Jesus Blows My Mind


Abstract:
It's a bit late for an Easter story, but here it is, anyway:
David Buttrick re-introduced me to Jesus.

Body:
You would think that someone who had decided to pursue Christian religious study and instruction as a vocation would have a pretty good idea of who and what Jesus is, wouldn't you? Not so. David got me with Luke 15:1-7, the parable of the Lost Sheep.

Now, although I understood theologically who Jesus was, and although I could, with some slight internal discomfort, talk about Jesus' proclaimed "Kingdom of the Skies" idea and recite some very pretty orthodox lines about Christology, I didn't really feel like I had a handle on Jesus' character. He didn't really have a personality. I knew he was unconventional, loving, forgiving, blah blah blah. I knew he was dangerous to the powers that be. But I never would have thought that the "Good Shepherd" idea was an example of his radical message. I had seen too many cheesy paintings of JC, tender, meek, and mild, leading cute fluffy lambs through dangerous terrain.

I was T.A.'ing for David in a homiletics class when he used the line I have borrowed again and again: "If we accept the conventional readings of Jesus' parables, we're left with a totally useless Jesus. The only reason anyone would kill Jesus for telling these stories is because he was too damned boring."

I knew when he spoke it, that I had got religion.

I had always heard people rationalize this story. Preachers suck any cognitive dissonance right out of it. "Which of you, having a hundred sheep, would leave 99 to search for the lost one?" Well, the reasonable churchers would say, nobody, of course. Therefore Jesus must have been referring to a two-man team. One shepherd would stay with the sheep, and the other would go look for it. Or the shepherd would leave them penned up while he looked for the lost one. Whew! That sure makes the churchers feel better. Because it'd be really scary to think that God might leave the 99 in the wilderness where they could be eaten by wolves, while he went gallavanting over the hills looking for that one trouble-making, useless, lost sheep. So to protect themselves from thinking that God must be totally crazy, they suck all the scandal right out of the parable. They make it a story about "everyday life," and Jesus becomes just another boring folk-preacher spouting conventional wisdom about stuff we already know.

But the truth is that Jesus tells us, again and again, that God doesn't do things the way we do things. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Workers that work a one-hour day earn as much as workers that work a 12-hour day. A farmers scatters valuable seed hither and yon, instead of carefully planting and tending each one, the way a reasonable person would. And Jesus leaves 99 sheep who feel secure, who are oblivious to the plight of their missing companion, who hang out in the sanctuary chewing their cud, in order that he might go find the one who has strayed from the love of God. Jesus says, "this is why I spend my social time with extortionists, whores, addicts, and people who know that they are sinners, rather than waste my time eating with the moral majority who believe they "need no repentance." "

I felt I had been given a profound insight into Jesus' character. Instead of being an abstract entity - omnipotent, omniscient, etc. - God had truly put on flesh and blood and I could relate. Since that time, I've come to believe more and more that the starting point for Christian theology shouldn't be abstractions about God - "why does a good and powerful God allow suffering?" - but should start from the character and mission of Jesus. What kind of God are we talking about, here? The God that Jesus speaks of is unpredictable and surprising. God baffles the theologians with completely irrational behavior. And when I look at the church, I can't help but think, "what would happen if we really knew Jesus? What would we spend our time doing?"

A good friend points out that usually people see in Jesus a reflection of themselves. Academics see a scholarly cynic. Liberal universalists see a universalist. Conservative moralists see a a conservative moralist. And since I'm a nutcase, I see a radical religious misfit. But Jesus surprises me. Every time I start reading about his life and ministry, I get blown away by something else. It's a bit like a marriage, where you frequently have to update your mental picture of your spouse. You can spend a long time getting to know someone, only to find that all you really know are your prejudices, and the actual person is far more interesting that your idea of them. That's what having a relationship with God is about. From my own experiecne, I believe that if (my) theology is ever to move beyond a rationalization of our (my) intellectual prejudices, it must meet Jesus face-to-face. Every day. Through prayer, Bible study, small group accountability, worship, and stewardship, I've got to meet the real, living Jesus.

Posted: Tue - April 12, 2005 at 09:55 AM           |

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