No "We" or "They"

I once knew a man who set his wristwatch alarm to go off (quietly, so that only he could hear it) every hour on the hour. When the tone sounded, he would stop what he was doing and become attentive to what was going on around him. He would pay close attention to the people near to him and would watch for signs of what God was doing in that time and place.

I think it’s time for followers of Jesus to listen for the tone, stop what they are doing, and pay attention to what is going on.

We live in a highly reactive society, and Christians seem quick to mirror that cultural reactivity. So when things happen around us—new rules on marriage, new standards for immigration, new economic policies, and so on—we react and draw lines so that we know who “they” are and who “we” are. After all: “We” are the good guys, and “they” are the bad guys. It’s important to know your enemies, right?

There is a two-fold problem with this for followers of Jesus: First, there is no “we” or “they.” There is only “us.” Second, we are not to deal with “enemies” in the traditional way of hatred.

In the midst of all the national and international turmoil, we Christians are missing a golden opportunity. We are missing the opportunity to look at the drama in our society and see our own complicity in it. We are missing the opportunity to see the one’s we have labeled the “other” and see ourselves in those people, regardless of their sexuality, their national origin, or their politics.

The apostle Paul nails this:

“. . . you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)

Paul was working to get the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians to learn to live together as one spiritual family. They seem to have been quick to draw lines of separation between them, judging one another and allowing each side to think it had moral superiority over the other. Paul just doesn’t go for that. In fact, he claims that all human beings stand in solidarity with one another, not only in their universal access to God but also in their brokenness:

“For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .” (Romans 3:22b-23)

All human beings stand side by side in the reality of God’s love but also in the reality of sin and brokenness. In that sense, there is no one but “us” in the room.

So, when we are confronted with the social and political issues of our day, rather than beginning at the lines of division, we need to begin at the beginning: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All. That means all. Including you and me and all those “others” out there.

I’m not suggesting that everything is okay because we’re all screwed up (that would be no different, in effect, than saying that everything is okay because nobody is screwed up). I’m saying that the recognition of our solidarity with the rest of the world must draw us into humility and repentance before it allows us to consider standing in the place of judgment. And if, by “judgment,” we mean standing above others in a spirit of condemnation, then we have taken on a role that does not belong to us. If, however, we mean that there is a judgment to be made between was is life and what is death, what is helpful and what is hurtful, then we just might be able to pursue that course for the sake and the good of the world. Remember: It’s a world that God loves.

As far as having enemies goes, we who follow Jesus are not called to have enemies at all. We might have to recognize that there are people who don’t like us, who wish us harm, who categorize themselves as our enemies, but we don’t seek to have enemies. In fact, people should expect that the best enemy to have is a follower of Jesus. That’s because, as Jesus said,

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven . . .” (Matthew 5:44-45)

We in “the church” have missed so many golden opportunities throughout history. If we miss the opportunity to see ourselves in the same mirror of brokenness that we think reflects only the image of the “other,” then we miss seeing what God is really doing all around us, and what he desires to do within us.

So,

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17)

New Names and the Aroma of Christ

Some followers of Jesus look back on their lives and carry regrets about decisions made and not made, obediences abandoned, and calls unfulfilled. Sometimes we wonder if we let God down along the way and if our wrong turns—innocent or not—have put us on a paths that make us, at best, second class citizens in the kingdom of God.

I was helped in my own struggle in this area while reading a familiar text in 2 Corinthians. Here it is:

When I came to Troas to proclaim the good news of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord; my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia. (2 Corinthians 2:12-13)

I suddenly realized that Paul stepped back out of the door that the Lord had opened. Was this a confessional statement? Was Paul sharing a hint of regret about abandoning the work in Troas because he was lonely for his friend Titus? Maybe so.

But in the next statements, Paul offers a reframing of the situation and paints a much larger picture of God’s work in the world and how followers of Jesus participate in that work:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. (v. 14)

For Paul, getting things right all the time was not the most important thing. The most important thing was, no matter the time or place, to carry the fragrance of Christ.

The most important thing is to smell like Jesus.

We’ve all turned one way when God seemed to be leading the other way. We’ve all lost heart and changed direction, more out of pain and fear than out of the conviction of God’s direction. And we’ve all carried the regrets that remind us of what should have been, what might have been, and where we’ve failed.

But none of those things are the most important. What is important is that we continue, even in our failures, to smell like Jesus.

In yesterday’s post I suggested that Evangelicals need a new name. What if Evangelicals were no longer known by the world because of their political power base, their particular doctrinal convictions, or their perceived knowledge of who is in or out with God? What if they were know as the one who carried with them, in all circumstances, the fragrance of Christ?

The Guarding of the Tomb

The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is guarded by sentinels twenty-four hours a day. The highly structured requirements of the guards convey a deep sense of reverence and symbolism that recognizes the many soldiers who have died in battle but were never identified. The guards are monitored closely and can lose the privilege of serving in that capacity if they fail in keeping the required standards.

As with similar monuments in a variety of nations, the tomb encases the remains of an anonymous warrior that fell in battle while serving his nation. The body serves as an honorific symbol for all soldiers who died in the tragedy of war but were never given a proper burial. These unnamed, unrecognized dead were absorbed into the earth upon which they fell. The guards have no acquaintance with this fallen comrade of a long-ago war, yet they protect that tomb because the assignment has been given and the service is perceived as an act of honor.

The guarding of Jesus’ tomb, however, came about not out of honor but rather through fear. This was not to be a guard that kept a memory alive; it was a guard sent to ensure that the memory would vanish from history. The Jewish leaders requested the guard from Pilate, concerned that the disciples would steal the body and claim that Jesus had risen from the dead (see Matt 27:62-66). They anticipated a disaster should that happen. After all, the only thing worse than a failed Messiah was a resurrected one. To have their public believe such a fabrication would mark the end of their doctrine of control. Their demand for a guard of Roman soldiers caused Pilate to comply without question.

Whether the guards took their assignment seriously or not is a matter of speculation; the protection of the tomb of an executed Jewish peasant probably wasn’t high on their list of key assignments. However, that their governor would demand such action would suggest that insurrection might be a concern—there were, after all, Jews who would love to see the Romans washed out of Israel in a river of their own blood. Even if the guards dismissed the talk of Jesus rising from the dead as religious superstition, they would have been on alert for those who would try to force the prophecy by their own devices.

Matthew tells us that the guards did indeed witness a disturbance of Jesus’ grave, but not in the way they had expected. We are told that an earthquake shook the ground just after the two Marys arrived at the tomb and that an angel appeared, rolling the heavy stone away from the entrance. The guards did not seem to respond to this event like hardened Roman soldiers:

For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid . . .” (Matt 28:4-5)

The angel ignored the soldiers completely, leaving them to their terror, and turned his attention to the women, inviting them out of their fear into a place of trusting what God was doing. Once the women responded to the angel’s instructions to communicate what had happened to the other disciples, the soldiers recovered from their shock sufficiently to report what had taken place. Interestingly, they did not go to their own military superiors; they went to the religious leaders, who immediately bribed the soldiers in order to buy their silence. The soldiers must have told, with some truthfulness, what they had seen. Had they lied and claimed that they had been overpowered by a band a Jews who had raided the tomb and stolen Jesus’ body, then there would have been no need for their silence to be purchased.

The Bible bears witness to God’s work, at particular times and places in history, in and through his people. The stories, prayers, words of wisdom, letters, and prophetic declarations all point to God and his mission in the world. The guards at the tomb would be witnesses of a different kind. Years later they might have confessed to their comrades that they saw strange, terrifying things during that night of sentry duty. Some might have written the experience off as a result of fatigue or the capricious teasings of some lesser god or goddess. Others, however, might have remembered something different. Perhaps, while assisting at later executions of some early Christians, one of the soldiers would have remembered that awful night and considered the connection between that experience and the death of ones who claimed allegiance to the Jesus of that cold tomb. Either way, such an encounter would not leave even the most stoic warrior unchanged.

At this point in the story, the tomb breaks open, the terrifying angel appears, and two sets of witnesses are dispatched. The women, addressed directly and comfortingly by the angel, are sent to the other disciples. Their testimony would erupt in hope, astonishment, and joy. The guards, shaken from their catatonia, escape with their lives to tell a similar story. This act of witness, however, would result in a cover-up and a denial of the experience; it would be good news for some, and bad news for others.

The apostle Paul understood this counter-dynamic of witness, and said it well:

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. (2 Cor. 2:15-16a)

For the faithful, the empty tomb would smell like the freshness of new life. For the others, it would only carry the stink of decay and the weight of fear that comes with the possibility that one’s dominant story of control and certainty is about to be torn to shreds. The report of the guards revealed their recognition that this routine time of execution and burial was like no other they had experienced. For those receiving the report, it would no longer be the death that concerned them; it would be the unraveling of their preferred reality of control that would come with the insistence that in Jesus—the failed, crucified, cursed, would-be Messiah—there was new life.

(This is an excerpt from Atonement at Ground Zero: Revisiting the Epicenter of Faith, to be released in late 2012 (Wipf and Stock Publishers)