What’s Your Story?

The passage we read from Psalm 78 is one that Mennonites have lived by. The Psalmist says that he will tell “the glorious deeds of the Lord and the wonders that he has done”. He tells the story of “God’s mighty saving acts” (to use the phrase coined by George Ernest Wright) so that the next generation will know what God has done and will place their trust in God.

 

Wright called this recital “salvation history” – the story of God’s mighty saving acts which created Israel’s identity. If their descendants forget this story, they will become rebellious and lose God’s favour and blessings. If they remember what God has done, they can choose to be God’s people fully and receive God’s blessings here and hereafter.

 

We have also told the story of how God preserved our people through danger, especially as Mennonites were restricted and persecuted in the former Soviet Union. The way that different families were able to escape in the 1940s inspires us to trust God and follow God faithfully. I have been blessed hearing these stories, and they continue to shape us and give us hope today.

 

That’s what stories do. They shape our identity and give us a way to live in the world today. You know the story of Dirk Willems, the Dutch Mennonite who turned back on an ice-covered river to save his pursuer. He saved the man’s life and lost his own, expressing his commitment to love and peace. His story nourishes our own commitment to peace, even at great personal cost.

 

The Story of Canada 

Many of you studied the history of Canada in school. I didn’t, but I know enough about the way history is told to know that a lot depends on who is telling the story. I learned about the second world war when I was a schoolboy in Zimbabwe. My English teachers told me that the English won the war with the help of the Americans and others. Then we moved to Pennsylvania, and I heard the same story, but this time from an American perspective. I learned that the Americans won the war, with the help of the English and others. It matters who is telling the story!

 

The history of Canada as taught in our schools today seeks to include an indigenous perspective, but I suspect most of us learned the story from an immigrant perspective. We learned how immigrants from Europe found a new place to live and carved out homes in the wilderness. The beginning of Steinbach is part of that larger story. We know the story of Steinbach: 18 families from Russia carved their homes out of the empty lands on the east edge of the prairie.

 

Of course, people did live here before it was Steinbach. There were Assiniboine and Cree nations. When they moved on, Anishinaabe took their place. When the first Mennonite settlers came, the Metis nation lived in the general area. That is why we sometimes recognize that the church is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. The point of this recognition is not to make anyone feel guilty. It simply notes that there is more than one perspective in our history. When we learn our story, we should also learn the story of the people around us. This may make us uncomfortable, but that’s okay.

 

This is part of what is happening this weekend, as a group from SMC joins the Metis community in Manigotagan at their annual family camp. When we no longer could send a youth team there, representatives from SMC started going up and visiting with the community. We have listened to their stories and told them some of our stories. This process means that the community in Manigotagan and our community are becoming partners in life.

 

Israel and Palestine 

But what happens when two people are in critical conflict with each other? What happens when their stories are so radically different that they cannot agree on what happened? This is the situation we see in Israel-Palestine. In the June issue of Anabaptist World, Lisa Schirch has an article in which she compares the story that Israelis tell with the story that Palestinians tell. She sets these competing narratives out in a useful table (see link) that helps us see how they work.

 

You see the Palestinian story: From their historic tie to the land to the nakba in which 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes to European Jews fleeing European persecution. From the military occupation of Palestine by Jews backed by Europe to the continued occupation of Palestinian land and the daily humiliation of Palestinians who remain in their home. From the military might of Israel supported by the West to the destruction of Gaza by Israeli troops. The only possible solution is for Israel to stop their aggression and withdraw from all Palestinian territory.

 

It’s a compelling story. Three of my college friends were Palestinian Christians. C’s family lost their home in the nakba. J and D have dedicated their lives to serving Palestinians in Israel through their occupations as a lawyer and a journalist. J married a woman from the church I pastored in Pennsylvania, and I remember the visit of his family to our church when they held the wedding feast in his bride’s home. I hear this story and my heart aches for my friends. Their story resonates in my heart and in my soul.

 

But hear the Israeli story. From their historic tie to the land to the holocaust in which six million Jews died to the dispossession of 700,000 Jews who lived in Arab lands. From the reality that half of all Jews were “brown, Arab Jews” and half were Ashkenazi European Jews to the way that Arabs and Palestinians have worked to destroy them – even colluding with the Nazis to the reality that there is only one small Jewish state where they can live in safety compared to the 50 or so Muslim states who support Palestine. From the experience of constant attacks from Palestinian extremists to the horrific invasion of Israel last October.

It’s a compelling story, if we have the ability to hear it. I have taken several groups from Providence to visit the mosque on Waverley Avenue in Winnipeg for Friday prayers and to Sha’arey Zedek across from the legislature for the Sabbath service. I have been there often enough that Bill Weissman, our guide when I take a class, has told me that they will have to make me a member.

 

One Sabbath, the synagogue service was what they call a Yizkor – a remembrance. The rabbi said, “Now we remember those whose mothers have died”, and he called us to stand. I stood with the others whose mothers had died while he prayed, “Remember, God, the soul of my mother, my teacher, who went to her world, because I will give charity for her. Let her soul be bound up in the bond of life, with the soul of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, and with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden. And let us say, Amen.”

 

We said prayers for those whose fathers had died and prayers for those whose children had died. Each group stood in turn while we prayed, and you could hear quite weeping in one family or another as they remembered their loved ones – a lot like our Eternity Sunday. Then finally the rabbi said, “Now we remember the six million”, and everyone stood. I realized with a start who they meant. Six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Twenty percent of all Jews worldwide died in that terrible time, only 80 years ago.

 

This is our problem: The Israeli story is a deeply compelling and tragic story, and the Palestinian story is a deeply compelling and tragic story. How do we come together when the stories that we want to tell, as the Psalmist reminds us to do – what do we do when those stories are in such bitter conflict?

 

Towards a Resolution 

I don’t have the wisdom to answer this question, but I can point us towards an answer. The steps we have taken with the community at Manigotagan are part of the answer. Start by hearing the others’ story and telling our own. Start by embracing the full humanness of the other and by baring our own souls in return. Our stories shape us and make our identities: We share ourselves when we share our stories.

 

Paul gives us a clue about a further step we can take. As Christians, we have a new and deeper story. You see it in 1 Corinthians 15, one of the earliest Christian confessions. It is the story of the cross: “Christ died ... Christ was buried ... Christ was raised ... Christ appeared to us ...” It is the story of God’s grace given to people whose rebellion has cut them off from God. It is the story of God’s response to the ugliness and hatred and violence that permeate all of our human stories. It is the story of God’s redeeming love.

 

When we come together at the foot of the cross, our own personal stories are transformed. Our story as immigrant settlers from Europe comes together with the indigenous story of those who helped us make a new home in the East Reserve, when we come together in the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus. Our mistakes and failures don’t disappear, but they lose their power, and we can embrace our sisters and brothers at Manigotagan. This has already happened, as their elder, Norman Meade, has opened the word of life to us on several occasions here.

 

Israel and Palestine present a much harder case, but the way to new life in the Middle East still passes through the cross. I cannot see how Israelis and Palestinians can walk that road, but I know that it runs through the cross. The Friday prayer in the Anglican church says it well: “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.”

 

It would be arrogant of us to try to tell Jews and Palestinians how to walk this path. Our part is to listen to both sides, to seek to hear their stories, and to act as carefully and prayerfully for peace. What that means is for discussion in our Sunday School time. A couple from the Mennonite Church who have significant experience in Israel-Palestine will join us in November, and we can talk more about it then.

 

Until then, embrace God’s story. Embrace the “mighty saving acts of God”. The story of the cross embraces all our stories and transforms them into “the way of life and peace.” Join me in a closing prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honour of your Name. Amen.”

 

 

8 September 2024, Manigotagan Sunday 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Texts: Psalm 78:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

 

Focus Statement: Our lives can be told as a story. We all have different stories, and so do our families. Our individual and communal stories are sometimes in conflict with each other, but they all come together in the story of the cross (heilsgeschichte – salvation history).

 

Going Deeper Questions: What can we do with the different stories of Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East? What about Canada's indigenous people and our own Mennonite ancestors? How can we come together as one people when our histories are in conflict?

A Terrific Moment: Jesus and Zacchaeus

“Terrific” is not a word that I use often, but you can see how it fits here. Zacchaeus had the most remarkable moment of his life in the passage we heard this morning. If he had spoken English, he might have said, “Wow! That was terrific!” As it is, whatever he said was in Hebrew or Aramaic (something like “Metzuyan!” according to Google translate), and we would not have known what he said if we had heard him. What was so wonderful, so amazing about this encounter with Jesus? Let’s look together at this familiar story and see where it takes us.

The Story

We don’t know very much about Zacchaeus. From the song many of us learned as children, we know that he was short – “Zacchaeus was a wee, little man and a wee, little man was he.” This sets us up to think of him as not very important. I am a little sensitive about my height – not very, but a little. I remember when someone I met called me by another friend’s name, my first internal reaction was, “Don’t call me that! He’s really short!” I can sympathize a bit with Zacchaeus in his lack of height.

The fact is, however, that he was probably a fairly important person. As the head of the tax bureau in Jericho, a fairly wealthy city, he had political power and influence, as well as a lot of money himself. When people saw him, they probably thought more about his wealth than about his height. He reminds me of the subject of one of Simon and Garfunkel’s early songs:

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,

With political connections to spread his wealth around.

Born into society, a banker’s only child,

He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

It’s a depressing poem, revealing the emptiness that lies beneath a surface of glitter and wealth. This reality is a perennial human reality. Paul Simon wrote the song in 1965, and he based it on a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, written in 1897. This same reality was present when Jesus walked the earth, and it is part of our own lives in the 21^st Century. Real life is deeper and more vital than the surface of what Richard Foster calls “money, sex, and power” – the title of one of his books on Christian discipleship.

These three aspects of life are the most common ways that human beings try to give meaning to life. Money, sex, and power are good things. They are God’s gifts to us in this life, but when we make any of them the goal of life, they lead to nothing; they leave us empty. We need something else at the centre of our lives. Zacchaeus had money and power, but they were not enough. He knew they were not enough.

Luke doesn’t tell us more, but we know this much. Zacchaeus had money. Zacchaeus had influence and power. But Zacchaeus’s life was empty, and he knew he needed help. When he heard that Jesus was coming through Jericho, he joined the crowd who was hoping to see this travelling teacher and miracle worker. He reminds me a bit of the woman who had “an issue of blood” (whom Bev preached on a few weeks ago): If I can just see him, I may learn something.

But he was short, too short. He saw a sycamore tree by the road, handy and easy to climb. I don’t know if climbing a tree was seen as dignified in those days, but I suspect that it wasn’t. Dignity was not on his mind at that moment, and he climbed the tree. This would give him more than a glimpse; he expected to see Jesus well.

Well, he did! He got more than he could have hoped. Jesus stopped under the tree, looked up and invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house. The old Sunday School song says, “I’m coming to your house today.” I learned it as “I’m coming to your house for tea”, which tells you that I grew up in an English colony where we did everything over a cup of tea. Given his culture, I suspect that Zacchaeus provided wine and olives and figs and bread.

The story tells us that Jesus went to Zacchaeus’ house, while the crowd grumbled that a teacher of Jesus’ reputation should not be the guest of so obvious a sinner. They saw Zacchaeus as a traitor. He was a Jew by birth, but he served the Roman Empire. His name means “Innocent”, but he was guilty of cheating many people in the whole community. Rome told him how much he needed to bring in through taxes; as the “chief tax collector”, he mobilized the machinery of the Empire to bring in more than that and took his cut off the top. How could Jesus compromise himself by inviting himself to the home of such a corrupt man?

Zacchaeus responded quite differently than the crowd had. We don’t hear what Jesus said to him, but the previous chapter in Luke 18 gives us an idea of what he might have said. The rich young ruler could not part with his wealth to follow Jesus, and instead he parted with Jesus rather than leave his wealth. Zacchaeus states his readiness to follow Jesus with two powerful declarations: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” He does not say, “I give everything away.” He does say, “I will cheat no one again, and I will pay back anyone I have cheated.” The “four times as much” makes it clear that Zacchaeus had considerable resources and that he was not trying to save something for himself. He was ready to follow Jesus, no matter what it cost.

Jesus’ final comment is interesting: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Here he says that God’s salvation is present when Zacchaeus shows that he means business. Zacchaeus steps out in faith, and Jesus confirms his step. The step includes “his house”, which suggests a fuller understanding than the individual salvation we normally think of. Real freedom in Christ is both individual and communal.

Working Out What This Means

To understand the essence of what happened, I turn to an idea that I have described before. You can think about your life as a story, and we must choose who we want to write our story. There are not many real choices in this life. I did not choose my height; it was given to me without my consent. I have some control over my weight, but even that depends partly on genetics, not just on how much I eat. The colour of my hair, my personality, my love of music – all of these were given to me. I work with them, and I can change them to some extent, but I did not choose them. There is, however, one real choice that each of us must make: Who will write our story?

In the end, this choice comes down to two basic possibilities. Either I insist on writing my own story, or I allow God to write the story of my life for me. Most people insist on writing their own story. You know the 1969 Paul Anka song (Anka was a Canadian songwriter), which Frank Sinatra made famous:

And now the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend, I’ll say it clear

I’ll state my case of which I’m certain

I’ve lived a life that’s full

I’ve travelled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

There speaks the voice of Canada: I want to do it my way. I want to write my own story. The Mamas and the Papas described the same idea in a hit from 1965: “You gotta go where you want to go/ Do what you want to do/ With whoever you want to do it with.” These songs are from the 1960s, and children of the Sixties believe this completely: I want to be in charge of my own life.

Zacchaeus had made his choices and written his own story, but he found that the result was an inner emptiness. In another song from the 1960s, Peggy Lee describes that emptiness with the eloquence of despair:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire

I’ll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up

in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement

I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames

And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire

Is that all there is, is that all there is

If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball

If that’s all there is

She describes a full life, each time returning to the empty refrain. The whole sets to music the old saying, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” I believe that this describes what Zacchaeus had learned about life, and this is why he climbed a tree to see Jesus. And Jesus found him! When Jesus found him, Zacchaeus gave up the right to write his own story and became part of God’s story. He gave up the right to organize his own life and received God’s life.

What Did Jesus Say?

Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what happened to trigger this announcement. What happened that led Jesus to announce salvation? What did Jesus say to Zacchaeus that led him to his decision. What did Zacchaeus do that showed that he was saved? If we look at this question through the lens of story, we can ask who Zacchaeus wanted to write the story of his life. He had gone his own way for many years, and he didn’t like the story he was in. He was alone and lost, and he knew it.

Although we don’t know what Jesus said, we do know that he usually said just one thing when people asked how they could be saved: Follow me! That’s what he said to the Rich Young Ruler in the previous chapter: “Sell what you have and give to the poor and follow me.” When it came to the point, the young man could not give up his wealth and make Jesus the author of his story. Zacchaeus could and did.

This offer of salvation combined with Zacchaeus’ embrace of salvation is seen in his willingness to give up everything to make things right and follow Jesus. I think the key to the whole event was that he stopped trying to write the story of his own life and stepped into God’s story.

Shakespeare has expressed what Zacchaeus may have felt in lines that his character MacBeth speaks (Act 5, Scene 5):

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

That speech of course comes from someone who knows his life is about to end. He knows that he will die, and that his life has meant nothing. But all of that changes when we meet Jesus. Our lives belong to God, who writes the play and gives our lives meaning.

Writing about the Second Coming, C.S. Lewis has described what it means to know that God has written the story in which we live. Listen to how he puts it:

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when the world drama will end. The curtain may be rung down at any moment: say, before you have finished reading this paragraph. This seems to some people intolerably frustrating. So many things would be interrupted. … Not now, of all moments!

But we think thus because we keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V. The Author knows. The audience, if there is an audience (if angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven fill the pit and the stalls), may have an inkling. But we, never seeing the play from outside, never meeting the characters except the tiny minority who are “on” in the same scenes as ourselves, wholly ignorant of the future and very imperfectly informed about the past, cannot tell at what moment the end ought to come. That it will come when it ought, we may be sure; but we waste our time in guessing when that will be. That it has a meaning we may be sure, but we cannot see it. When it is over, we may be told. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. The playing it well is what matters infinitely.

Lewis’ point is that our lives find meaning as part of God’s story. If we refuse to play our part, our lives are meaningless – “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Zacchaeus chose to be part of God’s story, to follow Jesus, to do what God called him to do. He no longer cared if he had the money to pay Rome. He could do his job, and he could do it well; but what mattered most was to know Jesus and to follow Jesus and do what Jesus called him to do. Now his life had meaning. Now God had found him and saved him. What about you? What about me?

28 June 2020

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Texts:

Psalm 119: 137-144

¹³⁷ You are righteous, O Lord, and your judgments are right.

¹³⁸ You have appointed your decrees in righteousness and in all faithfulness.

¹³⁹ My zeal consumes me because my foes forget your words.

¹⁴⁰ Your promise is well tried, and your servant loves it.

¹⁴¹ I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts.

¹⁴² Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is the truth.

¹⁴³ Trouble and anguish have come upon me, but your commandments are my delight.

¹⁴⁴ Your decrees are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.

Luke 19: 1-10

Jesus and Zacchaeus

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ² A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵ When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷ All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹ Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

A Strange Habit of Life

Jesus’ family thought he was crazy. Maybe people today think that we are crazy too, when we choose to follow Jesus the Messiah. I want to examine this idea through the gospel reading from Mark, as well as the OT and NT readings.

Mark 3

Why did people think that Jesus was crazy? The gospel text says, “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’ And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.’”

Two responses to Jesus. What was Jesus doing that led his family to say, “He’s out of his mind”, and the teachers of the law to say, “He’s possessed by a demon!”? First, he was healing people and casting out demons himself. His actions caught people’s attention, so that crowds started following him to listen to his teaching and to see what he would do next.

Second, Jesus made implicit claims about his identity. In chapter 1 he cast out an evil spirit, who identified Jesus clearly before he left the possessed man: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” The people heard this spirit speak, and they started speculating about Jesus.

In chapter 2, four men dug a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching. They lowered their friend, a paralyzed man, through the hole in the roof, for Jesus to heal him. Jesus response was not a simple healing. Instead, he said, “Son, your sins are forgiven!” If the event in chapter 1 started people talking, this action poured fuel on the fire of their thoughts. “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus did not back down, but referred to himself as the Son of Man, a title meaning “the Messiah”, as he healed the man’s paralysis. At the end of chapter 2, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees, and refers to himself both as the Son of Man and as the Lord of the Sabbath.

These actions were the real reason that his family thought he was crazy. He claimed unity with God. He claimed a direct unique identity as one with God.

The Trilemma

C.S. Lewis described the problem that Jesus presents us with as a trilemma. Let me explain. Jesus claims to be uniquely identified with God. If he had lived in India as a Hindu of that time period, this claim would not have surprised anyone. One school of Hinduism uses the phrase, “I am God, You are God” to express the essential unity of all reality.  If they had heard Jesus talk about “the Son of Man” and “the Lord of the Sabbath”, they would have agreed.

But Jesus lived in the Roman Province of Judea, and he was a Jew. First century Jews had a clear understanding that God is unique. The great Shema of Judaism says, “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” Any suggestion that you are I or anyone else was somehow uniquely identified with God was blasphemy. In Jesus’ life, his claim to one with the Father was a basic reason that the Jews had him crucified. The penalty for blasphemy is death.

So we come to Lewis’ trilemma. Here is how he puts it in Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. … Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God

At this stage of his career, Jesus’ family did not accept the idea that he was God, but held to the idea that he was a crazy: a lunatic. The teachers of the law also could not accept that he was God, but held to the idea that he was allied with Satan. So, why did people (including his family) think that Jesus was crazy? They thought that Jesus was crazy because he identified himself as the one in whom God comes to earth. As he puts it in John’s gospel repeatedly, “I and my father are one.”

1 Samuel 8 and 2 Corinthians 4

Jesus made no effort to fit into people’s ideas of what he should be. He was simply himself: One with God; the Son of Man [i.e., the Messiah]; the Lord of the Sabbath. God’s people have been less ready to stand out from the crowd.

In 1 Samuel 8, the Children of Israel decided they wanted a king. The people living around them had a king, and they wanted to fit in. Samuel counselled against their choice. Giving their ruler the power of being king would lead to tyranny, he warned, but the people insisted: They wanted a king. God gave them a king – first Saul, and then David and his heirs. God even used their rebellion to prepare the way for the Messiah, God’s Chosen One, to come. But the point of the passage is clear: By deciding to be like the people around them, the Children of Israel rebelled against God. God wanted them to understand that God is king, rather than any human ruler.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul defends his authority as an apostle. The Corinthians were attracted to spiritual rock stars (Paul calls them “super-apostles”) who showed up in their midst, but Paul refuses to fit into their ideas of what he should be. Earlier in chapter 4, he refers to himself and the Corinthians as “earthen vessels”, that is, ordinary people who do not stand out from the crowd. Here he observes that their ordinariness is being transformed into glory.

We might wonder then: Do People Think We’re Crazy? They might! If people around us listen to our conversation and to our hymns and all that we say and do together, they might think we’re crazy. As with Jesus, their perception might come from our stated identity.

Look at the person beside you. Maybe you think they’re really cool or really dull. Maybe you wish they had sat closer to you or a few rows behind you instead. The fact is, however, that whatever else we think about each other, we all fit. We’re an ordinary group of Canadians, and no one would think twice about us, at least at first sight.

Then we start to sing and pray and read Scripture, and we say things like, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” We start to talk about each other as people who reflect God’s glory. Pretty soon we are referring to each other as kings and queens, divine royalty. We come close to outdoing Shankara, the great Hindu theologian of 1400 years ago, who said to his students, “You are god!” If people really understood what we’re saying, they might indeed say, “You guys are crazy!”

A hundred years ago, Vachel Lindsay wrote a remarkable poem called “General William Booth enters into Heaven”. He pictures the moment that the founder of the Salvation Army, renowned for his work among the world’s poor, died and went to heaven. Listen to part of what he wrote:

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum—  

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)  

The Saints smiled gravely and they said: “He’s come.”  

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)  

Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,  

Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,  

Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale—  

Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail:—  

Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,  

Unwashed legions with the ways of Death—  

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

…

Lindsay continues with the transformation that overtakes the crowd in Heaven:

Jesus came from out the court-house door,  

Stretched his hands above the passing poor.  

Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there  

Round and round the mighty court-house square.  

Yet in an instant all that blear review  

Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.  

The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled  

And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.  

Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!  

Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!  

Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,  

Rulers of empires, and of forests green!  

The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire!  

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)  

But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir.  

(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)   

O shout Salvation! It was good to see  

Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free.  

The banjos rattled and the tambourines  

Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of Queens.

That’s us too! Look around at each other. Divine royalty following our master into the very presence of God!

What Does This Mean Now?

What sets this “good kind of crazy” off from the real crazy? I remember Jonestown. Jim Jones led a cult he called “The People’s Temple” to found a commune in Indiana, which moved to California and finally to Jonestown, Guyana. More than 300 people died when he led them in a mass suicide. I remember David Koresh. Koresh led a cult called the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Koresh and 79 others died in an FBI raid. I have no interest in being part of a cult that elevates its leader beyond all reason and destroys the members’ ability to think.

How is the good kind of crazy different from this? Consider why Jesus’ family changed their minds about him – because they really did change their minds. They observed him throughout his ministry. They saw how he loved people unconditionally and worked on their behalf. They heard to his teaching and recognized the Spirit of God moving through him. The longer they listened and watched and paid attention, the more they realised that Jesus was not crazy, nor was he possessed; they realised that he was just who he said he was.

What’s Your Story?

I have referred to C.S. Lewis often. He began his adult life as a bitter atheist, convinced that God did not exist and angry with God for not existing. Throughout his 20s, his atheism was challenged at various levels, and he came to believe in God. He did not, however, become a Christian. As Alistair McGrath puts it, Lewis could not see what difference Jesus could make to our lives today. The stories about Jesus were just too far away to be relevant.

Then his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, said something that changed his mind. Tolkien pointed out (to use our 21^st century language) that everyone lives by what we call a metanarrative. Alistair McGrath describes the story that people like Jean Paul Sartre and Richard Dawkins live by:

We are here by accident, meaningless products of a random process. We can only invent meaning and purpose in life, and do our best to stay alive—even though there is no point to life.

McGrath continues with the story of Jesus:

We are precious creatures of a loving God, who has created for us something special that we are asked to do. We have the privilege of being able to do something good and useful for God in this world, and need to work out what it is. (from Lunches with C.S. Lewis)

We discover what God wants us to do by paying attention to Jesus. Jesus is unique in the world’s history. No other “great teacher” claimed to be God. The Buddha was clear that he was not God. Mohammed and Moses would have been horrified at the idea. Jesus says that he shows us God uniquely in himself. He provides a way to live, a strange habit of life that looks crazy, but proves to be the door into the heart of God’s love.

How do we know if this story is true? Lewis tells us that the best way to know if a story is true is by seeing how well it makes sense of the rest of reality. If we are no more than “the meaningless products of a random process”, then we cannot make sense of anything. What Lewis found as a young man, atheist and angry with God for not existing, was that belief in God made sense of everything from his own misfortunes in life to the horrors of World War One. As Lewis famously put it, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

[Please note: This is not any kind of a developed argument here. You will have to go and do the work of understanding these ideas more fully on your own. A good place to start is Christian Smith’s book, Moral, Believing Animals, in which he describes several of the major metanarratives that people live by today. In this space, all I can say is that I found the story of Jesus to be true, and I have organized my life round it.]

As we read the story of Jesus, then, we discover how we are to live. We are not like the people around us (unlike the Children of Israel in 1 Samuel 8). We are ordinary people (like those in 2 Corinthians 4), who carry the glory of God inside of us. How do we do this? By choosing the story of Jesus to become the pattern for the story of our lives, a strange habit of life.

Like Jesus, we care for people who are hurting and broken. Like Jesus, we refuse to participate in patterns that are harmful and destructive. Like Jesus, we listen for God’s voice within – both within each one of us, and within the community as a whole, through the Holy Spirit. Like Jesus, we immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, listening for God’s direction for each step of life.

People like the Branch Dravidians or the People’s Temple did not allow God to reshape their own stories with God’s story, told through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We live in that story, as God reshapes our lives. It may look crazy to the people around us, but it is in fact the source of all that is good and true in our world.

10 June 2018

Grace Bible Church

Texts

1 Samuel 8:4-20:

⁴ So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, ‘You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.’ ⁶ But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. ⁷ And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. ⁸ As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. ⁹ Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.’

¹⁰ Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. ¹¹ He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: he will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. ¹² Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. ¹⁵ He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. ¹⁶ Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle^[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. ¹⁷ He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. ¹⁸ When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’

¹⁹ But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. ²⁰ Then we shall be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1:

¹³ It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Mark 3:20-35:

²⁰ Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. ²¹ When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’ ²² And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.’

²³ So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: ‘How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. ²⁷ In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. ²⁸ Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.’ ³⁰ He said this because they were saying, ‘He has an impure spirit.’

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³² A crowd was sitting round him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ ³³ ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. ³⁴ Then he looked at those seated in a circle round him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’