He had been healing people.
He had been preaching forgiveness. He had garnered the attention of the crowds
and the religious leadership, leaving the crowds astounded at his teaching and
the religious leadership scratching their heads at what to do with this guy. He
was going to the places that God shouldn’t show up… to the people who had no
hope because the hopeless – by definition – are separated from hope. He came to
the sick rather than the healthy. And the sick started following him in droves,
some of them limping, some of them carrying other sick ones, the healthier
among them dragging the sicker, forming this rag-tag group of dirty unclean
people. More and more came, so many that there wasn’t time to eat, barely time
to sleep…
But
when we imagine Jesus coming, even though we know he came for the sinners
rather than the righteous, most of us imagine him stopping to pick us up first.
If it were today, I imagine Jesus borrowing – perhaps stealing – a beat up
truck and inviting into it the hitchhikers, the panhandlers, the bums, the
dirty, the broken, the addicted, the undocumented, the people who are almost
invisible to us. Or, for some of us, he shows up in an expensive car with the
billionaires, those who live at the top 1% of society, those who benefit from a
system designed to perpetuate power imbalance. For some, Jesus shows up
with a band of Democrats or Socialists. For others, Jesus shows up with a bunch
of Republicans or members of the Tea Party. This is part of the problem with
Jesus. He doesn’t seem to notice that these people don’t quite fit our picture
of the citizens of the kingdom of God. Jesus has a way of inviting those whom
we think “don’t fit.” He doesn’t seem to be aware that we find ourselves
divided from these people in our lives. He doesn’t seem to respect the
boundaries we have of who is in and who is out.
Jesus
reveals our propensity to “play God,” assigning places in the kingdom of God to
people who we identify as belonging and to reveal our propensity to create a
God in our own image who loves the same people we love and hates the same
people we hate. The accusations against him didn’t come from nowhere. He wasn’t
killed for doing what was expected of the Messiah. He died because he colored
outside the lines, inviting all of us who so carefully try to follow the rules,
who work hard at being faithful, to see the world differently.
So
the people come to what seems a logical conclusion: Jesus must be out of his
mind. Jesus’ family appears to believe them; they come to get him and remove
him from the situation. Jesus takes his questioners on: how can Satan cast out Satan? A
divided kingdom cannot stand; it is destined to swing from one extreme to
another, destined to see people across the political divide as enemies rather
than co-workers, destined to allow agendas to inform one’s beliefs. But Jesus
doesn’t stop there. The irony of his family waiting outside to remove him
because they have heard he is out of his mind is not lost in this exchange: a
house – a church – a family – divided against itself cannot stand. Where are
there divisions? Where do we find our houses divided? Our families? Where do we
find our church divided? Now, before we immediately give the “right” answer,
let’s sit with these questions. Think about the little divisions, the things
that we hold on to when we’re convinced that we are right and someone else is
wrong. Because these things rarely stay small (if you’ve managed to pull this
off, I want to know your secrets). Each time we are reminded of the division,
of the hurt, it brings to mind that one time – perhaps a long time ago – that
we haven’t quite healed from.
It
is impossible for a church with two thousand years of history behind it to not
have hurts and divisions. Millenia- and centuries-long divisions persist to this
day: over whether Jesus is the Messiah, over the nature of Christ, over the
authority of Peter, over the role of women, over what it means to be faithful
to this Christ and to Scripture. It is likewise impossible for a church with a
hundred years of history behind it to not have hurts and divisions, whether it
is a division with a church less than 5 miles away or whether it is a division
across the aisle. But I am convinced that what matters is not that the
divisions happen – I think those are to be expected (they’ve been happening
since Genesis 3…) – but it is how we respond to these divisions. Some of us
might barrel in, wanting to find a solution immediately. Some of us might
explore the issue from multiple angles, seeing multiple points of view. Some of
us might stick our heads in the sand, immobilized by fear. And Jesus brings us
all together – the hot heads, the thoughtful ones, and the scared, and throws
in a few of those who we wouldn’t invite into the kingdom of God and creates
out of us this rag-tag bunch of followers who, for whatever reason, keep
showing up, beckoned by the promise that Jesus will show up too.
Through
the presence of our neighbor with whom we disagree, the presence of the person
who we had a disagreement with decades ago that never quite got sorted out,
Jesus meets us and reminds us that we are not the ones who get to decide who
gets into the kingdom of God. Jesus reminds us that showing up is half the
battle; the other half is grace and forgiveness. Grace and forgiveness is hard
work. It’s even harder that Jesus gives it away for free, recognizing a
lifetime of righteousness and righteousness that comes only at the last hour as
the same.
Jesus
proclaims that the strong man has been bound, but it is hard to believe that we
are free. As we continue carrying years-old divisions, we start to identify
with them; they become part of us; they start to define us; they start to make
it hard for us to see Christ in our midst. Again and again, Jesus tells us we
are free. Again and again, we insist that we can do it ourselves, we can do
better, if Jesus would just hold on a minute so we could figure out how we are
going to get ourselves out of whatever mess we find ourselves in. Each week, we
confess that we have sinned and receive absolution, but how many weeks do we
actually believe that these words are true? How often do we mumble along with
the words, not really listening, waiting for whatever part of worship we came
for – even if the “Go in peace, serve the Lord” part. No, I think we come for
something more. We come because we want these words to be true. We want healing
and forgiveness and grace to be real. We want to believe in the love that
conquers death, in the God who loves sinners and welcomes them into the
kingdom. It’s a little harder when the people traveling next to us are people
who are different from us or people we disagree with, or people who don’t seem
to “fit” our picture of who Jesus should let in.
Sometimes,
I imagine what will happen when I meet St. Peter at the heavenly gate. And, of
course, I imagine debating with him. As he hems and haws about whether or not
he’s going to open the gate, I roll my eyes and say “Really, Peter?” He’s not
exactly the paragon of faithfulness… at least not in the Gospels. If a person
who denied Jesus is the person who sits at the heavenly gate, I imagine there
is less of a gate and more a big sign that says “Welcome Home, Sinners.” It
does seem crazy – Jesus seems crazy – crazy to love a world like ours, to love
a church that stretches back 2,000 years, to love a divided and divisive people
like us. Maybe Jesus was out of his mind to set free a people like us who
understand being bound better than we understand being free. But maybe Jesus
imagines you differently than you imagine yourselves – a you in which your sin,
your fear, and your divisions have nothing to say about who you are because
Jesus has already set you free. Whatever divisions are in the world and in the
church, they have no power in the face of the Word of Christ, who gives hope to
the hopeless, courage to the fainthearted, forgives the unforgiveable, and
loves the unlovable. It’s crazy to believe it. It’s even crazier not to.
No comments:
Post a Comment