Walking as Children of the Light
Mark 10:32-37
In the Scripture today we have one example of many where the disciples simply do not “get it.” Jesus has just expressed what is facing him, and is more vulnerable than at any other time of his life. But the disciples can only think of themselves. Unbelievable. But then it is unbelievable how often we do not “get it” as well.
A couple of years ago I was driving to the Adirondack Mountains where I would spend a week in the Whitney Wilderness area. My canoe was on top of the car, my backpack was in the back and I was set for the long trip to upper state New York. It was Sunday, so there was a lot of religious programming on the radio which always turns out to be interesting. One program came on where a preacher was answering questions that had been sent in by listeners. The first question was about a difficult passage in the Old Testament, and the preacher emphatically made the point: “Unless the text says otherwise, we should always take the Bible literally.” Fine and well, but the next question was from someone who asked: “What do you think of Jesus’ statement about turning the other cheek and going the second mile?” My jaw dropped as the preacher said, “Well, I hardly think that Jesus meant for us to actually turn the other cheek after someone strikes us. That would be totally impractical.” What happened to taking the Bible literally? Then he told a story about an Irishman who was hit by someone, turned the other cheek and was hit again, so then got up and whaled the tar out of the person who had hit him. But I was really stunned when the preacher went on to say, “Well, you see, that was from the Sermon on the Mount, and the things Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount are not to be taken literally. They do not work here and now. The principles Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount were meant for when he comes and sets up the millennial kingdom. They are certainly not for today.”
I laughed as the thoughts went racing through my head: “Who are these people who, in the millennial kingdom, are going to be striking us so that we have to turn the other cheek?” Isn’t this the time and place of which Isaiah spoke of when he said: “The wolf will live with the lamb” (Isaiah 11:6)? If the millennial kingdom is anything it is a kingdom of peace. If the Sermon on the Mount was only for the millennial kingdom, why would Jesus say something like, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:20-21). I thought the millennial kingdom was a place of prosperity. You mean there will be people who are poor, hungry and weeping in Christ’s future kingdom? It was obviously just a way of explaining away something you don’t like in the Bible, and many of us do this one way or another. We often talk about liberals compromising the Bible, but fundamentalists do it at least as much.
I used to pray that God would help me not to be brainwashed by the world. I realized that there were ways that I was being indoctrinated by the secular culture in which I lived that I was not even aware of. What I did not realize was that I was sometimes being brainwashed by the popular Christian culture of which I was a part — an Americanized form of Christianity that is often very far from the real thing. There were many things that I had accepted without really thinking much about them, because it was assumed these were the things that Bible-believing Christians were supposed to believe. What rescued me was that I had a practice of reading through the entire Bible each year, and over time I began to see that many of the things I had come to accept as fact were not really in the Bible. So when I preached one Sunday on Jesus turning the water into wine, and said that it was real wine, I had some people strongly react. A red-faced man had his finger in my face at the end of the service, and the next day I got a 45 minute lecture on the evils of drinking from another. For some people drinking, even in moderation, is the worst kind of sin, but other things like racism, judgmentalism, and an unloving, critical spirit are overlooked.
I began to see that there are many other errors we make in the name of Christianity. It seems as if we have forgotten the words of Jesus, or merely pass them off as pious platitudes and nice stories, not to be taken seriously. We claim to follow the Savior, but we don’t take very seriously the things he said about love and mercy, justice, nonviolence, openness to others, forgiveness, compassion and concern for the poor. We are in danger of becoming shallow, hypocritical and missing the depth of the life Christ has called us to live.
Let me give you three ways that I believe Christians are missing the point today. The first error we make is: Seeing salvation as merely a legal transaction. Becoming a Christian for many is simply a matter of “getting saved”. One trip to the altar is all that is required. It is all settled. It is as if someone asks God to forgive their sins, and then they wipe their forehead and say, “Thank God that’s over with!”
We see the Gospel as merely a legal transaction. It is stated similar to this: God is the judge and I am in the dock. The judge pronounces me guilty and sentences me to death, but the judge’s son steps forward to accept the penalty for my crime and dies in my place. The penalty has been paid, I am forgiven and on my way to heaven, and that is the end of it.
It is not that there is not a certain amount of truth in all that, but the problem is that we see it as a one time act that is over and done with. Not much thought is given to actually studying the Gospels to see what Jesus really said and discovering the ongoing life he meant for us to live. Not much care is given to really becoming a disciple of Christ and growing in the life to which he has called us.
We often talk of repenting of our sins, as though it is merely saying we are sorry so that God will forgive us. But repentance means a change of heart and life — a total turnaround. It brings about a dramatic change of character. We start treating each other differently. We really do start loving our enemies. We actually forgive those who have wronged us. We seek to find nonviolent means to bring resolution to disagreements. We long for reconciliation rather than harboring grudges and bitterness. We do what we can for those in need. The goal of the Christian life is not forgiveness, but transformation. We become a new kind of people. The Bible says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:29). The Scripture says, “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man [i.e. Adam], so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven [i.e. Christ]” (1 Corinthians 15:49 ). It also says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). That is a glorious picture of what the Christian life is meant to be: “being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.”
Obedience must follow forgiveness. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command”(John 14:15). The Christian life is not a set of doctrines to be believed, it is a lifestyle to be lived. The words of Jesus are often difficult, but they are not to be dismissed. G. K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian life has not been tried and found wanting, so much as it’s been found difficult and left untried.” Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). He also said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). The Christian life is not just about “being saved,” it is about a relationship with God that results in obedience and transforms the way we live. It transforms the way we see the world and the way we see and treat other people.
This leads to the second error I see among Christians today: Believing that being right is more important than treating other people right. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be a lot of mean, angry people calling themselves Christians today. Somehow we have missed the fact that Jesus’ primary command was the command to love. Jesus prayed, “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26). The Bible says, “And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21).
I had two very wonderful things happen to me when I visited a former church where I had been the pastor. Two different people came up to me and basically said, “You know when you were here I didn’t like you much, and I even gave you a hard time. I regret that, and my attitude toward you has changed.” (Now certainly I could not have done anything to cause them to dislike me — with my sweet, gentle and charming disposition. Actually, I had to do some apologizing myself to certain people.) But anyway, things had not been good between us and they wanted to be reconciled. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. First of all on a personal level, I was deeply moved that they wanted to be reconciled to me. But secondly, it was a sign to me that God is moving in that church. This is Gospel living. And my prayer is that God will keep moving in this way.
Throughout church history we have seen some of the most horrible abuses of other people in the name of Christianity. We have the record of torture and killing in the name of Christ to our shame. The witch trials and the Inquisition are just a couple of examples. Today we have people who claim to be Christians shouting “God hates fags” at the funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq, because these “christians” believe God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuals. A recent editorial in our local paper invited people to leave the country who did not like the influence of Christianity in the United States. All of this sees people divided into two camps: those who are for God and those who are against him. It is an “us and them” mentality that Jesus knew nothing about. We see others as the enemy and therefore we feel it is acceptable to treat them in any way we wish and say anything we want. It doesn’t matter how ugly our spirit is.
Jesus saw all people as the creation of God, and deeply loved by him, no matter how lost they were. In the Old Testament we have a very interesting, unusual, and even disturbing story of Jonah the prophet. You know the story of how he was sent by the Lord to Nineveh to call the people there to repentance. But Jonah did not want anything to do with these people. After all they were the enemies of Israel, terrorists if you will, who were fierce and cruel warriors. They were grossly immoral. Jonah hated them and wanted them dead — and with good reason — his nation was being threatened by them. Jonah was afraid of them. He did not want them to repent, he wanted God to just send fire from heaven to consume them. Jonah did not want to go to these people on the remote possibility that they might repent and the Lord would have mercy on them, so he ran in the opposite direction of Nineveh and away from the Lord as well. You know the part of the story of him being swallowed by a great fish and being delivered on the shores of Israel by that leviathan of an ocean liner. Not exactly the best accommodations.
The surprising part of the story is that Jonah eventually goes to Nineveh, looking freakish after his ride in the fish’s digestive tract, and cries out, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” He doesn’t even ask the people to repent. He gives them no hope and merely announces judgment. He is enjoying the thought of their coming destruction. But something amazing happens — the people repent. They sit in sackcloth and ashes — even covering their animals in sackcloth. Their king took off his royal robes and repented in sackcloth as well. Then the Bible says, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”
As you read through the Bible you realize that something on this scale had never happened in Israel — and they were supposed to be the chosen people of God. Jonah had spawned a national revival, the likes of which have never been seen before or since. Jonah is the most successful prophet in the history of the world. But Jonah is not happy. He wanted the people to die, not to live. The Bible says, “ But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:1-3). He is angry with God for being gracious and compassionate.
Like Jonah, we forget God’s love for all the people of his creation. As long as we are “right” it justifies what we say to people and what we do to them. The story of Jonah and Nineveh must have been shocking to the people of Israel. They could not imagine God loving the people of Nineveh, these pagan enemies of theirs. It was totally out of line with their loyalty to their nation that was tied so closely with their religion. It would have been like trying to tell Americans in the 70’s that God loved atheistic communists and the people of Russia and China. It would be like telling people today that God loves Muslims and the people of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. In fact, I have heard Christians say that we should nuke all the Muslim countries and kill them all. “Just turn their sand into glass,” is their mantra. We want to be right, so that it does not matter about having right relationships.
The third error I see modern day Christians making is: Operating out of fear rather than faith. I have lived through the time that we were afraid that the communists were going to overtake the world. Today we fear that radical Muslims are going to overtake the world. We are afraid that liberals are going to take over the church and the government, or that atheists are going to take over our schools, and that homosexuals are going to take over the culture. We live out of fear rather than faith.
I have seen many movies come and go that Christians were afraid were going to destroy the Christian faith. Movies like “Dogma,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” and “The Da Vinci Code.” Christians threw lots of dust in the air as though these films were going to turn the world away from Christ. A friend of mine recently forwarded an email to me warning me about a Dutch film maker’s biography of Jesus called, “Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait.” It suggests that Mary, the mother of Jesus, may have been a rape victim, and therefore Jesus was not divine. These films and books are tired old themes that will soon spend themselves. I wrote my friend back saying, “Good news: In spite of what a movie may say, Jesus is risen.” Jesus has risen, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father and will return to claim the world as his own. There is nothing to fear.
Do you know what the most frequent command in the New Testament is? It is, “Do not be afraid!” Jesus told his disciples about the persecution they would soon face, and said, “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home” (John 16:32). It was the worst possible news they could imagine, but then he said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Do we believe that Jesus has overcome the world or not? Are we living in that quiet confidence? Then we don’t have to get mad and upset at everything that comes along. This is good news. As you study history you see that Christianity has always thrived in persecution, in cultures that were hostile to it and which were decadent morally. It was in those times that Christians took their faith seriously and realized the importance of being a witness by living a transformed life in a culture collapsing under the weight of its own sin. There has never been a time when it is more important to live out the life that Christ has laid out for us than it is today. And it is possible through Christ. We have been forgiven and brought into the kingdom of heaven. We have the Holy Spirit living around us and within us. We have each other. We have the hope of a returning Savior and the promise of eternal life. What could be better?
Timothy Keller, a pastor of a major church in Manhattan tells this story: “During a dark time in her life, a woman in my congregation complained that she had prayed over and over, ‘God, help me find you,’ but had gotten nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she might change her prayer to, ‘God, come and find me. After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep.’ She concluded when she was recounting this to me, ‘The only reason I can tell you this story is — he did.’” The Bible makes this promise: “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Our faith is in a loving God who is searching for us and wants to find us.
Rodney J. Buchanan
Amity United Methodist Church
February 17, 2013
rodbuchanna@yahoo.com
