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| gettyimages, Crosswalk |
Jesus bent down and drew.
In that instance, with a crowd baying for his blood, he scratched a truth so revealing, each of his accusers had no recourse but to step away and drop all their charges.
And it isn’t just the opposition.
Jesus had a knack for losing followers.
Crowds that followed him with fervour also stepped away.
“Eat his flesh and drink his blood?”
It does sound shockingly cannibalistic — when it’s all you hear and forget the larger story, the miracles, the amazing kindness and tenderness of the man from whom these words came.
Principle no 1.
Spiritual truths are going to be highly uncomfortable, disruptive and demand a response.
Principle no 2.
If you react and cling to a sliver of what you hear and hastily judge, you will probably turn away too soon.
You cannot read anything in Scripture and fail to see that God draws lines.
Israel vs other nations
Faith vs Unbelief
Obedience vs Disobedience
Lines are necessary in life. Without lines, without boundaries, things will fall apart. How would you know what’s your in heart, what has your allegiance, where your priorities lay if you don’t have lines and boundaries?
As the 104th Psalm observed, even the seas observed a boundary as they seem to aspire to go beyond with each wave lapping against the shore.
Lines give us definition. We know where the sea begins and ends.
Our physical bodies are lines, as are our geographical address, our social status and so on.
However, Jesus also precisely broke these lines! More on that later.
Before we learn to break lines the way Jesus did, which is always to give life, we have to observe how we mess up the lines.
For one, we often confuse lines with dichotomy: either-or.
This plays out in various ways today. We have the sacred-secular divide, where we evaluate something as holy or not.
We have the theological and doctrinal lines of correct-wrong, often draw too thick based more on the need for a sense of safety than truth.
We have the us-them line. This is so painfully obvious today. If my view differs from yours, we are on opposite camps and dialogue is not given a chance.
Principle no 3.
Lines define but don’t have to confine.
I want to be friends and learn from you. I am sure we are different and disagree on a range of things.
Back to Jesus and line busting.
I feel that too many of us have co-opted Jesus for our own purposes. This is a real temptation, especially in post-Christian West.
So maybe let’s try a more careful read of what he did and said.
A good way to do this is to use The Harmony of the Gospels by Robert Thomas and Stanley Gundry where they place the four gospels together to give you a possible chronological reading of the life of Christ.
I have been reading the Gospels many times over the years and it still slaps and surprises me.
One thing however stands out: Jesus does call us to both draw lines and tow lines. Here’s some of what he said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5v27)
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9v23)
Jesus contrasts the way we normally operate with the way He expects us to, holding us to impossible standards!
Jesus demands that we commit and tow the line where He leads and we follow — at cost to our habits, desires and preferences (again, quite impossible isn’t it?).
Principle no 4.
Living by spiritual truths isn’t something we can do on our own.
We are heading towards a collision course. But first, let’s review the principles we found:
1.
Spiritual truths are going to be highly uncomfortable, disruptive and demand a response.
2. If you react and cling to a sliver of what you hear and hastily judge, you will probably turn away too soon, or miss the forest for the trees.
3.
Lines define but don’t have to confine.
4.
Living by spiritual truths isn’t something we can do on our own.
This is is why the church has always taught these concepts called ‘sin’, ‘regeneration’, ‘justification’, ‘sanctification’ — words we desperately need to re-introduce to our vocabulary. These are deep theological ideas with practical consequences that were truly woke in their time.
We need to awaken to them for they convey and educate us with the net effect of allowing us to cancel the lines that hold us hostage so that we can tow that life-giving line called following Christ.
Right in the middle of the word sin is the letter ‘I’ expressing the nub of our problems: we are confused, broken, battered, yet something lingers within that wants more light, hope and a future. That is sin — a complete and irreversible disconnect within ourselves and with others as a result of our severed link to God who is our Source.
Remember the impossible standards Jesus set?
If you met someone who told you something was available but totally impossible to you, you would be piqued to ask ‘how’ if you really wanted that thing.
Jesus is helping us reveal our true desire.
Do we really want the spiritual life?
If we do and we bump up against his words and look honestly at our lives, we will have to admit defeat. Frederick Buechner’s brilliant book The Magnificent Defeat describes Christian conversion as heading home for -
“Like Adam, we have all lost Paradise; and yet we carry Paradise around inside of us in the form of a longing for, almost a memory of, a blessedness that is no more, or the dream of a blessedness that may someday be again.”
Having left home for so long and adapted to a different way to live, it then takes time for us to unlearn and relearn what is important, of value, truly worthwhile.
This process of ongoing conversion, where we are being restored to who we are and how we are meant to live — in love — brings each of us closer to the nature and mission of Jesus, which is to live and offer life:
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
The abundant life. Don't we all want it. But Jesus had to go and say this:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt 6v24)
The line drawn here is unmistakably clear.
Meanwhile, I borrow Buechner’s words,
“If you have never known the power of God’s love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it — I mean really asked, expecting an answer.”
So, do you really want the spiritual life?
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“No one can serve two masters.
Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt 6v24)
At first, we follow and go ‘uhuh, that makes sense…’
But then, we begin to wonder if it really isn’t possible to have more than one affection.
Finally we are shocked that of all the things great and small, Jesus would choose to set up Mammon against God. Really, Jesus?
Over the years, my own relationship with both Jesus and Mammon has been tumultuous, mostly, not having enough of either!
I was born into a poor family and recall episodes such as my father doling out soulful advice to drink water to feel the hunger pangs less, and my mother’s excitement to come home a boil a pot of rice to eat with the packet of fried noodles that had extra lard pieces added in owing to the hawker’s generosity.
Some experience poverty’s sting and end up hoarders. Others feel it’s pain and develop empathy.
I was somewhere in the mid-stream where I feel easily for the lack others experience, but often was tardy to respond in kind. For years, I asked God to make me rich so that I could just tell the poor dejected kid cleaning tables that I would pay for his education.
Poverty, it turns out is a dimension reality embedded in systems of function (or malfunction). These systems include personal perception, familial dynamics, community support or lack thereof and larger cultural mores.
This means the the solution isn’t more money, but hey, more money can’t hurt, can it?
At university I studied Economics and Political Science. Money became even more complicated.
Keynesian or Communitarian? How mighty is the invisible hand or does it get manipulated by invisible strings?
Economic realities and systems continue to evolve, often benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor. As the adage goes: it takes money to make money (which reminds me of how my mother resourceful adapted this principle by running what is known as a collective back in the day).
Why did Jesus seemingly reduce the spiritual life to this strange either-or choice?
The line drawn here is unmistakably clear.
Before we dive into that, here’s a review of the 4 principles we found out so far regarding the spiritual life:-
1.
Spiritual truths are going to be highly uncomfortable, disruptive and demand a response.
2.
If you react and cling to a sliver of what you hear and hastily judge, you will probably turn away too soon, and miss the forest for the trees.
3.
Lines define but don’t have to confine.
4.
Living by spiritual truths isn’t something we can do on our own.
True enough, this is uncomfortable, to say the least. After all, God does want to bless us, doesn’t He?
Perhaps we are narrowing the discussion down. Ok, step back and observe (which we are about to do).
Whatever we uncover is not meant to confine us and our ability to follow-through will need supernatural help.
With these principles operating, let’s get back to Mammon vs God.
Ready?
Mammon refers to wealth and the entire ecosystem that supports its power, centrality, influence and grip on humankind. So yes it is money. It is also greed, and profiteering, policies and people, practices and punishments.
It is the entire materialist philosophy that reduces the glory of being human to consumption and competition.
It turns us away from each other, tempts us to abuse resources, and generates strife, waste and pollution.
For the most part, our response is to claim that we exercise moderation. But moderation is easily the same space as compromise. What we need isn’t moderation, it’s self-control.
At the personal level, being aware that we do live under a materialist philosophy, we can — if we are serious about the spiritual life — exercise self-control so as not to simply go with the flow of things.
But it will take more than self-control.
According the principle 4, the spiritual life is always beyond our own ability. So while self-control is crucial to preventing one from being lulled into sharing a bed with Mammon (who is often personified as Caesar or even Beelzebub), we will need more.
We need a Saviour.
In saying then that we have to awaken to the truth that we can only afford one allegiance, Jesus calls us to our need of Him, to save us from a power too present and consuming — Mammon — so that we can truly live, and so serve God.
It’s really not hard to see how right Jesus is.
The spirit of the age, all of our training, the bright lights and neon signs all send one singular message: serve your self first, and do it in the fastest, cheapest and most convenient way. It does not help us to ever pause to think if the speed, cost and ease comes at a far larger price in the end.
I think back to my simpler days.
In our family kitchen, we had one kettle that doesn’t know how to whistle, a kwali for frying and cooking and a soup pot.
My mother and some days my father as well, cooked and fed us out of these few things, all nine of us.
Food preparation involved one knife or a cleaver. Nothing separate for garlic, tuber or leaves. One implement but a myriad skills to wield it.
The kitchen and meal preparation was part adventure part danger.
It also made cleaning up so much easier.
Our kitchens today are ridiculously cluttered.
This image says a lot doesn’t it?
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| Consumer Me, Daniel Garcia |
I have the suspicion that if we all stepped away from the mad treadmill of consuming, we may actually live freer.
Definitely, Jesus linked it to something fundamental to our humanity. We were designed to worship and serve, as Bob Dylan sings:
“You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,
You may be the head of some big TV network,
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,
You may be living in another country under another name
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody’s mistress, maybe somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
-Bob Dylan, from “Gotta Serve Somebody”
So Jesus split reality as we know it down this line between the materialist reduction and the full-orbed life that begins in the depths of our being. The only way to cross from death to life as he puts it another time, is to trust in His saving Grace and to live as He did.
Jesus did not just reference the materialist world here though. In at least two other places, he calls our attention to it. It’s important to look at these to fill out our understanding.
First, he expresses what we all feel: worry. Worry is of course linked to a fear of lack of threat.
To this ever-present emotion for most of us, Jesus says the antidote is to lift up our faces and look outward at the natural world. Look at the birds and observe the flowers.
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| Michelle Tan |
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| Leothorix |
Taking our eyes away from ourselves and our wants and taking time to absorb how life really operates, wild and gratuitously, is the healing we need for our aching souls.
When Jesus sends out his disciples to learn how to heal and serve, he reminds them not to take any extra clothes or shoes. No luggage really. Just what they have on their backs.
More than what they can do, Jesus is letting them experience that the spiritual life is an adventure of seeing what God does, especially in caring for those who love him.
If more of us had the courage to stop serving Mammon, perhaps it won’t be so almighty.
What Jesus really stood for is Life. Again, he said it:
I have come that you may have life, and life abundant.
Now we have a better idea of this abundant life. It is the spiritual life, made possible b Jesus himself. It is a life that continues to unfold and matures as we learn to live all over again, freed from the clutches of Mammon.
A life that serves God because it is the kind of life God breathed into us to enjoy.
Bible referenced:
John 6
Matthew 6, 10.
John 10.
{originally published on my Medium}
