March 24, 2016
Has Jesus become a brand or a
cultural-political mascot? Theologian
Michael Horton suggests as much in his Christianity
Today article analyzing why people who call themselves ‘evangelical
Christians’ give their votes and support to candidates who curse, advocate
torture, don’t attend church, don’t confess sin, and remain unrepentant in
spite of numerous divorces and affairs.
How is it that such candidates can use Jesus’ name for their own
purposes and supposed Christians line up behind them and declare them to be
Godly leaders? Horton, professor of
theology at Westminster Seminary in California, thinks pragmatism is the reason
believers tolerate and even promote for president individuals who are
antithetical to ways of Jesus. They
think certain people “get things done.”
Jesus got things done, but he also
paid attention to how he did things. He
did not surrender compassionate methods to achieve Kingdom results. Every act portrayed the new reality God was
in the process of creating.
When Jesus knelt and washed his disciples’
feet, he demonstrated life in the Kingdom of God. We are humble before one another. We serve
one another for the sake of love of the other.
Michael Horton writes, “Jesus enacts a performance parable about
power. … Taking off his out garment, he
wraps a towel around his waist and begins to wash his disciples’ feet.”[i] Horton refers back to John 10 where Jesus
asserted that there is no power that takes life from him. Rather, he lays his life down
(10:17-18).
Horton then points out that the kingdom of
God is founded in blood, but not the blood of the people, the subjects. This kingdom is founded in the shed blood of
the kingdom who led through compassion and sacrifice. This contrasts the stance of many in American
politics who claim the name Jesus, but then grasp desperately for earthly power
that is divisive, destructive, and temporary.
“When Christian leaders are drawn to breath-taking expression of ungodly
power, it raises questions about which kingdom and which sort of king they find
most appealing.”[ii]
Our practices this evening are rituals that
show what sort of King has our allegiance and what kind of life will be lived
when the Kingdom comes in full. We sing
in worship. In this way, our voices are
joined to one another’s so that the worship we offer comes not from me but from
us. It is a communal act that says our
hearts are joined out of love for Christ and for those around us and we are one
in Christ. We are invited into mediation
– quiet prayer in which we invite God to fill us. We don’t empty ourselves for the sake of
being empty. We empty our minds of the
noise of the world in order to be filled with the peace of God.
Also we have opportunities to see the story
of our faith through windows, also called icons. There is art – creative use of photography
and other mediums that invite us to see Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. There is creative writing, a practice that
helps us awaken our own imaginations as we pray. Our cultural currency sways back and forth
from the gut to the intellect back to the gut – head and heart. Both matter very much, but so too does the
emotion, and our imagination awakens our emotion. The creative writing station gives voice to
another part of our selves as we pray.
And then there is enactment – as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, we
wash one another’s. The story comes
alive.
Finally, the offering and the receiving. We have stones, the burdens we carry, and we drop
them at the cross, offering our sins, our hesitations, our doubts to God. We give God our mess and God takes it. We receive from him bread – the broken body
of Jesus, the removal of our sins. We
receive from him juice – the shed blood in which we have eternal life.
What do all these rituals reveal about the
kingdom of God? When we sing, when we
pray, when worship through art and writing, when we wash feet and release
burdens as we drop stones in a bucket at the cross, when we eat bread and drink
juice, when we do all these things, what of the kingdom is seen in these
experiences?
The Kingdom is a place of space – space to be
and grow in Jesus. The Kingdom is a
place of beauty. We serve each other. We honor and care for each other. God is present. There are no presumptions, no prerequisites,
and no regrets because we are free and made new in Christ. All are welcome, all are forgiven, and all
have life because Jesus has made a way.
Our participation in the worship practices is one way God prepares us to
live in His kingdom. I think we’ll find
that this Kingdom is richer and more joy-filled than any kingdom we might
build. How could it be otherwise? This is the kingdom of a loving God who desires
to welcome us into His embrace.
AMEN
[i] M.
Horton (2016) - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/march-web-only/theology-of-donald-trump.html?start=2
[ii]
Ibid.
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