Here's another excerpt from my book, Reframing a Relevant Faith. This portion is part of the chapter Reclaiming Jesus. You can purchase the book from the publisher at http://direct.energion.co/reframing-a-relevant-faith or through Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Reframing-Relevant-Faith-Drew-Smith/dp/1631991213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418159944&sr=1-1&keywords=reframing+a+relevant+faith. A Kindle version is also available at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=reframing%20a%20relevant%20faith%20kindle.
The book is written for group discussion.
As the subtitle of a book puts it, many Christians view
themselves as God-blessed, but never consider the fact that we are
Christ-haunted.[1]
We gather in worship of God, offering praise for God’s love for us and God’s
blessings on us, but we often fail to heed Jesus’ command to discipleship and
radical living. From our places of
blessing, we like to point our pious fingers at those outside, and even some
inside the church and condemn them for their sins, while at the same time
holding onto an understanding of God that is so far away from Jesus’ life and
teachings. In this way we create a God
in our own image, in our own likeness, one that we can manage and one that is
worshiped at churches where, as one of my kids puts it, “you can get an easy
“A”.
But this is not what it means to be a follower of the Jesus
of the Gospels. Yes, following Jesus is
liberating, but it is demanding, it is costly.
Yet, the demands are too much for most of us, and we prefer a different Jesus
who marches to the beat of our drum. But
this is not the real Jesus, the biblical Jesus.
For the real Jesus offends us.
When I was working on my Ph.D. in Edinburgh, Scotland, I
would often take breaks from my writing and roam Auld Reekie, as Edinburgh is
affectionately known. One of my favorite
places of respite from the grind of writing a dissertation was the National
Gallery of Scotland. There I could view
in peace the creative works from the great artists of history. It was there that I discovered one of my
favorite paintings; one which I had only known from books. That painting is El Greco’s Savior of the
World.
For me El Greco’s painting captures the essence of
Jesus. Although El Greco painted a Jesus
who looks more like one of El Greco’s contemporary Europeans than a Jew living
in first century Palestine, once you get past this historical flaw, you begin
to appreciate what the artist has done.
As I would sit there viewing this work, the face of the subject always
drew me to himself. El Greco’s Jesus is
inviting, compassionate, and loving.
Yet, as I would sit for periods of time staring into the
warm and compassionate face of the painted Savior, I would begin to see
something else. Those same inviting and
loving eyes became piercing and condemning.
That once warm face now became offensive to me as if he was looking deep
into my soul and witnessing the worst of human sin.
In Mark 6, Jesus, Nazareth’s own hometown boy, returns home
to preach to those who knew him as a child.
You can imagine the anticipation they felt for what he might say as he
preached his first sermon in his home synagogue. Yet, although Mark does not tell us the words
that Jesus spoke, he does tell us that those who heard him “took offense at
him” (Mark 6:3). Taken literally, they
were scandalized by what he said. Why?
Perhaps they assumed that their hometown boy would make them
proud by affirming their righteousness, their place as God’s elect people, and
their pious religious observances.
Perhaps they assumed that Jesus would side with them against their
enemies, preach stirring sermons convicting others of their sins and pointing
to his own people as examples of what it means to live holy lives. Perhaps Jesus would tell them how God-blessed
they really were. Whatever Jesus said in
the synagogue on that day convinced the Nazarenes that the returning hometown
boy was not the Jesus they wanted.
Instead he was the Jesus they got; and they were offended.
We can look at this story and scornfully judge these people
and others who reject Jesus, shaming them for not embracing the person and
words of Jesus. But are we not just
looking into the mirror at our own faces?
Was not their problem with Jesus the same as our problem with
Jesus? We embrace the Jesus we want, but
we quickly reject the Jesus we get; the real Jesus who offends us.
The Jesus we want is our friend. He is our ally in the face of our
enemies. This Jesus is always on our
side, answering our prayers and blessing us.
This Jesus tells us what we want to hear, makes us comfortable, and
looks pleasingly at our self-righteousness.
This Jesus is the one who applauds our hate speech and intolerance of
others, who approves of our use of violence and war against our enemies, and
who promises us that our capitalistic pursuits will bring us prosperity.
The Jesus we want is created in our own minds and answers to
our demands. He permits us to wage
unjust violence against our enemies in the name of national security. He allows us to hoard money and possessions
in the name of financial security. He
consents to our prejudices against people of other races, genders, religions
and sexual orientations in the name of cultural security. Yes, this is the Jesus we prefer. He is the Jesus we can accept and worship.
But this is not the real Jesus. The real Jesus is the one who calls us to
turn the other cheek, to love our enemies, to sell all we have and give to the
poor, and to take up the cross and follow him.
This is the Jesus who calls us to reach out to others and cross the
boundaries of race, religion, culture, gender, and sexual orientation. This is the Jesus that dined with tax
collectors, beggars, diseased, and various persons of questionable social
standing. This is the Jesus who compels
us to repent of our insular lives and to commit ourselves to work for justice,
peace, and hope in our world. This is
the Jesus who calls us to rethink our theological assertions and to open
ourselves to being moved by his Spirit.
And this is the Jesus, who being so offensive and so scandalous to his
contemporaries, that he was crucified on the most offensive and scandalous
instruments of Roman power-the cross.
Yes, this is the radical Jesus, the scandalous Jesus, and the offensive
Jesus; but he is the real Jesus, the biblical Jesus, and the Jesus who calls us
out of sin into the salvation of radical discipleship. This is the Jesus we
must reclaim.
[1]
David Dark, The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea, Westminster / John Knox / 2005
David Dark, The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea, Westminster / John Knox / 2005
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