streaming up the mountain

I had the privilege of preaching the sermon at Grace Community Church in Philipstown, Northern Cape, on Sunday. I chose Isaiah 2:2-4 to complement the themes of our weekend seminars on the church as the community of Christ's peace.

As I warmed up, I began to relish the metaphors in the text, specifically, the image of the nations "streaming"--"like a river that runs down to the sea and never stops" is how I put it--to "the Lord's house" (v. 2). Afterward, our colleagues pointed out to me a tantalizing paradox in the image--the nations streaming like a river up the high mountain on which the Lord's house stands.

Can a river flow up a mountain? A geological impossibility is paired with a theological certainty. The nations at war with one another will beat their weapons into agricultural tools. In our day, as well as in the days of Isaiah and, 800 years later, the early church (whose leaders cited this scripture in their writings more than any other), peace may seem as much an impossibility as a river flowing up.

Yet the "God of Jacob" is there. He himself "will teach us his ways that we may walk in his paths" (v. 3). "He himself is our peace", as Paul later put it, "who has made the two one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us" (Eph. 2:14). He did this "in his flesh", that is, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (Eph 2:14, see also 1:20), another impossibility made certain.

What is impossible for humans is possible for God (Mk. 10:27; 11:23-24).

-Joe

on following

One of my favorite songs sung in the South African independent-church context is Somlandela, "We will follow Jesus". A second verse to the tune is the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in John 21:15ff. Simon nikaYona, uyandithanda na?/Ewe Nkosi yam, ndiyakuthanda, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?/Yes, Lord, I love you". I enjoyed the opportunity yesterday to join the preaching of that text to the song.

Jesus' third resurrection appearance to his disciples, recorded in John 21, is, in my reading, a story about a crossroads in the disciple's life (here represented by Simon Peter) between the old life (before Christ) and the new (in Christ). In reading the text this week, a pivotal revelation for me was the fleeting quality of Jesus' resurrection appearances to his disciples. After his resurrection from the dead, he did not simply stay with his disciples; rather he appeared, disappeared, and reappeared to them over the course of forty days leading up to his ascension (Acts 1:3). His time with them was broken. As a result, in between appearances, his disciples must have yet been prone to doubt whether they had in fact seen the risen Jesus or, as Luke puts it, merely "a ghost" (24:37). Was Jesus' resurrection appearance a unique experience within the disciples' spiritual worldview, or did it fit established categories? The fleeting quality of the resurrection appearances left room for the disciples to question whether Jesus was uniquely alive--in a quality different from others who had died--despite having had "many convincing proofs" that he was indeed the "firstborn from among the dead" (Acts 1:3; Rev. 1:5).

This, then, is the critical context for the story--the disciples lingering doubt. From there, we see the options open to Peter. How will he live with his doubt? Will Peter continue to go the way of Jesus, the way he began after his encounter with Jesus three years earlier by the Sea of Galilee (Lk. 5:1-11)? Or will he go back to his pre-Jesus life?

Peter, perhaps fed up with this fleeting Jesus, weary from the emotional swings of friendship lost and regained, chooses his pre-Jesus existence. "I am going fishing", he announces to his companion disciples. "We will go with you," they say. Without their former leader, the disciples will follow Peter. They will follow him into the old way of living. No more "fishers of people" (Mk. 1:17); fishers again only of fish. Except that, just as the first time Peter met Jesus, no fish were forthcoming (Lk. 5:5). "They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing" (v. 3).

This is the perfect set-up for Jesus to reappear to the disciples. He stands "on the beach" and calls to the disciples on the sea. He tells them, as he did when they first met, where to cast the net in order that they might catch some fish. Again an overwhelming catch ensues. The disciples would be truly dim indeed if they did not now recognize the man on the beach as their Lord.

Peter, to his credit, recognizes Jesus and makes his move back toward him. First he puts on some clothes in order to swim back to land to meet Jesus--"for he was naked".

This has long bemused me. Why would one put on their clothes in order to swim? Why also was Peter naked in the boat?

I asked the congregation. Pastor Ntapo: "I can guess that Peter was naked in the old life." Peter, having decided to again seek security apart from this fleeting, seemingly undependable Jesus, ironically finds himself more exposed. He will put on his clothes and go back to Jesus. He will "clothe himself with the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27; Col. 3:10) So too will those who have chosen to follow Peter from new to old and back again. They row back to land "in the boat".

When they return, they find that a meal has been prepared for them. A charcoal fire is there with fish on it and some bread. This is not the fish the disciples have just caught; it is already on the fire for them. The disciples will simply add to the fire what Jesus has already put there. The "fleeting Jesus" is still who he always was: Israel's Provider, giving bread and meat to his beloved in the desert.

But Jesus' love for his disciples is a tough love; Peter feels "hurt" because Jesus has asked him three times whether he loves him. As Jesus was being condemned to death, Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus now wants to know--three times--whether Peter truly loves him. And "yes" alone will not do; Peter must feed Jesus' sheep. Peter has other disciples willing to follow him wherever he goes.

"I am going fishing." "We will go with you". "I am going back to the old life." "We will go with you."

Does Peter love Jesus enough to care for his sheep? Jesus says, "Follow me" (v. 19). "Do as I do". "Feed my sheep".

There is a danger in singing songs of extreme commitment--"Somlandel', Somlandel' UYesu/Somlandel' yonke iindawo, "We will follow, We will follow Jesus/We will follow everywhere [he goes]--if we do not intend to take the steps.

Jesus told Peter, "When you were younger you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (v. 18).

Persecutions and trouble, trials and tribulations are bound to come. Suffering is in the world. Our lives are not our own. Going alone, "going fishing" again, is no recipe for success. We are slaves--either to the world or to Christ. If anything is sure, it is that someone else "will take you where you do not wish to go". But only in Christ is the slavery freedom (Rom. 6:16ff., compare with Gal. 4-5; Mt. 6:24).

I'm still working on that one.

-Joe

"hidden from our eyes" (Luke 19:42)

As I read, and then eventually preached, the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-44), I became interested in the characterization of the disciples. Though it might be argued that they do not appear as dim-witted as they do in Mark's gospel, in Luke the disciples do, nonetheless, in the words of my pastoral colleague, "say things that they do not understand." To this we might also add that they often "do things that they do not understand." In this text, for example:

• the disciples must not have imagined what their simple act of obedience to Jesus' command instigated. Indeed, they seem to need assurance that the thing which they are about to do can in fact be done; Jesus anticipates their doubt that they will find a colt tied up precisely as he tells them and that they will be allowed to acquire it. Thus he arms them with a response to any who would hinder them: "Just say this, 'the Lord needs it' (v. 31). At least having a plan--however audacious that plan may seem--is enough to send the disciples on their way ahead of Jesus. This, in this text, is their first act of trust in him.
• the disciples' trust in Jesus is rewarded beyond any doubts. First, they "found [the colt] as he had told them" (v. 32). Second, the anticipated scenario likewise goes exactly "as he had told them": the disciples are asked for a reason for their course of action to which they utter the instructed response. Third, "the Lord needs it" works. The text does not mention any further dispute, no ensuing haggling with the colt's owners. Immediately, they simply "brought [the colt] to Jesus" (v. 35). Their initial act of faith in Jesus has been rewarded.
• Confidence booming, they act on their own, apart from any explicit command from their lord. They "throw their cloaks on the colt"; "they set Jesus on it." Next, "as he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road" (v. 36). Could the disciples have imagined that their initial decision to act on their faith in Jesus, to trust him, to take him at his word, would yield similar acts from an entire "multitude of disciples" (v. 37), now "spreading their cloaks on the road" before Jesus? Here again in the gospel narrative appears something of the dynamic of the so-called "messianic secret". Jesus explicitly instructs his disciples or would-be followers to say nothing of his marvelous acts or his true identity, yet they are unable to keep quiet (cf. Mark 1:40-45). Here he is simply silent, yet his disciples pick him up, "set Jesus on [the colt]"--they literally exalt him. Their doing so opens the way for others to acclaim him "king" (v. 38).
• All this does not mean, however, that the disciples now understand Jesus, that they now perceive his significance. Luke, it would seem, illustrates their knowing in part, as "in a glass darkly" (1 Cor 13:12), through his juxtaposition of the "multitude's" acclamation of Jesus at the beginning of his earthly life and now at its end. That is, when the heavenly "multitude" appears to Judean shepherds with the news of Christ's birth, they proclaim "on earth peace" (2:14). The earthly "multitude", upon his entry into Jerusalem, proclaim "Peace in heaven" (19:38). Does the earthly multitude understand the heavenly acclamation? Do they know "the things that make for peace"? (v. 42) Do they believe that the peace of heaven is intended for earth?

They do not. For this reason Jesus is weeping for them--for us (v. 41).

-Joe