Three Radical Demands (1)

 

“As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’ And He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.’ But He said to him, ‘Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.’

 

“Another also said, ‘I will follow You, Lord, but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:57 – 62.

 

Jesus confronts three people with three radical demands, and in doing so He confronts us; He confronts us as individuals, as husbands and wives, as families, as congregations.

 

He tells us that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,” and in doing so He tells us that to follow Him wherever He goes means that we will have no rest in the world, no place in world to identify with, no political, economic, social, ethnic, national, or other movement in which we may rest, that we may call home – just as the Son of Man has no such place, so those who follow Him will have no such place – our identity must always and forever be in Him and only in Him.

 

In saying that the dead must bury their own dead, Jesus tells us that there are only two types of people in the world, those who have the life of God in them and those who don’t. We are to go and proclaim the Gospel so that those who are dead my live. There are those who are burying the dead, and then there are those who are proclaiming Jesus so that the dead may rise – both in this age and in the ages to come.

 

In saying that no one after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God, Jesus reinforces His call to discipleship in Luke 9:23 – 26; we are to take up our cross daily, losing our lives for His sake and the Gospel, denying ourselves and proclaiming Jesus and the Gospel.

 

While these teachings of Jesus may seem radical to us, they represent normative Biblical discipleship – that is, they represent what ought to be the norm in our lives and in our churches. Are they the norm? Do we hear this call to discipleship on Sunday mornings? Over media? In daily conversation? Do our books and other writings reflect this call? Do our small groups meet within the context of this call?

 

We may have the “right” doctrine and beliefs, but if our lives are not “right” in following Jesus Christ, if they are not conforming to His call, then do we not have what James styles “faith without works, which are dead”?

 

Well, to be sure Luke 9:57 – 62 is a challenge, a sobering challenge, a reality check.

 

How does the passage challenge you? What questions do you have about it? What does it look like in your life? What does it look like in your congregation? In your friendships? In your family?

 

To be continued…

Tossed – Where Will We Land?

 

 

“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).

 

The wheat and the chaff are tossed into the air together and are separated by the wind. The wind carries the chaff away while the wheat falls to the ground and is gathered into the barn. The wheat is thrown into the air just as the chaff, but then the separation – the chaff is carried away.

 

We ought not to think it strange that we share in the human experience, after all, we are human…though we are now human in Christ. The question isn’t so much about what we experience, but rather how we experience it. Do we experience tossing as chaff or as wheat? The chaff is blown away, the wheat remains.

 

God says that He will shake all things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain (Hebrews 12:26 – 29). We are all tossed, we are all shaken. We cannot avoid being tossed or shaken, the question is whether we will remain – and remain we most certainly will if we are in Jesus Christ.

 

When we are tossed and shaken our Father will reveal things within us that need to be removed, and He will affirm things within us which we ought to nurture in Christ. Tossing and shaking are opportunities to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ – opportunities which we ought not to waste.

 

We cannot permanently insulate ourselves from the suffering common to humanity, sooner or later it will touch us, sooner or later we will face our frailty, sooner or later we will come to the end of ourselves – is it not better to experience this within Christ than to deceive ourselves that we are in control of life? In Christ we can know the security of His embrace, in Christ we can sense His heartbeat for us…outside of Christ we only have a freefall into the abyss.

 

John’s message is that Jesus has a winnowing fork and is throwing the wheat and the chaff into the air; when Jesus comes into our lives, into our communities, into our churches, He comes with a winnowing fork, He comes to upset us, He comes to toss us up into the air, He picks us up from our comfortable pews and tosses us up, up, up into the air…and then the wind comes…and the wind blows…and the chaff is gone…while the wheat falls back to the ground to be picked up and brought into the barn by Jesus.

 

Throughout the Gospels Jesus carries a winnowing fork; He carries it into synagogues, He carries it into the Temple in Jerusalem, He carries it by the Sea of Galilee, He carries it in the Decapolis, He carries it before Annas and Caiaphas, He carries it before Pilate and Herod, and He carries it into our lives.

 

Let us not be surprised when we are tossed into the air by the winnowing fork of Jesus; instead, let us be faithful to Him.

 

Theo of Golden - An Inconsistency and A Caution

 

Since I’ve received a fair amount of feedback on my recent reflection on Theo, it occurs to me that I ought to share a character inconsistency in the story, and a caution. These observations relate to the original edition of Theo, I have not yet read the professional edition from Simon and Schuster.

 

Considering how compassionate and sensitive Kendrick is, there is little or no sense of loss portrayed in him at the death of his wife, Lamisha’s mother. This is inconsistent with his character, the real Kendrick would mourn his wife even as he loves and cherishes Lamisha, even as he forgives the “little man” who brought such pain and loss into his family. It would have only taken a line here and a line there to have rounded out the loss and pain Kendrick was living with. Kendrick’s portrait is not complete in the story.

 

There is violence in Theo, and since Allen Levi is a good writer, the violence is vivid. The emotional violence we see in Cleave, and also in Pearce, is something many of us have experienced.  The physical violence, perhaps not, at least to the degree portrayed.

 

There are, as I recall, three scenes of physical violence; Tony in Vietnam, Ellen on her best day ever, and then at the conclusion. As I’ve mentioned, these are vivid – vivid graphically and emotionally – the characters and our sympathy for them bring the violence home to us; we are pulled into the heartbreak, pulled into the terror, pulled into the pain. Just as Allen Levi brings compassion to life, he brings violence, fear, and heartbreak to life.

 

Here is the thing…with me…the violence was a hard read. When I read Theo aloud to Vickie I skipped over much of the violence, giving her a synopsis and the end result. I did this for two reasons, the first is that she would not constitutionally tolerate the descriptive violence, the second is that since reading aloud causes me to see things in 3-D, so to speak, I couldn’t tolerate it either. When I read the book by myself, I scanned much of the violence rather than read it slowly; you might say I pressed the “fast forward” button.

 

Tony’s experience in Vietnam is exquisitely portrayed, and it ought to remind us of the hell that many of us have been through, are going through, and the hell which we inflict on others and enable others to inflict on others. Allen Levi touches on things which most of us do not have the courage to approach; if we are enamored of Theo without confronting the stories of the people behind the portraits we have missed much of the book. Theo ought to challenge our prejudices, assumptions, political views, practice of religion, social perspectives, friendships, and our families.

 

There are about 18 veteran suicides in our nation every day. This is the tip of the iceberg of suffering that war produces in those consigned to it – not to mention the noncombatants. Out of sight, out of mind…yes?

 

Then there is the best day of Ellen’s life. O my, what a day! What a day, what a day, what a day. If you have never lived close to Ellen’s world you may find it hard to relate to her best day, if your life has been protected her world may seem like a planet in deep space…to others, it may strike close to home.

 

The violence in the conclusion was disappointing to me, it was a deus ex machina that I didn’t care for – nor did I find it plausible, whereas Ellen’s best day and Tony in Vietnam were plausible. I just don’t see that level of violence happening on the Promenade in Golden, and in any event, it is an unsatisfactory resolution to me – it is really no resolution – I understand that you may not agree with me.

 

If I were reading Theo in a small group, I would not have us read the violent sections out loud, I would ask us to review those sections and then talk about them. There is enough violence around us; in the news, in movies and other media, in what now passes for sports, on our highways, we are a violent people in a violent world. There are even so-called pastors and churches who promote violence and death and aggression. At any moment I expect them to send out fundraising letters soliciting money for “Bombs for Jesus.”

 

There is a popular streaming series about Jesus, since a couple of friends recommended it I watched the first segment 2 or 3 years ago, turning it off after only a few minutes. I turned it off for two reasons, the second reason was that it was going beyond what I consider artistic liberty in its storyline – there’s already enough confusion among us about Jesus and what the Bible actually portrays, we don’t need any more.

 

The first reason was that it portrayed a man who had been stabbed in the throat (as I recall it was the throat) and blood was pouring from his wound – it was quite realistic. Well, my friends, as I have said, there is enough violence around us, we don’t need to bring any more into our churches, into our lives, into our minds and hearts, into the lives of our young people and children. This is not something Vickie and I would watch – it is not something we want in our souls.

 

Violence is not abstract to me, and it is not to some of you. I have had a gun held to my head, and a knife to my throat. A murder occurred in the exact spot where I had been five minutes previously – it was a “drug hit.” My coworkers and I once ran into a vacant apartment and got on the floor for safety while gang gunfire erupted around us. I have one friend whose Daddy was shot and killed during an armed robbery, and another friend (now in the Presence) whose daughter was stabbed to death in front of her. I do not write these things to be dramatic; I write them to tell you that I have not led a protected life. Violence is not abstract to me, there is more, but what I have written is enough.

 

Has it ever occurred to you that the Gospels are not violently graphic about the Crucifixion? What is there is there, and what is there ought to be enough. There is more there than we think, and there is less there than we can, or ought to, make a movie about. To plumb the depths (not that we can) of the Crucifixion is the journey of a lifetime and beyond – graphic violence detracts from the core of the Cross of Christ. Just because we know about something doesn’t mean that we ought to display it to others.

 

I do not think the violence in Theo is gratuitous, I do not say that Tony’s experience in Vietnam or Ellen’s best day ever ought not to be there; I only say that it should be handled carefully. When violence becomes the norm – as it is for many professing Christians – then we ought to ask what has happened to our souls, for we are called to display the peace and love of Christ to others, His love and peace are to flow from His Throne within us to the peoples of the world.