A Holy Week Reflection for March 26, 2013

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:20-24)


When I read this story, I always want Jesus to say, “Great! The Greeks are here! Now I’ll tell them the Good News and everyone will know that I came for the whole world! Now find me some Ethiopians and some Brazilians!”

But he doesn’t. He just turns to his disciples and speaks of his impending death. He ignores the Greeks altogether.

Who knows? Maybe the Greeks thought Jesus was a local magician and wanted him to pull some rabbits out of a hat. Or, they might have been sincere God-fearers and wanted to talk with Jesus about life and faith. That would have made great copy for John. Either way, it doesn’t happen.

Jesus made it clear that he came for “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). But he also claimed that God’s ultimate intentions were for the whole world (as in John 3:16). The two were not mutually exclusive, but his focus was, for the most part exclusively on the people of Israel. At the same time, the world would be impacted.

That’s an interesting paradox: Being exclusive for the sake of all. We often think of exclusivism as something negative, a party that sends out limited invitations. But Jesus knew that his mission involved the death and resurrection of the people of God, and he would enact that in his own life, suffering, and death. He would represent the nation of Israel in his death and rebirth, and ultimately it would be seen that this representation included the whole world.

This helps we who follow Jesus today to understand that there is an exclusivism to being the people of God, in that we are first of all a worshipping community. Others might worship other gods, but we do not. At the same time, our exclusive worship and devotion is not for our own sake, but for the sake of the world. We order our lives around the work of the Spirit of God and seek personal transformation—and that’s good. But such transformation is not like self-improvement—it isn’t just for us. It is so that our lives would bear witness to Jesus Christ and provide evidence that the kingdom of God is, indeed, at hand.

And that is truly the party that sends out unlimited invitations.

A Lenten Reflection for March 16, 2013

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’ He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him. (John 6:66-71)


The sixth chapter of the gospel of John tells a story of duplicity. At the beginning of the text, Jesus feeds 5,000 hungry people. As a result, more people begin to follow him. In the middle of the text, the religious leaders give Jesus grief over his claim that he is the “living bread that came down from heaven.” Jesus then scandalizes everyone when he says that to find true life, they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

After that, everyone deserts him except the original twelve. And, as Jesus points out, one of them is a bad apple.

Actually, they’re all bad apples. The disciples reveal themselves to be cowardly, power hungry, doubtful, confused, and violent. The other so-called disciples cut and run as soon as Jesus says something that disturbs them, confirming the popular definition of heresy: Telling someone something they don’t already think they know.

Judas merely acts out what lies within the heart of all the others. Yes, he betrayed Jesus. But his actions revealed the possibility that betrayal was a seed inside all of them (that’s why, when Jesus later said that one of them would betray him, each one asked “Is it I, Lord?”). When the larger group of followers abandoned Jesus, that too was a form of betrayal. They sided with Jesus’ enemies the moment they walked away. They voted Jesus down in their departure.

When Jesus asked the twelve (including Judas) if they planned to leave as well, he exposed the possibility that betrayal could happen at any time. Even after Peter speaks his touching words of loyalty and trust, he and the others would fall away, at least for a while.

It is tragically humbling to recognize the seeds of sin and betrayal that lie within me. Yes, there is love, but love is a prerequisite for betrayal. There is no betrayal if love does not first exist. Yes, I can say that I love Jesus. But I have to realize that betrayal can grow out of my love like a toxic weed.

Thankfully, my love is not first. God’s love is first. Love comes at God’s initiation, not mine. My task—and yours—is to cling tightly to Jesus’ robes and hang on. Even when his words and deeds scandalize me.

On Being Right

I had a lively conversation with some of my students yesterday. We talked together about some of the more significant issues that Christian leaders are facing today: Same-sex marriage and ordination, illegal immigration, religious pluralism, and so on. These are issues that were not on the larger cultural table even twenty or thirty years ago, at least to the degree that they are now.

We talked about how we are always struggling with assumptions about what is acceptable, biblical, and right, while at the same time being confronted with principles that create difficult tensions for us. So our faith tradition might, for example, stand in opposition to same-sex marriage. Yet, if a same-sex couple were to approach one of us and ask for help and counsel, would we refuse them? What if their adopted child had been coming to our church with a friend, and the parents later showed up, wondering if they could be part of such a community of faith? What if we lead a church in a California or Arizona border town, where emotions run high regarding illegal immigration, and a family in our neighborhood—a family without proper US documentation—needs help, do we reach out or turn away because of their illegal status? Either way, do we feel an obligation to turn them in to the authorities?

These are not random, hypothetical questions. They happen. And without deep, theological reflection, we run the risk of sacrificing human beings on altars of rightness. The tensions are not insignificant, and Christian leaders need more than a list of rules in order to respond with integrity.

Here’s a precedent from the Bible. The rule for the first followers of Jesus was that, in order to enter into this new life and to receive the Holy Spirit, a person had to become part of the Jewish community. It made sense: Jesus and the disciples were Jewish, they were all in Israel, Jesus said that he came for his own people, and so on. But when the Holy Spirit fell upon a group of Gentiles in Antioch, a tension was created. Now the rules were crashing against a new reality that involved real human beings and the apparent work of God. The early Christians struggled with this, and the former rule of ethnic affiliation ultimately gave way to the new principle of God’s intentions for the world (see Acts 10-11).

We need to think a lot about where we begin with people. There is a tendency for us (and with most people) to put others in categories (gay, illegal, divorced, apostate, etc.) and react with sets of rules that keep things orderly. That way, we can end with things left in tact (this didn’t work for the earliest Christians, who found their whole world turned upside down when the Spirit fell on the Gentiles). Rather than begin in those categorical places of “sin” (as if we don’t fit in any of those categories), we might consider beginning with other people as co-humans made in the image of God, co-sinners seeking new life. That place of commonality changes our assumptions about others and draws us into the recognition of God’s common grace (as my Reformed friends might say) to us.

Along with Peter and the early Church leaders, we must hold loosely to our rules. After all, the people of God have a long and chronicled history of getting things wrong. We are not exempt from that.