The gospel text for this coming Sunday is Mark 1:21-28. The story is about the visit Jesus made to the synagogue in Capernaum, including an exorcism. Mark introduces his frequent reminder that Jesus is determined to control His identity by telling us that Jesus told the demon, “Be quiet!”
As interesting as the whole idea of demons, possession, and exorcism is, what interests me even more is the impact Jesus had on people – even people who were not particularly prone to be overly impressed with Him. Before the demon story is ever told, Mark tells us, “they were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (1:22)
In his recently released translation of the New Testament – The Kingdom New Testament – N.T. Wright translates that phrase like this: “They were astonished at his teaching. He wasn’t like the legal teachers; he said things on his own authority.”
So who were these legal teachers or scribes? At least at some level, they were teachers in Israel who were prone to say something like “this text means this, because some rabbi said it means that.” Really good ones might be able to go back a generation or two in noting what others had said about the text.
On the other hand, Jesus just stands up and teaches! And the end result of that is “they were amazed.” The word Mark uses appears only 13 times in the New Testament, primarily in the gospels and primarily to describe the reaction of people to Jesus’ teachings. Gospel writers typically use a different word (see 1:27) to describe the response to His miracles. Mark’s word literally means something like “to strike out of one’s senses.” At some level, it suggests a kind of amazement that overwhelms.
Most often that idea is describing His teaching, not His miracles. (Matthew describes the response to the Sermon on the Mount with the very same word.)
While I recognize that none of us who preach and teach in the kingdom of God are given the same kind of authority as Jesus had, I still think there may be a lesson here for us. The contrast this word often sets up may be as simple as Jesus appeared to know what He was talking about and the scribes knew what others were talking about and made it their own.
The challenge for preachers and teachers in our age is that it is so easy to find what someone else has said about a text and pretend as though it is our own. One can randomly pick about any text he or she wants, do a Google search, and probably find something we’re willing to say. The problem with that is that even if we find something “right,” it isn’t ours and it often sounds like “it isn’t ours.”
Interestingly, this story in Mark comes shortly after Mark’s brief mention of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. (1:12,13) That was a time when, to get to the heart of it all, Jesus had to decide whether or not he would be the kind of Messiah God sent Him to be, or the one religious people wanted – the razzle-dazzle, miracle a day keeps the devil away kind of Messiah.
Could it be that the forty day trial in which Jesus had to determine His commitment to mission was the foundation upon which a kind of authority that overwhelmed His listeners was built?
Obviously there is a place for listening to what others have said about Scripture. But that place, whatever it is, can never replace our own wrestling with the text of Scripture to the point that it becomes a part of who we are. Only then can the Word of God exhibit its authority in our preaching and teaching in a way that overwhelms.
Somehow I don’t think Jesus would have downloaded His sermons from an internet site He found by using Google. When we do that, we sound much more like scribes than Jesus! No wonder the church struggles in our day with its own identity. Wrestling with the text allows us to at least sound like we know what we’re talking about – and that’s not a bad thing.
25 January 2012
11 January 2012
Come and See
The gospel text for this coming Sunday is John 1:43-51, the story of the call of Philip and Nathanael. Most would appreciate more details about these early calls to be disciples, but all four gospels tend to do what they always do – tell the essentials.
The basics of the story are that Jesus found Philip and simply said, “Follow Me.” One has to assume that there had been other interactions in which Philip had at least come to some understanding that this Jesus person isn’t just another want-to-be rabbi creating a following. Philip then finds Nathanael and tells him that he had found “Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (1:44)
Perhaps Nathanael is not unlike we are sometimes prone to be, and is looking for an excuse to dismiss this “Jesus of Nazareth” as nothing more than “the son of Joseph.” He quickly responds to Philip by saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Reflecting what seems to have been the normal point of view of the day, he is quick to dismiss Jesus as being the unfortunate victim of bad geography – Nazareth. That’s it.
But Philip is equally quick to respond, “Come and see.”
Come and see. That’s a powerful challenge to Nathanael’s dismissal of Jesus. Embedded somewhere in it all Philip is suggesting that Jesus is different. He isn’t what you might expect to come from Nazareth. “Come and see.”
In our modern efforts to tell the Jesus story, we are often victimized by much the same attitude. “Can anything “good come from the church?” One only needs to read research data compiled by people like Dave Kinnaman in UnChristian to realize that we are living in a world filled with Nathanael’s question.
The challenge for us is whether or not we are bold enough to say, “Come and see.” Beyond that, of course, if we dare say that, we have to make sure what a skeptic might see should he or she respond to our “Come and see” truly is the body of Christ! If the skeptic comes and sees, will they see a body of people committed to loving God and loving neighbor, or will they see small minded quibbling over “stuff” that doesn’t amount to a drop of water in a really big ocean? Will they see a body of believers committed to changing the world, or a group of religious people determined to protect the turf they presume to own? To use language reflected later in the gospel of John, will they see believers determined to help outsiders discover the “place” (John 14:1ff) Jesus has prepared for them by His death on the cross, or people determined to make sure outsiders don’t come in and take our “place.” (11:48)
For me, I’m thinking about two questions today. One is personal, the other more corporate. The personal one looks like this, “Am I living the kind of life that would allow me to say to a skeptic, ‘Come and see’?” The corporate one looks like this, “Am I serving and worshiping in a community of faith where we are so determined to be the body of Christ to the world around us that we can say to the skeptics, ‘Come and see’?”
Hard questions – but at the same time, essential ones!
The basics of the story are that Jesus found Philip and simply said, “Follow Me.” One has to assume that there had been other interactions in which Philip had at least come to some understanding that this Jesus person isn’t just another want-to-be rabbi creating a following. Philip then finds Nathanael and tells him that he had found “Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” (1:44)
Perhaps Nathanael is not unlike we are sometimes prone to be, and is looking for an excuse to dismiss this “Jesus of Nazareth” as nothing more than “the son of Joseph.” He quickly responds to Philip by saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Reflecting what seems to have been the normal point of view of the day, he is quick to dismiss Jesus as being the unfortunate victim of bad geography – Nazareth. That’s it.
But Philip is equally quick to respond, “Come and see.”
Come and see. That’s a powerful challenge to Nathanael’s dismissal of Jesus. Embedded somewhere in it all Philip is suggesting that Jesus is different. He isn’t what you might expect to come from Nazareth. “Come and see.”
In our modern efforts to tell the Jesus story, we are often victimized by much the same attitude. “Can anything “good come from the church?” One only needs to read research data compiled by people like Dave Kinnaman in UnChristian to realize that we are living in a world filled with Nathanael’s question.
The challenge for us is whether or not we are bold enough to say, “Come and see.” Beyond that, of course, if we dare say that, we have to make sure what a skeptic might see should he or she respond to our “Come and see” truly is the body of Christ! If the skeptic comes and sees, will they see a body of people committed to loving God and loving neighbor, or will they see small minded quibbling over “stuff” that doesn’t amount to a drop of water in a really big ocean? Will they see a body of believers committed to changing the world, or a group of religious people determined to protect the turf they presume to own? To use language reflected later in the gospel of John, will they see believers determined to help outsiders discover the “place” (John 14:1ff) Jesus has prepared for them by His death on the cross, or people determined to make sure outsiders don’t come in and take our “place.” (11:48)
For me, I’m thinking about two questions today. One is personal, the other more corporate. The personal one looks like this, “Am I living the kind of life that would allow me to say to a skeptic, ‘Come and see’?” The corporate one looks like this, “Am I serving and worshiping in a community of faith where we are so determined to be the body of Christ to the world around us that we can say to the skeptics, ‘Come and see’?”
Hard questions – but at the same time, essential ones!
06 January 2012
Simply Amazing
I don’t remember exactly what the context was in terms of the issues being discussed, but I do remember saying something like “If you took Jesus semi-seriously . . .” One person in the class was highly offended at my choice of words – “semi-seriously.” I actually wasn’t advocating a “semi-serious” approach to Jesus, but rather that even a “semi-serious” approach to Jesus would lead us to avoid all sorts of human failures. I said that in the spirit of “no telling what would happen if we took Him seriously!”
It really is simply amazing how basic that can be. When asked, perhaps not with the greatest of motives, about life issues, Jesus replied with a simply amazing answer: “Love God and love your neighbor.” When you get those two things worked out, everything else seems to fall into place. Such an approach to life requires some degree of maturity, of course, but it surely ought to be our goal in life revolves around those two principles.
On the other end of the “simply amazing” spectrum, I continue to be astounded by how easy it is to forget what loving God and loving neighbor must mean. Can I, as a believer who claims to love God on the one hand, treat a fellow believer unkindly on the other hand because I disagree over something that is temporal at best?” Or even if the disagreement is over a “matter of faith,” does that somehow trump what Jesus had to say about loving God and loving neighbor?
Can I “love my neighbor” – who at the moment happens to be a fellow believer with whom I disagree about which missionary to support – and treat her rudely over that disagreement? While loving my neighbor doesn’t suggest I have to be best friends with every person I know, it surely means that I intentionally treat my neighbor with kindness – one of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit, at least in Paul’s mind. Honestly, even if I am “right” (and we all tend to think we are) about who would be the better missionary, is that worth being un-Christlike to the person who sees it differently?
Even when the disagreement is over some matter of faith – shouldn’t I take Jesus “seriously” enough to treat my neighbor as a person “I love” instead of rudely dismissing him as “wrong.” It just seems that saying that I love God has implications about every aspect of my life, including learning to be kind to those with whom I disagree, to those whose approach to life is irritating to me, and even to those who haven’t yet found the joy of loving God.
For longer than I can believe, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the board of Woodland Christian Camp in Temple, Georgia. That has always been a blessing for a number of reasons, but among those reasons would be that I was blessed to serve alongside of John Wade, long-time professor at what was then Atlanta Christian College.
I can still remember the rather lengthy board discussion we had about the last piece of property Woodland purchased. We needed the property – for expansion and protection of the camp site – and the owner apparently knew that. He drove a hard bargain and wanted more than the property was worth. Professor Wade, who carefully managed his own resources and those of organizations he served, thought we should not buy the property. “It isn’t worth what he is asking” was a constant refrain he brought to that discussion.
When we finally voted on the matter, we voted nearly unanimously (is that an oxymoron?), there was one dissenting vote. It was Professor Wade’s.
Like most non-profits, we didn’t have the money in the bank to pay for the purchase and quickly developed a capital campaign to fund it. The first contributor to that campaign was Professor Wade, who made a generous gift to help pay for property he thought we paid too much for! And, I might add, not a single board member left that meeting years ago thinking that Professor Wade was anything buy Christ-like. Somehow he managed to seriously disagree with his neighbors in that room that night, but we all thought he loved us.
That’s the kind of “simply amazing” the world of outsiders around us needs to see more of. Such an approach can never happen – until we do the “simply amazing” thing of taking Jesus seriously!
It really is simply amazing how basic that can be. When asked, perhaps not with the greatest of motives, about life issues, Jesus replied with a simply amazing answer: “Love God and love your neighbor.” When you get those two things worked out, everything else seems to fall into place. Such an approach to life requires some degree of maturity, of course, but it surely ought to be our goal in life revolves around those two principles.
On the other end of the “simply amazing” spectrum, I continue to be astounded by how easy it is to forget what loving God and loving neighbor must mean. Can I, as a believer who claims to love God on the one hand, treat a fellow believer unkindly on the other hand because I disagree over something that is temporal at best?” Or even if the disagreement is over a “matter of faith,” does that somehow trump what Jesus had to say about loving God and loving neighbor?
Can I “love my neighbor” – who at the moment happens to be a fellow believer with whom I disagree about which missionary to support – and treat her rudely over that disagreement? While loving my neighbor doesn’t suggest I have to be best friends with every person I know, it surely means that I intentionally treat my neighbor with kindness – one of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit, at least in Paul’s mind. Honestly, even if I am “right” (and we all tend to think we are) about who would be the better missionary, is that worth being un-Christlike to the person who sees it differently?
Even when the disagreement is over some matter of faith – shouldn’t I take Jesus “seriously” enough to treat my neighbor as a person “I love” instead of rudely dismissing him as “wrong.” It just seems that saying that I love God has implications about every aspect of my life, including learning to be kind to those with whom I disagree, to those whose approach to life is irritating to me, and even to those who haven’t yet found the joy of loving God.
For longer than I can believe, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the board of Woodland Christian Camp in Temple, Georgia. That has always been a blessing for a number of reasons, but among those reasons would be that I was blessed to serve alongside of John Wade, long-time professor at what was then Atlanta Christian College.
I can still remember the rather lengthy board discussion we had about the last piece of property Woodland purchased. We needed the property – for expansion and protection of the camp site – and the owner apparently knew that. He drove a hard bargain and wanted more than the property was worth. Professor Wade, who carefully managed his own resources and those of organizations he served, thought we should not buy the property. “It isn’t worth what he is asking” was a constant refrain he brought to that discussion.
When we finally voted on the matter, we voted nearly unanimously (is that an oxymoron?), there was one dissenting vote. It was Professor Wade’s.
Like most non-profits, we didn’t have the money in the bank to pay for the purchase and quickly developed a capital campaign to fund it. The first contributor to that campaign was Professor Wade, who made a generous gift to help pay for property he thought we paid too much for! And, I might add, not a single board member left that meeting years ago thinking that Professor Wade was anything buy Christ-like. Somehow he managed to seriously disagree with his neighbors in that room that night, but we all thought he loved us.
That’s the kind of “simply amazing” the world of outsiders around us needs to see more of. Such an approach can never happen – until we do the “simply amazing” thing of taking Jesus seriously!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)