Looking

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.” (John 12.20-21)

One of my favorite episodes in the Holy Week narrative turns up in John 12.20-26. I’m probably drawn to it because it’s so often discarded to focus on more famous events that transpire during Jesus’s final days. But I love it because what happens here is a major breakthrough in His ministry—a momentary glimpse at what the Church will look like and what will be required of it. I believe this moment gets overlooked because it’s not overly complicated. But what happens is most unusual.

We start by noting that first-century Judaism holds tremendous appeal for many non-Jews. The God of Israel is unlike most deities, in that God remains in constant dialogue with the people. This God is known for mighty works and exhibits no mortal frailties. So, the power of God is the main attraction. Quite a few foreigners convert to monotheistic Judaism completely, while a large group worships YHWH as a God above all gods. At high holidays like Passover, the mainly Jewish crowd that flocks to Jerusalem is peppered with people from pagan traditions who come to pay homage to Israel’s God. While their status prevents them from being admitted into the Temple’s inner court, their faith compels them to participate in the festival from afar.

It happens that a group of Greeks is in Jerusalem for Passover. Evidently they’ve heard of Jesus, catching wind that His disciples say He’s the Promised One. It’s rumored that He raised a man from the dead and He’s created quite a stir since arriving in town. If, as some say, He is God, they want to meet Him. They go looking for Jesus. When they find one of His disciples, Philip, they say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip needs to clear this with the higher-ups. He takes their request to Andrew and the two of them approach Jesus. (For the record, this is the same Philip who, in the Book of Acts, becomes the first Apostle to baptize a non-Jew—the Ethiopian eunuch—into the faith. So there’s some poetic foreshadowing underway here, too. Nor can it go unnoticed another group of foreigners, the Magi, seek the newborn Jesus out.)

Jesus’s response is rather curious. He doesn’t ask one question about the Greeks—who they are, what they want, what they said. Indeed, there’s nothing in the text that implies their request surprises Jesus at all. Instead, Jesus reminds Philip and Andrew that His death is at hand. God’s plan is at work, and this out-of-the-blue appearance by the Greeks indicates the full extent of what God intends to do. Of course, He will see them.

The real point of the story arises in verse 26, where Jesus says, “Whoever serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, there will My servant be also. Whoever serves Me, the Father will honor.” The Greeks have come looking for Jesus. When they meet Him, they’ll find what they’re searching for. The nonsense about ethnicity, religious background, circumcision—all the criteria the Temple officials employ to segregate worshippers into “us” and “them”—is passing away. A New Order is coming into fruition, born of a single Divine Root that will spring up out of Its burial ground to spread Its branches over all of humanity. Jesus doesn’t simply invite the Greeks for a courteous chat, as if He’s campaigning for office and needs to shake as many hands as possible. He welcomes the Greeks’ request to get to know Him, fully confident that their encounter with Him will transform them into true followers. Finding Jesus puts them in the right place at the right time.

I sometimes think Holy Week’s epic emotions and tragic events eclipse what it’s really about: finding Jesus in the midst of chaos and treachery. We worry about the disciples. We hiss at the villains. We wring our hands in despair that no one will come to His defense. Yet to the end, from a group of curious Greeks to the believing thief hanging beside Him, Jesus keeps welcoming people who, according to tradition, are unworthy of His attention.

As we revisit this familiar story we love so dearly, our prayer should be, “We wish to see Jesus”—not through the lens of His enemies nor the frightened eyes of His followers. We wish to see Jesus as He wants to be seen: welcoming, accepting, willing to see us, regardless who we are or where we’re from. Inner court, outer court, Jew, Greek, male, female, straight, gay, saint, sinner—none of it matters. Finding Jesus. Meeting Him. Seeing Him as He wants to be seen. Being where He is. These are the things that mark us as His followers. 

Where I am, there will My servant be also.

Coincidence and Transformation

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed. (2 Corinthians 3.17-18)

God’s Way

The 2013 liturgical calendar barely gives us time to recover from Christmas before catapulting us into Lent. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m ready. When I opened the lectionary to see that this weekend’s Gospel (Luke 9.28-43) returns to the Mount of Transfiguration—as always happens on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday—a shroud of fatigue and dread settled over me. Was I up for this? I could probably rally, much like I do when I drag myself out of bed in the wee hours to catch an early flight. But that wouldn’t be the right approach to this season. We should come to Lent with eyes and hearts wide open, knowing it will ask more than we expect, yet eager to meet its demands. I wasn’t sure I had enough in me to do that. I told myself, “Better dose up on faith, Buster.” Then I did what I always do when faith is in short supply: I prayed. “God, I hope You’ve got this,” I said, “because I can’t make this journey on my own.”

A few hours later I got an email from a close friend who’s never set much store in “organized religion.” He’d just heard an interview with Gloria Loring (an actress neither he nor I recalled) discussing her autobiography. I’ll let him tell the rest:

Well, she really is a fantastic lady… open-minded, etc. I know you don’t like the word, but amazingly spiritual. Anyway, the most interesting quote is the title of her book, Coincidence is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous. When I heard it, I just could not stop thinking about it… so simple, yet effective. Well it turns out to be a quote of Albert Einstein’s. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

I’d never heard the quote and now I can’t get it out of my head, either. A fountain of faith burst through its seven words—from Einstein, no less! I was overcome with reassurance. I’ll be frank: at this moment, I just don’t have the energy for the wilderness that lies ahead. But when Wednesday comes, it will be there, because God is at work. Whether through direct inspiration or the anonymity of happenstance, strength for this journey will arrive. How can I be so sure? Because the Transfiguration story portrays one of Scripture’s greatest examples of how God is revealed in seeming coincidence.

Good for Us to Be Here

The story begins uneventfully. Jesus needs to get away to pray. He takes Peter, John, and James with Him and they climb a mountain, leaving the other disciples behind. Scripture doesn’t indicate why Jesus selects them. In retrospect, we know they become pillars of the Church and what transpires on the mountaintop will be a pivotal moment in their faith lives. Whether Jesus intends for them to see what transpires there we can’t say. We can, however, suppose that from their perspective, witnessing the Transfiguration is purely coincidental. They have no idea if this is a singular event, or if this sort of thing happens regularly when Jesus prays in solitude. All they know is they’re there by seeming coincidence to see Jesus utterly transformed, conversing in spirit with Moses and Elijah, after which they’re engulfed in a cloud of God’s undiluted presence. A voice instructs: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!” (Luke 9.35) And there it is: this is no coincidence at all. Peter, James, and John have been brought to this mountain to discover Who Jesus really is. God has chosen this experience to provide them with very particular knowledge in a very particular way. When the veil of coincidence is removed, they have no doubt God is at work in their lives.

After seeing Jesus transfigured—essentially getting a preview of the Resurrected Christ’s appearance—Peter starts to get it. He says, “Master, it is good for us to be here.” (v33) His first impulse is to build three structures, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, to commemorate the experience. But God dismisses Peter’s idea with the proclamation, because Peter is called to construct something more enduring and significant than a mountaintop memorial. He will the become the Church’s chief engineer, relying heavily on John and James’ assistance as they build the living, breathing Body of Christ together. And when he says, “It’s good we’re here,” he doesn’t grasp the import of his comment. He doesn’t realize that, by watching the changes in Jesus’s person, he too has been changed. Once they leave the mountain, God’s redemptive plan will take shape through a series of apparently random events that, only by hindsight, reveal God’s intentions. A long journey of unanticipated challenges and uncertainty awaits Peter, James, and John. The transformative nature of this experience will strengthen them more than they know. The unshakable assurance that Jesus is God’s Son will sustain them in the coming days, when He’s slandered and persecuted as everything but God’s Chosen Son.

Constantly Being Transformed

Coincidence is God’s creative license. It frees God to move anonymously in the background, bringing us to places where we experience Christ’s transformative power up close and personal. In 2 Corinthians 3.17-18, Paul writes, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed.” We are being transformed, as we discover God’s glory at every turn—sometimes through deliberate prayer and study, but just as often through ostensibly random circumstances that cause us to say, “Master, it is good for us to be here.”

Perhaps you’re primed for Lent. I pray you are. But if, like me, you’re concerned about mustering stamina for the days ahead, know that God is working behind the scenes to bring you to a place of renewed strength and commitment. Lent’s season of consecration begins with confessing we can’t make this journey on our own.

We don’t have to be Einsteins to discern that God is at work in our lives, moving behind the scenes to bring us to places of renewed strength and commitment.

Honest Work

Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. (Ephesians 4.28-29)

We hear a lot about the “social safety net.” I genuinely believe the vast majority of us agree we need it, as most are wise enough to understand that we as a nation would be in far worse shape without it. Deciding who’s entitled to support is where the conversation unravels. These programs cost a lot of money—funds taken from us in taxes and essentially redistributed without our consent. And because it’s our money, we want to feel confident those who receive financial support are legitimately in need and not playing the system. It’s a fair expectation.

What’s not fair—what should be patently unacceptable to every believer—is the presumption that a large portion of the net’s beneficiaries is comprised of lazy people who’d rather “steal” from the system than find work. The stereotypes we often hear—“welfare queens” and “leeches”—don’t come from nowhere. We know these species exist. Yet when we paste such labels on those who rely on government provision to survive, not only do we defeat the net’s purpose. We give poverty a foul name. And as people who worship a God Who chose poverty as a way of life, we are highly aware that relying on common kindness (as Jesus did) is no slur on one’s dignity and worth. Second Corinthians 8.9 reminds us, “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.” It should distress us greatly when believers promote ideologies that slander the destitute and dependent as thieves. “Get a job!” is their panacea to poverty—a facile answer that disregards many impediments to gainful employment: availability of work, deficient experience and education, childcare and health issues, transportation, criminal record, and so on. (And McDonald’s isn’t the answer.)

Ephesians 4.28 is a favorite for many Christians in defense of their simplistic go-to-work stance. Yet if we look at it clearly, it’s evident they’ve got it backwards. First, it’s written to the Church; it’s not a social policy statement. And it’s about actual thievery, not sloth or abusing kindness. Most of all, why does the writer urge us to find honest work? So we may have “have something to share with the needy”! This passage validates the social safety net, without any mention of who “deserves” to benefit from the fruits of our labor. (And frequently—conveniently—the expectation that we share what we earn with the poor gets amputated from the quote.) The writer goes on to caution us about we say, telling us, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up.” (v29) If our thoughts and words about the poor aren’t constructive, we’re out of line.

When we vote for candidates who endorse policies that deprive the poor, we add our voices to cynics who would rather compound the sufferings of the needy than part with a buck. We have quit our calling to build up, and joined ranks with believers and non-believers intent on tearing down. Working only for our benefit—demanding that those who don’t enjoy advantages we’ve been given do likewise—is how honest work becomes dishonest.

Twister

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into Him Who is the Head, into Christ. (Ephesians 4.14-15)

A Winning Proposition

Remember Twister? It’s the deceptively simple children’s game that forces players into increasingly difficult contortions to see which of them can stick to their positions without collapsing. If it were played individually, the player with the most stamina and flexibility would win. What makes Twister hard is that you’re asked to work around other players to find your spot on the mat. Consequently, you’re required to twist yourself into crazy positions just to stay in the game—which sounds like fun, but ultimately proves futile. Twister is one of those perverse kiddie games that have no winner. When the clumsiest, weakest player goes down, everyone falls. Of course, kids will play again and again for the fun of it. But the game loses its appeal over time. As kids mature, they see it for what it is: a ridiculous exercise that leads to embarrassment more often than pride.

Invite a group of teenagers to play Twister and they’ll smirk. It’s a silly game unworthy of their time. They’d rather hang out and talk to one another and listen to music or watch TV or try their hands at more challenging games—all of which appears less engaging than Twister’s contrived gymnastics. Yet teens get it. Things they love to do intuitively hone their understanding of the world, each other, and themselves. Hanging together is how they learn to live together in community, and the surest way to land on the outs is by forcing others into uncomfortable positions and demanding they stick to them. Teen life is defiantly agile and fluid and unsettled. That’s why it’s the scariest passage in life. It raises more questions than it answers, more than a community can handle, more than anyone can process. That’s also why most of us mature into adults who abandon the quest for community and revert to Twister-like games we’ll never win.

Of late, we’ve seen a whole lot of Twisting going on. Political posturing in the UN, Europe, and the States has forced otherwise nimble people into rigid positions that endanger global stability. The bigoted comments of a fast-food CEO have contorted buying lunch into a moral dilemma. At the Olympics, eight badminton players were ejected from the Games after bending over backwards to increase their odds of winning medals by intentionally losing preliminary matches. A Mississippi congregation bowed to pressure from a handful of hypocrites and closed its doors to an African-American couple asking to be wed in their sanctuary. Our contempt for these and similar shenanigans can only go so far before it boomerangs, because we all—in some way, shape, or form—play Twister. Indeed, many of us have got so good at it we play multiple rounds at once. We strike a position here, another there, and yet another over there. And we’d rather get buried beneath the weight of our contortions than confess that it’s a loser’s game. In Sunday’s readings, Paul urges us to grow up and pursue lives of faithfulness that strengthen community. He gives us a winning proposition.

A Perfect Seven

If we listen attentively to the text (Ephesians 4.1-16), we’re immediately startled in that it offers us a choice in how to live, while explicitly telling us we have no choice. Paul writes,  “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (v1-3) We are called into community and told how to create and sustain it—humbly, patiently, lovingly, and peacefully. Either we heed our calling or we don’t. Our attitudes and behaviors either foster unity or they defeat it. We’re free to get twisted up in positions and poses. But if we decide to do so, we disqualify ourselves from any hope of togetherness. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all and through all and in all,” Paul tells us in verses 4-6. Reread that and count the ones: a perfect seven. Our unity—our commitment to community at the expense of personal persuasions and preferences—makes that possible.

Before we break out the rainbows and lollipops, we should note the community Paul describes is remarkably diverse and multifaceted. He defines it not by the compatible personalities or common interests of its members, but by the vast array of gifts Christ has given to them. There are specific callings within the greater calling, Paul says, all of them designed “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (v12-14) In other words, your talents, my talents, and those of every other believer are given for one purpose: growing together in the community we call “Christ.” And if we follow Paul’s metaphor to its obvious outcome, we admit we have no means of predicting what the fully matured Body of Christ looks like, how it behaves or thinks. Jesus and the Apostles tell us what it should look like, how it should behave and think, but how that happens remains a mystery. Thus, we are not called to shape the Body—presuming to dictate the nature of its growth by contorting ourselves into ridiculous, self-serving positions. We are summoned to contribute all of our gifts to community making, to invest our whole selves for the sake of a greater whole. This is a grown-up’s intentional endeavor to build unity, not a childish game that collapses in loss.

The Community Challenge

“We must no longer be children,” Paul writes, invoking images of a different sort of twister: “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” In our determination to twist faith into certainty, we invite division, decay, and instability. Our vain contortions guarantee collapse. Paul’s letter comes to us in a timely fashion, when we need to be reminded Twister is a silly, pointless game beneath our calling. Instead, we should undertake the community challenge Paul issues at the end of Sunday’s passage: “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into Him Who is the Head, into Christ, from Whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” Then, and only then, will we achieve the perfect seven, united in one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God.

We’re called to make community not take positions.

Awestruck

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139.14)

The psalmist ponders the care and thought God invested in creating him and he’s awestruck. “I am fearfully made!” he sings. The utter genius of his physiology and all of its functions flabbergast him. But it’s more than that. It’s how his body has been shaped to house the mind and spirit God placed in him. We are God’s finest creation—God’s ultimate masterpiece. And each of us is all of a piece. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 6.19. We must know that. And we must respect the truth of our making, accepting who we are and what we’ve been given. We are fearfully—perfectly—made so that we can witness our awesome God’s perfection in the world. We are made to love, to bless, to honor, to serve God and our neighbors. We are not broken, incomplete, or misshapen in any way. We are mirrors of our Maker: awesome, perfect, miraculous, and complete. Everything about us is fearfully made.

Cause for Praise

We’ll spend most of this week sitting with one verse, Psalm 139.14:

I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.

Our making is cause for praise. The intricate pride of detail with which God has shaped us is a wonder to behold. God’s work in each of us is specific to us. And that is cause for praise. While we share the same humanity, each of us is uniquely human. That is cause for praise. We have no reason to be ashamed of who we are, what we feel, or the path each of us follows. What makes us different is why we are precious and indispensible to God. God crafts each of us to reflect God in a certain ways as only we can. Each of us has meaning. Each of us has a place in God’s world. Each of us serves a purpose that no one else can fill. This is a truth we cannot deny. And we praise God for such love and care to afford us the privilege of a life unlike any other. 

We don't lament or reject our uniqueness—including the struggles that derive from honoring and protecting it. Our making is cause for praise.

Crazy

When His family heard it, they went out to restrain Him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of His mind.” (Mark 3.21)

Psychology

We’re often more frustrated by what the gospels don’t tell us than trying to decipher the mysteries they set before us. As modern readers, we expect them to filter Jesus’s life through a psychological lens: focus first on His thoughts and feelings, then show us how they play out in His behavior and accomplishments. But the writers come at biography from the opposite angle. They concentrate on Jesus’s words and deeds as evidence of His ideas and emotions. So little is said about His inner workings that Mark 3:20-35 (Sunday’s Gospel) catches us off-guard. The passage is one of very few to consider the psychology behind Jesus’s actions. Even then, it’s not about what He thinks. It describes what others think of Him—their suspicions about what makes Him tick. And their conclusions aren’t flattering. Those closest to Him (His family) believe rumors that He’s gone crazy. Those most threatened by Him (theologians) believe He’s possessed. Not flattering.

The strangest aspect of this episode is that Mark doesn’t go into detail about what brings it on. He gets Jesus up and running right away: no preface (like John) stating his views of Jesus, no detailed account of Jesus’s birth and lineage like we find in Matthew and Luke. In Mark, John the Baptist declares, “Prepare the way of the Lord” and—boom!—there Jesus is, fully grown and ready to get started. Mark dashes off a few high points: the baptism, wilderness temptation, assemblage of the disciples, and a few exorcisms and healings, a couple of which upset the religious establishment for occurring on the Sabbath. But we don't find much insight as to what's going on in Jesus's head, or why people think He's insane.

Jesus Makes Sense

The crowds around Jesus keep growing. By the time we reach the third chapter, verse 20 says they’re so large that Jesus and His followers can’t even find a quiet place to eat. Up to this point, Jesus doesn’t say very much in Mark. So what follows comes out of the blue: “When His family heard it, they went out to restrain Him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of His mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.’” (v21-22) In a time when the countryside runs riot with healers and exorcists, we wonder what makes people say Jesus is crazy. Why would they flock to Him if they truly thought He’d lost His mind? What causes His family’s concern—to the point that they would rush to pull Him away from His work? Do they believe He’s crazy, too? Why would learned religionists theorize that He’s doing the devil’s work by relieving people of vexing spirits? None of this makes sense until Jesus opens His mouth. Then we get it. People think Jesus is crazy and/or possessed because He makes sense. The surest way to sound nuts during nutty times is to speak soundly, sensibly, and assuredly to the situation. Which Jesus does.

What Mark and the other writers don’t tell us (as it need not be told to their intended readers) is that Jesus has come to people stranded in an upside-down world. The land God gave them has been stolen—again. While they await their King, they live under Caesar’s thumb. Their synagogues ring with psalms of God’s goodness and provision. Yet the soundtrack of their lives is replete with dirges of sorrow and hunger. Corruption, injustice, and poverty have warped their minds. Despair has dislodged hope. They substitute religiosity for faithfulness. Nothing is as it seems or what it should be. Deceit masquerades as honesty; virtue is met with suspicion. If we didn’t live in similar times, it would be difficult to conceive how jaded and unhealthy Jesus’s world is. Since He is Truth and Life, however, He speaks truth and life. So, of course, people think He’s crazy, as His words and actions don’t conform to their daily reality.

We get a taste of just how twisted things have got when the scribes—the most learned leaders of their day—assume that freeing people of diabolical influences proves Jesus is possessed. How crazy is that? Yet it makes sense to them until Jesus dismantles their logic. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” He asks. “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” (v23-24) He cautions against attributing His work to “an unclean spirit,” saying such a sin is unforgiveable. That’s when His mother and brothers show up and insist that He stop talking and leave with them. In this topsy-turvy culture, the family unit is the only stable institution. Rumors that Jesus has gone mad are shaming His family. Their demand must be honored. Yet instead of submitting to His kinfolk’s crazy fears and insufficient grasp of Who He is, Jesus redefines family. He looks around at those nearest Him, who find eternal truth at the heart of His puzzling statements and demeanor. “Here are My mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother,” He declares. (v34-35)

Believe the Good News

So where are we in this story? Well, that depends on what shapes our psyches. If we allow this crazy, mixed-up world of ours to control how we perceive others and ourselves—if we surrender to its oppressive ideologies and suspicions—then we belong with the backward crowd: amateur critics, learned fools, and fearful family members. But if we set our hearts on being like Christ—if we refuse to yield to uninformed opinions, religious nonsense, and loved ones’ pressure to conform—we will speak truth and life to those who long for hope and healing. We will see the world not as it is, but as it should be. We will heed the first words of Jesus that Mark records: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1.15)

In Romans 12.2 we read: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Do we know that people say we’re crazy to believe God loves us, regardless where we come from and who we are? Of course we do. Are we aware that many religious folks attribute our pursuit of faithfulness to satanic delusions? Sure we are. Do we have friends and family who put more credence in what others tell them about us than what we know to be true? It’s highly likely. In this Gospel, Jesus serves as living proof that conformity to the world’s upside-down ways is not His way. Succumbing to group pressure, cynicism, and fearful mindsets won't lead to transformation. The kingdom of God is near. Leave the crazy nonsense behind. Believe the good news.

The truth of Christ sounds crazy to a crazy, mixed-up world.

Postscript: “All That I’m Allowed”

This song is new to me. I recently heard it in a supermarket and stopped in my tracks. I can’t quite articulate how it connects with this post, but somehow—for me, at least—it does. Perhaps it’s because Elton John also gives witness to the power of speaking truth and life to an upside-down world. “I always hoped that I’d do better, that I’d come out on top for once,” the song says, adding, "The barriers get in the way, but I see hope in every cloud." And when we forego conformity to nonsensical opinions and fears, that’s what happens. We come out on top.

May we all be thankful for all that we’re allowed.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/06/10/crazy/

Where Does This Come From?

Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3.7-8)

An Eternal, God-Like Life

Indulge me as I delight in a bit of pride. The older of my two nephews, Zach, graduated high school this weekend—in typical Zach style, I might add, not making a big deal of his achievements (which are many), but with eyes focused straight ahead. Next autumn Zach will enter college to prepare for a life of ministry. This will be the fourth generation of Wolfes who, in some shape or form, have dedicated their lives to the Gospel. Our family’s joy knows no bounds.

My sister-in-law, Renée (herself a minister’s daughter), and I were talking about Zach and she told me, “When he announced he felt called to ministry, of course we were pleased. But we were also surprised. We’ve never pushed our boys in that direction. They’ve always been free to find their own way. And so, when Zach told us how he was being led, we knew it was real.” (Alex, my younger nephew, will graduate middle school later this month and has already expressed a desire to enter medicine—another ministry, to be sure, and the continuance of another family tradition.) As we discussed the boys’ aspirations, Renée and I wondered where does this compulsion to serve God and others come from. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. Neither do I.

By no means is the question unique to our family. Indeed, each of us witnesses the same desire to honor God’s purpose in ways that benefit those around us. Something inside you and me compels us to follow Jesus—to study His teachings, to emulate His example, to live in ways that fulfill His promises. It’s an inchoate longing whose origins run deeper than upbringing or need for a governing set of life principles. It is something altogether amazing that God imbeds our beings long before they take shape. It springs from precognitive awareness of a new life—a transcendent life—that Christ makes possible in each of us, a seeking life, a richer life, a better life beyond mundane existence. It’s an eternal, God-like life that, as Jesus explains in Sunday’s Gospel (John 3.1-17), is born of God’s Spirit.

A Bold, Completely New Idea

Nicodemus—whose nighttime visit occasions Jesus’s comments—is a seeker. And John wants us to know that he comes to Jesus from a rare place. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, “a leader of the Jews” (v1), meaning that he’s mastered a theological construct that prides itself on having figured everything out. Yet the Pharisaical tradition also puts great value in asking questions, and something down deep in Nicodemus alerts him that he hasn’t found all the answers. Everything he’s seen and heard from Jesus tells him there’s more to know. So Nicodemus calls on this Rabbi Whose preaching radically diverges from the Pharisee tradition in hopes of launching a new period of discovery in his life. At great personal risk (which explains his decision to meet Jesus under cover of night), Nicodemus is compelled to find out where Jesus is coming from. If he can pin Jesus down, perhaps he can identify the origins of his own hunger for something greater than a religiously and morally doctrinaire life.

From the first, Jesus’s message has been this: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1.15) How near? In Luke 17.20-21, Jesus explains: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among [or within] you.” Jesus senses the stirrings of God’s kingdom within Nicodemus and wastes no time telling the Pharisee what he needs to know. In John 3.3, He says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” This revelation throws Nicodemus. First, it tells him that their conversation is not going to go per expectation. Jesus isn’t going to parse Old Testament texts in the grand rabbinical tradition. Here is a bold, completely new idea—something Nicodemus has never encountered before—and the adept theologian can’t quite wrap his head around it. Born from above (or “anew,” or “again”)? What does that mean?

The Very Breath of God

Jesus enlightens Nicodemus. “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” He says. (v6) Mortal birth brings us into the world. But there’s more, much more, to life than biological existence. The Spirit of God gives birth to our spirits—the very breath of God that inspires our beings—and that new life comes out of us, enabling us to gain entrance to God’s kingdom. Jesus tells Nicodemus it’s entirely possible to live in a world that transcends the physical; once we acknowledge the Spirit’s presence within us, we’re transformed. We obtain eternal life—life as lived by God, as God desires, life devoted to building God’s kingdom on earth, a kingdom of love, peace, justice, and harmony. 


Thus, this spiritual birth brings with it a compulsion to live in ways that supersede natural living. Indeed, it’s a peculiarly unnatural way of life that places love for God above all else and love for others on par with love of self. So, while we recognize the deeper, richer, and truer life that results from this compulsion, its beginnings will always remain a mystery. And Jesus appears perfectly comfortable with that. “Don’t be astonished that I said, ‘You must be born from above,’” he stresses to Nicodemus. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (v7-8)

Something Within

We don’t need to fully understand where this comes from. We will never be able to identify what compels us to love God and others, what drives us to seek justice and peace not only for ourselves, but also for anyone who’s denied them. The passage ends with Nicodemus not really getting the answers he came looking for. Instead, Jesus gives him something far more glorious and essential. He assures the Pharisee that what drives his desire for more than mundane existence is a godly gift. His search brings him to the door of God’s kingdom and belief in a Spirit-born life is all that’s required to enter. “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him,” Jesus says. (v16-17) This mysterious compulsion that inspires young people to pursue lives of faithful ministry and all believers to live out Christ’s teachings and example does not—and cannot—end in condemnation. It leads to eternal life.

Understanding new life in Christ has no bearing on our ability to experience it. In fact, we should celebrate the mystery of our faith-ignited compulsion as the first sign of life it creates—a life that defies logical explanation and makes real God’s kingdom in us. And as I ponder the singular beauty of this irrevocably transformed, unnatural lifestyle, I’m reminded of a hymn that Zach’s great-grandfather often sang to his father and me. With my brother, Steve, perched on one side and me on the other, Papa Wolfe would rock us gently in the backyard swing as he sang:

Something within me that holdeth the rein

Something within me that banishes pain

Something within me I cannot explain

All that I know, there is something within

Have you that something, that burning desire?

Have you that something that never doth tire?

If you have it, that heavenly fire

Let the world know there is something within

There is something within. That’s all that we know. And just knowing that is enough.

Something within us—something we can’t fully understand or source—compels us to lead Spirit-born lives.

Postscript: "Something Within Me"

Here’s Take 6’s jubilant rendition of Papa Wolfe’s hymn, “Something Within Me,” admittedly performed with a bit more (though not much) doo-wop swagger than what my brother and I heard as kids.

Note: S-F will return to its “Sitting with Scripture” series on Monday, and continue on weekdays throughout the month of June.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/06/02/where-does-this-come-from/.