searching for Jesus

I had the privilege of hearing one of my students preach last Saturday at a funeral for another member of the Bible School.  I liked what he did with his chosen text, Luke 2:41-49.

The preacher fastened on two key lines in the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus' journey with his parents for the Passover in Jerusalem (2:41).  First, the preacher fixed on the fact that, when his parents departed Jerusalem after the festival not knowing that Jesus was not with them, "they started to look for him among their relatives and friends" (2:44).  Second, the preacher emphasized the "anxiety" of the parents when they could not find Jesus; "Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety", his mother says to Jesus after they have found him in the temple (2:48, 46).  The preacher's point was that, in his words, "Life is very painful outside of Jesus", and that the pain of life without Jesus cannot be quelled even among one's relatives and friends.  Rather, the deliverance from the anguish of life comes only in the persistent "search" for Jesus, just as his parents continued to look for him when he was not to be found in the company of their relatives and friends (2:44, 45).  It was only in that persistent search that they "found him" (2:46).

Jesus Among the Teachers, from the Jesus Mafa Collection

The implications of such a message were not lost on the preacher's Xhosa audience, which hung on his every word, many among them encouraging him on with whoops and hollers.  I suspect that the impact of the sermon, the preacher's gospel meeting the people's context, had a lot to do with the continuing tension between loyalty to one's blood family (the text's "relatives and friends") and allegiance to Jesus.  True believers often find themselves having to choose between participating in family rituals that invoke spirits other than or alongside Jesus or hold their ground in the name of an exclusive loyalty to Jesus.  Many Xhosa Christians have found the satisfaction of life with Jesus in a way that was unavailable to them in the traditions of their elders.  The overall persona of the preacher as he spoke about life "outside of Jesus" exhibited an intensity seemingly impossible for one in whom the struggle to honor Jesus above relatives is not real.

Other elements in the proceedings also attested the side-by-side existence of Christian and non-Christian approaches to the challenges of life among those gathered.  Hence, while Christianity and/or the culture of the church has in important senses clearly won the day in this society, one family member of the deceased who made an announcement near the close of the funeral had no compunction about saying that, with the spate of death that had befallen that family recently, he would recommend that they go consult a sangoma (traditional diviner) for a remedy.  This announcement came--and I don't think with any confrontation intended--even after the preacher's clear counsel that Jesus is the answer to life's questions.

Perhaps we can only say that, given the spiritual competitors still vying for our loyalty in this world, our search for Jesus goes on.  Where can he be found?

In details not particularly emphasized by the preacher, Luke's story of the boy Jesus leaves us not without direction.  Indeed, those who were searching for him found him "in the temple", in Jesus' own words, "in my Father's house", "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46, 49).  It is noted that Luke's writings (the gospel and the book of Acts) are perhaps more favorably disposed toward the temple than those of the other evangelists.  Indeed, his gospel ends with the disciples of the ascended Jesus in Jerusalem, "continually in the temple blessing God" (Lk 24:53).  Similarly, the Pentecost community (see previous post) "spent much time together in the temple" (Acts 2:46).  Nevertheless, Luke also records Jesus' pronouncement of judgment against the temple in response to the disciples' adoration of it, and is thereby consistent with the united witness of the New Testament that in Jesus the Messiah, "something greater than the temple is here" (Mt 12:6; Lk 21:5-6).  In the end, the New Testament, both gospel and epistle, relativized place of worship in light of a people which worships "in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:24).  The community of Christ, the church, is the temple, "the dwelling place for God" (Eph 2:20-22; 1 Pet 2:4-5).

It is in that context, therefore, that we might, like his parents, find Jesus "in the temple" (2:46).  Indeed, he is there, "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46).  He is with us, sitting among us and asking us questions, wherever "two or three are gathered in his name", around the story of which he is Lord (Mt 18:20).

-Joe  

giving up, giving back

Luke 14:25-33 contains some of the truly “hard sayings” of Jesus. In particular I note two parallel statements in three sentences which frame the stories Jesus tells to illustrate the meaning of following him (discipleship). Those statements, two sentences at the beginning and one at the end of the text, are:

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (vv. 26-27).

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions (v. 33).

The main reason for seeing these statements as parallel, of course, is that they both pronounce requirements for following Jesus, framed in the negative. “Whoever . . . does not hate father and mother . . .”, “Whoever does not carry the cross . . . cannot be . . .”, “ . . . none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up . . ..” What one cannot be, of course, without doing what Jesus commands is—in all three sentences—his “disciple.”

If, therefore, we see them as parallel, then we also begin to see the connection between those different “things” which Jesus tells the “large crowds traveling with him” (v. 25) that they must forsake. In other words, there is some connection between “hating” family members and “giving up” possessions. Indeed, though we may more readily accept—in theory if not in practice—that we should give up material possessions on which we have become dependent to our destruction, we are less likely to regard our beloved family members as possessions to be given up. We are very likely, in fact, to see our loving duty as precisely not to give them up, to keep them close, to protect them at all costs. In other words, even if we do not regard family members as possessions, we are inclined to treat them as such. We treat “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself” as possessions. We regard our relationships with others as things to be possessed, held on to, maintained at all costs. Jesus calls us to “give them up”, release them, set them free.

Good relationships progress because they are free. The best relationships are those which we did not expect, those in which we found ourselves loving a person we did not set out to love. This does not mean that we set out not to love them; it simply means that we had no intention for the relationship itself, no expectations of where it might lead. We began to relate to a person free of requirements, pressures molding the relationship into a preconceived form. The moment we awake, however, to the goodness of relationship, is the moment we begin to possess it. The experience of love creates the desire to love more, and the desire to love more—beyond where we have even now loved—becomes the expectation toward which we strive to steer the relationship. The relationship becomes a thing possessed, an object of our control.

Because the goodness of relationship is the gift of God—pure grace, that which we did not expect, that which we could not create—our attempts to control it will destroy it. That which is created free cannot live possessed. Jesus says we must “give it up”, release it from our control, forfeit our expectations of it. The good news, however, is that our “giving it up” is really “giving it back”—into the hands of the loving God. God wants us, like Abraham with Isaac, to give up that which is most precious; God knows that is the only way we will remain in love.

-Joe

the manly calling

Again, I've linked an entry which fits thematically on both of the blogs we maintain (the manly calling).

-Joe