Irrelevant

I recently began participating in a discussion group with some of the members of my faith community. We are examining passages of the bible looking for the intent of the text from all angles. We began with John 9 and I would like to share here what I’ve observed. Here is a summation of the story (to find it in its entirety click here).

Jesus and his disciples are walking along on the Sabbath when they run into a man. The story says the man has been blind from birth. The disciples ask Jesus; “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus tells them neither and then spits in the dirt, makes mud and rubs it on his eyes. He then tells the man to go to a local pool and wash. When he does his sight is healed.

This immediately throws everyone into frenzy. The man’s neighbors recognize him as the one they had seen begging and demand that he tell them what happened. When he tells them they take him to the Pharisees.

Because this healing occurred on the Sabbath, the Pharisees question him. The law required that no work be done on the Sabbath. But after questioning him, they are not convinced he was ever blind, so they take him to his parents to ask them. His parents deflect the question by saying yes, he was blind, but they do not answer how he was healed. They instead tell them to ask their son. They did this because the Pharisees had already decided that anyone who followed Jesus would be kicked out of the synagogue.

The Pharisees ask the man again how he was healed. When he tells them what Jesus did they proclaim, “This man (Jesus) is not from God, he does not keep the Sabbath. He is a sinner.” The healed man responds “Whether this man is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I do know, I was blind and now I see.” Upon further questioning the man responds to them again by saying that he obviously is from God because he healed him. “We know God doesn’t listen to sinners,” he says. When questioned further, the healed man asks them if they want to become his disciples too, since they keep asking him about it.  At this, they say to him ”How dare you lecture us? You were stepped in sin at birth.” With this they throw the man from the synagogue.

The story says that when Jesus hears that he was kicked from the synagogue he goes and finds him. He then engages him in a conversation asking him if he believes in the Son of Man. Jesus then makes the following statement. ”For judgment the I’ve come into the world so that the blind will see and those who claim to see will become blind.”

Throughout this passage the issue of sin is keeps coming up. The disciples want to know who sinned. The Pharisees say Jesus is a sinner. The healed man says we know God doesn’t listen to sinners. The Pharisees tell him he was steeped in sin at birth. For Jesus, who sinned seems to be irrelevant. He is more interested in the condition of the blind man. We find a similar story in Mark 3, where a man is healed on the Sabbath.

In that story Jesus tells them, “The Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath”. He also says to the Pharisees ““Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? Here we find some clarity in Jesus statement, “for judgment I’ve come into the world.” Jesus, by his loving action to this man, exposes the heart of those around him.

We are told that this man was seen begging. It’s not hard to imagine why, everyone seems to have believed his afflictions were caused by his or someone else’s sin.  The disciples did, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked Jesus who sinned. The Pharisees did, they told him he was steeped in sin from birth. They obviously perceived this because he was born blind.  He probably even did himself. We are told his parents are there. Why didn’t they help him? Maybe they were to poor to help him. Maybe his affliction caused people to believe they had sinned. What Jesus is exposing is that no one seemed to care that this man was blind. We can infer this because no one seemed to care when he was healed. They were blind to his humanity.

What we find is that Jesus values saving life (giving the man sight) over destroying it (throwing him out of the synagogue). Throwing this man out of the synagogue would have socially ostracized him and removed him from his best source for help. Jesus shows his love for this man both in healing him and in finding him once he was thrown out. There is another element in which I believe Jesus is shining light onto their blindness. The people all seem to accept the fact that “God doesn’t listen to sinners”. Jesus here presents the more radical idea that not only does God listen to sinners, he heals them and pursues them. How often do we look at broken people and decide their decisions put them there. Maybe what is important is not how they got there but how we can get them out.

As to the question of ”why do bad things happen?” Jesus doesn’t really give an answer. He just states ”this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” We could interpret this statement to mean God purposed this man to be blind for his own glory, though I don’t think that is clear from his response. This might lead some to believe that God is not just. When presented with the question of God being just maybe our best response is like that of the man healed.

“Whether or not this man is a sinner or not, I don’t know, but one thing I do know……

May we become the kind of people who see others humanity. May we see that people’s sin is irrelevant when deciding whether or not to help them. May we be transformed by God’s grace. 

 

Heresy

I will be posting items that are laden with my own thinking under the category of heresy. I do this for three reasons. First, I elect to not refer to someone else’s ideas or thoughts as heresy. Second, I want to make it perfectly clear here that I do not claim to have all the right answers. And finally, lately I’ve noticed that many people that inspire me are called heretics, so I must be one also. Rob Bell is accused of not beating people over the head with the cross. Brennan Manning is referred to as a universalist. Shane Claiborne is referred to as one of the emergent “wolves in sheeps clothing” and Donald Miller is more concerned with “feelings” than “the truth.” 

What inspires me about these people is that they lay down their traditions for the sake of love. Peter Rollins refers to this at the “prejudice of love”. Another one of my heroes also laid down his traditions for the sake of love.

When consistently confronted by the Pharisees (the religious leaders of his day) with the law, Jesus refused to act in a non-loving manner for the sake of tradition. On one occasion, when it says the Pharisees were looking to accuse Jesus, there was a man before him with a shriveled hand. Now this happened on the sabbath, and healing or doing any work on the sabbath was unlawful. Jesus chose to heal the man and announced to them “what is lawful on the sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill.” 

Another time, there was a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus took some mud and gave him sight. When the Pharisees saw the man and heard what happened, instead of celebrating with him they told him “this man (that healed you) is not from God, he does not keep a sabbath.  

Yet another time, Jesus was in the synagogue teaching a group when the Pharisees threw a women caught in adultery in front of him. They questioned him stating that “In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” Rather, than affirming that tradition he answered, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

He even says in the sermon on the mount “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” At the very place of sacrament, love and reconcilation are more important than religious tradition.

My pastor Matt recently said on the subject that “God gave away his God-ness for the God-less.” This is the most radical expression of Jesus putting on love as the ultimate form of orthodoxy and being the measure by which we are called to make decisions. This idea is found in Phillipians 2 –  ”Jesus, being the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing.”

May we all be reminded that the most orthodox view we can hold is that we are to love God and each other. 

In’n'Out

Often in Christian circles the question arises of who is and who is not going to heaven. While I believe this question should only be left to God, I do have thoughts on the subject. At our best, we pray that a God who went to such great lengths as to put on our skin and allow our systems and sinfulness to kill him for our own salvation would not allow our failing witness and humanity’s injured mindsets and distorted views of him be what keeps anyone from him eternally.  At the same time, we acknowledge humanity’s broken state, its failing history and the tremendous grace he has shown humanity in his sacrifice. 

My picture of heaven is that it is the place where God’s will is done. My understanding is that in and through Jesus, God created and sustains all things on heaven and earth and He is in the process of one day reconciling the two.  On that day heaven will crash into the earth, forming a (re)newed heaven and earth. 

In this picture, everything that is good (love, mercy, forgiveness, joy, laughter, hope, etc) and every thing that we aspire to and enjoy are found, founded and upheld in God.

At the same time, in no sense does God completely withdraw Himself from those on earth who haven’t come to faith in Him. As Jesus says, God allows His sun to rise on good and evil and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. What is important here is not that we determine who is evil and who is good, or that we judge who is righteous and who is not.  What is important is that God blesses everyone.

The images of sun and rain may have provoked thoughts of provision from the gods. At that time, people were living under the assumptions that if they pleased the gods through their actions, blessing would be sent down on their crop. Jesus presents the more radical idea that God’s love and provision reaches everyone. At least for present, everyone is experiencing God’s loving attempts to re-enter into relationship with them. 

Thus, in the gospel, we are invited to enter God’s kingdom, become his disciple and friend, orient our will around His and enter into the life of heaven now, though only in part.  It also appears the flipside of this is true; people can be living and entering into the lifestyle of hell now, but not fully. 

It appears to me that God does not force himself upon anyone.  He did not in the garden, does not on earth and I believe he will not in heaven either, not in the way we understand forcing. In this idea, hell is not a place God sends bad people to be flogged and tortured.  Hell is the absence of God, the absence of everything good, reserved for those who reject Him.

Imagine now if everything good was no longer attainable.

In this understanding, I do not follow God out of fear of losing what is good, any more than I love my wife out of fear of her leaving me. On the contrary, I follow God because I desire Him, His kingdom, and His goodness.  I follow God because I’m attracted to His way of life. I follow because forgiveness is greater than bitterness. Because mercy is greater than revenge. Because hope is better than cynicism. Because love is greater than hate. Because desire is greater than fear. Maybe a better question than who is going to hell is, who would really want to?