’t be long until we have to take our seats once again around the same family table. Some of us, right now, are Cains, and some of us are Abels. It is our Parent’s good pleasure to give us both a place at the table. Will we take it? Will we take our place beside each other at the same family dinner table of our divine Parents once again? There are lessons we have to learn first. But those lessons are not who is right and who is wrong. The lessons we need to learn first are how to love our siblings who are different but who are nonetheless our brothers and sisters.
This week, making its rounds through the social media, was Matt Walsh’s rant against the Whittington family’s decision with their son. I have to admit, I wanted to rant back. I wanted to throw down an exegetical defense from the scriptures that would obliterate Matt’s position. I wanted go on a tirade that would make Matt’s rant look tame. Instead, I listened to Siri on my iPhone, read Zahnd’s new book, and the Holy Spirit whispered, “It’s time for ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ instead.”
Our Father in heaven, wherever Matt Walsh is at this very moment, I pray that you will bless him. That you will bless his circle of closest friends. That you will bless his wife, his children, and his family. Do good to him, good on top of good, Father. Bless him with an assurance of your love as well as a deep sense of your love for others. Bless him with tears also, Father, for those who suffer pain, rejection, and violence. Bless him with the capacity to reach out his hand in comfort toward those who are hurting. Don’t hold this against him. “Lay this not against his charge.” He doesn’t realize what he’s doing. And Father, help me too, because I don’t recognize when I’m doing this either. Each side “knows” their cause is just. They believe it. And they can prove it. Save us. Help us also recognize the way of Cain. Help each of us to respond in ways that will not leave the whole world blind. I pray for Jeff and Hillary Whittington, that you will give them the strength and courage to follow the way of forgiveness. Give them the courage to offer the left cheek, to go the second mile, and pour out on them the wisdom they will need to see how they might give their “himations.”
Your just and fair reign come, Father, when all oppression, violence and injustice will be put right. Your dream for restoring all of us be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us all, including Matt, and Jeff, and Hillary, and even little Ryland, what we all need for today. And may we learn to forgive, as well as be forgiven; to love as well as be loved; to restore and heal, as well as to be restored and made whole. May we not be dragged as scapegoats to unjust trials, but delivered from the way of the accuser.
For Yours is the Kingdom. And it is Your pleasure to give this Kingdom to the least of us. We don’t have to fight each other for it. Your kingdom come Father. Upon us all.
Some will say, “But HERB!!! You don’t know what ‘they’ are doing!” I know. I hear you. But what I also hear are the words of God in the words of my wife to our children around that breakfast table. “YOU are not their MOTHER! I am. If you have a problem with something they are doing, then you bring it to ME and let ME deal with them! They are your brother, or sister, and as your sibling, there is no excuse for you not to treat them as family. You are to LOVE them.”
I’ll close with Paul’s words in his letter to believers in Rome.
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse . . . Live in harmony with one another . . . Do not think you are superior . . . Do not repay anyone evil for evil . . . If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath [think of Crystal’s words, “You’re not their mother, I am.”] for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.’” (Romans 12.14-20)
We are all children of God. You’re not their Parent. God is. And your job, as their sibling, whether you agree with them or not, is to make room for them within this family, realizing we are all on a journey; we are all in process. If they are doing something you believe to be wrong, don’t take the punishment of that wrong into your own hands. Take whatever it is they are doing to our heavenly Parent. And then cooperate with whatever our Parent shows you. It may be about them, or it may be about yourself. Whatever needs discipline will get it. But it is discipline, not punishment. Whatever the result, it is our first priority to listen to our divine Parent, and it is our second priority to love all, even our enemies, as members of our same family, as our siblings. Jesus redefined Moses’ “neighbor/kinship” bond to include the enemies of the Jews as well. No wonder they grabbed Jesus and tried to “throw him off a cliff” (see Luke 4.29).
“In light of the cross, we are to realize that if what we have built on Cain’s foundation is capable of murdering the Son of God, the whole edifice needs to come down.” (Brian Zahnd, Farewell to Mars)
Wherever this finds you this week, Jesus’ message to you is, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give YOU the Kingdom.” You don’t have to fight anyone for it. There is enough manna for everyone. It belongs to all of us, as a gift.
HeartGroup Application
This week I want you consider which group in our world today frightens you the most.
1. I want you to take this group to Jesus while you and He, together, contemplate the narratives of Luke 12.13-32 and Genesis 4.1-14.
2. Write down what Jesus shows you.
3. Share with your HeartGroup what you have discovered.
Wherever you are this week, keep living in love. Keep following Jesus into the restoration of God’s original purpose for the human family. Until the only world that remains is a world where, once again, love reigns.
I love you guys,
See you next week.
Jesus Stops A Lynching and the LGBTQ Community
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery . . . (John 8.2-3)
This week I want to address a story from which most have only heard very conventional explanations and a traditional expounding. In my opinion, how this story is spoken of normally, does little more than allow us to continue on in our culturally conditioned lives unchanged. This story is most often used today (although there are exceptions) by one of two groups. It’s used by behaviorists, who say, “Yes, Jesus forgave, but he also said ‘go sin no more.’” And therefore this story serves to do little more than confirm them in their already-in-motion behaviorism. And this story is also used by those who have been deeply wounded by behaviorists as a treatise on how behaviorists are to not “judge,” reminding behaviorists that Jesus also said, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.” On this side, this story also serves little more than to simply confirm where someone already is.
I want to suggest this week that if these are our only two options in our search for understanding this story, then we miss the underlying point entirely. Something much deeper is going on in this story than what we see on the surface. This “something deeper” is what all of us (behaviorists as well as anti-judgmentalists alike) may be trying to avoid with our surface explanations, fearing that the deeper narrative could implicate us all.
Scapegoating
This story is neither about “anti-judgementalism,” nor is it about “loving the sinner, but hating the sin.” Instead, it’s about “scapegoating.” René Girard, whom some regard today as a veritable “Einstein” of sociology and theology, in his work on violence and the sacred, has discovered that societies, in times of crisis throughout human history, time and time again, are reunited by society unifying around a hatred for a common enemy. This enemy is selected as 1) different from “us,” 2) a minority whose absence would least affect the overall society, and 3) those upon whom the blame for society’s problems can be placed and whose presence must be removed. Various methods can be used (political, economic or religious) to characterize this minority as the “threat” to society. But they must be vilified. Scapegoating will not work to unify a society if that minority is seen as being victimized instead. Those being scapegoated must become villains or of moral disrepute. They must not be seen as victims, but as enemies of what is just and good and therefore they must be opposed. Thus, the society now possesses a common enemy. And the unity within that society, which was previously being threatened, is restored as they now rally together around this common enemy. (A great example of this is seen in Luke 23.12)
What led Girard to become a Christian was his discovery that the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is uniquely different. This Jesus uniquely sought to expose human society’s scapegoating mechanism. He sought to create a human community centered on love for our enemies (removing the exclusive lines of “us” and “them,”) rather than hatred for a common enemy. And finally, this Jesus became the ultimate scapegoat (politically, economically, and religiously) within the narratives of human history in order to, through his unjust death and then resurrection, put an end, once and for all, to our practice of “sacrificing scapegoats.” This is not only seen simply in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus spent His entire life pulling back the layers beneath which we hide the morally, monstrous ugliness of humanity’s continual sacrifice of innocent victims for the protection, advancement, and/or well being of the much larger population.
“The Gospels not only disclose the hidden scapegoat mechanism of human cultures, but witness to the God . . . who stands with the Innocent Victim and is revealed through him.” – René Girard, The Girard Reader
“The most important of these we find in the Gospel of Luke, the famous prayer of Jesus during the Crucifixion: ‘Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing’ (23:34) . . . Persecutors think they are doing good, the right thing; they believe they are working for justice and truth; they believe they are saving their community.” – René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
Jesus called this the way of “sacrifice” rather than the way of “mercy.” It was to open our eyes and call us away from the way of sacrifice to the way of mercy that Jesus set all his energy in His teachings, His death, and His resurrection.
Jesus stops a lynching.
This is where we need to pick up our story in John 8.
The teachers of the Torah along with the Pharisees are feeling threatened by Jesus. Their place within their society is as risk. They must remove this threat (think Cain and Abel). But in order for it not to back fire, Jesus must not be seen as innocent. The sacrifice of Jesus must be justifiable. Jesus must been seen as a “sinner,” someone who disregards the “Law of Moses.” So they lay a trap—a woman caught in the very act of adultery.
What I find most appalling about adultery in the first century is that adultery laws did not apply to men unless the woman they were having an extramarital affair with was also married. The adultery laws of the Torah applied to both the man and the woman only if the woman involved was married. The culture was patriarchal, and the chief concern expressed in the underlying moral logic of their law was protecting the property rights of the man to whom the woman involved in the adultery “belonged.” We are not given the details of how this tragic mistake was made by the woman in this story. We are not told if she was lured by some pretense, or if this was rape. Either was possible within the patriarchal environment of first-century Palestine. Obviously, it was a trap set for Jesus, however the woman came to be there. She was now the chief, expendable pawn in their scheme.
The trap was then set: “In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” It is at this point the story takes an unexpected turn. Jesus bends down and begins writing on the ground.
I’ve heard (and read) so many try in one convoluted attempt after another to show what Jesus was actually writing on the ground that day. All are guesses at best. My favorite is Shane Claiborne’s: “If this doesn’t work . . . run, woman!” Claiming to know what Jesus wrote that day is to miss the point. To get caught up in trying to figure it out, though, is the point itself. Let me explain. Jesus must get their attention off of being centered on this woman. He must draw all attention to Himself. He comes along side this woman and draws the attention of everyone away from her to Him. You see, scapegoating only works if the scapegoat (in this case, the woman) is “the center” around which everyone else can unite. Jesus begins disrupting this mechanism by doing something brilliant. He bends down and begins writing mysteriously, drawing the attention of everyone away from this woman to Himself. He slowly trades places with her, placing Himself now at the center of their attention as they each, one by one, begin to look down and try to see what Jesus is writing. We must not miss this. Jesus begins by slowly drawing their attention away from her to Himself.
If John had wanted us to know what Jesus wrote, he would have told us. John purposefully leaves the words out for a dramatic reason. John, in beautiful form, preserves this action in the manner in which he records the story for future readers as well. By leaving what Jesus wrote unrecorded, your attention, even right now as you read this, if you can be self-aware for just a moment, is on trying to figure out what Jesus wrote rather than focusing on the woman. Jesus, that day and in the beautiful way John has preserved this story, comes alongside the woman and draws our attention off her and onto Himself. If you’ll notice, you weren’t thinking about that woman at all until I mentioned her again. You were trying desperately, especially if you are OCD like me, to figure out instead “What is He writing.” We can focus only on one or the other, and Jesus knows it.
Jesus then takes a chance. This could have gone the other way very quickly. They could have chosen to stone them both: She as an adulteress, and Jesus as a blasphemer. But Jesus took the risk and stood in solidarity with this woman who was being sacrificed, scapegoated, or in reality, victimized. With one contemplative statement to the oppressors, (“You who are without sin cast the first stone”) He not only saved this woman from what was about to happen, He also won what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called a “double victory.” Jesus not only saves the woman, but He saves the perpetrators too of this act of violence. Jesus saw two sets of victims present, the woman and her accusers. Two parties were held captive to whatever you want to label it, systemic injustice, systemic scapegoating, systemic violence, or systemic “sacrifice.” And He saved both! Scapegoating, or “sacrifice” is the way of the satan, the accuser; Mercy is the way of God, the God we see in Jesus. Jesus interrupted the proceedings of the path of the accuser and set the entire group on the path of God. This story calls us to look at “scapegoating” from the perspective of the victim and of Jesus. The story ends in redemption rather than victimization. “Mercy rather than sacrifice.”
Go And Sin No More
Last, I want to address the much-misunderstood statement by Jesus, “Go and Sin No More.”
The word for sin here that John uses is hamartano, which is the verb form of the noun hamartia. In the ancient Greek world, hamartia was the term Aristotle used in Poetics. One of the ancient Greek story genres was tragedy. In a story classified as tragedy, a mistake, or error in judgment is made by the main character (the hero’s “tragic flaw”). This error in judgment is what leads to the hero’s/heroine’s tragic downfall. This definition fits extremely well with our story. If it were not for Jesus, this story would have been classified as a “tragedy” with the woman as our central character.
Now I don’t want to be misunderstood, hamartia can refer specifically to the tragic mistake itself. BUT DON’T MISS THIS. Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words states that hamartia can refer to the “guilt of wrong doing” as well as the wrong doing itself. Hamartia can go way beyond the behavioral aspect of an action to the guilt or stigma associated with that action as well. In these next passages, John’s use of hamartia, which is very unique to the way other authors of the New Testament, is not talking about a behavior but guilt for that behavior; not the committing of the wrongdoing itself, but the guilt for committing a wrongdoing. This distinction is important if we are going to see how it ties back into our story. All of these examples are from John, who is the only gospel writer to use the phrase “go and sin no more.”
His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned [Harmatia] this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9.2-3)
It would make no sense to look at hamartia as purely “behavioral” in this passage, for how could this man commit “hamartia” as a behavior before he was even born? If we take Mounce’s definition of the word as also being able to refer to guilt for behavior and not merely the committing of certain behavior, the text makes more sense. The apostles are asking, “Rabbi, who is guilty of sin? This man or his parents since he was born blind?”
These passages are from John as well:
“Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they CANNOT sin, because they have been born of God.” (1 John 3.9, emphasis added)
“We know that those who are born of God do not sin.” (1 John 5.18, emphasis added)
“No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. (1 John 3.6, emphasis added)
In 1 John 3.9, John says, “cannot sin?” Really? Paul would never have said that followers of Jesus are incapable of hamartia! Because Paul uses hamartia behaviorally. John goes much deeper, using hamartia to refer to the guilt that is associated with certain behaviors. I’ve seen this verse cause much heartache and damage when “hamartia,” here used by John, is defined behaviorally rather than as guilt over one’s behavior. I’ve seen it rob multitudes of any assurance every time they make a mistake, leaving them to wonder if they were ever genuinely born again at all. On the other side of the spectrum I’ve seen gross sins being perpetrated against others while those committing such actions say, “This can’t be sin because I’ve been born again!” Is John saying that if you abide in Jesus you no longer make moral mistakes? Not only that you don’t, but that you CAN’T? Is John really teaching that when you choose to follow Jesus you achieve over-night, undefeatable moral perfection?
These verses are dangerous if you interpret them as meaning that a Jesus follower cannot ever sin again. BUT, if what John is saying is that once you are born of God the accuser loses his ability to entrap you with overwhelming feelings of GUILT over your sins then this passage from John becomes blessed good news of freedom from guilt, shame, and stigma. John’s use of hamartia (and John’s use, again, is unique in the New Testament) goes way beyond the behavior of sinning. John is saying in all of these passages that if you have been born of God, if you know Him, if you’ve seen Him, you are no longer enslaved by feelings of GUILT over your behaviors, and you cannot be. If God looks like Jesus, guilt loses its power over us to control our futures. To the degree that we believe that God looks like Jesus, to that same degree we will be free from guilt, shame and stigma over our mistakes. Paul actually says the same exact thing in Romans 8.1, “There is therefore no more condemnation to those who are in Christ.” (emphasis added.)
Now let’s return to our story.
“Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from this point forward sin no more.’” (John 8.9-11, emphasis added)
Here is the million-dollar question. Is Jesus siding with the accusers now implying that this woman really is to blame for all that took place that day? Is Jesus saying, “Yes, I don’t condemn you, but they are right, don’t do this anymore?” Having barely escaped with her life, do you think she would even need to be told this? Or on another note, is Jesus telling her to never sin again, setting her up for questioning her sincerity as a Jesus follower every time she failed from that day forward? Is Jesus really expecting this woman to never sin again? From this point, this initial point forward? Don’t get me wrong; Jesus DOES radically change the direction of our lives! But which of us after meeting Jesus for the very first time “sinned no more?” Which of us never sinned again? Yes, the direction of our life dramatically changed when we met Jesus, but haven’t we all still made moral mistakes here and there, from time to time, after our first encounters with Jesus? Following Jesus is much like learning how to walk. Following Jesus is an adventure in learning how to live a radically different life. It’s about being mentored by Jesus, not being perfect from an initial moment onward. None of us become Olympic-gold-medalists in our behavior after our first encounter with Jesus. Which one of us achieved overnight, “sin-no-more” moral perfection after meeting Jesus the very first time?
What John is showing us here is that Jesus is saying something to this woman that is much, much deeper. Jesus is saying go and be guilty of this tragic mistake no more? Certainly her life direction was changed that day. But Jesus wasn’t siding with her accusers here and he wasn’t setting her up for continually doubting her own sincerity either. He was setting her free, free from the guilt, the shame, and the stigma of what she had been involved with that day. Jesus was saying, “Woman, from this point forward, go forth, be guilty of this mistake [John’s use of hamartia] no more. You are free. I don’t condemn you, and I don’t want you to condemn yourself either. Don’t define yourself by this mistake this day, go and be guilty of this tragic failure no more! You don’t have to define yourself the way these people have defined you here today. You are not what they call a ‘sinner.’ You are a daughter of Abraham too!” (cf. Luke 19.9) Jesus looked at this woman and gave her a fresh start; “Go and be guilty of this sin . . . no more.”
Far from looking at this story through the lens of behaviorism or anti-judgmentalism, this is a story that contrasts the way of sacrifice with the way of mercy, the way of scapegoating with the way of redemption. We see Jesus coming along side this woman about to be scapegoated/stoned by His own religious community and Jesus turns the tables on us all and calls all of us to two new realities:
1) If you have been religiously scapegoated, you no longer have to define yourself according to the moral inferiority of how the majority has made you feel.
2) If you have taken part in religiously scapegoating others, it’s time to humbly submit to Jesus’ radically different way of looking at those we are presently rallying together against, calling them “sinners,” using Torah, once again, as our justification.
This was what converted the early apostles, especially the apostle Paul. And it’s what converts each of us. It is at least one of the central points of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection if not the center itself. Jesus has revealed God as being with those whom we are politically, economically, or religiously scapegoating, and we must come to terms with the reality that we are with God, when we with them.
The Jesus story calls us to recognize where we are participating in the way of sacrifice rather than mercy, the way of scapegoating minorities, for the certitude of the greater populous. It calls us away from arranging our lives where a “common enemy” is always needed. And it beckons us to, from this point forward, stand in solidarity with those we once scapegoated. Jesus calls us to abandon whatever sacrificial system we’ve stood in solidarity with up to this point, and to now stand in solidarity with those who are being victimized by those systems instead. We are to be like Jesus, coming along side of those about to be stoned, saying, “If you’re going stone them, then you’re going to have to stone me, too. But know this, whoever among you who is truly innocent in all of this, let them cast the first stone.” As followers of Jesus, we follow Him into the hope of a new world where the continual tides of sacrifice can be turned, and waves of mercy, rather than sacrifice, can wash over our human societies as the waters cover the sea.
HeartGroup Application
Actually, more than an application, it’s time for some confession. I’ve been asking you to sit with Jesus over the past few weeks, asking Him to show you a people group that is on His heart. The reason I’ve asked you to do this is because this is what He has, inescapably, done to me.
For me, this is really where the rubber meets the road. If the story of the Resurrection teaches us anything, it teaches us that the way of sacrificial systems that justify scapegoating innocent victims has come to an end. The Resurrections puts on display that the Presence of God is no longer to be sought within the most exclusive, most holy places belonging to those systems. The true dwelling place of God is now to be found in the ones shamefully suspended on crosses at the demand of those religious sacrificial systems. The Resurrection is the start of a whole new world where we don’t need to fear the consequences our nonviolent engagement with those systems either. We stand in the Victory of the Christ over all injustice, a victory that has already been won. So here goes.
My Confession
I’ve taken a lot of heat over what I’m about to write here over the past few months. I’ve even had a few of my meetings cancel over this. I’ve had those who have been my friends for years now shun me as I begin to take my place alongside those I believe are being scapegoated today. Rather than perusing dialogue and discussion, I have simply been written off. Yet there is a beauty in the pain of rejection when you are now standing along side those you yourself used to reject. Being on the receiving end myself of religious scapegoating now, it’s my prayer that Jesus uses it deep inside me to change me first and foremost.
Here are the responses I’ve gotten so far:
“But I cannot endorse their choice of lifestyle.”
Justin Lee’s continued passion to define the terms we are using is much needed in our discussions. Justin asks the question, “Would you agree with me that sex outside of marriage is wrong?” His audience responds, “Yes.” Justin continues, “Then would you also agree that heterosexuality before marriage is also wrong?” The audience scratches their heads. Heterosexuality is not about whom one has sex with. It’s about whom one feels attracted to. And we don’t choose whom we are attracted to, we just are. Attraction is not something one chooses, it’s what someone experiences whether they want those attractions or not. In the same way, homosexuality cannot be reduced to a sexual act. Homosexuality is defined as feelings of attraction, whether those feelings are wanted or not, to the same gender. I don’t know one of my gay or lesbian friends who chose to feel attracted to their same gender. For them, this is not a lifestyle that they chose. It is something they experience inside of them for which they cannot find an explanation. It would be most helpful if we stopped referring to homosexuality as a “choice of lifestyle.” Just as with heterosexuality, there are expressions of sexuality (both hetero and homo) that are very unhealthy. But it is unjust to group all homosexuals under one sweeping characterization. (Or heterosexuals for that matter.) The struggle for my Christian LGBTQ friends is to find the difference between what is a healthy expression of these same gender attractions that they are feeling and what is an unhealthy expression. And there is just as much debate on this subject among them as there is among my straight friends. Yet my friends in the LGBTQ community are left to struggle with this alone, being shut out from the support of their Christian communities, for even having these un-chosen attractions to begin with.
I have to humbly confess that I think we are completely missing the point of the Jesus story. We claim that this story is the center of all we are about. Yet this story is about a Jesus who met scapegoating in His religious community head on, and it cost Him his life for it. This is the story of a Jesus who encountered those who were being labeled as “sinner” according to the Torah, marginalized, and in John 8 even lynched, by the religious community of His day. This is the story of how Jesus loved these people, how He stood in solidarity with them, and having called them His own, He stood in solidarity with them all the way to the end.
As Girard said, those who scapegoat others “think they are doing good, the right thing; they believe they are working for justice and truth; they believe they are saving their community.” Jesus prayed, “They don’t know what they are really doing.” Scapegoating in the Jesus story appears in the form of giving greater value to a definition of Torah observance (even if they had to sacrifice a few among their community for that observance) over and above the value of those who were being sacrificed. (Scapegoating always picks an individual or a group that is a minority whose absence would least diminish the overall whole. Their absence really won’t cost us a thing. Scapegoating then finds a justifiable reason to unite together in sacrificing them.)
Scapegoating in the Jesus story possessed an air of “holiness,” but it was a kind of holiness that caused those who were being sacrificed to steer clear, and to keep their distance. Jesus, on the other hand, stood in solidarity with those being sacrificed. He valued people and the way of mercy, over and above the way of sacrifice, EVEN WHEN IT WAS ENDORSED BY THE TORAH. Jesus possessed a kind of holiness that actually attracted those whom the religious culture of His day, with the Torah in their hands, were scapegoating.
“But the Bible clearly condemns Homosexuality.”
Again, homosexuality refers to whom you find yourself attracted to, not whom you are having sex with. Whether or not the Bible addresses same gender attraction at all, or what exactly was the moral logic that undergirded the Biblical statements concerning same-gender sexual acts are topics that are hotly debated among scholars today. (See The Bible, Gender and Sexuality by James V. Brownson) And although I believe we need more discussions about these topics given the onslaught of such massive misinformation that is being promoted, to stop here also misses the point of the Jesus story. Even IF one does deem the act of same-gender sex as condemned by the Bible, a grave reality is staring back at us in the face. Why are our reactions to those within LGBTQ community so governed by our amygdala (fight or flight) and not Jesus? Why are my friends in the LGBTQ community, not being strangely attracted to us as they were to Jesus? We may claim to be following Jesus, but then why are our results almost identical to the results of those who were doing the scapegoating in the Jesus story? Why are our results so similar to those who actually crucified Jesus too? Why do we find ourselves getting caught up senselessly with the crowd, crying, “Crucify them, and anyone who stands with them!” We must let this contradiction confront us. Deeming same-gender sex as contrary to the Bible may make us feel more secure as Biblicists, but it gets us nowhere as followers of Jesus. We still have to confront the life of Jesus and how he taught us to relate to those whom any religious community in our day deems as living contrary to their sacred texts. We must be suspicious of any activity that blanket labels a minority as “sinners,” and then unites to rally against them. Scapegoaters never realize they are actually scapegoating until it’s too late. (Acts 2.37)
We have to let the Jesus story confront us.
“Jesus said, ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin.’”
Actually, Jesus never said that. What He actually said was that we are to get the log out of own eye before we can even hope to help others as they are trying to see through the dust that is in theirs. Until someone feels that we truly are their brother, sister, friend, until we’ve stopped and actually listened to their stories, it’s not that we don’t have the right to speak into their lives (which we don’t); it’s that we don’t even have the ability. Without first entering into relationship with those from the LGBTQ community, without entering into their struggles, their stories, until we stop talking about them and start listening to them and along side with them, even when we mean no harm and our intentions are pure, we will continue to do damage that we don’t even realize we are doing.
Here in West Virginia, we used to use canaries in the coalmines to warn the coal miners when the air had become toxic. When the canary died, it was time to run to the surface for purer air. Walter Brueggemann, the world’s foremost Old Testament scholar, has gone on record saying that those from the LGBTQ community are the canaries in our religious coalmines today. The way we as Christians have historically treated even Christian young people who begin experiencing same gender attraction has created an eight times higher rate of suicide among them than any other category of Christian or LGBTQ youth. This screams to us that in all our piety and holiness we have to be open to the possibility that we might have imbibed more of the spirit of scapegoating than we have the spirit of Christ. Seeing this only as a matter of whether this is sin or not sin grossly misses the point entirely. If sin is supposed to produce death, and how we are relating to those involved IS producing higher rates of death, we have to ask, where is the greater death-producing sin in actuality? Where is the greater sin? Is it in an orientation we are so deathly afraid of, or the way we are relating to those who posses this orientation regardless of how they got it? First, we must get the log of scapegoating out of our own eye, and only then will we be able to see clearly to be a source of life, a source of hope, mercy and redemption rather than death and greater damage as we try and “fix” them. (The percentage of people who have been irreparably damaged by reorientation therapy is significantly greater than any percentage of those who, by their own admission, say they now live lives that, on the outside, match the lives of straight people, even though they still experience same gender attraction.)
For the sake of every young person who is struggling with this right now as I write, for the sake of every phone call I will receive at 3 a.m. to talk someone back down off the ledge, it is time for change. If we are following Jesus, WHY IS OUR STORY SO DIFFERENT THAN HIS? I wonder if this is why Jesus was crucified by the teachers of the Torah in His day. Was it because He chose to stand in solidarity with those who were being scapegoated around him, too?
Stanley Hauerwas, for me, summed up what may be the underlying basis of our scapegoating of the LGBTQ community today. Notice the part I’ve italicized: “As a society we have no general agreement about what constitutes marriage and/or what goods marriage ought to serve. We allegedly live in a monogamous culture, but we are at best in fact serially polygamous. We are confused about sex, why and with whom we have it, and about our reasons for having children. This moral confusion leads to a need for the illusion of certainty. If nothing is wrong with homosexuality then it seems everything is up for grabs. Of course, everything is already up for grabs, but the condemnation of gays hides that fact from our lives. So the moral ‘no’ to gays becomes the necessary symbolic commitment to show that we really do believe in something.”
If this isn’t scapegoating (gaining security, certitude and unity about our own moral “okayness” by the way we justify treating a minority), then I have to confess I am at a loss to know what scapegoating even is.
I know we feel as if we are simply standing up for what is right. Remember, those unknowingly caught up in the wave of scapegoating always do (cf. Mark 15.15). But it’s really not much different from a modern day lynching. (Even if we do it socially instead of physically.) Jesus stood in solidarity with and defended those who were being damaged by those who were “standing up for what is right.” And the servant is not greater than the master.
I know this will be misunderstood by many. I will be accused of throwing out the Bible, as well as other accusations. But I’m actually taking the Bible seriously. I’m leaning into the narratives of the scriptures not further away from them. I’m taking a hard look at what the central story of our scriptures (the Jesus story) is saying, and making the decision to stand in solidarity with my Christian LGBTQ brothers, sisters and friends. What identifies us, defines us, and binds me to them is our mutual love for Jesus, and our desire, together, to follow Him (not which gender we find ourselves being attracted to.) Granted, that discussion is always on the table given the culture wars that are always just circling above our heads. But I, like so many others, are leaving the culture war behind to follow Jesus instead. I know I may lose support, for standing up for them, my brothers, sisters, and friends (especially the younger ones) in the LGBTQ community. And honestly, that part has caused me to lose more sleep than I’ve gotten over the past few months. I’m banking on the hope that somehow God will provide and that there will be more manna tomorrow for my family. But I cannot, in good conscience, remain silent any longer about the abuse I’ve watched my friends endure at the hands of those who carry the name “Christian.” Brian Zahnd wrote recently, “You can’t un-know what you now know and still be true to yourself.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also said, “Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.” Dr. King also said, “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” I can’t stay silent any more. God please help me, “the servant is not greater than the Master.”
If you would like to further contemplate how, as a Jesus follower, we can learn to relate to those within the LGBTQ community, without throwing away our Bibles, the following resources are my top recommendations to aid you in helping you find your way. I cannot recommend these resources highly enough.
Seventh Gay Adventist, a documentary about faith on the margins by Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer
Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate by Justin Lee
Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community by Andrew Marin
God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines
Bible, Gender, Sexuality by James V. Brownson
Jesus and the Gospel of the Early Church
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
What I’d first like you to focus your attention on this week is that Jesus, in the above statement, does not say that the meek are promised that they will go to heaven when they die, but rather that they will inherit the earth. This has a marked effect on one’s focus, once you get what Jesus is saying. We must come to terms with the fact that nowhere in the Jesus story do we see ever see Him going around with a sound-bite style, “gospel” presentation, endeavoring to get people to say a special prayer so they can go to heaven when they die. The Apostles, too, never hold out the fear of post-mortem Hell in the book of Acts as a motivation to follow Jesus. What we do find is that the mission of Jesus, as well as that of the Apostles, is not focused on one day becoming disembodied souls in some far distant heaven, but instead is focused on restoring God’s Kingdom here on earth.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” – Jesus, (Matthew 6:10)
As we covered last week, Jesus’ coming was the fulfillment of all the Hebrew prophets’ hopes of an age here on earth when all violence, oppression, and injustice would be put to right. Jesus put human beings to right (justification), so that they could then join Him in putting the world to right (justice). Jesus’ mission, far from being about changing human beings’ legal status so they could one day go to heaven, was about delivering “healing [to] all who were under the power of” Satan (Acts 10:38) so that this world, rather than being escaped, could be restored, renewed, and remade. Humanity could regain its original mission and purpose within the new creation for which they were originally intended according to the Hebrew creation narrative.
I want to be very careful not to be misunderstood here. I believe with all my heart that Jesus’ death and resurrection saved us from the terrors of the age to come, but too often we have overemphasized that aspect of Jesus’ saving work without sufficiently understanding or embracing how Jesus saves us in this present age as well. Notice the words of Paul in his letter to the believers in Galatia.
“The Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age.” Galatians 1:3-4 (emphasis added)
Yes, Jesus’ death and resurrection save us from the terrors of the age to come, but His unjust execution and triumphant resurrection, combined with an understanding faith of what the Resurrection story is whispering to us, has the efficacious power to save us not at some point in the future, but right here, right now, from the present evil of this present age.
Jesus came to effect change here . . . now.
Notice what He states about the Kingdom He had come to establish here on earth.
“Looking at His disciples, He said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, who are oppressed by the way this present world is arranged. This kingdom, from God, that I’ve come to establish is especially for you. If you are going hungering as a result of the way this present world is arranged, you are going to be blessed by this Kingdom, through it, you’re going to be satisfied. If you are one whom this present arrangement causes to weep, count yourself blessed, for the Kingdom that I have come to establish will cause your heart to break forth in laughter. And for you as well, who join Me in standing up against the way the world is presently arranged, when you are hated by those whom this present arrangement benefits, when those who are privileged by the present arrangement exclude you and insult you and reject you and even your name as evil, because of the Son of Man (see Daniel 7:13-14). Count yourself blessed! But for you who are rich as a result of the world’s present arrangement, for you have already received your comfort. The changes I’ve come to make are going to be harder for you to embrace. I genuinely feel sad for you who are well fed as a result of the present world’s political, economic, and religious structuring. This kingdom I’ve come to establish will be harder for you to embrace because it will mean that you will go hungry so others might be fed. Woe to you whom the present arrangement of the world fills your heart with laughter, for you will mourn and weep. I’m not turning things upside down, I’m putting them right side up again. And to you whom are invested in everyone always speaking well of you, you who define yourself as being well liked by others, my Kingdom is going to be a deeply challenging for you to embrace’” (paraphrasing of Jesus’ words in Luke 6:20-26).
Today, we are living on the other side of the death and resurrection of Jesus that founded this new world. Today, Jesus, though with us every step of the way through the Spirit, must also remain in heaven “until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets.” (Acts 3:21)
We should not just sit back and wait on him to return and do it all. Are we to be passive in regards to the injustice, oppression, and violence we see around us, focusing instead our attention on only “saving souls” for the age to come?
Tom Wright recently gave a presentation in Phoenix. As an illustration, he shared how the stonemasons used to work together to build the European cathedrals. Stonemasons, most of the times, were illiterate, so they were given instructions on the shape each stone was to take, including what parts were to be chiseled off and what angles each was to have. While each mason was focused on one stone, applying his artistic skills, the overall scheme could not be discerned, but when the Master Mason would arrive, he would gather all the individual stones that had been so artistically carved and arrange them together in such a way that they would form the structures of breathtaking beauty found in those cathedrals. If a particular mason was lucky enough, he could find his stone, the one he had worked tirelessly on, and stand back, seeing the part he had played in this beautifully magnificent structure, overwhelmed by the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
This is a fitting illustration of what being a follower of Jesus means in regards to the work of healing Jesus has called us to. To those who would say that we must wait for Jesus to return before beginning the work of putting this world to right, there must be those who say in the name of Jesus, “No, that is just not good enough.” God did not send His Son into this world so that this world would be condemned, but that through Him this world might be healed (see John 3:17). In the same manner that the Father sent Jesus, Jesus is sending us! (see John 20:21)
If we continue to focus primarily – or only – on how Jesus’ death and resurrection save us in the age to come, and if we fail to see how Jesus’ death and resurrection also save us from the evil present in this age, we will continue to miss the connection between the work we should be doing in restorative expressions of justice, mercy, and peace in our world today through humble servant love, feeling as if any talk about change in the here and now or any engagement with evils or evil systems that are presently at work are somehow unfocused.
Far from seeing all engagement with injustice, oppression, and violence in the present age as being futile, the Apostle Paul, right after his most thrilling defense of the age to come, the resurrection and the blessed hope that lay before each of us, sums up his entire defense (notice the word “therefore”) with these words:
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord [Jesus], because you know that your labor in the Lord [Jesus] is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58, emphasis added).
No matter how small or how disconnected it may feel to you, no matter how tempted you may be to categorize your present efforts to move this world toward justice, mercy, and peace as temporal, Paul would applaud you with the words, “No labor of love is in vain.”
Each carefully carved stone will be gathered up by the Master Mason when He returns and fitted by Him into the glorious New Creation of a New Heaven and a New Earth! The old order of things will be done away! Behold, He is not making all new things . . . He is making all things new! (Revelation 21:5)
In the words of N.T. (Tom) Wright, “We won’t solve all the problems, but if we just sit back and fold our hands waiting for the Master to come back and do it, we will be like the servant who buried His Master’s money in the earth.”
HeartGroup Application
In Hebrews Chapter 11, a statement is made concerning Abraham and his sojourn on this earth.
“By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country” (Hebrews 11:9). “This earth has been promised to us by Jesus” (Matthew 5:5). Although we are traversing the world as strangers in a foreign country, this world is your home; you’re not just passing through. The hope of the Resurrection includes not only that you will live again, but also the hope that this world will be made new, both heaven and earth renewed, restored, and refashioned. The old order of things will have passed away, and our labor toward that end today will be caught up together by Jesus as integral parts of His work.
You are not arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You are people of the Resurrected One. The Gospel message of the early church was about putting the world to right. It was promised so long ago, to the Jewish fathers, and it began with the Resurrection of Jesus.
“We tell you the Gospel: What God promised our ancestors [putting the world to right] he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.” (Acts 13:32-33)
As we have said so many times in the recent weeks, the story of the Resurrected One marks the beginning of a whole new world where God’s presence is no longer seen within systems that practice sacrifice rather than mercy, whether those systems are religious, political, or economic. The Resurrection puts on display that the Presence of God is instead to be found in the One shamefully suspended on a Roman cross, at the order of those powers behind those system, as a result of His attempts to bring the way of sacrifice to an end. The Resurrection is the start of a whole new world where we need no longer be coerced to participate in the way of sacrifice through the fear of death. Death has been defeated, and God has been shown to be on the side of those being sacrificed. We need not fear the consequences of engagement against those powers. We stand in the victory of the Resurrection, the victory of our Christ over all injustice, oppression, and violence, a victory that has already been won.
I know in our culture today we always seem to be craving something new, but for good reason, I want you to stay with what I asked of you last week.
I want you to find some quiet time to simply sit with Jesus and ask Him to share His own grief about the injustice, violence, and oppression He sees in this world. Ask Jesus to show you His heart for a particular group of people. Remember, He is not sharing it with you to make you feel guilty, paralyzed, or overwhelmed. It’s not all about you. Allow yourself to share in feeling Jesus’ grief, but also allow yourself to share in feeling Jesus’ hope for this group of people, too.
Pray this way:
“Jesus, would you please take me deep enough into Your heart to sense Your concern for justice, mercy, and peace? As I tune in to those themes, is there some grief in Your heart about an area, or group of people, or issue that you would like to share with me today? Let me see it how You see it. Let me feel how You feel.”
Next, I want you to follow Jesus into action.
Pray this way:
“Jesus, what is the darkness that is prevailing there? Why is it there? What needs to happen there? What would you ask me to do about it?”
During this time with Jesus, be sure to take notice of certain realities.
• What aspects of this group’s experience do you find troubling?
• What stirs your heart to compassion?
• What does Jesus want to show you about the way He is looking at them?
• Lastly, how would He have you advocate for them?
2. Journal who and what Jesus shows you.
3. Share what Jesus shows you with your upcoming HeartGroup this week.
The hope of the Old Testament prophets was not to be able to one day become disembodied souls who had met some condition so they could spend eternity in some far distant place, far away from here. They looked forward to an age here, when all injustice, oppression and violence would be put right. The age of putting those things right has begun. This was the gospel of the early church.
I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in justice. – Mal 3.1-3
We tell you the gospel: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. – Acts 13.32-33 (Emphasis added.)
The Master Mason will come! In the interim, we can join Him in His work of making all things new. No labor for Him during this time is in vain. Yes, the old order of things will be purged as by fire, yet all we do in participation with Him in the world today will be gathered up by Him, fashioned, and fitted together by Him, in His refreshed, restored, renewed, renovated New Creation.
‘Til the only world that remains is a world where Love reigns, keep following Jesus. Keep loving like Jesus. And keep enlarging the Kingdom with Jesus.
I love you guys,
See you next week.
Jesus, The Prophets, and Social Justice
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” (Matthew 5.13)
Salt-less salt. Stop and think about that for a minute. When salt was harvested from the ancient salt sea, the rocks of salt would be gathered with various and sundry other white colored rocks. They would then be placed in a cloth and used during cooking. Over time, the salt would dissolve through the cloth and only the non-water-soluble rocks would remain. Eventually the salt sack would lose its saltiness and be good for nothing more than common road gravel.
For those who claim to be followers of Jesus, what does it mean to lose their salt?
In referring to the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Ron Dart, professor of Political Science at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia, says: “This text represents the distillation of the entire Jewish prophetic vision and supplies the ethical core and center for all Christianity. We must not ignore, domesticate, sanitize, or censure this Magna Carta of our faith.”
Dart is absolutely right to connect Jesus’ words in Matthew 5-7 with the ancient Jewish prophets. Jesus came to usher in the age that all the prophets looked forward to. Remember, as we shared last week, the hope of the Hebrew people was not of gaining some Hellenistic postmortem heaven or escaping “Hell.” The Hebrew people looked forward with hope to a time when the Messiah would come and put an end to all injustice, oppression, and violence. The prophets pointed to a time when politics would no longer be dependent upon violence (The lion would lay down with the lamb), economics would no longer be driven by greed (Justice would roll down like a river), and religion would no longer be rooted in fear (You will call me your Husband and no longer your Master).
Notice the following words from the early Church:
Acts 13.32, 33: “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus”.
Romans 15.8: “For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs…”
2 Corinthians 1.20: “For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God.”
Abraham Heschel wrote: “What is history? Wars, victories, and wars. So many dead. So many tears. So little regret. So many fears… The world is drenched in blood, and the guilt is endless. Should not all hope be abandoned? What saved the prophets from despair was their messianic vision and the idea of man’s capacity for repentance… History is not a blind alley, and guilt is not an abyss. There is always a way that leads out of guilt . . . The prophet is a person who, living in dismay, has the power to transcend his dismay. Over all the darkness of experience hovers the vision of a different day.”
Last January, as my mother was passing away in a hospital in Virginia, I was stuck in British Columbia trying desperately to get home. God, knowing my emotional state, arranged for my path to cross with Brad Jersak’s. Brad is an Eastern Orthodox friend of mine whom I met when God sent him to sit and pray with me at a coffee shop in Abbottsford while I was losing my mom. Needless to say, Brad will personally and forever hold a special place in my heart over and above the theological contributions I feel he most definitely has to offer with his insights about the Kingdom. In his book, Can You Hear Me? Tuning In to the God Who Speaks, Brad makes a thrilling comment about the prophets, when he writes: “The prophets have dirty hands (and mouths too sometimes), because you’ll find them wading without apology through the mess of life. Their target audience begins with the church and its religious leaders but extends to nations and heads of state and to corporations with their economic power brokers. They have unabashed social agendas and are not afraid of being perceived as political. Their concern is for the oppressed, the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the enslaved. The mature prophets call for both personal righteousness and social justice. They retreat inward in contemplation then explode onto the public scene as spokespersons for God’s heart and as advocates for the downtrodden.”
What I love about that statement is that Brad (and I don’t know whether he does it intentionally or by inspired accident) taps into the three sacrificial systems we have been looking at over the past view weeks: 1) political systems dependent upon violence, 2) economics driven by greed, and 3) religion driven by fear. Go back and reread the quote from Brad presented in the previous paragraph. The prophets (in harmony with Jesus) confronted the Caiaphases (religious leaders), the Pilates (nations and heads of state) and Herods (corporations and their economic power brokers) of their day, announcing that a new age was coming. A new age that has arrived in Jesus.
Isaiah 1.12-17: “When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you</I>, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your evil assemblies</I>. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice [restorative], <I>encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow</I>” (emphasis added).
Micah 6.8: “He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Amos 5.23-24: “Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never–failing stream!”
Those who follow Jesus as the culmination of this prophetic tradition must, like the prophets of old, find their own hearts beating for justice for the oppressed, and mercy, rather than sacrifice, expressing itself daily through humble servant love. As the prophets pointed to an age here on Earth that would commence with the coming of the Messiah, we point backwards, if you will, saying Jesus is that Messiah, and the New Age promised by the prophets has already begun! If the prophets tell us anything, they tell us that you cannot authentically listen to God for long without also sensing that justice, mercy, and compassion are central to Him and His Kingdom.
This past week, a friend of mine on Facebook, a man named Andrew Rester, whom I feel I have traded places with (he actually used to be a student of mine when I taught school, but now I am learning from him), posted this insightful question on his wall:
“How different would Christianity and even the world be if Christ-followers started taking Matthew 5-7 as seriously as we try to make unbelievers take the first 3 chapters of Genesis?”
Brad Jersak goes on to say in the same chapter, “Don’t look for the mature prophets in the third heaven. (See 2 Corinthians 12.) You won’t find them there. You’ll find them here, ministering mercy to those overwhelmed by grief.”
And I would be quick to add to that Jersak’s words apply not only prophets, but to all followers of Jesus.
Bono, lead singer of U2, the Irish rock group from Dublin, said it best: “To me, faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with social justice, that is not aligned with the poor—it’s nothing.”
What group of people is Jesus placing on your heart this week?
Let’s be salt that hasn’t lost its saltiness.
HeartGroup Application
I want to ask you do to something special this week. I want you to find some quiet time to simply sit with Jesus and ask Him to share with you about His love for this world. Give Jesus permission to share with you His own grief about the misery and injustice He sees in this world. But when He does, remember, He is not sharing it with you to lay a guilt trip on you. It’s not all about you. Friendship with Jesus must go both ways. Don’t take what He shares in such a way that it will paralyze you with guilt. I want you to feel Jesus’ grief, experience Jesus’ comfort, share Jesus’ hope, and follow Jesus into action.
1) Pray this way:
“Jesus, would you please take me deep enough into your heart to sense your concern for justice, mercy, and peace? As I tune in to those themes, is there some grief in your heart about an area or group of people or issue that you would like to share with me today? Let me see it how you see it. Let me feel how you feel. What is the darkness that is prevailing there? Why is it there? What needs to happen there? And what would you ask me to do?”
Get somewhere quiet and spend some time asking God to show you His heart for a particular group of people, and then ask yourself:
• What aspects of their experience do you find troubling?
• What stirs your heart to compassion?
• What does Jesus want to show you about h\His perspective?
• How would He have you advocate for them?
2. Journal about who and what Jesus shows you.
3. Share what Jesus shows you with your upcoming HeartGroup this week.
The Hebrews, the people that Jesus originally came from, have a phrase: Tikkun Olam. It means “the repairing (or healing) of the world.” Jesus also said that God had not sent Him to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be healed. Jesus came showing us the way, in perfect harmony with the Hebrew prophets. Jesus came showing us the way of Hesed (Mercy), Tsadaq (Restorative Justice), and Shalom (Peace). In other words:
Hesed + Tsadaq + Shalom = Tikkun Olam
This week, pray that Jesus will enable you to take His Mercy teachings, His Justice teachings, and His Peace teachings more seriously. Let our union with Jesus truly be just that. May we join Him in His work, rather than simply inviting Him into our own agendas. We spend so much time asking Him to bless what we are up to; what would happen if we stopped to notice what He is up to in this world?
Unless you’re following of Jesus passes through the cleansing water of the Sermon on the Mount, at the very minimum it will be ineffective and, at the worst, it will be the fundamentalist terrorism of zealots.
This week, let’s follow Jesus further up and further in.
Wherever this finds you, keep living in love as Jesus defines it in Matthew 5-7 until the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.
I love you guys, and I’ll see you next week.
Saved by the Resurrection
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised (Matthew 16:21, emphasis added).
This week I want to share with you what I consider to be the passion of the early church. What came as a shock to me when I first began to realize it was that the Apostles, in the book of Acts, never spoke about Jesus’ crucifixion as a meritorious death that promised postmortem bliss. Rather, they proclaimed the resurrection of One who had been executed unjustly, a resurrection by which God had fulfilled the promises made through the ancient Hebrew prophets, a resurrection by which God established this Jesus as the Christ of both Israel and the world, a resurrection that marked the beginning of a whole new world where the long-awaited work of God in putting the oppression, violence, and injustice to right had begun. I want you to be clear on what I’m saying. I’m not saying Christ’s death was not meritorious promising postmortem bliss. What I’m saying is that if that is true, it is profoundly curious to notice the Apostles never preached this but rather something radically different.
Let’s go all the way back to before the events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection took place. Let’s go back and sit with those twelve followers of Jesus, listening alongside of them, as they listen to one Whom they hope will be Messiah. One day, as they are sitting with Jesus, he shares these words with them, saying, “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” (Luke 9:22).
At this stage it is vital that we keep in mind that the hope of the Hebrew people, which included these twelve disciples, was not of one day going to some far distant “Heaven” when they died, nor was their hope of escaping some postmortem “Hell.” The hope of the Hebrew people was of an age, here in this world, when Messiah would come and put all oppression, violence, and injustice to right. THIS was the long-awaited promise of the prophets. Here Jesus shares, much to the shock of the twelve, that THIS hope, which they were longing for, Jesus planned to accomplish through being unjustly killed and then, three days later, resurrected. At this point, it is true that the Apostles did not have a sweet clue what Jesus was talking about, but what we must not miss is the fact that this, right here, would become the message the early church would proclaim to the world. Read through each of the following excerpts of the early message of these Apostles paying close attention to the emphasis each places on the resurrection and what that resurrection accomplished.
Acts 3:13−15—”The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this” (emphasis added).
Acts 2:22−36—”Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know—this man, given to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power . . . God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact . . . Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Acts 5:30−31—”The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior . . .”
There are two key, saving elements of the Jesus story told by the Apostles. In order for the story to have its saving effect, both elements must be present. First was the identification of Jesus as the One we had politically, economically, and religiously victimized. The second is the identification of Jesus as the One God had declared, through the resurrection, was actually innocent! Let me explain. Don’t rush over this. Contemplate it for a moment.
The dynamic that Jesus had been unjustly executed by us through the alliance of our political systems (Pilate), our economic systems (Herod), and our religion (Caiaphas), coupled with the dynamic that God, through the resurrection, had responded to Jesus’ unjust execution at the hands of these allied systems, declaring Jesus innocent simultaneously unmasks our present way of doing life on planet earth for what it truly is. The very first thing that the combination of these two dynamics enables us to do is to experience a very powerful paradigm shift where we identify Jesus as, therefore, allied with, and standing in solidarity with, all of our victims (both contemporary and historical) through whom we maintain our present state by persecuting. It doesn’t matter whether we are victimizing them through our politics, economics, and/or our religion. We begin to see that God is with them, rather than us (see Acts 2.37), and that we are with God when we are standing alongside of them. This identification, when properly understood, “converts” us, as followers of this Jesus, to now stand in solidarity with those we once persecuted over and against those systems to which we used to belong.
This was what the early church proclaimed. And today, to have a saving effect, our theories concerning Jesus’ death must also combine these two vital elements. The gospel we tell must first locate us among the crowd condemning Jesus. We are the people who don’t see what we are doing, believing our actions to be politically “justifiable,” economically “expedient,” or religiously “required.” WE are the people who always turn to violent means driven by fear to remove the tensions in our culture, whether political, economic, or religious. It was WE who crucified the Lord of Glory. AND it was GOD who, through the resurrection, decisively declared and demonstrated that our scapegoat, suspended shamefully in a Roman-style execution . . . is innocent!
In order to have its saving effect, our gospel must include, not just Jesus’ unjust execution, but give great emphasis to the deep significance of His resurrection!
Jesus, in harmony with all the Hebrew prophets, had come to bring an end to politics dependent on violence, economics driven by greed, and religion rooted in fear. Far from the death of Jesus being that which satisfied justice, the killing of Jesus was the greatest act of injustice in human history. Our gospel is the story of when God Himself, in the person of His Son, became the innocent victim of our politics, our economics, and our religion, unmasking them for what they are and triumphing over them as well.
The Apostles announced that the resurrection was the start of a whole new world. This is a world that begins by seeing our oppressive political, economic, and religious systems for what they truly are. This is a world where, as followers of this Jesus, we stand, no longer in solidarity with those systems, but with the victims of those systems, taking our queue from Jesus, all the while realizing we used to be the persecutors of such victims ourselves. (This was Paul’s story exactly.) This is a world where not only has this Jesus accomplished this radical change in us from oppressor to standing alongside those whom are being oppressed, but a world where, also by the resurrection, we, and the ones we are now standing alongside, have been set free from all fear of those political, economic, and religious systems. The Jesus we are following, through the resurrection, has defeated those systems, stripping away from them their power over us through their threat of death and our reciprocal fear of death. Jesus has blown a hole out through the other side of death, so that as Justin Martyr once said, “You can kill us but you cannot hurt us.” This is a brand new world where this same Jesus whom we unjustly killed, has been, through the resurrection, exalted by God to be our new Prince, our Savior, and our Lord. This Jesus truly is the long-awaited Messiah through whom the prophets had promised God would put the world right side up once again.
Acts 13:32−33—”We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.”
Acts 17:31—”For he has set a day when he will [put the world to right] with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
The resurrection of this long-awaited Messiah marks the beginning of a world where our politics (which were dependent on violence) have been replaced with a Love that serves rather than threatens; a world where our economics (which were driven by greed) have been replaced with a Love that shares rather than hordes; a world where our religion (which was rooted in fear) has been replaced with a Love, the beauty of which inspires rather than intimidates. Jesus, as earth’s new King, has forever established on this earth a human community characterized by humble, servant Love, that nonviolently shares its few loaves and fishes with those who are without, endeavoring not to intimidate the world into change, but putting on display the beauty of what a world changed by this Christ looks like, inspiring everyone, both oppressor and oppressed, to come along with us to a whole new world. And this community will never pass away, till the only world that remains is a world where this Love reigns.
When properly understood, the story of the Divinely Resurrected One who was unjustly executed by us causes one to rethink everything. Truly, THIS Truth, when it’s seen, sets you free.
There is a stark difference between preaching a meritorious death, which assures us of postmortem bliss, and teaching about a unjust death and Divinely accomplished resurrection from which light is streaming, pointing the way to a renewed and healed world. Much to ponder, for sure.
HeartGroup Application
This week I’m offering you only one passage, but it is powerful!
“In the same way, as the Father gives life to the dead, even so the Son gives life to those to whom he is pleased to give it.” (John 5:21, BBE)
In the act of the Father giving life to Jesus, who was dead, He has empowered this same Jesus to give life to where there was once death, justice where there was once oppression, and healing mercy where there was once unjust sacrifice. For the Father, according to Jesus, does not require sacrifice, but desires mercy.
1. Spend some time sitting with Jesus in contemplative meditation on this passage in John.
2. Journal what insights Jesus shares with you during your time with Him.
3. Share what Jesus shows you with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
Keep living in love, loving like our Christ, till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.
I love you guys.
See you next week.
Post Easter Reflections
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and THE TRUTH, and the life.—Jesus (John 14.6)
With almost the entire Christian world celebrating the Resurrection this past weekend (this was a year when Easter coincided for both the Latin Catholic West and the Greek Orthodox East), I’d like to simply ask a question that I believe is the most relevant question for any follower of Jesus to ask regarding the Resurrection. That question is, “What is the Truth that the Resurrection actually proclaims?” (As a warning, be wary of domesticated, conventional answers that focus only on postmortem differences while leaving the world around us unchanged.)
The Truth that the Resurrection announces, in all actuality, is not any different from the Truth that Jesus was announcing throughout his entire life and teachings. The Resurrection is simply the Divine endorsement of that Truth over the “non-truth” embodied by the Powers that Be in their treatment of Jesus when they were threatened by the Truth Jesus proclaimed. Let me unpack and explain this idea.
The “non-truth” that many systems of this world embody is threefold: 1) for proper politics to be executed, violence is required. It is the lesser of two evils that must be embraced and to think otherwise is at minimum, naïve, and at most, treason; 2) for healthy economics to exist, a disguised, culturally acceptable form of greed cannot be avoided, and this is the way to success; and 3) for religion to please the gods, sacrifices must be made. (I’ll explain more on this point in a moment, but for now, think of Jesus’ message: His Father desires mercy, not sacrifice; see Matthew 9.13; 12.7.) The Truth that Jesus embodied exposes (see John 3.20) our politics as amounting simply to being a veiled form of violence driven by the fear that others will take what we desire. The Truth that Jesus embodies exposes our economics as amounting to hoarding more than “our daily bread.” We are holding on to what does not belong to us out of fear that we will go without tomorrow, while those around us are being deprived today by our actions. Moreover, the Truth that Jesus embodied exposes our religions as amounting to nothing more than an elaborate system of sacrifices that create victims in attempts to please a God out of fear of punishment if sacrifices are not made. (This one is so deeply rooted in many of us that it is almost impossible for us even to see. This is also, according to the Jesus story, the significant religious motive that led to the crucifixion of Jesus. I’ll share more on this in a moment.)
The “non-truth” embodied by this world (its systems of politics, economics and religion), in short, is that violence is either justifiable or, at least, it is inevitable, and to think otherwise is naïve. Greed, if controlled and monitored, is actually the wisest way to govern our resources. And lastly, sacrifice, based on a healthy fear of the divine, is the way to keep the gods happy.
Jesus came saying He was the way, the Truth, and the life.
Jesus came calling us to a new human community, a nonviolent community that shares with those who do not have, and practices mercy for another rather than “sacrifice.” This community has a strange absence of violence, greed, and “sacrifice” as well as an absence of the fears that drive all three. However, there is a rub. There also exists presently, in this world, Powers that Be whose place of privilege and ease depends on the existence of violence, greed, and sacrifice all rooted in fear. They perceive the coming of Jesus’ Kingdom, His new humanity, as a threat. Jesus’ gospel is not good news to them; it is a threatens to take from them all that they hold dear. Some say, “If it isn’t good news, then it’s not the gospel.” And while I understand what they are trying to say—and I agree with their intentioned meaning—what Jesus was bringing was gospel, but Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod did not feel that Jesus’ announcement of a new world, free from those things upon which their place of privilege depended, was good news.
How did they respond? They, all three, with the help of the mob, united to kill him.
John 18.28—Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning.
Luke 23.12 —That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.
Matthew 27.20—Now the chief priests and the elders excited the mob to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed.
(Emphasis added.)
Remember, within the Jesus story, Pilate stands for political systems that depend on violence for their success. Herod stands for economic systems where greed is the promised way of success. In addition, Caiaphas tops them all and stands as the figure head of an elaborate and intricate religious system of sacrificing innocents, driven by what is labeled as a “healthy” fear of God.
Acts 2.22-33—You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know—this man, given to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power…This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God…
Acts 3.13-15—The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
Acts 4.10-11—Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’
Acts 5.30—The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things…
Acts 10.36-42—You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as He who reigns over the living and the dead.
Acts 13.23—Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised…My brothers, you descendants of Abraham’s family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath, they fulfilled those words by condemning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus…
The cross, my dear friends, is not where justice, divine or human, was satisfied. The cross is the quintessential travesty of justice in human history, where God becomes the Victim of our political, economic, and religious systems that sacrifice others for their success. The Resurrection reveals that God is not present alongside those systems. The Resurrection proclaims that God stands with the innocent victims of those systems and is revealed through them. In short, the Resurrection proclaims that Jesus, rather than those systems, is the embodiment of Truth.
The Resurrection endorses the Truth that, with Jesus, God’s Kingdom that was in Heaven has now come to earth. It has not entered and conquered this world by killing its enemies but rather by allowing itself to be killed by its enemies. This was done in an attempt to expose the dirty, rotten systems and “non-truths” they peddle and to call all to a new way of living life here on earth.
The Resurrection endorses and proclaims that a new Kingdom has arrived: 1) this Kingdom is not dependent on violence for its existence (it would rather have its own blood shed than to stain its hands with the blood of another); 2) it is a Kingdom that shares generously the bread it receives today with the poor, the widow, and the alien, without fearing what may come tomorrow; 3) this Kingdom marks the end of Sacrificing others, even in the name of standing up for and defending what is good or “the right thing,” all the while believing we are working for righteousness, Truth, and saving our community. It is a Kingdom whose coming marks the beginning of a way of mercy (rather than sacrifice) and kindness toward those previously deemed by religious communities as living outside of the “Torah” and labeled by them as “sinners.” The Truths of this Kingdom are embodied in Jesus. This Truth springs eternal, and the Resurrection marks the beginning of a new world based on this Truth!
The Resurrection unmasks the systems of the present age and announces that a new age has begun. Granted, we do not see all things in submission to this new age yet, as Paul would say. Nevertheless, the age has arrived and it is our privilege to enlarge that age, crowding out the old age like plants being subversively undone by the mustard seed’s growth in the garden, until the time when the Kingdom can be handed, unobstructed, back, once again, to “the Father” (I Corinthians 15.24).
The Resurrection endorses the Truth—that Jesus embodied—over and against the “non-truths” being embodied by the systems of this world. The Resurrection victoriously announces that the Truth is the Truth we find in Jesus. And what is that Truth?
Jesus is the Truth:
The way of life is enemy love and forgiveness, not violence.
(The Truth we encounter in Jesus is that violence is not only unnecessary, but actually finds no place in the life of someone endeavoring to follow Jesus. A community centered in Jesus is inescapably a nonviolent community; see Matthew 26.52)
Jesus is the Truth:
The way of life is sharing with those who do not have enough of what they need to last them until sunset, while we trust that there will be more of what we need tomorrow.
(Think of the Manna as well as the story of the loaves and fish. We follow Jesus who makes sure there will be baskets of loaves and fish left over if we seek first the Kingdom and share what little we have today, even if it is only a couple small loaves and fish. The Truth we encounter in Jesus is that greed cannot be baptized under the title of “good stewardship;” it must be abandoned (see Matthew 16.9).
And lastly,
Jesus is the Truth:
The way of life and to God is not in making sacred the sacrifices of those without which our religious communities would be least diminished, the condemnation of those from which unity around them as “enemy” can be most easily accomplished. It is not in excusing such sacrifices under the pretense that those sacrificed are not victims but “sinners,” not living according to our interpretation of the “Torah.” It is not found in motives rooted in the fear of divine repercussions if sacrifices are not performed. The Truth is that God does not, nor has He ever, desired sacrifice. He is not satisfied by sacrifice. What the God of Jesus desires is mercy.
(The Truth we find in Jesus is that every person is sacred, regardless of how they measure up to our own deified estimation of what is right or wrong. “The Father” is more concerned with how we relate to them than how we relate to Him. For, truly, they and He are the same; see James 1.27; Matthew 25.40.)
The ancient Hebrew hope was not of going to Heaven at death or escaping some Hellenistic, postmortem Hell. The ancient Hebrews looked forward to an age here on earth when injustice, oppression, and violence would all be set right by the Hebrew God. The Resurrection of Jesus proclaims that the age the Hebrews longingly looked forward to in hope—where all of injustice, oppression, and violence is set right—has begun!
HeartGroup Application
The HeartGroup application this week is very simple.
1) In the wake of the Resurrection, spend some time this week sitting with Jesus each day—with pen and paper in hand—and ask the living Jesus to show you where in your life you have yet to recognize your own victimization to violence, greed, and sacrifice rooted in fear rather than mercy. As a victim, you may stand in the place of the oppressor OR the oppressed. Ask Jesus to grant you forgiveness for others in whatever way you stand in the position of being oppressed. In addition, ask Jesus to open your eyes to recognize the way in which you stand in the position of the oppressor. Ask Jesus to give you the humility to seek their forgiveness as well as the courage to embark on a new way of life, a way that the Resurrection points to as the Truth, the way, and the life.
2) Journal your experience.
3) Share whatever Jesus does in you through this experience with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Now go run in the expanse of the light streaming from the empty tomb.
I love you, guys.
I’ll see you next week.
Three Methods Jesus Rejected For Restoring The Kingdom
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4.1-13)
Last week, we mentioned the three sacrificial systems of this world that united to murder God within the Jesus story. Those three we listed were political systems reliant on violence, represented by Pilate; religious systems based on fear, represented by Caiaphas; and economic systems driven by greed, represented by Herod. What we find in few discourses we do have on the early church is a strange lack of emphasis on or theology surrounding the crucifixion, and a much greater emphasis on the world-changing implications of the Resurrection as God’s overthrowing and victory over the injustice of the cross. Yes, the cross is the means whereby we also follow Jesus in restoring his Kingdom here on earth, but it’s all because there was a Resurrection. Without the resurrection, Jesus’ death simply becomes yet another nonviolent direct action in a long list of others within history.
Yet the story of Jesus’ rejection of these three sacrificial systems only climaxed in the uniting of the threatened Powers That Be (Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod) in the crucifixion. The story of Jesus’ rejection of these three systems is not simply where the Jesus story ends; Jesus’ rejection of these three is exactly where Jesus’ Kingdom revolution, according to the story, also begins.
This week, I want to share some brief comments on Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness and their relevance this season as many are focusing on the resurrection. Remember, Jesus had come to establish His Kingdom here on earth. There are three ways “kingdoms” are established in this world: an economy driven by greed, a religion based on fear, or a political system reliant on violence. A “super power” is a kingdom of this world that has successfully mastered and united all three. In the wilderness temptations, we see Jesus, in the very beginning of his Kingdom revolution, tempted to use but decisively rejecting all three.
Turning Stones Into Bread
As we have covered elsewhere (The Hallmark at https://renewedheartministries.com/AudioPresentationSeries.aspx?series=36), the economic systems at the top of the pyramid structures of our societies today are rooted in the narrative of believing there is a scarcity of those things that will fill our needs. This scarcity produces undercurrents of anxiety. The desire for security or assurance that our needs will be met drives us into a lifestyle centered on accumulation the things we need. Remember, greed is defined as hording out of fear for tomorrow, while those around us are not having even their basic needs being met today. For those who are most driven by this anxiety, without fail, ultimately a monopoly is created in which the greatest amount of control over that which supplies one’s (or a group’s) needs is made and protected at all costs. Though it comes in many forms, this is the essence of greed-driven economies. Yet this security always comes with victims upon whom we shoulder the cost of our ability to get a better night’s sleep.
What Jesus was tempted with first was a means by which nature could be coerced (“turning stones into bread”—think Monsanto, or the meat and dairy industry here in the United States) to create a monopoly that places Him at the top of this world’s pyramid. Henry Kissinger once said, “Those who control the food supply control the people.” Just ask Pharaoh in Egypt—or rather, ask one of his Hebrew slaves. Economically, the way to establish a kingdom of this world is to gain monopolistic control over that which supplies the needs of the many. Jesus rejects the use of such methods in establishing His Kingdom by quoting from Deuteronomy:
He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8.3)
Jesus saw what the temptation really was. He refused to use the narrative of scarcity and chose instead the narrative of the manna, where needs will be supplied not by accumulation and ultimately monopolies, but daily by God. There will be more manna tomorrow. Jesus rejected a narrative of scarcity, anxiety, accumulation, and monopoly for a narrative of trust, gratitude, sharing, and generosity toward even one’s enemies.
As Gandhi once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
Bowing Down To The Accuser
The second temptation Jesus was presented with was to bow down to the Accuser as a means of establishing His Kingdom. This is how all kingdoms of this world are established politically. Napoleon once said about Jesus, “I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.”
Kingdoms of this world are established politically by first bowing down to the Satan, the accuser (Hasatan). Nothing unifies a group so quickly and effectively as pointing to a common enemy, accusing them as being the ones we should fear and hate. Jesus could have secured the top position at the pyramid, according to the Tempter, using this means—it was guaranteed, actually. But Jesus came to establish a Kingdom not centered on hatred for a common enemy, but centered on love for one’s enemies. (This, for Napoleon, radically set Jesus apart from all others.) Again, this also creates a lot of security, but just as with economics driven by greed, it comes at the cost of victims. Somebody somewhere has to be the victim, the enemy, the scapegoat, that pays the price for our unity.
A Miracle That Would Immortalize The Temple
The last challenge in Luke’s retelling is the temptation to do something miraculous or sensational within the Temple. Here, Jesus is tempted to use the religious system of His own people, which, as we saw last week, was simply a religious version of systems that sacrifice innocents for the security or assurance of the masses. This too produces security and assurance, but at the cost of innocent victims. Jesus did not come to gain a place at the top of the pyramid by immortalizing such systems by miraculous spectacles. Jesus came to establish His Kingdom by bring such systems to an end. (See last week’s eSight.)
Lastly, it would be wise to notice that the Tempter used the Bible in each of his enticements. The Bible can be used—most eloquently, actually—to justify using violence for political gains. (Augustine used the story of Joshua.) The Bible can be used to justify greed disguised under the label of “wise stewardship.” How often have I myself witnessed the Bible being twisted to condemn any attempt at ending world hunger, which institutional Christianity today has the power to do if every institution that bore the name of Jesus would simply obey the command given go the rich young ruler! If institutional Christianity would simply liquidate all assets and give the proceeds to the hungry, Christianity could go down in history for actually ending world hunger for good, looking like Jesus, rather than the awful history it’s most known for among its non-adherents—the Crusades. Even Jesus’ statement to the disciples that the poor we would always have with us today is being used to justify something so opposite to Jesus’ entire life and teachings as ignoring the hungry. And yes, a lot does not need to be said to mention that the Bible can also be used to inspire fear as the foundation of a religious system that places that system in the role of savior from divine repercussions, itself providing the only means through which assurance can be attained—yet whichever pyramid structure is created this way, even if it uses the Bible economically, politically, or religiously, this is anti-Jesus, anti-Kingdom, anti-Christ.
Jesus had come to establish his Kingdom here on earth “as it is in heaven.” The kingdom economically is based neither on greed nor even fairness, but on need (see Matthew 20.12). Jesus’ economics are driven by need, not greed (see Matthew 5.45). Jesus’ politics are found in the Sermon on the Mount as well (see Matthew 5.3-11). They are not dependent on violence (Matthew 5.38-39), nor can they even be accomplished by violence. Jesus’ politics are established in having one’s own blood shed rather than shedding the blood of another. And lastly, Jesus came not to start a religion at which He sat at the top; Jesus came to start a revolution where the greatest is servant of all. Nowhere does Jesus asks us to assent to certain intellectual propositions or to outwardly conform to a list of rules that would assure us of postmortem realities; rather, He taught us to keep our focus on how we live today, here, now. Jesus didn’t give humanity a sure way to get to heaven, but a risky way to heal the world. Jesus gave us a way to bring heaven here, reuniting heaven with earth once again. Jesus did not teach the “meek will go to heaven,” but that the meek will inherit the earth—a renewed earth, where heaven and earth are once again one (see Matthew 5.5; Revelation 5.10; 21.3). Contrary to popular belief, Jesus doesn’t give us the most guaranteed way of appeasing the gods. Jesus offers us the path to a whole new world—a path rooted in new way of treating our fellow travelers on this journey rooted in seeing them, ourselves, and even God radically differently.
Jesus didn’t come to simply obtain the top position of the power pyramid structures of this world, but to turn them all on their head (see Luke 6.20, 24) and establish in their places something radically different. Jesus came to heal the world (John 3.17, Acts 17.6).
As I shared last week, if we would simply be open to learning how to recognize and then say “no” (as we see Jesus doing in the wilderness) to the systemic evils of greed, violence, and fear—all of which lift us up while pushing others downward—that alone would change everything.
HeartGroup Application
This week, for your time of contemplation with Jesus, I want you to use the story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness.
1. Sit with Jesus quietly with each passage. Ask Him to show it to you from different angles. Be patient. Listen. When you ask for a fish, He won’t give you a serpent. Take the time to also read each version of the event (Matthew 4; Luke 4; Mark 1). Hold in tension the victory of the Resurrection. Jesus chose to establish His Kingdom not through the means offered Him by the Tempter, but by the way of shameful cross and empty tomb.
2. Make sure you journal any insights Jesus shares with you during your time with Him.
3. Share whatever insight and life applications Jesus gives you this week with your HeartGroup.
Till the only world that remains is a world where love, once again, reigns, let’s follow the Master this week in saying “no” to the ways of violence, fear, and greed. Keep living in love. Keep enlarging the Kingdom. Remember, you walk in the light streaming from the empty tomb.
I love you guys! See you next week.
The End of Systems That Sacrifice Innocents
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be healed through him.—John 3.17 (emphasis added.)
The word placed in Jesus’ mouth by John here is “sozo.” It can be and is often translated not as “saved” but rather as “healed” (see Matthew 9.21-22; Mark 5.23, 28, 34; 6.56). What we have here is not just a text in which the meaning of a word can be argued over by scholars. What we have here is the emphasis of an entire story. The story we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the story of a Jesus who went about “doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” (Acts 10.38, emphasis added.)
This week, with the Easter season upon us, I want to share with you some thoughts regarding the Jesus story (the story of the Resurrected One) that truly are revolutionary. Also, I want to begin this week by giving a shout out to my new friend, Jarrod McKenna from Australia. Jarrod and I spent a little time dialoguing a couple weeks ago. Honestly, Jarrod challenged me on something I had said, and that challenge, along with some resources Jarrod recommended to me, got me thinking. So I went back to Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John to see what I had missed, and sure enough, it was all right there. I want to thank Jarrod for pushing me. This has opened up yet another incredibly beautiful dimension to the events of the Jesus story that was there all along, but being culturally conditioned to a more domesticated and conventional reading of the Jesus story, I had missed it. I think, if I’m honest, we are all on a journey: we’re in the process of allowing the Jesus story to truly challenge the housebroken, Constantinian version of Jesus that has been given to us, the church, and the world at large.
If you want to squeeze the most out of this week’s eSight, I would encourage you to go back and look at Jesus’ Temple Termination in each of the gospels. (I’ll be calling it Termination rather than Cleansing. I’m coming to believe that “Cleansing,” is a misnomer. What Jesus was doing there was not “cleansing” the Temple so that the system could continue in a purer state. Instead, Jesus was bringing the entire system and the way of life that it represented to an end.) You don’t have to go back and read each Gospel’s telling, but I think you will get so much more out of this week if you do. (That’s how it happened for me.) You can find it in Mark 11, Matthew 21, and Luke 19. You can leave out John’s version because it happens at the beginning of his gospel and focuses strictly on the “temple of his body” (as John’s gospel was written primarily to confront the beginnings of Gnosticism in the early church).
Also, because this story repeatedly has been brought to my attention in an attempt to object to (or ignore) the nonviolent, peaceful teachings of Jesus, I would like to say that Jesus’ actions in the Temple were not because of a violent fit of rage or an example of Jesus losing his temper. (That’s Rembrandt’s version not Mark’s.) Mark has Jesus actually arriving at the Temple the night before, looking around, and seeing that it was already too late in the evening for what He hoped his actions would produce. So he retired to the home of his friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, in Bethany for the night and came back the next day. (“Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.”—Mark 11.11) Jesus’ actions in the Temple were premeditated, intentional, and purposeful, following a good night of “sleeping on it.”
What you’ll notice, if you do go back and read each version, is that (and these are oversimplified for the sake of space) Matthew and Mark orchestrate the events of their retelling in the order of 1) Jesus’ Humble, Nonviolent Entry into Jerusalem (mimicking Caesar’s custom of entering a conquered province on a war steed. See Zechariah 9.10 cf. 9.9.), 2) The Cursing of the Fig Tree, and 3) The Termination of the Temple and Its Rituals. Luke’s retelling presents 1) Jesus’ Humble, Nonviolent Entry into Jerusalem, 2) (Luke omits the Fig Tree and replaces it instead with) Jesus’ Words Over Jerusalem, and 3) Jesus’ Termination of the Temple and Its Rituals. If you take both versions, you begin to see that there is a dual purpose to what Jesus was doing in the Temple.
Very briefly, the first purpose is that Jesus, in his overturning tables and making it impossible for the Temple services to continue that day, was standing in His prophetic lineage from Jeremiah. He was prophesying what would be done to them just forty years later at the hands of Rome (see Josephus, War of the Jews) if they continued to fail to recognize this nonviolent coming of God to them, rejecting Jesus as an enemy-embracing Messiah, and holding out for a more militaristic Messiah to lead them against the Romans like Judah Maccabees led the Hebrew people against the Seleucids. Jeremiah had warned of the shattering of Jerusalem by Babylon in a similar illustrative fashion with the shattering of the clay pot at the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom. (See Jeremiah 19.1-15). But this is not ALL Jesus was doing.
The second of the two purposes (and I’m indebted to Jarrod for opening my eyes to this) is also a part of the lineage of the prophet Jeremiah, and is the purpose emphasized by Matthew and Mark. One the passages Jesus quotes during the story is found in Jeremiah 7:
“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.” For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan,, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, THEN I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?” (Jeremiah 7.9-11, emphasis added.)
The Temple, in both Jeremiah’s and Jesus’ day, stood for systems of oppression where those who were innocent were sacrificed for the benefit of those in power. The Presence had long departed this system that demanded the sacrifice of innocents, although they still pretended it was there.
The cursing of the fig tree connected to the termination of the Temple by Jesus (in Matthew and Mark) is more than the end of Jerusalem as God’s elect, more than the end of animal sacrifice in religious worship. Matthew and Mark are whispering to us about the end of a way of life here on earth where aliens, orphans, widows, and innocent victims are sacrificed—which the Temple in Jesus’ day (as well as Jeremiah’s) not only promoted, but more than that, it stood at the very heart of Jerusalem’s religion and worship. (When we add the Divine to any system of oppression, the abuse becomes decisively compounded.) Jesus had come to bring an end to that way of life here on earth and to initiate the commencement of an entirely new and radically different way of life.
The rest of the story flows from cause to effect. Jesus’ Termination of the Temple leads ultimately to the arrest of Jesus by the Temple Police. Jesus was subjected to multiple trials from each of the Powers that were positioned to benefit by that way of life, which Jesus’ coming threatened to take away. The three sacrificial systems, which we will cover in a moment, united to crucify Jesus in the supreme act of deicidal injustice. God then overturned and conquered each of these sacrificial systems by Resurrecting Jesus, glorifying Him as the Christ.
The Resurrection (as pointed out by those such as N.T. Wright) marks the end of all Sacrificial Systems that demand the death of innocent victims for the benefit of the masses, of which the Temple in Jesus’ day was simply a type. It matters not whether the Sacrificial System is Political, represented by Pilate, dependent on violence against political enemies as well as dependent on (what those such as Hauerwas, Yoder, and others call) a “religion of war” in which the present generation is sacrificed, like lambs to the slaughter, to sustain the belief that citizens are worthy of the sacrifices of past wars. It matters not whether the Sacrificial System is Religious, represented by Caiaphas, based on and rooted in fear where (as pointed out by those like Wink, Gerard, and others) Divine repercussions against its adherents are threatened if those deemed as “sinners” are not shunned, marginalized, scapegoated, and ultimately sacrificed (think World Vision) in an effort to maintain the favor of God or the gods. Nor does it matter if the Sacrificial System is Economic, represented by Herod, driven by greed, which (according to Brueggemann, and others) sacrifices the poor (see Luke 6.20, 24) at the bottom of society’s pyramid structures to maintain the lifestyle of the few positioned at top. (think Fair Trade). The story of the Resurrected One shows that the Presence of God is not found within the most exclusive “holy places” belonging to those “dirty rotten systems” as Dorothy Day call them (see Matthew 27.51; Mark 15.38; Luke 23.45). The true dwelling place of the Presence, according to the Jesus story, is found in the One shamefully suspended on a cursed tree at the orders of those united threatened Powers-that-be, whether political, religious, or economic. The story of the Resurrected One proclaims the beginning of a whole new world in which we need not fear the consequences of our nonviolent engagement—rooted in love and enemy-forgiveness—against those Systems and Powers. We stand in the Victory of Christ over each of these Sacrificial Systems—a Victory that has already been won. We are people standing in the light streaming from the empty tomb, following the Resurrected One.
The stories of the termination of the Temple, execution by crucifixion, and victory through resurrection, when seen in context, are where the synergy of multiple new ways of seeing God, themselves, and others in this world converged to produce an overall worldview paradigm-shift among Jesus’ followers. This was too significant, too exposing for the political (dependent on violence), religious (rooted in and based on fear), and economical (driven by greed) systems of the first century to tolerate (see John 3.20).
They story of the Resurrected One offers the same for us today. The Resurrection invites each of us to align our own stories with the story of Jesus and to embrace our crosses to put on display the reign of Jesus where His Kingdom is established once again, on earth as it is in Heaven (see Matthew 6.10).
We are not (as I have been accused of) arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Jesus wasn’t arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, offering Jerusalem the chance to be the center of a whole new way of life even though the events of A.D.70 loomed in the distance if they did not cooperate. And when we follow Jesus in our world today, we are not doing that either. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be healed.
If we would simply be open to learning how to recognize and then say “no” to the systemic evils of violence, fear, and greed, that alone would change everything.
HeartGroup Application
Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more represent a long history of those who have extracted from the Jesus story ways in which the Sacrificial Systems of our own day can be and should be engaged. It is my personal belief that each of us, including those I’ve just mentioned, have played and continue to play a role, a part, in the process of enlarging Christ’s reign on earth. This is what each of us, as a follower of Jesus, is called to. Whether by driving out livestock and overturning money-changers’ tables in a Temple, tearing up a passport in South Africa, going on a salt march in India, or participating in sit-ins and freedom rides in the white, evangelical, “Christian” South, the Jesus story calls out to us today to align our stories with the victory of Jesus—to embrace, yes, a cross, but also a resurrection. The Jesus story is calling us to love and forgive even those who are benefiting by the current structure (whether political, religious, or economic) when they mock, threaten, insult, accuse, hate, and if need be, “crucify” us for engaging them, as we put on display the radical reign of Christ. It is a story that whispers to us that a new world is here, if only we have eyes to see it (John 3.3). This week I want you to spend some time with Jesus, sitting and contemplating these three passages:
Saying, “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. (Luke 9.22-24)
But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup . . . ”(Matthew 20.22-23)
The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. (Romans 16.20 cf. Genesis 3.15)
1. Write down what new ways of seeing things Jesus shares with you during your time meditating on these words, with Him, this week.
2. Share any new paradigm shifts Jesus gives you with your HeartGroup when you meet together this upcoming week.
These are the thoughts, the hope, and the calling that this year the contemplating of the Resurrection brings home to me.
New Creation has come.
Now let’s go enlarge the Kingdom.
I love you guys. I’ll see you next week.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! — 2 Corinthians 5.17
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