a sermon entitled "Jesus" from 'the archives'

Jesus

             One thing I liked about going to seminary was that there were students there from all over the planet.  My roommate was Kenyan.  I learned how to say, “My truck is on fire” in Swahili.  Another one of my friends was a Nigerian named Polycarp.  I remember him for two reasons.  One day we were standing around, and the guys were all bragging about how they had proposed to their wives, and someone asked Polycarp how he had.  And he said, “I killed a hippopotamus with a spear.”  That was memorable.  The other thing was his account of how he had become a Christian.  He was from a tribal area that was not very friendly to Christians, and when he heard of Jesus, he showed interest, so his father beat him and locked him in a shed for three days without food or water. 

            There was also a man named Edward.  He got letters on a regular basis from his home country.  They said, “If you come home, the second your feet step off the plane, you will die.”  This was because he was a Christian, and planned to go home and preach about Jesus.  So, we would ask, “Edward, I guess you’re going to stay in the States, eh?”  He said, “No.  I’m going home.”

            I have met many people who were like this.  There is such a clarity to their faith.  There is something so magnetic about Jesus, so compelling, that they are willing to suffer anything, and risk anything to be his followers.  What is it that they see?           

                  I stumbled across a new television show the other night. I didn’t know it was controversial until I heard about it later on the news. It was called “The Book of Daniel,” and I think it lasted about six seconds on network TV. It was about a priest and his encounters with all sorts of people in his parish. I think part of the controversy was over the themes that were covered, the various struggles people were having. But that’s life. It may surprise some people that a priest would struggle with an addiction. No shock to me.

                 My issue with the show was more about the portrayal of Jesus. He was a part of the cast. Every few minutes, there’s Jesus. He was portrayed like George Carlin’s “Buddy Jesus,” a sort of nice, harmless hippie who gives a little advice here and there, but who’s never invasive. I understand this image of him. I see why people would like it. I just don’t think it’s true.

                  So this was my question: If I were to try and write that show, how would I cast Jesus? How would you? What’s he like? How does he enter life?

                  “Oh Rhythm of Life, why can’t I find you? I feel like I’m living two beats behind you.” These are the words of a homeless man, Michael. He’s a self-proclaimed street poet. As he considers his life of poverty and hopelessness, he not only feels out of step with life’s rhythm, but with the one who gives life its beat — God himself. You don’t have to be homeless to understand Michael’s frustration. Many people, both inside and outside the church, have a nagging sense that we are out-of-sync.

In the following passages from the Bible, there several encounters that Jesus has with two different types of people. They tell us about what we’re like, but also give a glimpse at what Jesus is like. Luke classifies the people as the “righteous” and the “sinners.” (5:32) The odd thing is that the righteous (those who think they are in step with God) are the ones missing the beat, while the sinners may actually be closer to God than they think.

Here’s my thinking in reading the gospels. Jesus is so much more immense and unpredictable and disturbing than we would ever think. And he is so much kinder. He said, “I have come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Luke

Bad Girls and Good Men (7:36-50)

The Sinful Woman

The writers of the four Gospels said that Jesus was going from town to town preaching the “good news of the kingdom.” What about his message resonates so deeply with the crowds, with sinners?

A woman crashes a dinner party at the home of a very respectable religious leader named Simon. The English Standard Version describes this unnamed lady as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner.” Now you can probably get a picture in your head of what she was like. When I was about 14, my best friend and I both found ourselves strangely attracted to a girl named Ginger. My friend’s mother warned us that she was “worldly.” We really didn’t know what that meant, and it actually made her that much more intriguing to two teenage boys. My guess is that this woman fits the “one your mother warned you about” category. She’s a bad girl. Clearly, from the parable embedded in this story, she’s the one who owes the biggest debt.

What would make a woman like that burst into the home of a church leader? What would make her perform one of the most beautiful acts of worship recorded in the Bible (“... standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.”)? The perfume was extremely valuable! Letting her hair down in public and washing Jesus’ feet with her tears was an act of supreme humility! What do you think would make her do it?

What we are seeing is love in response to being loved. What we are witnessing is the joy and relief that follows the cancellation of an enormous, insurmountable debt. (500 denaraii is the equivalent of a year and half’s salary. How would you like to have that on your credit card?)

When I call my dad and ask how he’s doing, he begins to recite the day’s menu. “Your mom is cutting up some vegetables and I’m about to heat up the grill …” I finally realized that this was his way of saying, “Everything is OK.”

One time I called him because I heard that a monstrous hurricane was going to come ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, right on top of the little beach town where they live. “Dad, how are you?”

“This one looks bad,” he said. I could hear the tension in his voice. “We’re boarding up and getting ready to head out.”

Later, after the storm turned and missed their town, I called again. “Dad, how are you?”

“Well, your mother is making a big pot of gumbo …” Relief! The impending storm had been turned aside, and everything is OK.

What must it have been like to be one of the bad girls of the day, to be shunned by the religious community (and to assume that you were shunned by God as well), and then to hear these words coming from Jesus’ mouth: “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” This is a beautiful story of a woman who enters Jesus’ presence in the turmoil and heavy guilt of her sin, and leaves in the joy, relief and peace of forgiveness.

The Good Man

So I invite you over to a dinner party. You knock on the door. I open it and say, “Oh … it’s you.” You extend your hand. I put mine behind my back. You ask if you can wash up before dinner. I say “No.” At dinner, I move around refilling glasses with a choice beverage. You hold out your glass. I pass you by. The other guests are looking at you, whispering and then chuckling. Feeling welcome so far?

“You gave me no water for my feet. You gave me no kiss. You did not anoint my head with oil.” It was the same sort of thing.

Simon was one of “God’s men.” He was an influential religious leader. He was held in high regard by the people. He was very moral. And Simon didn’t like Jesus very much.

He also didn’t like this woman crashing the party. “Does he know what sort of woman this is who is touching him?!”

Simon had what Dan Allender calls the “illusion of righteousness.” He assumed that his goodness and high religious position put God in his debt. Do you know anyone like this?

Jesus’ parable reveals a different picture. Simon was in debt. On the first reading, Simon’s debt must be the 50 denaraii (still a considerable amount, about a month and half’s salary, due and payable right now!). But you wonder if his offence wasn’t the greater. His treatment of Jesus demonstrates that Simon had no sense of need for any “good news.” He not only looked down on the sinful woman, but upon the one who welcomes sinners. Simon didn’t like grace.

Jesus’ words must have been haunting to him. As the woman came in turmoil and left in peace, maybe Simon came to dinner with a smug sense of peace but left in turmoil. Do you see anything of Simon in yourself? What do you think it would look like to repent of our “Simon-ness”?

Two Lost Sons[1] (15:1-3, 11-32)

 

The Younger Brother

This chapter opens with “sinners” gathering around Jesus to hear him, while the religious leaders are muttering to themselves, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” In response, Jesus tells three stories (parables) all dealing with lost-ness — one about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and one, the most famous, about two lost sons.

In the parable commonly referred to as the prodigal son, Jesus actually begins like this: “There was a man who had two sons …” It is a story of what Tim Keller calls “younger brother lost-ness and older brother lost-ness.” It’s not meant to be a sentimental story about the return of a rebellious child (although that is a beautiful part of it), but rather a story that scandalizes the ones who are muttering against him. But we’ll come to that later.

What about the “prodigal”? His lost-ness is pretty obvious. We all feel the prodigal pull. A yearning to break away and squander. He acts out what many of us think about. And he comes to the end of himself pretty quickly.

My daughter (at 5 years of age) was going around our house singing a song from the radio, “What if God were one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus trying to find his way home?” I laughed; then I wondered where my kids get this stuff. But as I thought about the question in the song, I began to think it wasn’t too irreverent after all. It’s the question of the prodigal. I don’t think God’s a slob, but is he a God who can relate to slobs? Is there a God for strangers? Is there a God for people who squander? Is there a God for people who spoil everything?

Prodigals are more likely to see and feel their lost-ness. Prodigals often come to point where they just want to go home, but they don’t think that they can. And what the “sinners” are hearing from Jesus (and this is why they flock to him), is that he welcomes sinners and eats with them. “Come home.”

The Older Brother

Why is the older brother so mad? It’s understandable. His little brother just blew half of the family fortune on liquor and women. And now he’s back and Dad’s throwing a huge party. Whose half of the money pays for that? Whose fattened calf? Whose robe? All this extravagance is being charged against the estate of the older brother!

At first you think that he despises his little brother, but then you see that he despises his father as well. “I have slaved for you!”

One Christmas my mom gave me a very unique gift. She commissioned a local potter to make me a communion chalice and plate. That may seem like a strange gift to you, but for me it was perfect. I was about to plunge into the huge and frightening endeavor of planting a church. Mom’s gift said, “I know who you are. I know what matters to you. I love what you are about to do.” It was a gift that was shaped out of her love for me. It wasn’t an obligatory gift. Obligatory gifts are the ones you give because you have to, either to save face with the recipient or to get something from them (like having to buy Christmas gifts for a weird relative and his kids just because they are showing up for the holidays). The older brother slaves away not because he loves the father, but so he will get his reward in the end. “I’ve been good and you give me nothing. He’s a waste and you lavish on him!” What separates older brothers from God is the underlying belief that they have earned His favor. 

Though he has stayed close to home, his view of the father shows he is far away. He’s the good son, but he is angry, joyless (he can’t enter the party), bitter, jealous, and critical. He’s lost. This story is directed at the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, the religious. They are so close to the truth and yet so very, very far away.

Still, do you see in these parables that there is an offer of forgiveness for both the woman and for Simon? Do you see that the father goes out to both sons? Do you see that he invites both to the feast? That both kinds of sinner are invited home, back to God?

John

Wine and a Whip

Wedding

                  In the second chapter of his Gospel, the Apostle John shows us Jesus’ way when he’s out with the crowds, and how he is different with the religious inner circle. He really takes a different posture depending on which group he’s talking to.

      His first public miracle (or “sign”) was done at a wedding in a town called Cana. This is Jesus and his boys out with the people. Luke showed us that he eats with “sinners,” that he really is at ease with people. I think it’s like that here. He enters the joy of it.

                  Then there is a crisis. No wine. This is probably more than just a social embarrassment. It is most likely an indicator that the wedding couple is poor. And now, on their best day, poverty steals back in and robs their joy.

                 Jesus has a funny conversation with his mother here. Mary comes to him assuming he can fix it. He says, “Woman, what has this to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (What’s that about? I always thought that seemed sort of blunt. But recently, I saw that Passion of the Christ movie, where the flashbacks of Jesus and Mary portrayed their relationship as more playful and down-to-earth, so maybe this is mildly tongue-in-cheek, like he is teasing her.)

                  So, Mary ignores him, like a mother would, and just tells the help to do what he says.

                  Off to the side are six big water jars. They weren’t just used to clean up, but for ritual purification (hint, hint). Jesus tells them to fill them up with water. By my calculations, they hold between 120 and 180 gallons. 

He tells the workers to dip some out and take it to the wedding coordinator (I think of Franc from Father of the Bride). He takes a drink and immediately calls the groom over, and jumps his case using party logic. “Look, you’re supposed to bring out the really good wine first, then when everybody’s senses are a little dulled, when their ‘hearts are gladdened,’ then you bring out the cheap stuff. You got it backwards!”

So, Jesus saves the wedding with a gift of 120 – 180 gallons of really good wine. On the day that was supposed to be the most joyful, the crisis was just a reminder of their poverty. The couple was trying to steal a happy moment from their brokenness, and even that was slipping away. And Jesus reversed it. He gave them their joy back. I feel like he was saying, “I am the Lord of Joy, and I’m bringing a joyful kingdom.”

“My hour.” For him there is a shadow here. It’s bittersweet. His cross is looming. The hour of his death. I used to say, “For us to drink the cup of joy, he had to drink a cup of sorrow.” I do think that’s true, but it’s more mixed up than that. There would be a time later that he would cry out to God, “Take this cup from me!” He knows at the wedding that he would drink the Gethsemene cup. But the letter to the Hebrews says, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross.” There is a sweetness here, too. I think he loves this bride and groom. I think he loves his mother. I think he loves his disciples, and the crowd. He would willingly drink sorrow because of his deep, deep affection for his people. He would drink it because he loves me. 

Whip

                  In the very next story, Jesus goes to the temple in Jerusalem for the Passover.  Now this is a big deal. Hundreds of thousands of people would be there from many countries for this monster feast. It would be like a Mardi-Gras, carnival atmosphere surrounding this high time of worship. 

                  This is the famous “cleansing the temple” incident.  The Gospels record that he did this a second time right after his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem during the last week of his life.  In the temple courts, Jesus encounters money-changers. People would come from all over the world to make sacrifices. It’s a pretty dangerous trip, and hard to drag a sheep or a bull along. So people would buy animals to sacrifice right there. The money-changers would make the exchanges. I’m not sure that this in itself was the problem. It actually makes sense. I think it was where they set up shop that was the problem. The temple had several consecutive rings, or sections. The outer area was the “Court of the Gentiles.” This is where people from other nations could come and be near to God. It was supposed to be where they could worship. But, these profiteers had turned it into a market. What angers Jesus is that the outcasts and outsiders were being taken advantage of, and being pushed out of God’s house.

                   Jesus says, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples!” This is a quote from Isaiah chapter 56, where Isaiah relays his vision for the temple:

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

Isaiah mentions two groups of people, the foreigners and the eunuchs.  I would say that these represent the cultural outcasts and the social outcasts. Both feel that they are somehow cut off from God and the temple.  Do you hear the vision for the temple?  It would be a place where a eunuch (social outcast) could come and receive a new name, one that is better than a son or daughter.  Can you imagine what it would have been like to be scorned and then hear God say this to you? And the foreigner (cultural outcast) could come and his prayers and sacrifices would be welcomed, and they could be joyful in God’s house. 

The final statement says that God goes after outcasts.  He gathers them.  He gives them new names and likes their prayers.  God had the temple built so that he and his people could welcome sinners. When Jesus quotes Isaiah, he is saying that he is the one who is coming to fulfill Isaiah’s vision. 

The disciples also remember these words: “Zeal for his house would consume him.” He is taken with a burning anger at those who would exclude the very ones he has come for. And he makes a whip and drives the “robbers” out of the temple. Pretty invasive.

      Jesus takes wine to a wedding and a whip to church.  I think we get it backwards (if we take wine anywhere, that is.)

Jesus

He is so much more immense and unpredictable and disturbing than we would ever think. And he is so much kinder.

There are some people in our church who say “bad words”.  It really unnerves a lot of people, who get pretty angry about it.  The angry people always come tell me about it (they never talk to the people they are mad at).  One of these people wrote me an email wondering how we could let this go on, and he said this:  “I can’t imagine how this is ruining your witness to non-Christians” (his words).  But here’s the funny thing.  Most the people who come to our church who are “non-Christians”, come because they have been loved, welcomed, cared for by the “cussers”.  The angry people don’t bring anyone to church.  Can somebody explain that to me?

A guy named Cornell hangs out on the street around our church a lot. He calls me Superman, and well, I like that. He’s something of a theologian. He says, “Superman, I’ve been reading about the ancient church.”

I say, “Tell me about it.”

“Well, the ancient church was surrounded by barbarians. And they started letting those barbarians into the church.”

“What happened then?” I ask.

He replies, “Well, the church got real barbarous.” Then he winks at me. I think he meant this: When the church welcomed sinners, it got pretty wild … and the world changed.

There is a question that Tim Keller asks, which has haunted our little church from its beginning. “If Jesus’ ministry attracted sinners and repelled religious people, then why do our churches attract religious people and repel sinners?” How would you answer this question? If this Jesus were around today, wouldn’t that change everything? 

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[1] My thinking and reflections on this text were greatly influenced by two sermons, one by Tim Keller and one by Sinclair Ferguson. Also, by the book The Return of the Prodigal, by Henri Nouwen.