Follow Jesus ... a Lenten Path

            “Jesus went out and he saw a tax collector named Levi, and he said to him, “Follow me” (Luke 5:27).  Christians make it their life’s work to follow Jesus.  Christian pastors preach that following Jesus is the business of the church.  The church exists to help people be devoted followers of Jesus Christ.  The calling of Levi in Luke 5 is one of many passages that lead Christians to insist growing as disciples of Jesus is the purpose of life.

            Why?  Why did Jesus call specific individuals to follow him?  Why do Bible readers interpret the call to discipleship experienced by James, John, Peter, and the rest as a prelude to the calling of all humanity to discipleship?  Christians believe all people are invited by God to follow Jesus.  But why is following Jesus so important?

            “When the days drew near for him to be taken up,” says Luke 9:51, “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  “Taken up” means the crucifixion.  Where it says Jesus “set face,” it means he was determined from that point onward to journey to Jerusalem.  Nothing would stop him.  Everything in Luke’s gospel from 9:51 to chapter 23 is built upon Jesus’ journey to the cross.  He was determined to go to the place where he knew a brutal death by crucifixion awaited him.  Why?

                Why is Jesus so intent that all people become his followers?  Why was he set on going to his death?     The key to answering both questions is Luke 19:41-44:

⁴¹ As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "If you even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Indeed, the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up ramparts around you, and hem you in on every side.  They will crush you to the ground, you and your children with you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God."  

Jesus wept over the city because they were lost in sin.  Of that city, he said,

³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37)!

Jerusalem reject God’s prophets, thus rejecting God’s word.  When we sin, we reject God’s way for us to live and choose our own way.  Jesus desperately wants to rescue us from our sin, but at least in the case of Jerusalem, the week before the crucifixion, the people rejected God’s offer of salvation.  That’s why the cross was necessary.  Sin brings death and eternal separation from God.  Jesus took on himself both our death and our alienation from God when he died on the cross in our place.  That’s why the cross is so important; it’s why he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

            The only way Jesus’ death on the cross become affective in our lives is when we put our trust in him and give our lives to him, acknowledging him as our Lord.  Why is crucial that we follow Jesus?  God wants a relationship with us in which we are His sons and daughters and he is our Father and Lord.  That relationship comes when we follow Jesus.  When we confess our sins, repent, and acknowledge Jesus as Lord, we are baptized in the Holy Spirit and adopted as sons and daughters of God. 

We are called to follow because God loves us.  But we cannot accomplish discipleship by our own spiritual will power.  We sin, we hurt God, we hurt others, and we hurt ourselves.  So Jesus came to cover our sins and effect transformation in us.  Jesus died on the cross because God loves us. 

These are the basic elements of the God-human story.  During Lent, we rehearse this story, retell it, walk in it, and discover it anew.  I have been a Christian for 38 years and am diving to greater depths as I go through the story this year, in some ways as this were my first time in Lent.  I hope you are learning what it means to follow Jesus and as you do, I hope you see the cross.  As you see the cross, I pray you will see your life, covered by Christ. 

Because God loves us, we follow and learn continuously learn new, richer ways to love Him and each other. 

All In (Luke 14)

Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 1, 2016

            A life spent following Jesus is a blessed life.  A person cannot have more joy, deeper meaning, richer love, or greater hope in any other life.  The life lived as Jesus’ disciple is the best life a person can have. 

Note the emphasis on following Jesus.  People can come every Sunday and not spend their lives striving to live in full submission and obedience to the Lord.  People can be baptized, but then turn away and not live under Jesus’ rule. 

The best life is the life of a disciple.  However, it is not the easiest life. 

A Middle Eastern man, “Musa” grew up in a Muslim home, but heard the gospel and put his faith in Jesus as Lord.  When Musa’s father found out, he threatened to kill him.  He kicked him out of the family’s home.  Musa has since tried to share the gospel with his sister, but when his father found out, he said to Musa, “I will slaughter you.”

            One of my best Christian friends was raised by parents who are committed Buddhists.  They tolerated his participation in church, but he always feared that if he were baptized, his parents would forbid him from bringing his younger siblings and cousins to church with him.

            Following Jesus costs. Maybe this is not the case in your family.  Maybe mom and dad and grandma and grandpa are all in the same church – three generations.  The day I was baptized 1981, at 11 years old, my relatives all came to celebrate.  An entire row in the congregation was filled with Tennants.  From an early age my parents taught me to follow and worship the Lord and they modeled this life.

            But some families are actively opposed to following Jesus.  If a son or daughter turns to Jesus, the family may kick that one out, or worse.  In Musa’s case, his father threatened to kill him.  A young person, even a young adult, should be able to turn to his father for support and protection.  Musa’s father wanted him dead. 

            In our country, we say “Christianity is under attack” because in December, store clerks say “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”  We say it because our same sex marriages are a reality, and our society includes people from other religious background. 

Really?  Are we seriously pointing to things like this to make our case that Christianity is under attack? 

I have never heard anything so lame in all my life.  To use such examples as evidence of a threat is utterly spineless.  No one is telling me not to say “Merry Christmas.”  I don’t care if someone else says it or not.  Who someone else marries does not affect who I marry.  I have never had a gay person try to convert me away from heterosexuality.  And the presence of Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, and Atheists does not weaken my faith.  If anything religious plurality strengthens my commitment to Christ because I have to know why I believe He is Lord and is the path to salvation. 

Musa knows what it is to be threatened for being a Christian.  Most American Christians do not.  Parents and bosses and friends do not threaten to slaughter us for our faith.  They might fire us or disown, although that is extraordinarily rare. 

When American Christians say they feel threatened, what they really mean is that as Christians they no longer feel like they are in the majority and they don’t like that feeling.  When American Christians cry out that they are threatened it is because they feel they have lost the power and privilege of being the controlling group in society.  They have lost hegemony, they feel.  It doesn’t feel good. 

But, why would minority status surprise us when Jesus told us the cost of discipleship?

²⁶ “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Following Jesus is the best life a person can have – no question about it.  But, wait!  I don’t want to hate my mom or dad.  They are two of the biggest supporters of my life as a Christian. 

Yet, Jesus says, “whoever does not hate father and mother … cannot be my disciple.”  We know he wasn’t looking for admirers.  Jesus had no interest in people acting as his fan club.  He wanted followers.  He lived and then said, “Look at how I live.  And you live that way.”

“I am bound to die on the cross.  You take up your cross and follow me.”  Luke 14 is a challenging collection of ideas and we must face this challenge if we are to truly become people who walk the way of Jesus.

Listen to the thoughts of a well-known Biblical preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor.    

She looks at Jesus words in Luke 14 and she says, “I have to conclude that [Jesus] would not have made a good [local church pastor.]  So much of the job depends on making it easy for people to come to church and rewarding for them to stay.  Talk to any of the church growth experts and they will tell you how important it is to create a safe, caring environment where people will believe their concerns will be heard and their needs be met.  The basic idea is to find out what people are looking for and to give it to them, so that they decide to stay put instead of continuing to shop for a church down the street” (Bread of Angels, p.46).

We embrace part of that statement at HillSong.  We promote a safe environment in which people can come to Jesus as they are, broken, confused, lost, uncertain, anxious.  Come to Jesus and receive love from his people. 

Where we resonate with Barbara Brown Taylor’s playful irony is the part about giving people what they want. Most the time, people, me included, don’t know what they want.  We offer to introduce people to Jesus.   Come just as you are and receive Jesus.  Give yourself to him in fully and He will make you a new creation. 

Come to Jesus, not to get saved, or to get found, or to be made whole.  That will happen, but come and reorient your life so that He is Lord in all things. 

But, “hate your father and mother?” Really?  In Jesus’ day, a rhetorical technique was to indicate a preference by holding two things side-by-side and then stating hatred for one and love for the other.  It was not hatred such as Hitler hated Jews.  It was not an evil, emotion-driven attitude.  It was a clear, unwavering choice. 

As cited in the examples above, Musa had to choose Jesus against his parents’ will.  In fact, his father became a mortal enemy.  My friend had to choose loyalty to Jesus over the approval of his Buddhist mother.  We know Jesus honored family relations.  The mother of his disciples, the brothers James and John, was also one his followers.  His own mother was one of his followers.  He did not despise family relations.  He simply and directly put them in their place.  Our families, our spouses, our closest ties fall in line after our devotion to Jesus. 

It helped me to go through Luke 14 and note the people who became his followers.  As the chapter opens, Jesus is a Sabbath Day house guest of a leading Pharisee.  All at the meal guests jockey for the best seat.  Jesus says when they are guests, they should humble themselves and sit in the lowest position.

When they host parties, they should invite people at the bottom of society’s standings.  They should invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:13).  he would tell us to invite into our homes, the refugee, the mentally ill, the illegal immigrant, and homeless person.

Jesus then tells a parable about a wedding banquet in the Kingdom of God.  All the important people invited send regrets.  One has to check a new piece of land; another has to see the oxen he’s just bought; and a is couple on their honeymoon.  So the Lords call others in to fill the empty chairs: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  Jesus also mentions drifters in the dark corners of society, people far from the mainstream. 

On the first Sunday of Lent, we talked about Jesus’ attraction to the least desirable of people.  He came for the poor, not the rich.  We saw this in Mark chapter 2, when Jesus called a tax collector to be a disciple and dined with prostitutes and sinners of all types.

In the disciple life, we welcome an endless stream of people who don’t look like what we might say a Sunday morning crowd looks like.  But that’s the way of Jesus, so we have to change our idea of what a Sunday morning crowd is.  Well, if we want Sundays at our church to be welcoming to Him, then we have to welcome and love who he welcomed and loved.

His priorities set ours.  If that happens, then we become a church that would be quite comfortable with him as pastor.  If our families or friends are shocked at the decisions we make that are out of step with materialist American culture but aligned with Jesus we aren’t surprised.  He said, we’d have to hate mom and dad.

We understand this doesn’t mean hate as an emotion.  It means we’re in the Gospel and so we walk the way of Jesus regardless of what mom or dad or husband or wife or friend think.  We invite those we love most to come to the cross with us.  But we go whether they come or not. 

That’s what it means to be all-in with Jesus.  There is no other way to be a Christian.  The only kind of Christ-follower is the extreme Christ-follower.  Any other way is just playing at Christianity. 

I end with a thought on when we do go all-in.  The Kingdom is a massive party – bigger than any wedding reception or inaugural ball.  The poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the lost, the found, the brown, the yellow, the black, the white, you, me – we’re all there. 

But something has changed.  We’re in resurrected bodies, which cannot be blind.  Resurrected bodies cannot be lame or crippled.  We’ll call them “the healthy and the strong.”  Resurrected bodies cannot be addicts or junkies.  We’ll call them “the whole and the clean.” 

We’re with Jesus at God’s table.  We’re all beloved and all together.  Your mom.  My dad.  You.   Me.  We’re all there, in the Kingdom, with Jesus, at the Father’s Table. 

We live in blessed relationship with God now, tasked to be witnesses for the Gospel in the world today.  And we anticipate the table of God.  That is our destination when we are all-in.

AMEN

Required Reading for White American Christians

            In Galatians, the Apostle Paul discusses his call to be an apostle the Gentiles (people who are not Jewish).  One of the points of the case he makes is that Gentiles do not need to undergo circumcision and they do not need to become Jewish.  They can put their faith in Jesus and be adopted as children of God (Galatians 4:5-7) and continue to be Galatians or Ephesians or Philippians. 

            This was revolutionary.  There was a hard line in Paul’s world.  Jews were the Chosen People of God and gentiles were unclean.  In social circles and in religious practice, this line was rarely crossed.  Yet Paul, himself a Torah-observant Jew, believed Jesus transcended racial, ethnic, and religious divisions.  One of his most famous statements is “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).  In a world marked by divisions, Paul declared unity in Christ.

            He does not, though, mean that all particularity is lost.  Galatians 3:28 does not mean Christ followers are colorless, nationless, androgynous humans.  No such person exists.  We all come from a particular culture.  We all have a specific worldview.  And Paul knew this.  In Galatians 3:28 he means to say that there is no preference.  A Jewish Christ-follower is not more valuable to Jesus than a Gentile Christ-follower.  A man does not matter more to Jesus than a woman.  All of us are equal in Christ. 

            Today, it is entirely appropriate to take the sentiment of Galatians 3:28 and extend it.  We might say “there is no longer citizen or immigrant, there is no longer Jew or Arab, there is no longer black or white; for we are all one in Christ.”  In America, the black-white distinction demands concentrated attention and this is especially true for white Americans. 

White people in America have enjoyed tremendous privilege.  Our society has been controlled by white people in positions of power and thus is built for white people.  As of today, there are more non-whites in America than whites, but white people still enjoy privileged status.  Therefore it bears heavily upon Christ-followers who are white to do their part to make Galatians 3:28 a reality.  Other races and ethnicities are also called to work for brotherhood in Christ, but here, I specifically address the responsibility the privileged class has.  The impetus for working for equality and brotherhood falls on white people.  We have to acknowledge our own privilege and actively work for a more just world, a world more welcoming to non-white persons.

There are more ways to do this than I can cite in one short blog, but I’ll share with you something I have done recently.  This is only one way to advocate for justice, but this practice will spur us to more involvement in justice movements.  And because we are disciples of Jesus, everything we do is done in His name, for His sake, and at His prompting.

Today is the last day of February, Black history month.  I have dedicated time this month to educating myself by reading stories from communities of African, African American, and African-European people.  I am going to list books I am reading.  I say “am reading” because I have only finished one of these.  The others I pick up and read a bit at a time, 3 pages here, 10 pages there, etc.  I will peck away at these books until they’ve all be read.

I am sometimes asked how I find time to read as much as I do.  One answer I give is that I read a bit of a book in short spurts and just keep at it until the book is finished.  It took me 3 years to read Dickens’ David Copperfield.  But I’ll tell when he falls in love with … (nope, I won’t spoil it.  You’ll read it yourself, but it comes around page 650); the moment I read that he fell in love with her, I felt so good.  It was worth the wait.  It took me a couple of years to slog through Atlas Shrugged.  But I am glad I did because now I know why I disagree with all of Ayn Rand’s conclusions. 

Lately though, my nibbling approach to reading has been in the areas I mentioned, in books related to race and the experience of being black.  I think it is my responsibility to do this.  Blacks have to receive American history (and the way it is taught, this is mostly “white history”).  If they want to graduate from high school, they must study curriculum developed, by and large, by white people.  How I can befriend my African American neighbor if I have never invested time in knowing his story?  How can I work for justice in the name of Jesus if I don’t understand the pain of those who’ve suffered injustice? 

This is no great thing.  I do not write this to say, “Hey look at what I’ve done!”  I write it to say to my Christians brothers and sisters who are white, “This is what we all must do.”  I am writing this and providing specific examples in hopes that you, my reader will join me in entering stories our privilege allows us to ignore.  Join me in rejecting the idea that the world revolves around us because we are white. 

All white Christians, out of love for our black brothers and sisters, need to understand the experiences black people have.  It is our responsibility in Christ to do this.  This is not a rejection of white cultural expressions.  It is an acknowledgement that white voices aren’t the only voices.  White stories are not the determinative stories.  For Christians the determinative story involves a cross and an empty tomb.  The Resurrected Lord is the one who drives me to try to understand my neighbor who is different than me. 

So, I share what I have begun reading and will continue to read.  I know not everyone likes to escape into the pages of a book the way I do.  You might pick up just one of these books.  And that’s a start!  Many are at the library.  If you live near me, I have some I can loan.  Some I bought for less than a dollar at yard sales and thrift stores.  It is possible to get into reading without spending a lot of money.  But it may will you to spend a bit of time.  I suggest reading like the type of reading I describe here is more valuable that nighttime TV in helping us become who Christ wants us to become.  Cut out one show and give that time to reading about stories of black Americans or Asian Americans or Native Americans.

Some of these stories are not Christian in nature but if we respect people enough to listen to their stories, our compassion is expanded.  Our evangelistic worldview grows.  The content in these books help us enter the stories of others as we try to be compassionate witnesses to the Kingdom of God in an ever diversifying world.  And if the books on my list aren’t for you, then find ones that will challenge you to think outside whatever box contains you.  As you pray about how God wants you to share his love in the world, enter the stories of people different than yourself.

Here’s my list:

From Europe

My Grandfather would have Shot Me by Jennifer Teague

From Africa

Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend by James Gregory

Hope is cut: Youth, Unemployment, and Future in Urban Ethiopia by Daniel Mains

From America

Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party by Curtis Austin

Auto Biography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

The Preacher King by Richard Lischer

The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 by Goran Olsson

Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness by Rebecca Walker 

The Life Hope Creates (Colossians 1:1-8)

Sunday, May 4, 2014

            Imagine a series of events that might happen in life, any scenario that comes to mind.  A trip to Food Lion because we’re out of eggs; a 50^th birthday party; the sinking feeling of the flashing lights in the rearview mirror and knowing you were going 50 in a 25 zone; finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk; reading your emails and coming across one that is surprisingly and extraordinarily negative; eating with your best friend at your favorite burger place; now, here is the question.  What difference does it make for you or anyone going through that situation, however important or banal, to go through it as one who is in Christ?

            This is not a suggestion that we ask, what difference does it make that I am a Christian? I have not forfeited the title ‘Christian,’ but it has been severely diluted by overuse.  Militants kill 100’s of Muslims and because they wear crosses, they are called ‘Christian.’  Christ did not endorse mass violence.  When they came for him, he rebuked his followers for resorting to violence (Matthew 26:52-54).  The term ‘Christian’ fits, but is unhelpful because it lacks descriptive power.

            Today we intensify a journey we’ve already been on, a quest to discover what it means for an individual and for a congregation to be “In Christ.”  As we discover this and grow in understanding of it, we live it.  We live in Christ.  Jesus not only influences, but is in everything.  So something as simple as going to the store or as weighty as deciding upon a major move doesn’t just involve our relationship with Jesus; it is determined by it.  Furthermore, Jesus does not just help us with decisions or ethics, “should’s” and “should nots;” Jesus defines who we are.  We cannot understand ourselves apart from Him. 

            Does it sound unrealistic?  Seriously, who thinks about Jesus all the time?  Maybe God is a part of my life, maybe even the biggest part.  Maybe church is very important to me.   Maybe I feel tremendous happiness in Bible reading and in worship.  Maybe I am proud to be a Christian.  But it is extreme to say, I cannot understand anything, not even myself, apart from God as I know God in Jesus Christ.  As right sounding as that maybe, it will never realistically be true.  Well, together, I want us to explore this.  Is it possible to be “in Christ” to the extent that Christ really, truly is in everything, every thought? 

            I am watching the Detroit Tigers.  Miguel Cabrera, the best player in baseball, is up to bat.  The Tigers are down 3-2 in the bottom of the 9^th.  So Jesus, what do think, will Miggy win the game for the Tigers with a big hit?  I do not say that.  I do not pray for Jesus to help the Tigers win.  That’s not what I mean.  No, I mean, Jesus is there, with me, and I know it.  How specifically does this affect me?  Any number of ways.

            Cabrera strikes out and the Tigers lose.  I do not fly into a cursing rage because Jesus would not approve.  But really, it is not about Jesus’ approval.  This is way beyond sin avoidance.  I do not fly into a cursing rage because that is not something someone ‘in Christ’ would ever do.  Because I am ‘in Christ’ and I am filled with the Holy Spirit, I just don’t do it and wouldn’t.  I am different – a new creation.

            And this “new me” or “new you” way of seeing and being is lived in all situations of life.  Of course the case of me watching my favorite baseball team is an example.  I am not holding myself up as a perfect example of what it is to be ‘in Christ.’  There are people in this church who model it better than me, but it is not really about “better.”  The beautiful thing about us all joining hands and together exploring life “in Christ” is no matter where or who we are we can enter the quest.  No previous qualifications are needed and it is not a continuum.  Your friend is not “more in Christ” than you, or less. 

Today, he might help you tremendously, and you may think, I can’t repay this.  The answer to your frustration would be of course you can’t repay it.  In Christ, there is no repayment.  There is generosity, there is peace, there is love; there is no debt; there is no hatred; there is no slavery.  There is joy and grace, mercy and faith.  Today, your friend in Christ helps you.  Tomorrow, you help another.  And that whole idea is just one way of countless ways of seeing, understanding, and living in Christ.

Just as living in Christ is fleshed out in more ways than we could possibly name, there are any number of places to begin looking for help as we strive to live in Christ.  We will begin in Colossians.  I don’t think of this as a sermon series in Colossians but rather, this New Testament epistle in tandem with the Holy Spirit will be our initial guide into life in Christ.  If you like reading ahead, read three short New Testament letters – Colossians, 1 John, and Ephesians.[i] 

This is not a four-part series in Colossians followed by a four-part in 1 John followed by four in Ephesians.  This is a journey.  As thoroughly unpredictable as it is, the journey itself will be part of the goal.  As we go, we discover what it means when we say we are disciples of Jesus.  As we discover, we live out discoveries realizing that everything changes from going on a simple errand to major decisions.  Nothing is ever the same once we give ourselves to Jesus and are filled with the Spirit. 

 “From Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and from Timothy who is also a follower” (1:1).  The letter comes not from one, but from a group because when we are Christ, we are joined to one another; Paul and Timothy.  As we proceed, we will see many more than just these two in Paul’s work.  Epaphras, Tychicus, Luke; a few of the names sound funny to us.  These funny-sounding names and the more familiar ones were life for Paul.  His heart is joined to the disciples who walk with him.  In Christ, we are in a community, a family of believers.  We are connected to each other.  We belong to each other.

The different English renderings of Colossians1:3 show how deliciously deep is the meaning of what Paul wants to convey.  I am convinced that each of these renderings is near the mark on getting this verse right. 

Here is verse three in the New Living Translation: “We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Here is the same verse in the New Revised Standard Version: “In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Finally, the verse in the Common English Version.  “Each time we pray for you, we thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Greek grammar indicates an action – the prayer of thanks that happened and keeps on happening.  Paul and Timothy do not spend every moment of every day praying for the Colossian Christians, people they have never met.  Prayer is a constant in life, so when Paul and Timothy are doing other things- making tents, traveling, preaching – they are mindful of prayer and mindful of churches, those they know, and like the Colossian congregation, those they do not know.  Prayer and thanks are constant components of life for Paul and Timothy.  Neither man would be who he was without prayer and thanks.

The verb used might strike recognition, depending on your church background.  In Greek it is ‘eucharistio,’ a form of the noun ‘eucharistia.’  In English the word is Eucharist.  In many traditions this word refers to what we call communion or the Lord’s Supper.  Thus from Paul’s opening and from the prayer, we see that to be ‘in Christ’ is to be in a community where His followers are connected to each other, always praying for one another, thanking God each time. 

Faith and love: Paul delights in writing how the faith and love of the Colossians Christ followers sets them apart.  By love, he means that agape love, the love that is selfless, altruistic.  Someone in Colossae had done something so remarkable; Epraphas was moved to make a point of talking about it.  He did this so effectively that Paul makes a special effort to affirm the church as a faithful church willing to demonstrate Christ in her midst by acts of sacrificial love.

When we are in Christ, we love.  The fuzzy picture is coming into focus in just the opening verses of Colossians.  In Christ, we belong to one another.  We are in community.  In Christ, prayer is a constant; we could not imagine a life where prayer was not a core practice.  Furthermore, our prayer always involves thanksgiving.  In Christ, we have faith and it is a marker others see, something that distinguishes us.  Surely this comes through in our prayer life, in our conversations, in our ethical choices, in the tone of our speech, and in many other ways.  Finally, in Christ, we love with a self-giving, put-others-first kind of love.

Where does this come from?  Paul writes – “because what you hope for is kept safe for you in heaven. You first heard about this hope when you believed the true message, which is the good news” (v.5).  Note, he does not say it is saved “up in Heaven” as if Heaven were some place out beyond our galaxy.  It is not so much “up” as on an entirely different yet not necessarily distant plane.

Heaven is real and is a normal part of Paul’s conversation.  In Christ, we know about Heaven.  Moreover, we know the influence of Heaven.  The hope that is kept safe there is the hope of future resurrection after our deaths.  Just as Jesus rose so too Easter will come to us after we die, at the final judgment, when Jesus returns to unite forever earth made new and heaven made new.  While we wait for that consummation, Jesus is bodily in Heaven keeping the promised hope safe. 

What does that mean for us living here as we wait?  If we are in Christ, according to Colossians 1:3-5, our future hope creates for us here and now a life of faith and agape love.  Eternal life is not simply a promise that makes the present reality endurable.  Eternal life is something we live into; the values of God’s eternal kingdom are our values in our daily lives.  Colossians 1:5 is a clause in the midst of a long Greek sentence.  We could easily skim it without paying closer attention.  This might cause us to miss something profound.

Like us, those Colossian Christ followers wanted a blessed, pain-free eternity in the presence of God and the people they loved.  That is universal human desire – the longing to be free of fear and free to live in peace, prosperity, and happiness.  Everyone wants that.  Most religions have some version of an afterlife promise.  Epaphras has reported to Paul that the hope of resurrection, currently held in Heaven with Jesus but sure to come to all who follow him, has created a way of living for the Colossians: the way of faith and love, agape love.

In verses 9-14, Paul prays that God will guide the Colossians in their actions and in their thoughts.  “We always pray that God will show you … the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives” (v.9).  The reading closes with Paul reminding the Colossians that God has rescued them from Satan, freed them from sin, and brought them into the Kingdom.  They are already part of the Kingdom of God.    

This letter has been preserved by the Holy Spirit so churches like ours remember.  In Christ, God has rescued us from Satan, freed us from sin, and brought us into the Kingdom.  We are already part of the Kingdom even as we wait for its final consummation.    Our future eternal hope is held secure in Heaven.  And this brings us back around to the opening question.

What difference does it make in situations that come up in our lives, however important or banal, that we go through these situations are people who are ‘in Christ?’  Hope creates in us faith and love. 

I remember a church-going family, people who knew Jesus.  Because of their hope, they noticed the best friend of their 10-year-old son.  The boy’s parents were divorcing.  Mom was gone.  Dad worked nights.  Often the 10-year-old child had to fix meals for himself and his younger brother and sister.  These church goers, people ‘in Christ,’ did what they always did.  They went to church.  And they brought the boy and his younger siblings along.  Every Sunday.  For years. 

Now decades have passed.  The boy is an adult and he doesn’t often see that family that brought him to church, sometimes fed him supper, and had him over for sleep-overs.  When he does see them, there is joy and love, a family reunion for one not quite family but every bit family because he knows they made space in their lives for him.    They could not do otherwise.  They are in Christ.  Their hope made faith and love their life.   And so it is with us as Paul’s pray goes up for us.

“May [we] be made strong with all the strength that comes from [God’s] glorious power, and may [we] be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled [us] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light” (1:11-12).

AMEN

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[i] As an aside, I acknowledge that many scholars doubt that Paul wrote Colossians & Ephesians just as they doubt that someone named John wrote the letter we refer to as 1^st John.  These scholars have good reasons for their doubts, but I will nonetheless refer to Paul and John as I go through these books.  I believe the ideas originated with these two even if others ended up writing them in the form we now have the letters.

Run From Jesus or Follow Jesus

Instead of teaching, Jesus told stories  - stories about planting seeds, good and not so good soils, small seeds that grow to become enormous bushes, lamps.  Jesus compared the grandest of ideas, the Kingdom of God, to these simple, everyday things.  Speaking to crowds along the seashore, he told parables, and those who could discern the message understood.  Those who could not understand what Jesus was saying, well …

As twilight set, Jesus told the twelve they should get on the boat and head to the other side of the water.  The experienced sailors jumped to it with no problem until the wind kicked up.  No man of the sea is so experienced as to be able to overcome all weather.  Even the best boatmen are sometimes lost to sea and the 12 disciples feared this very fate as the waves rose and tossed them about.  Is anything more humbling that being made aware of how small we are?  The boat was swamped. 

Yet Jesus lay on a cushion in the stern, sleeping through it all.  The hours of teaching, expending creative mental energy, all the while outdoors in the sun and breeze had drained him.  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing” (4:38).  He woke and gave the storm a concise, sharp tongue-lashing.  “Peace!  Be still!”  The winds and waves had not sinned; they behaved the way the seas and lakes and oceans are supposed to behave.  They acted as God had created them.  But now God was telling them to knock it off and they did. 

Cranky, Jesus turned to the wide-eyed disciples and demanded to know why they were afraid and where was their faith?  They began asking, whispering to one another, hoping he wouldn’t hear, “Who is this?”  Who is this that has called us to follow him?  Students seek out masters, but he sought us.  People like us don’t get to study under true masters – not fishermen or rebels, and certainly not tax collectors.  He called us, and he’s greater than the greatest masters.  Who is this?

And so it was that they landed on the other side of the lake, heads shaking, questions rising.  They walked inland into the region of the Garasenes.  Ahead was a graveyard. 

Once, I went away for three days of uninterrupted study.  Someone generously let me use a cabin by a lake.  I walked inland, and came to a cemetery in a churchyard.  I took my time, studying the headstones.  This was out in the country, midweek, about 11 in the morning.  No one was around.  Uninterrupted, basking in the rural sounds, I tried to imagine that place in the late 1800’s.  Many of those buried were children.  The funerals would have been mercilessly hot in June and July, and potentially freezing in December and January.  In that quiet reflection, I felt the Spirit of God speak into my heart.

Jesus and the disciples did not enjoy tranquility.  As they came to this ceremonially unclean place, a cemetery with above-ground tombs, a horrific roaring assaulted them.  It was a prelude to a remarkable scene.  How do we envision what rushed at them?  Mark was not striving for drama, but even his straightforward reporting cannot contain the force of this event. 

Metal shackles could not contain this man – he snapped them apart as if they were paper.  His body was a wreak – dirty, bloodly, bruised, hair going everywhere, beard matted, filled with who knows what; indescribable wildness in the eyes.  What inflicted such harm?  The man did it himself.  Mark does tell us the entire community in the village nearby could not contain the madman or restrain him.  They tried, but he flung them aside like unwanted rodents.  He howled and screamed.  He was death living among the dead, one whose body still lived, but one completely overcome by evil. 

An entire village could not calm this rage, but at the sight of Jesus, he threw himself on the ground, bowing at Jesus’ feet.  Jesus was one of 13 people, walking at the head of group.  Yet the demon possessed man seemed utterly indifferent to the disciples.  The demons disdained Jesus, yet they also feared him tremendously.  For them, there was no mystery.  He was the very presence of God.

The demons who ravaged a man’s life and kept an entire town in fear were now reduced to begging.  They pleaded that Jesus might send them into a herd of pigs.  Can we even realize the mixing of awfulness for Jesus, for the disciples all of whom were Jews, and for the first readers of Mark who were most certainly Jews?  What was worse for them, pigs or gentiles, or demons?  All three are right here, converging on the disciples, and the only one in control, the only one with authority is Jesus.  All other powers are reduced to nothing before him – raging storms at sea; armies of demons.  It’s all insignificant. 

When the Jesus demanded the demons’ name, they collectively said “Legion.”  That doesn’t just mean there were ‘1000’ of them.  A legion was a unit of Roman soldiers.  Jews, Egyptians, Greeks – all feared the coming of a Roman Legion.  Legionnaires dominated through intimidation.  Was this pack of demons trying to put some fright into Jesus by calling themselves “Legion?”  That couldn’t work because Jesus was not scared of Rome.  In him there is no fear.

He sent the demons to the pigs and the pigs went mad, rushing over a steep bank and into the sea where they drowned.  Pigs gone; demons gone.  What about the Gentiles?  Here we see God in the flesh.  Yes, he came to redeem God’s chosen people, Israel.  He also came as Lord of all creation with a message of salvation for all people, even non-Jews.  Here, in the Garasenes, among the tombs, Jesus claim authority.  The Kingdom of God had come here and He was Lord in this place of all places.  But then, he is Lord of all places. 

The keepers of the pigs, stricken with freight, ran to town to report that a group of Jews were with the graveyard madman, and all the pigs went crazy, and now the madman wasn’t a madman anymore, well … the townsfolk had to come see for themselves.  And they did.

I wonder if they brought torches and pitchforks.  After all they had kind of designated this as the area to warn the kids about.  Don’t go down to the graveyard, kids, there’s a wild monster down there and he’ll eat you.  They had built up quite a life avoiding the unfortunate man they had relegated to there.  Their response to a demon they could not confront was to accept the dehumanization of the poor possessed man.  Let that one suffer at evil’s hand, and we’ll all be safe staying away from him.  We won’t confront the evil in our own lives – jealousy, greed, gluttony, laziness, faithlessness, prejudice.  We’ll ignore all that and pretend that all the evil in the world is in the demoniac who lives in the tombs. 

Were they ever upset to arrive and find him clothed and in his right mind.  Did they remember what he was like, before the demon came?  Was he the town blacksmith or the town tanner?  Maybe a farmer?  Perhaps he had been quite an important man in town, the grounds keeper in the graveyard.  Maybe some evil he committed opened his heart to the invasion of this beastly legion of demons.  Whatever they case, they could dismiss him now, as the sole possessor of evil.  They had to deal with him as a community member, a neighbor and brother.  Their whole worldview was upset at this change in things.

But didn’t they celebrate their friend’s healing?  O no.  After putting the pitchforks down and hearing the story once again from the swine herders, the town elders quickly reached a conclusion.  Their eyes fixed on the one thing that paralleled the drastic changes of events.  A group of Jews had come to town.  No one doubted that the leader, Jesus, had done this.  No one questioned his power.  They simply did not want any part of it. 

There’s a lot of begging in this story.  The demons who exerted a hideous sort of tormented authority over the region were reduced to begging.  They begged Jesus to let them enter the pigs.  He did.  They died.  The town elders, supposedly the leaders in town, begged Jesus to leave.

What do we do when Jesus comes along?  The coming of Jesus is the coming of God.  The moving of the Holy Spirit is the moving of God.  What do we do when God moves in our lives and confronts us as a people, as individuals?  Do we beg God to let us leave, run away?  Do we beg God to leave?  If He stays everything changes.  If He stays, He gets to be in charge.  There can only be one Lord and it is Him.  So, in life, He will come along.  Every person has that moment when they have to decide about God.  Do we beg that we might be allowed to run away?  Do we beg God that he might go away?

The person healed of the demon possession knew that the coming of Jesus meant everything changed.  He had been living like a crazed animal, a rabid dog who couldn’t even find relief in death.  His was a living Hell that the 1000 demons in him perpetuated.  With no end in sight, he wanted everything to change.  He desperately wanted out.  When Jesus freed him from the grip of Hell, he begged Jesus with everything in Him.  Let me go with you.

When the demons begged for pigs, Jesus gave pigs.

When the terrified town elders begged for relief from Jesus’ holy presence, he left.

But, when the now healed man, in his right mind, begged to be with Jesus, Jesus said no.  The Gospel of Mark includes several miracles where Jesus tells all involved to say nothing.  Here, it’s the opposite.  “Jesus refused [him] and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you’” (5:19).  Was that a joke?  This guy had lost all his friends a long time ago. 

He did what Jesus instructed, kind of.  He into town and then throughout the Decapolis telling everybody how Jesus healed him.  Decapolis was a region of 10 mostly gentile cities.  The demonian of the graveyard was surely a local legend.  Now he was on the preaching circuit, showing himself, healed, sane, and ready for life because Jesus had come.    

Sure, Jesus left. But he also stayed.  The results of Jesus’ work, the man, healthy, living, breathing, and in the very center of society in those 10 important cities, daily testified that the Kingdom of God had come and that Jesus was and is Lord.  The man testified to Jesus with his words, but his very presence was testimony.  Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”  This was Jesus’ workmanship. 

Had the man gone off with Jesus, the town elders could have downplayed the entire event.  They could have found a new scapegoat on whom they would load all of the town’s guilt.  That type of buck passing would never work as long as the healed demoniac was around, speaking of Jesus.  I used to read these types of stories and wonder why Jesus wouldn’t let the healed people come.  Now, it makes sense to me. 

Before the cross, before the resurrection, before the birth of the church, before the missionary age in which Jesus followers spread out over the globe to share the good news of salvation in his name, Jesus walked the earth.  He told stories about seeds and lamps and pearls.  And people had to respond to the stories.  He calmed raging storms at sea.  He calmed raging people and exorcised the demons who tormented them.  And people had to respond to his actions, his miracles.  He taught with wisdom that exceeded Israel’s greatest religious minds.  And the crowds had to respond to the lessons he gave.  Before there were a billion people on this earth claiming the name ‘Christian,’ Jesus was known in a small nation.  God in human flesh came and announced that the Kingdom had arrived.  How would people respond?

How do we?

It’s the age of the church – the body of Christ doing God’s work in the world at the leading of God’s Holy Spirit.  Do we beg Jesus to let us just run away?  Do we be God to go away from us so we don’t have to deal with Him?  Or do we beg Him to let us go with Him?  It doesn’t get easier that way.  And we give up authority because He is Lord.  But then, that’s the real challenge.

Will we give up authority and live under His lordship?  One – at the last judgment, we will do that whether we want to or not.  Right now we can choose to do so.  The man possessed found out that Jesus is the one who heals, the one who rescues us from death and gives us eternal life and abundant life.    Because Jesus saved Him, he chose to follow Jesus and tell the world about the salvation Jesus gives.

What do we choose?  How do we respond to Jesus when He shows up in our lives?

AMEN