an open and affirming community of faith
n open and affirming community where faith is questioned and formed, as relationships are made and upheld.
We who follow Jesus follow him to Jerusalem. We follow him not just so that we can sleep better at night but so that those who go to sleep at night terrified of what this world holds for them will finally find some peace, a chance to rest from the relentless notion in our culture that their lives have no value.
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Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grey-and-brown-brick-wall-966927/
So, here’s what I think: I think that we who would be like Jesus, we need to take the risk and cross the borders to go looking for the people Jesus himself went out in search of, and to speak the words and do the work necessary to see them free.
We need to brave the wasteland and go into the graveyards that house so many and find ways to break the chains that keep them in bondage.
We can’t afford to wait and let them come to us.
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In a world willing to pray to any god who promises to keep us safe from people who don’t look like us, in a world where the music of our worship sounds like the ticking of a time clock, or the growl of an SUV, in a world in which we tithe our time and money to gods defined by national boundaries or party affiliations or racial designations, we have good news about a new world God is busy creating that we can’t keep to ourselves—even knowing that in proclaiming it we risk looking like the very people we privately roll our eyes at.
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The power of holy disruption is present when followers of Jesus stand together to offer witness to the truth. The power of the Spirit is less to be found in the heroic individual than in the community knit together by the power of a common witness on behalf of those whom Jesus loves.
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The unlikeliest faces, out minding their own business, when the Holy Spirit shows up and things get interesting: God chases after the untouchables, women become central players in the gospel game, demons flee, prisoners are set free, and the powerful find humility.
And that’s the thing about the reign of God: it’s always in the midst of such implausible circumstances, in the presence of the unlikeliest faces that God is busy establishing a whole new world.
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Where is God moving in the community of faith today, threatening old patterns of belief?
What sorts of people is God busy inviting into our fellowship who make us uncomfortable?
The implications are troubling. But we can take comfort in the fact that it’s not our question. It’s God’s question, and like the good book says, “Who am I that I should hinder God?” I’m afraid of this text. But I’m also just as afraid of getting in the way of what God wants to do.
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And that’s the thing: The world, as chaotic and torn as it is right now, needs a little resurrection—needs people like you and me to get up and bring new life to folks who feel like everybody else has given up on them.
LGBTQ kids are dying, waiting for someone to care about them. Traumatized refugees are languishing in camps, waiting for someone to notice them. Our Black neighbors are literally dying in jail, waiting for someone to realize that we seem to live in a system designed not to deliver but to thwart justice. Single parents are trapped in low-paying jobs, waiting for a few people to stand up with them and say that you can’t live on $7.25 an hour. Muslims, who live right next to us in fear, waiting for people like you and me to wrap our arms around them and treat them like siblings.
Whether or not Jesus was a political radical in the way we think of political radicals is irrelevant; the Romans believed he was a political revolutionary.
And they executed him like one.
And that’s the danger of not keeping your mouth shut about Jesus. Start talking about protecting the poor and the powerless, and people get twitchy.
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True freedom, as we find it in Jesus, can never be about ever more elaborate ways to justify selfishness—to say that we have responsibility only for ourselves and those we love.
True freedom for those who follow Jesus is being given the opportunity, no matter how much it costs, to love those whom Jesus loves.
But the thing is, we have to leave the empty tomb to do it. We remember it; we love it, but we see it as a place from which we’re sent out into the world—because that’s where the sick, and the hungry, and the imprisoned are. That’s where the work is. And that’s where Jesus is.
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Salving our consciences by looking away betrays Jesus and the world God is busy creating.
Shuffling the houseless off to someplace where the people can’t see them may be good for tourism, but it fails our community and vocation as Jesus-followers by making some of our neighbors expendable.
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In other words, unlike the kinds of rulers people are used to, who always seem to be using their power for themselves, Jesus’ use of power is always focused on the most exposed and exploited among us.
Jesus’ use of power builds up instead of dividing and tearing down.
Heals people rather than afflict them.
Sets them free instead of subjugating them.
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Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In fact, the story’s not about us at all. We find out that if the father in this story is a stand-in for God, God’s not keeping score the way everybody else keeps score. In a culture where shame lessened everyone’s respect for you, God demonstrated God’s willingness to dive face-first into the slop to show us how much we’re loved.
But God’s also willing to risk humiliation to find the entitled older brother and listen to his whining about how—after all he’s done—he’s never got so much as a case of beer and a cheese ball for a party with his friends.
Think about it. God embraces humiliation to preserve a relationship with both the irresponsible brat and the entitled fussbudget.
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In the old windswept world, people like Vladimir Putin invade the homes of others for their own gain. In the new world, refugees are the very people best situated to understand how much returning home is worth.
In the old desolate world, our worth is determined by the size of our bank accounts and the colleges we can get our children into. In the new world to which we long to return, our value is determined by God’s desire to bring us home.
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Consequently, The Great Man Theory of History should have been recast as The Great White Man Theory of History. But since everybody already took for granted that the only history worth telling would have white men as the central characters, being explicit about it was not only unnecessary, it was redundant.
So, when white people complain during February every year that there’s no “White History Month,” and I say, “Oh yes there is; it’s called ‘the rest of the calendar,’” I’m not just being a smart-aleck, I’m being painfully literal.
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The wonderful thing about the popular version of Christianity is that it can be done with minimal inconvenience to one’s otherwise comfortable lifestyle. Much of it can be accomplished without ever making your back sore or getting your hands dirty.
The trouble is ... that doesn’t sound like the Jesus of the Gospels at all. Jesus, it turns out, is interested in establishing the reign of God; but that reign is first about the lives we live as we try to love others before it’s ever about suspending the living of our lives until after we’ve died.
It’s about what’s going on around us as much as it is about what’s going on inside us.
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Unfortunately, what too many people mean by “freedom” is freedom from responsibility for anybody but myself and those I love. Freedom on this reading means something like, “You can’t tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want. Why? Because this is a free country.”
But, I mean, come on. That’s how children think, isn’t it? Freedom read this way amounts to an ever more elaborate rationalization of selfishness. Think about the issues you can pass through this lens. Healthcare, unemployment insurance, immigrants, state-sanctioned violence against Black people, houselessness, student loan debt, food insecurity. Think about the refugees from Ukraine who’re living their worst nightmares right now because of the selfishness of another fox, a Russian Herod whose desires always seem to center on himself.
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You get to choose how you’ll view the world, to whom and what kind of attention you’ll give. Nobody is the boss of how you choose to act but you. No one can tell you what to do about the kind of love you offer to others.
The whole “you’re-not-the-boss-of-me” thing is always about power. But here’s the thing, you don’t have to give yours away.
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Jesus says, "I’m talking about a cosmic rebalancing of the scales, where those who’ve had to hide who they are and whom they love will be welcomed and celebrated, where parents will no longer have to live in fear of their children being stopped by the police—just because they happen to have skin with a different color or worship in another way, where strangers and immigrants won’t have to endure the spite of the 'home team' and their children being ripped from their arms and thrown into cages, where women no longer have to be afraid that their gender will put them at greater risk for violence and exploitation, and where the people in power will no longer acquire and maintain that power on the backs of the poor and the voiceless.
“And all of this isn’t merely a hope for some world in the future … after you die. The vision I’m setting down is first of all for you, for this world … right here, right now.”
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No less for us, the promise of plenty in the new world God is creating isn’t available to us after we’ve checked out of the current world and its uncertainty and taken up residence in another more stable home. The promise of enough lives in the very heart of the chaos we find ourselves in right now. Jesus’ followers aren’t looking for deliverance out of this world but for directions into the very dark and grubby center of it. Put more simply, the future for us lies not in surviving the disorder of this world—with its pandemic panics, cultural battles, and economic uncertainties—but in doing a full-on belly-flop into the untamed mess at the beating heart of it.
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Jesus goes home and kicks a hornet’s nest of hospitality and inclusion to all—one that won’t finally settle down until the powers and principalities, the folks at the top, finally get their way and push him over the cliff on Good Friday.
Apparently, in the reign of God that Jesus announces, that’s what love requires.
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