Word of Promise #4

Jesus was a teacher. That’s what the word “master” means in the older versions of the Bible. Jesus was also called “rabbi”, which is another word that means “teacher.”

However, there is a theological danger in viewing “teacher” as the Lord’s primary role. The path that liberal theology took in the nineteenth century began with viewing Jesus as primarily a great teacher, even as the greatest teacher of all times. The problem is this: what Jesus taught was not essentially different than what great teachers had taught before. Moses, the Buddha, Socrates, Solomon, Lao Tse and other great men taught people how to live, think and act in ways that turned their hearts toward others.

They all taught their followers to cultivate gratitude and forgiveness. It is easy to print the teachings of these people side by side, demonstrating their common ground. In fact, many eighteenth century books did this, giving the impression that Jesus was a member, perhaps even the greatest member, of an elite club of great spiritual masters.

Orthodox Christianity does not require us to ignore the greatness of the world’s teachers. A faithful Christian should have no difficulty admiring the Buddha or respecting his followers. However, the Buddha is not a peer of Christ. The Buddha was a very great man; Jesus is the incarnate God. Like the Buddha, Jesus taught others, and it is obvious that our Lord said many things that are incredibly similar to things the Buddha said. The difference between them though lies not primarily in what they taught but in who they were and in what they did. Jesus was God as well as man. Jesus died and then resurrected from the dead.

So what might we say is the Lord’s central title or role? In my last blog, I talked about Jesus as exorcist and offered the idea that this was a deeper and more fundamental role for Him than “teacher.” The more I think about it though, exorcism, as vital and fundamental as it was to our Lord’s work, was not His central role either. Like teaching, exorcism served an even more fundamental aim in our Lord’s ministry.

Jesus is the Lord! He is the ruler of a kingdom. He drove out evil because evil does not submit to the rule of God. He taught because He wanted us to learn what it means to be citizens of His kingdom.

If Jesus is only a teacher, we can learn good things from Him without really changing who we are. If He is only an exorcist, we can gain deliverance from oppression and break into new personal freedom. However, if He is our Lord, it means we have turned our primary allegiance away from our culture, our nation and our family (and all their customs, laws and values) and are adopting the laws, customs and values of a very different kingdom.

That is what it means to be a Christian – a follower of Christ. It means that we are delivered from darkness, given eternal life and taught a new way of living and thinking. These are the gifts of our Lord, who came that we might have life and have it in abundance.

Word of Promise #3

Christians in what we used to call “the third world,” often view the work of Jesus as centered around exorcism. Western Christians tend to view Christ as either teacher or savior. So it usually strikes Westerners as strange to hear believers in other places focus so intently on this “spooky side of things.” When we hear the word “exorcism,” we think about the movies in which people levitate and growl. So what are they talking about, these Christians in the developing world?

Well, actually, they have returned to a much older way of looking at the work of Christ and the meaning of the New Testament. The fact is, exorcism is a constant topic of the New Testament writers. They tell us again and again that Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil,” and to make it possible for ordinary people to “resist the devil.”

In Matthew, chapter 3, Jesus meets Satan himself in the wilderness. The tempter offers the Lord fame and fortune without suffering or trial. Jesus rebukes him with the words of scripture and then goes out to heal the sick, cast out demons and to proclaim the kingdom of God.

The backdrop of the New Testament is the belief that the world had been overtaken by evil. Satan ruled the governments of the world. The world’s people were afflicted by darkness so profound that they could find no way of escape.

This was a central theme of Christian teaching for a long time. Just think about how the Christmas carols draw on this idea!

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

In this view, Jesus both teaches and acts in ways to deliver people from darkness. His words bring the light of truth to the human mind. His healings bring relief from the affects of evil on the human body. His death and resurrection undo the knot of darkness that holds together the work evil has weaved through human culture. So everything He does is about deliverance!

In this view, salvation from our sins is Heaven’s pronouncement of human freedom; it is hardly the central theme of the gospel. Jesus frees us from the power of darkness so we can manifest the dignity God granted to us as creatures made in His image and likeness. Therefore, Christ came to restore God’s original purpose for us, not just to save us from sin. He wants us to shine like the stars, not just limp into Heaven.

This is why, in many countries, when Christians arrive at a remote village and see the devastated farms and the diseased bodies, they immediately begin to rebuke the evil one. They are angry against the powers of darkness that afflict the people. However, as they pray, they also call their brothers and sisters from the city who are schooled in agriculture. They call for the doctors and nurses. They call for teachers and construction workers. Soon, an army of believers descend on that village to pray, teach, heal, and build. If you ask these believers what they are doing, they will tell you, “We are casting out the works of darkness so that they who sit in darkness may see a great light.”

It is wonderful to read the New Testament this way; to see the work of “exorcism” simply as delivering the peoples of the earth from the clutches of evil and despair.

This is what Jesus did. This is what we do. For this is kingdom work, proclaiming in word and deed the power and glory of God until no one rattles a saber and no one drags a chain.

Word of Promise #2

Last night, Trish and I watched Fiddler on the Roof. We laughed as Tevye used all his “good ‘ole boy” wisdom and fatherly grace to lead his family through massive change, trying desperately to both cling to to his traditions and to do what was right for those he loved.

Tevye was wise enough to know that traditions are important and that they hold our communities together. Tevye is a good man. Righteous people like him almost always work to keep traditions alive. Almost always.

In times of rapid change, tradition can keep people (and the institutions they serve) tied to an old world that will soon be gone. Tevye’s centuries-old world of Russian Judaism was about to disappear. As the decades of the twentieth century passed, the heavy hands of anti-Semitism and modernism would work together to batter this ancient community into smithereens.
What do people do in such times?

In the first three chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel, the characters reel from the rapid changes they must face. Joseph must decide between Jewish tradition and the word of an angel about whether he will or will not move forward with his engagement to Mary. Herod must decide between his love of power and the opportunity before him to welcome God’s messiah. The people of Jerusalem must decide whether to accept a strange priest named John who wears funny clothes and eats weird food.

“The ax is laid at the foot of the tree,” John boldly shouts. It’s a Bob Dylan lyric for 1st century Judea!“The times; they are a changin’,” John is saying to his generation.

This will be one of the great themes that runs throughout the entire New Testament. God is on the move; an old world is quickly giving way to a new one. So what does a person do if he wants to remain faithful to his God and to his faith when the times are a changin’?

Those Jews who reject John the Baptist and Jesus, simply want to hold on to their faith.

Those Jews who accept John the Baptist and Jesus want to be faithful to God’s call. It is easy to look back and judge these people but are we any different than them? Do we know what to do in our times – these times of such fundamental and unceasing change?

The radicals call us to change because they are bored. The traditionalists warn us against change because they are afraid. So which will we do – hold on to tradition or move on with change?

I believe in tradition and cultural roots. Like Tevye, I think that tradition, protocol, and social grace help maintain civilization and promote healthy community. That’s why I call myself a conservative – I want to conserve what my ancestors worked hard to build. However, also like Tevye, I am responsible for the health of real human beings, some of which do not always fit into the neat boxes our traditions offer them.

Tradition does not make much room for a single mom trying to raise godly children while she works so many hours a day hardly even seeing her kids. Tradition does not tell me how to include those who do not yet speak my language into my church family. Tradition does not tell me how to adjust to a globalized economy in which I don’t know my banker or even which institution really owns my house. Tradition doesn’t always tell me how to deal with all the things that technology, massive economic reshuffling and stunning new scientific discoveries have brought into my life.

When the times are changing as quickly as they are now, tradition can be a comforting walk down an old path. We just have to keep it from becoming a pathological structure of denial – a stubborn refusal to believe that much of our old world is already gone and is never coming back.
When the ax is laid at the root of the tree, we have to decide to listen with fresh ears to the voice of him who is “crying in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

It takes both courage and wisdom to keep one’s balance in such times: like a fiddler, dancing on a roof.

Word of Promise #1

“Where did I come from?” is often our children’s first serious question. We usually think that the child wants to know what we call “the facts of life.” I just spent the best part of a year writing a book about sex. I called it, Naked and Not Ashamed. So I should know “the facts of life” by now. I read hundreds of books, interviewed people and thought a lot about sex.

So do I know where I came from?

Well, as it turns out, knowing a lot about sex does not tell us where we came from. Besides, sexual information, as important as it is, is hardly “the facts of life.”

Ancient people thought that this question of origins was the most important piece of information they could have about someone. Appalachian people think so too. We were all poor up in the mountains but we “knew who our folks were.” That’s why I can tell you the names of all my ancestors since the sixteen hundreds. But does that tell you anything about me?

I think it does. Then again, this blog is not about me. It’s about Jesus.

St. Matthew begins his story about Jesus by telling us “who his folks were.”

Hundreds of people in our church are listening to The Word of Promise, a dramatized reading of the New Testament produced by Thomas Nelson. (My wife wanted it because Jim Cavaziel, who played the part of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, reads the words of Christ in this project. God knows if her motives are really about learning the Word of God! But I digress…)
Trish and I listened together.

“Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.”

This is the passage that always gets a laugh from modern readers. It has caused many a reader to stop reading the New Testament before he ever really begins. “Boring stuff,” he thinks as he tosses the Bible aside and picks up his People Magazine.

It’s not true. This is not boring. Each name in this chapter has a story. The actual begating didn’t take that long and it didn’t require a lot of intelligence. The interesting part – the stuff between the begating – constitutes the real facts of life.

Jesus was the son of sinners and saints, kings and paupers, tragedy and comedy. There is real drama peeking out between these begats. Verse 11 just tosses this phrase nonchalantly, “Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.” What? That’s it? Rape, pillage, murder and mayhem – deportation – this is terrible! Nonetheless, two people find a way to begat someone. Life goes on because life is irrepressible and that life jumps from generation to generation until it personifies in the person of Jesus, “in whom was life and that life was the light of Men.”

That is the real facts of life!