"Choosy Moms Choose Jesus"?

I saw a church reader board sign recently on my commute. This is not uncommon as I like the “Dad-humor” mixed with a spiritual perspective so often expressed in such places. However, this one had me choking rather than chuckling. It simply read, "Choosy Moms Choose Jesus." OK... kind of catchy but also kind of wrong. Marketing Jesus by appealing to pride, exclusivity, consumerism, insecurities, and peanut butter? Well, I think he's OK with the peanut butter (cue the Washington Carver story).

If I were to write a blog post engaging this idea, which I am not likely to do… I would say that this well-intended reader-board wisdom is deficient on so many levels. In fact, I could probably list three or four ways right off the top of my hot head.

First, we don't choose Jesus, he chooses us. The Bible is pretty clear about this, and he didn’t choose us because we were “all that,” but because he is the kind of God that is outward-focused in his love. We were not in a place to help ourselves or with a ton of options, in fact, we were poor, sick, and weak. Here are a couple of passages that speak to this.

• Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)

• For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

• (See Romans 11:5-6; 16:13; Col. 3:12;1 Thess. 1:4; 1 Peter 2:9-10; John 6:43-44).  

Second, even by bumper-sticker standards, this statement seems very impersonal and not very creative. Is Jesus merely a product to be bought, sold, selected, or rejected? Is such objectification a sign of spiritual maturity? No. He is a person to whom we must relate. He pours out his love on us—while we were yet sinners—and we must respond to that love one way or the other. However, our "choosiness" is not an advantage here. Honestly, there is much in the life of discipleship that is not easy and also much that is not held in high esteem by the court of public opinion. Having said all that, what does it say about "choosy Moms" by blatantly ripping off the Jif™ Peanut Butter marketing campaign? Perhaps choosy moms should choose more original tag lines, lest their children learn to plagiarize! Jesus is the creator of all so instead of copying the ideas of the dominant culture we would do well to be more creative and less given to accommodate the voice of another.

Third, the saying intends to play on the pride of a "choosy mom" and get her to choose Jesus to maintain her own sense of competence and bolster her self-image as a good mother. Ironically, it markets the programs of the church by appealing to a part of our person from which we must repent in order to fully experience the grace of God. It would seem to me, that the church’s reader board shoots its gospel mission in the foot with such a proclamation.

Fourth, the consumerism that is a great weakness of the contemporary church is in evidence here. People are often in a church for what they can get for their marriage, their family, and their own self-fulfillment instead of embracing and being embraced by God's family (the church) as they share life together over the long haul. That is a tragedy of a non-Trinitarian view of God being manifested in the church. We too often follow the "monad in our mind" that spins everything as revolving around us instead of realizing that we are only who we are in relationships with others. The church is a place for us to “...one another” because they need it and God is just that way.

“The concrete means by which the church becomes an echo of the life of the Godhead are all such as to direct the church away from self-glorification to the source of its life in the creative and recreative presence of God to the world.”[1]

Well, those are some of the seed thoughts I might try to communicate if I were to write a short blog about something as trivial as a reader board sign. I think I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich instead.

[1] Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (New York: T & T Clark, 1997), 81.

The Gates of... Shall not Prevail!

[This post is an assigned response to Dr. Paul Metzger’s article, Gated Communities and the Visible/Invisible Church. It may, or may not be, helpful to read his post first.]

Brickell Key from north.
Photo by Marc Averette

Dr. Metzger uses the metaphor of “gated communities” two ways. First he uses it for the divisions and “Keep out” signs we put up in our lives and especially in our churches. There was a church growth principle popular in the 1980s-90s call the Homogeneous Unit Principle. This taught that the fastest way to grow a church was with people of the same race, class, education, interests, etc. The problem with this principle is that it works because it makes use of our natural worldly responses and has led many to keep using it. It is comfortable. It is safe. It keeps those without the gate code out. Who knows what might happen if we let everybody in… it might lead to the zombie apocalypse! OK so that last part was hyperbole.

The real problem with this gated community approach is that it is not Jesus’ way. His approach in the incarnation—God coming to the world in the flesh—was what we would call “downwardly mobile”. He came to minister to, spend time with, and suffered a brutal death to save everyone who would come. How willing are our churches to follow his example?

The second way he uses gated community metaphor for the invisible church that doesn’t engage the world around it. This happens two ways. Some people think that they can be Christians without functioning in community as the church. And some churches think they can be Christian inside their safe little spiritual compound without being a part of the larger culture and community. This may seem safe considering the things that go on “out there” but it is also an act of disobedience to Jesus’ command to go, preach, and disciple the whole world.

Don't Back Up!

We are not called to back up, circle the wagons, and hold the fort just because we are no longer in charge of the cultural forces around us. Instead of going all Elijah (1 Kings 19:14,18) and thinking we are the last true Jesus-followers on earth. If we take time to look and listen we will see God at work in some pretty amazing ways. This is not a call to compromise for as Dr. Metzger repeatedly states, “When engaging our culture, we must always go through our convictions, never around them, and never stopping short at them.” It seems to me that by not engaging we are stopping short of being truly biblical, fully orthodox, and faithful followers of Jesus.

So what gates have we placed in the way of those who God is calling to himself? What prevents us from gathering in unity as the visible Church?  Metzger suggests that,

"Perhaps some churches exclude people of other ethnicities, economic brackets, those with “disabilities,” the elderly or young or singles, the vibrant or dying, or those with different worship styles,  personality types, hobbies, IQ’s, and political perspectives."

But Jesus came to make us one, where all our gifts serve the unity of the congregation and all the “giftedness’s” of the local expressions of the Church contribute to the one Church, the visible body of Christ on earth. And I hate to break it to the gate-keepers and the spiritual HOA people, but the Church can’t be contained within your walls. Come out and join it in the great mission of God. It is risky and sometimes messy, but it smells like heaven.

Not only do we need to come out and collaborate with the wider church to engage the world but we also need to open the gates to welcome others inside to share life with us. It is wonderful to hear that many churches today are working towards a more multi-ethnic ministry model that better represents the church as it will be when Christ returns.

And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.” (Rev. 5:9-10)

But there is a barrier that is still up in many areas and it is primarily socio-economic, as I wrote in my last post Poor Praise Indeed. Honestly, how welcome do the poor of our community feel to come not just to get help but to fully participate in our gatherings? I am disturbed afresh by Jesus' parable in Luke 16:19-31 of the rich man who let a poor sick man named Lazarus die un-served and un-welcomed at his gate. I don’t want to minimize the efforts we make to go to minister to the poor—both foreign and domestic—but do we let the poor minister to us… and worship with us in our churches? Or have we settled for something less in a gated community?

In next week’s post, entitled Moving Day, I will bring this section on unity to a conclusion before taking up the next topic—Diplomacy.

He Took The Fall (Mark 14:53-65)

And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” Yet even about this their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows. (Mark 14:53-65)

Where they likely kept score in the "King's Game"
as they beat Christ. It was carved into the pavement stones... 
which can be seen in the basement of the Sisters of Zion Convent.

Today on my devotional blog we were reading the last section of Mark 14 (v. 53-65) and in lieu of commentary I posted a magazine article I wrote for the newly evangelical Plain Truth magazine back in 2002 that was entitled, “He Took the Fall.”  I include it here as an appropriate way to begin the Lenten season.

He Took the Fall

“He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.” (Isaiah 42:2-3, NKJ)

"But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, 'Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' Jesus said, 'I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.' " (Mark 14:61-62 NKJ)

Though I have read it many times, the story of Jesus of Nazareth being arrested and dragged into a hostile court in the middle of the night still amazes me. He was mishandled, abused, and falsely accused, yet He made no answer, offered no protest, and mounted no defense. I wonder, could Jesus have been shielding someone by His silence? Was he taking the rap, the fall, the heat, out of love for someone else? I've watched enough lunch-time Perry Mason re-runs to know when the accused is trying to protect someone by not telling all they know. Jesus could have gotten Himself off the hook, but He didn't. I am forced to ask, “So why didn’t He?” I believe He kept quiet because He was deliberately taking the blame for someone He loved. But there was a problem with Jesus' plan—just one…His accusers couldn't find any grounds to convict Him, even with a multitude of lying witnesses.

DA Burger and Perry Mason approach the bench.

The judge wanted to condemn Him. The jury wanted to convict Him. The witnesses wanted to frame Him. But they couldn't find a reason. Amazing! There was no dirt in His past, no skeleton in His closet, nothing. They tried to twist His teachings by misquoting and misapplying them, but even then, they couldn't get their stories to agree. Imagine the conviction that must have come upon their souls as they tried to frame the only truly innocent man. Jesus kept silent, not speaking in His own defense, and Scripture was fulfilled.

He didn't sit there, before His accusers, in an angry, hostile, sullen silence. He was not pouting, sulking, or hating. He was silent because He knew that this was the moment for which He had come into the world. How wonderful His example is—He didn't trust in His rights, but in His Heavenly Father. As it is written, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain... Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” “Then a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’ " (John 12:23-28 NKJ)

Finally, it seems that Jesus had to help the prosecution—they were getting nowhere. The Lord Jesus Christ, in his love for the one he was protecting, answered one question—a simple name-rank-and-serial-number type of question. While he neither defended himself — He kept silent; nor spoke out in justified condemnation of His accusers and their arguments — He answered nothing.  He did, however, speak to make his identity clear — I AM. And for that, they killed Him.

It is no surprise that Jesus was protecting someone by His silence, but it was who He was protecting that was so unique. He was protecting the High Priest who envied, the Pharisees who scorned, the false witnesses who spitefully lied and twisted His life-work, and the guards who abused Him. For them, He remained silent. He did it for the thieves who deserved death. He did it for Barabbas, the violent revolutionary. He did it for Peter, who stood outside vehemently denying that he even knew "this man Jesus!" He did it for the soldiers who crowned him with thorns and nailed his hands and feet to the cross. It was for Saul, who would brutally persecute his followers. It was even for those who would manipulate His teachings and deceive many. It was out of an infinite love for men and women throughout the ages who were at war with God—lost people doing lost things—that Jesus remained silent. It was for me. It was for you.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, was no martyr, forced to die for the cause. He planned to save us, long before we were created, and when the hour came, took our place willingly as the supreme act of love. As Paul writes, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14 NKJ) His plan worked, and I will be forever grateful.

       Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, took the Fall!

© 1995 Greg K. Dueker

Who Do We Represent? (Ambassadorship Part 4)

Are we Tourists, Businessmen, or Ambassadors (Part 4)

The term “representing” has come to be used in a much more marketing-focused way in recent years. You hear the phrase “way to represent” used in reference to the things we wear, say, and do to show our support for an apparel company, Alma mater, music group, sports team, political perspective, or even a church program. So who are we representing today? 

By way of review, last week we discussed the “how” characteristics of the Ambassador model for cultural engagement for Christ as opposed to the tourist and businessman models.

·        Ambassadors are invited guests who have a posture of humility and graciousness. They are not in it for their own interests but represent the one who sent them.

·        Ambassadors don’t expect people of “other lands”—different sub-cultures and faith traditions both here and abroad—to learn our “Christian-ese” insider lingo. Instead, they learn how to contextualize Christian concepts to the other person’s ways of speaking.

·        Good ambassadors come to stay until removed by the one who sent them. They listen, are soft-spoken, and literate both linguistically and culturally. What does it mean to be literate in their culture? We must be willing to learn

·        Good ambassadors are compassionate, conciliatory, communicators of God’s grace…without compromise. They bring added value to all they engage.

Where in that post my focus was on how we are representing Christ, this week I would like to focus on the “who” it is that we represent. This question is huge. An ambassador should be an accurate and approachable representative of the community that has commissioned him/her to go. This is problematic if the ambassador is representing a country or group known for duplicity, injustice, and a desire for power. An ambassador is only as good as the one he represents.

Is the Christ that we are striving to represent the Jesus Christ of the Bible, some personally shaped lesser deity, or is he a construct of our Western socio-cultural environment? Everyone on the street has an opinion about who Jesus Christ is and what he is like. These opinions have been formed, shaped, and influenced by various sources, both good and bad. We who aspire to be ambassadors are no different. Our view of who it is we are representing will shape the how.

I am a strong believer that we are not at liberty to shape idols in our own image and call them “Jesus” any more than the ancient Israelites were at liberty to make a golden calf or two and call it Yahweh (Exodus 32; 1 Kings 12:25-33)…yet we do it all too often. The Jesus of the Bible created all cultures and works within them, but is not constricted by their constructs. If we want to know who we represent, we need to read the Bible through regularly, or rather, allow the Bible to read us regularly. What does God say about himself in the words of the Old Testament? What does God say about himself in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, in the four gospel accounts? What does it mean to live as ambassadors of Christ, as the New Testament letters encourage us?

To answer the first question, regarding what God says about himself in the Old Testament, I submit Exodus 34:5-7, where God came and proclaimed his name (i.e., stated his essential character) to Moses,

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

This same idea is repeated throughout the Bible (See also à Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; 4:2; Nahum 1:3). Most people today would probably not realize this truth about God in the OT. Might we have misjudged Jesus as well? I will leave the second and third questions for you to answer for yourselves.

If we are to get past our lesser views of Christ, we must acknowledge that we have them. Our understanding of who Jesus is can be colored by our own fallen desires and the biases of the culture we are part of. It is important that we subject all of our views of Jesus to the witness of the Scriptures themselves, looking to that “Original Communication Context” (OCC) for interpretive clues instead of assuming it was written within a Western/American cultural filter (because it wasn’t).

If we are ambassadors for Christ, what is it about him that we should be communicating? I would like to go further, but will stop here and ask three serious questions:

“In reading the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)…

1.    What two or three emotions do we see most often in Jesus?

2.    What three to five character qualities do we see used most often to describe Jesus?

3.    What are the four most common verbs that describe Jesus’ actions?

Having answered the three questions above, try one more… 

       So, as Ambassadors for Christ, are we representing the right Jesus?

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

The Big Picture (Part 3) — Learning From Joseph

We have been considering how God worked in the life of Joseph and that in his suffering and integrity Joseph was an amazing type (as a symbol and foreshadowing) of Christ. Though we are no longer types, we are called to be witnesses pointing people to Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

It has been said by many that we are always witnesses—one way or the other. Either our life attracts people to Jesus through the light of a transformed life, or it repels people because it claims something that it doesn’t deliver.
We need to ask whether our lives and churches are like a dark and oppressive forest to those who "know not the way?" It seems that so many of the people that I talk to that are antagonistic towards the church have been exposed to someone who was, in their view, an offensively negative witness. At the same time, those who are in the church may see those people who are angry and hurt as merely twisting things to justify their own sin. There is probably truth in both positions. What if we learned to look for the big picture in the lives of those we meet? What if we took the time to listen to the other person’s story and appreciate their suffering in a manifestation of the love of Christ? There would probably be fewer people angry and turned off at the church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison,

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others - and especially to our weaker brethren - is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.[1]

Last week’s post ended with me asking three fairly pointed questions,

• 
  
  Do we bear a family resemblance to Joseph and to Jesus? If we are going to be positive witnesses then it will be because people can see, hear, and feel Jesus in our lives.
• Where do we fit in the big picture plan of God? We know that he has called us to be a part of the plan though we may not know all the details. It may involve waiting, as well as suffering, and rejection at the hands of those we are trying to reach. It may not be a place of power and prominence, but rather a place in the margins, but why should we expect better than Jesus? He has given us an opportunity to share in the fellowship of his suffering so that we can also share in his comfort. 



Vines on a Kibutz in Israel


• He has a place for us. Will we embrace it? Jesus said that he who saves his own life will lose it and he who loses his life will save it. Yet we too often prefer to trust in our own efforts rather than trust in Christ. We self-medicate in a thousand different ways and yet can never heal ourselves from the sickness of sin. Only Jesus can do that.

What if things don’t work out the way we planned? It is all too easy to blame others for our failures. It is harder for us to accept our own responsibility to live fully for God despite hardship, suffering, and even death and leave the result to God. Trust is hard but it is the only way to embrace the big picture. Let us not become discouraged by setbacks and mistakes. God will see that his plan comes to completion. We just need to stay humble as we strive to live responsible, committed lives, yet depending daily on his grace. Again, let me quote Bonhoeffer,

“I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. For that purpose, he needs men who make the best use of everything. I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all time[s] of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone. A faith such as this should allay all our fears for the future. I believe that even our mistakes and shortcomings are turned to good account, and that it is no harder for God to deal with them than with our supposedly good deeds. I believe that God is no timeless fate, but that he waits for and answers sincere prayers and responsible actions.” [2]

We're not out of the woods yet... though Jesus knows the way!
Perhaps trusting God together is the big picture.

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (2011-05-10). Letters and Papers from Prison (Kindle Locations 224-227). Touchstone. Kindle Edition.

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (Kindle Locations 244-249).