What We Have On Our Side

An increasing number of persons in the Western world consider the story of Jesus to be nothing but foolishness. The cross is perceived as nothing but representative of powerlessness, and the resurrection as reflective of a pre-scientific worldview.

The Protestant churches have responded to this growing perception in two ways. The first way is to stress the relevance and utility of discipleship and the imitation of Christ. That is, the Churches have argued that Christ should be imitated because imitating Christ will give us fulfillment in our lives. For example, any brief perusal of a mainstream Christian bookstore reveals title after title dealing with how imitating Christ can lead to financial success, cancellation of our debt, success in our workplace, and how our nation can be made stronger. The message is clear--what the Church has on its side is relevance and utility. We should follow Jesus because by doing so, we will lead fulfilling lives.

The second answer to the challenge of the growing secularization of Western culture is made in terms of comfort and security: practice discipleship because it will give you comfort and hope. This is also a dominant message in mainstream Christian literature and in the pulpit.

In John's gospel, 14:15-21, Jesus tells the disciples that when Jesus is no longer with them, God will bring the disciples another "advocate" who will be us always. The "advocate" is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus made sure that the disciples understood that their lives were not going to be easy. This is also reflected in the epistle lesson for this Sunday from 1 Peter 3:13-22, where the author assumes that those who imitate Christ will undergo sufferings, and provides instruction about how the Church should conceptualize its own suffering and respond.

The greatest tool of those who imitate Christ--what we have on our side, is the truth. God was revealed in Jesus, and in the empty tomb and the cross we have a vision of the God who reigns for ever and ever. What is on our side is not relevance, comfort, or security. To take Paul's story as an example, the fact that Paul lived out his discipleship with authenticity led to everything but financial fulfillment, vocational fulfillment, comfort, or security. The gospels reveal that if we imitate Christ, we will very likely be confronted by danger, adversity, and trial.

If the gospel is framed in terms of its utility to bring about self fulfillment, financial security, national security, comfort, or safety, then the gospel becomes nothing more than an instrument to bring us these things. And then these things become our gospel. So what do we do? Simply seek the truth of the gospel with all our hearts, and follow the guidance of God's Spirit. Seek to know the truth of the cross and the empty tomb. And then structure your life around the message and the story.

Thinking Through the Good Shepherd Allegory

For most Christians today, Church has become primarily associated with comfort and safety. We live in a world that scares the daylights out of us, and with good reason. Sometimes it seems that our entire political and social structures are falling apart. Church is a place that people go to be comforted and told that everything is going to be okay.

The allegory of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is interpreted in most Churches in this light. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who takes care of the sheep. We are the sheep. We are surrounded by lots of dangers, which are represented by the wild animals. God is the owner of the sheep. Normally sermons on this text focus on the care of the Good Shepherd, the powerlessness of the sheep, or the danger of the wild animals.

Lets do something unexpected and actually think through the allegory. If Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep, what is the fate of the sheep? What are the sheep being cultivated for, and where are they going to end up?

In order to answer these questions, we need to consider the place of sheep in ancient Israel. Sheep, along with most livestock, are cultivated today for food. This was not true in the ancient world. Animals in the ancient world were raised primarily for religious sacrifice. It seems alien to us, but in the ancient world, every significant (and some not so significant acts) required some form of religious ritual, which typically involved animal sacrifice. For example, when we read the Torah, we see a huge number of religious rituals that are prescribed for just about everything. These animals had to come from somewhere. By analogy, if you have read the Iliad, Homer's epic of a small part of the 10 year siege of Troy, you know that the characters in the story spend a lot more time engaging in religious rituals to appease the gods than actual fighting. Modern day movies dealing with the siege of Troy (or any story set in the ancient world) have to ignore this basic component of ancient life in order to create a movie that can be sold to a modern audience.

When Jesus' ancient listeners heard that they were being associated with sheep, they would have immediately made the connection with religious ritual. And they would have been understandably shocked by the real message of the allegory. Jesus as the Good Shepherd is laying down his life for the sheep and protecting the sheep from the wild animals so that they can be prepared to be sacrificed themselves.

God's will for us is that we be formed, through God's sanctifying grace, into God's instruments to be God's ambassadors in the world. As disciples of Christ, we are called to live as Christ for others, bringing Christ's message into the world and living as servants of others, as Christ lived as the servant of all people. Jesus was God's instrument to bring reconciliation and salvation to the world. Jesus offered himself willingly as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. God wants us to sacrifice ourselves for others to continue the work of Christ and to help make this world the world that God wants it to be.

The gospel lesson for this week is the story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. This is a story that is unique to Luke's gospel. In the story, two disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, but are "prevented from recognizing Him." Later, Jesus breaks bread with the two disciples, and in that moment, their eyes are opened, and they recognize Jesus, but in the same moment, Jesus disappears from their sight.

One of the hallmarks of the resurrection stories of Jesus is the fact that the disciples are unable to recognize Jesus, or similarly, that they doubt the presence of the risen Christ. For example, in Matthew's gospel, we are told that some of the disciples who encountered the risen Christ doubted his presence when Christ issued the Great Commission. As modern persons, we typically think this is because the notion of resurrection is inconceivable. This would not have been true of ancient persons, who lived in a culture where such miracles were possible, and even expected.

I think the answer lies in the expectations that the disciples had about Jesus. There is a reality television show on the air now where the CEO of a company, without telling anyone besides his or her inner circle, starts working at his or her own company as an entry level employee, to get a better idea of the way that the company works on the ground level. At the conclusion of each episode, the CEO reveals to his or her "supervisors" and "co worker's" their true identity. In many cases, I think the fact that the fact that the supervisors are co workers are not able to recognize the CEO has to do with the fact that they might not even know what the CEO looks like, or if they did, they might have only glimpsed their picture on a newsletter or something. But there have been episodes where the CEO was well known in the media, and/or where the CEO otherwise maintained a high profile. The CEO's appearance was moderately disguised, but not drastically so--not so much that the other employees should not have been able to recognize him or her. In these cases, I think the CEO was not recognized because of the expectations that we have about status--a CEO is expected to look a certain way, act a certain way, and to be presented in a certain way. When they are presented out of context, our eyes are prevented from seeing them as they are.

During Jesus' lifetime, the disciples were unable to see that God was revealed in Jesus because they were looking for the wrong God. They were looking for a God who revealed and manifested power and glory and in the ways that Rome manifested power and glory and the way that Herod dreamed about power and glory. For both Rome and Herod, the whole point of life was to reveal and manifest as much power and glory as possible. Notice that Rome and Herod made sure that when crucifixions took place, they were high on a hill so that everyone could see how powerful they were. Certainly, the disciples thought, if God were truly revealed in Jesus God would have displayed God's power for everyone to see. Instead, Jesus told the disciples over and over again not to share with others about the demonstrations of God's power that Jesus revealed.

Now the eyes of the disciples were still blind. Certainly, the disciples thought, if Jesus were to be raised, it would have been with as much pomp and circumstance as possible, so that everyone could see it, in the way that they saw the crucifixion. There would have been loud trumpets and the clouds breaking open in a way that all of Jerusalem could see--surely, God would make sure that everyone saw and understood that Rome and Herod were not as powerful and glorious as He was. Certainly, it was not possible that God could be more powerful than Rome and Herod and not want to draw attention to this fact. It was not possible, therefore, that the person who walked along the road with them was the risen Christ.

But at the end of the story, the eyes of the disciples are opened for a moment. They are opened in a Eucharistic moment in the breaking of bread. In that moment, they see who Jesus is.

Maybe the reason why this story was passed down and recorded in Luke's gospel is not only because it was an account of the risen Christ, but what it represented for the early Church, and what it still represents for us. Sometimes, the risen Christ can be hidden from our eyes because we are looking for the wrong God and the wrong Jesus. We forget that our God is a God of service, compassion, and mercy. A God who has no interest in being Rome or Herod. We remember who God is and who Jesus is in the community, the Church, when we celebrate Christ crucified and risen.