Keep watching Mark Van’s “Jesus Manifesto” for the unedited cut but in the mean time,
Over at Jim Wallis blog God’s Politics I’ve been asking “What if” Obama took a different direction at Oslo
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaM94mieeLg]
click on the text to read full article and view Cornel West video:
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always.” –Mohandas Gandhi
I’m off to Indonesia this Friday (forgive me my carbon debts) to the Historic Peace Church Gathering on behalf of AAANZ and Quakers (It will be a bunch of very respectable, intelegent and impressive people from around the world… and this dreadlocked kid from Perth!). So this will be my last ‘Wednesday with Gandhi’ for the year. It’s funny I set out to write about a bunch of stuff that I didn’t get round to but I trust the Spirit will take what I have done and use it to invite and inspire people to know in deeper ways for themselves this Jesus that Gandhi said was the greatest practitioner of nonviolence in history, central to his revolution in India, and the one through whom, I believe, God’s dream for creation has broken into history.
I thought I’d end by letting you in on a little of the life of our community. Us Peace Tree mob can say with our hero Dorothy Day “We have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” As a community we seek to ‘serve in silence’ and not make a big deal of what we do but since the gang fights and the subsequent killing in the street behind ours was so public and made the news overseas, we thought we’d let our light shine in the hope that it doesn’t glorify us but the God who is transforming our world not through force but through a love seen fully in Jesus.
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“Today I rebel against orthodox Christianity, as I am convinced that it has distorted the message of Jesus. He was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media, and when it had the backing of a Roman emperor it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day.”
–Mohandas Gandhi, (May 30, 1936) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 79
I’d like to start this post not just with a quote from Gandhi, but a quote from 3 others:
Quote 1.
“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt.”
Quote 2.
“Anyone who can be proved to be a seditious person is an outlaw before God and the emperor; and whoever is the first to put him to death does right and well. For if a man is in open rebellion, everyone is both his judge and the executioner; just as when a fire starts, the first man who can put it out is the best man to do the job.”
Quote 3.
If the words of this last quote were written and acted on in the 16th century the writer could expect a second baptism of the involuntary variety where you never come up for air again. These aren’t the words of some dreadlocked, kingdom-fuelled, commune starting, dumpster diving, fringe-dwelling, freegan, (eco)activist, permaculturalist wanta-be (but thanks for reading my posts anyway ;)) but of Charismatic-Evangelical megachurch pastor, and theologian, Dr. Gregory Boyd.
So what his problem?
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“If Jesus came to earth again, he would disown many things that are being done in the name of Christianity. It is not he who says ‘Lord, Lord’ that is a Christian, but “He that doeth the will of the Lord’ that is a true Christian. And cannot he, who has not heard the name of Jesus Christ, do the will of the Lord?“
-Gandhi (Harijan: May 11, 1935)
Last Friday night our church community watched an amazing (and disturbing) doco called “Jesus Camp” (we laughed, we cried… we ask “what the?” ). This is an important movie to discuss with our churches and friends who don’t share our faith. It documents “Pastor Becky’s” crusade (I used the word deliberately) to indoctrinate young people into a ‘spirituality’ of being ‘a generation of warriors for God’. It is nothing short of a ‘how to’ of Constantinian Christianity’s kids ministry on crack. It’s crazy. And it’s invading the imagination of many Christians. Like the movie “Saved” it holds a mirror to aspects of Christianity that looks nothing like Jesus and asks “What’s that?”. I found myself thinking I wish I was watching this with Stanley Hauerwas and could hear his reflections.
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator. I try to see Him and His Mercies in all these creations. But even the sunsets and sunrises would be mere hindrances if they did not help me to think of Him. Anything, which is a hinderance to the flight of the soul, is a delusion and a snare; even like the body, which often does actually hinder you in the path of salvation.”
-Gandhi
How does this quote strike you?
This morning I write this post from under the shade of eucalypts in the Lockridge community garden that us Peace Tree crew have helped birthed with other locals. One of the things that has shaped the Peace Tree is what the Spirit has stirred in us regarding the gospel being good news for all of creation (not just humans) and considering what this means in a society that is seemingly asleep behind the shopping trolley while we hurtle towards creation destruction (for those of us who have trouble connecting the dots… that means self destruction!). The Lockridge Community Garden is an exciting and humble venture in reconciliation, permaculture, food security, the reclaiming of public space, and as Harry (showing of his crazy latin skills and penchant for St. Benedict would say) “ora et labora” (prayer and work). Because it’s a Wednesday there a number of people who are volunteering in the garden, one of which is a friend who is a Buddhist nun. I ran the quote by her for her take:
“I really like it. He seems to be talking about detachment and perception and that what is external can either help or hinder depending on your state of mind.”
What I found so interesting is that I think many Christians, not just liberals, but evangelicals would actually agree with my Buddhist friend. They would use different language (maybe language simular to what Gandhi) uses here to say,
“It’s great but don’t let it (God’s good creation) get in the way of spirituality, or relationship to God, or ‘the gospel’ or ‘eternal salvation’.”
It’s always risky to paint with broad brushstrokes but the quote above reveals something Gandhi’s worldview where he viewed the goal of faith being a spiritual salvation (moksha) form the ‘illusion of this world’ while living lives of loving service. This ‘dualism with an activist twist’ is sadly what many Christians think the gospel is about as well. Somehow today Christians often think that right relationship with each other and with the land is a secondary thought to right relationship to God. For the early Christians it was an integral part of the reconciliation of all things which God has started in Jesus.
Somehow today Christians have walked away from our calling to be image bearers and witnesses to the transformation of creation (the coming of the kingdom). Instead we have become religious vendors of ‘spirituality’ to accompany the foolish and diabolical destruction of creation. Instead of preaching ‘in Jesus the exodus from all domination has started’ we preach a neo-Gnostism of ’in Jesus the exodus from creation has started’. As my friend Ian Barns recently wrote:
“many Christians believe that God is primarily interested in humans and their eternal salvation, and not in other creatures and ecosystems. Although the doctrine of creation (God made the world and saw that it was good) saves us from being Manichean (matter is bad, spirit is good) nonetheless, Christian worship, practice, and theology and involvement in worldly life is shaped by a practical dualism which makes us generally unconcerned about ecological issues. Moreover, the focus on issues of personal spirituality means that we fit comfortably within the utilitarian approach to the natural world that is part of modern urban and industrial life.”
“For this movement of American evangelicals, issues of abortion, same sex marriage, and stem cell research have been much more important issues than the long term health of the planet. To be sure, in February 2005, 83 prominent US evangelicals published the so-called ‘Evangelical Climate Initiative’, with a ‘Call to Action’ to governments and churches. Yet evangelical leaders such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Charles Colson and Don Carson actively opposed this initiative.”
And drawing on NT Wright issues this prophetic call:
“if we pay attention to the ‘bigger picture’ gospel that the Bible proclaims, we can see that far from being merely a temporary vehicle for us humans as we make our way to heaven, the creation is integral to God’s salvation purpose. God does not make a good creation, which he then destroys because of the disfiguring effects of human sin. Rather, his eternal purpose is that, as human creatures faithfully reflect God’s image, the created order should enter into the liberty of the children of God (Romans 8). The gospel message is that Jesus, the first born of a renewed humanity, has done what Adam, and humanity ‘ after the sinful flesh’, could not do: be the perfect image of God. Through his obedience unto death, Jesus opens the way for not just humanity, but God’s good creation, to enter into that glorious destiny God always intended.”
Living during this ecological crisis, if we are to have any integrity to the Scriptures, the early Church, and our Lord, we must preach a full gospel that is good news to all of creation. Otherwise “evangelical” will no longer be associated with ‘good news’.
first posted at http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/10/goodnews-to-all-of-creation.html
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither.” -Mohandas K. Gandhi
“God will judge you for what you did today!!!”
If phone text messages could yell, I think this one I received might have been screaming. It was clear, not just from this sentence but the whole message (which I will not repeat) that this brother or sister (Identity withheld under the “I’m not being a fantastic witness” protection program) wanted to ‘open up a can of correction’ on me. What provoked this responce? The day of the last election we had in Australia I sent the following message to friends on my mobile phone:
“G’day, was think that while many don’t care about today, maybe if we live today for “the least of these”, the poor and the marginalised, today could be an act of worship. Grace and peace, Jarrod.”
While it sparked some amazing conversations with people who aren’t Christians, it really upset this one Christian. Another friend message back:
“So I guess you’re voting for [insert party]? :)”
I replied,
“Who’s talking about voting for a party? I’m just talking about daily following Jesus. :)”
Political options in Australia: Howard, Rudd or… Jesus?
Both major parties in Australia are kissing more than babies in the hope of votes. In an interesting twist it looks like political parties are “finding religion”, in the faith that this move will find them votes. As the political master minds are plotting how to capture the Christian imagination to win their vote at the next election, I wonder what would happen if the church had it’s imagination captured by the politics of a suffering servant that saves not through tickling ears, the way of the sword, scapegoating others or by enforcing what is ‘right’ on others. Rather who saves through the suffering love of a crucified God. I wonder what would happen if we would let the Holy Spirit empowered the church to live the politics of the kingdom of heaven instead of in our own power seeking to be ‘a force for influence’ in running the violent kingdoms of this world?I’m not talking about retreating into a holy huddles and letting the world go to hell. While Ammon Hennacy words ring in my ears, “When choosing the lesser between two evils people often forget they still chose evil”, I must admit I’m a “lapsed-Christian-anarchist” and I do vote. But I don’t think voting is my primary form of ‘political engagement’.
My political engagement happens daily living as church in community, by housing those without a home, hanging out and making food for local kids without a meal, welcoming refugees to live in our home, visiting people in prison, growing food in the garden, getting to work on my skateboard and bus, teaching the practicalities of nonviolence. And other ways God lets our lives be a megaphone of amazing grace despite the fact we’re cracked vessels (or crackpots!)
We are to be ‘in the world but not of the world’. So what are we to be of? We are to be of the way of Jesus. The way of the kingdom of God. The politics of grace. The politics of generosity. The politics a new age where it’s not the rich but the poor who are blessed. The politics of the ministry of reconciliation. The politics of the weightier matters of law. The politics of the trust of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The politics of forgiveness. The politics of peacemaking. The politics of hungering and thirsting for the healing justice of God. The politics of sharing so ‘no one is in need’. The politics of being a colony of heaven. The politics of seeking first God’s Reign (or kingdom) in all things. For the early church, you could look at their life and see their politics, see who they were ‘voting for’ as their authority. Thier words and lives spoke a different politics to the violent ruler Cesar being Lord (maybe the closest thing we have today is Prime Minister) but the crucified and risen Jesus. Maybe the early Christians today wouldn’t say “Jesus is Lord”. Maybe they’d say, “The nonviolent Jesus of the Scriptures is Prime Minister. Come and join us in community where we can daily vote for him with our lives!”
And while many want to say Amen to the above the question comes ‘how’ do we do that. Politics classically isn’t about just who’s in ’government’ but how, (or the way) groups interact, organize and make decisions. (I think this is important to remember not just to keep democracy healthy but to keep church healthy! ) For the early Christians the only way you witnessed to Jesus being the Way is by living the Way (or ‘politics’) of Jesus. By seeking the Spirit’s empowerment to live a Christ-like life, AS A COMMUNITY. To live lives that speak of God’s great clean up of creation that God has started uniquely in Jesus.
This is where I think Gandhi can be the greatest assistance to Christians today. In showing us that being obedient to Jesus is not only faithful, it’s effective in bringing real and lasting transformation. For those that think our only options is retreating into holly huddles or alternatively those who seek to put in power a Christian version of the Ayatollah to kneecap everyone so that “every knee bows” (Calvin and others have tried it), Gandhi shows us, as Martin Luther King puts it, “Jesus gave us the means, Gandhi showed it was possible.”
Gandhi freed a nation from the biggest superpower of his day without a militia, without weapons, without running for parliament or holding a political position. How? By the sheer force of his character that had become obedient to Jesus teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The politics of love are practical. Oddly enough I think Gandhi as a Hindu had a better understanding of the Christian paradigm for political engagement than most Christians seem to! The Christian paradigm is found at Calvary while trusting in resurrection power. For it’s impossible to take up our cross and take up the ways of coercion at the same time.
Oh… for those who are interested I agree with the person who sent me the text, God will “judge [me] for what [I’ve] done”. And after reaching out and trying to hear where they’re coming from and offering to meet with them, pray with them and study the bible with them I told them I agreed:
“I too think God will judge me. And in Matthews gospel, chapter 25 the criteria seems pretty clear, how we respond to those with little or no voice, “the least of these”.
from: http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/10/voting-for-jesus-today.html
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“My experience tells me that the Kingdom of God is within us, and that we can realise it not by saying, “Lord, Lord,” but by doing God’s will and God’s work… Do you know that there are thousands of villages where people are starving and are on the brink of ruin? If we would listen to the voice of God, I assure you we would hear God say we are taking God’s name in vain if we do not think of the poor and help them. If you cannot render the help that they need, it is no use talking of service of God and service of the poor. Try to identify yourself with the poor by actually helping them.”
–Mohandas Gandhi, (March 31, 1927) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 81
For you or your community what does ‘doing God’s will’ when it comes to ‘the least of these’ look like? What are you inspired by, that it might look like? What do you long for it to look like?
What does it look like to move from ‘church charity’ run by some sweet old ladies, to being a people of missional solidarity? (not to disrespect radical nannas everywhere doing awesome stuff!)
Our crew have really struggled with this stuff. I don’t mean struggle in the noble sense. I mean struggle in the sense of it being bloody hard! Nearly as hard as living with each other 🙂 And like much of our life as community, it’s left us with not much to show other than some colourful (and painful) stories and a burning desire for God, for healing, for justice, for the kingdom and an awareness of our own brokenness and sin. Should we all move overseas to the slums we have only visited with our expensive cameras? Should we all just join UNOH? What does it mean to practice hospitality when you’re continually stolen from, physically threatened and taken advantage of? When all you’re left with is their used needles, hardcore porn, broken promises, and debt. When you show up in court to support them but they dont. When the trees you spent so much time planting and watering in the neighbourhood garden are ripped up. When you’re dumped with other people’s toddlers for days on end while they get high and you have to decided do you ring DCD and your only comfort is the lament of the Psalmist and your sisters and brothers prayers. Only to find out that our parts of the body of Christ are bagging you out without praying for you or seeking to correct or encourage you. Please don’t hear me writting these things out of bitterness. I write as a brother struggling with what ”actually helping them” (as Gandhi put it) looks like (anybody else?). Sometimes I come out of visiting in prison and just feel like crying for a day. Maybe these are the stories we need to tell too aswell as the times we come out feeling totally inspired.
Recently I was contacted by a pastor (of what most would consider a successful mainstream church), who had opened up his home to someone who had lived on the streets for years. This Pastor wanted to talk through the heart ache of seeing someone throw away the opportunities offered to him because he was stuck in cycles he couldn’t break out of. Maybe these stories are as important to share as the “success stories”? Maybe these are the stories that can ween us of the quick fixes and easy answers that we can so often hear to our worlds deepest problems. Maybe if we told these ones too we’d celebrate God’s transforming grace all the more! And real joy would truely be our strength.
Some of our crew were recently hanging out with a similar community to us in the States called ‘The Simple Way’. The Simple Way have a huge public influence through the success of Shane Claiborne’s wonderful book “The Irresistible Revolution” (which I highly recommend!!) But we were joking if we were to write a book it would be “A how [not] to” (shout outs to Pete Rollins who I also highly recommend!!!!). Maybe our book would be called ‘The Resistible Revolution’ or ‘The Very Resistible Revolution’. 
Anybody else need to voice failed efforts? Gandhi said, “Freedom without freedom to fail is no freedom at all.” God, please keep us from the “success” that would keep us from entering into the pain of our world. And keep us from the failure that would stop us trusting only in the power of resurrection and the liberating joy that comes with it.
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and the will of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognise him as the Son of God.”
–Gandhi, (October 1941) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 79
How does Gandhi’s understanding of ‘Son of God’ sit with you?
I’d like to suggest it’d be fruitful to consider what another non-Christian probably meant by “Son of God” and what the Apostle Paul meant in context.
The Unnamed Soldier
We don’t know his name. And there is little recorded about him. What we do know: He was a solider who’s job declared “good news”. The Good News of the ‘Son of God’ bringing salvation and justice to the world because he is now Lord of the whole world and calls for our allegiance. I know what your thinking,
“Jarrod, I thought you said he wasn’t a Christian?”
He’s not. 
That’s the language used by the fastest growing religion in Jesus’ day, the Cult of Caesar. The ‘Cult of Caesar’ announced Caesar as Divine and provided the spirituality for the Empire’s invasion, colonisation, oppression and continual domination. This unnamed soldiers job was his spiritual act of worship, to oversee the brutal and public humiliation of those who would challenge the hegemonic control of the world by it’s true Lord and Son of God, Caesar, the Roman Emperor. The Empire did this through Caesar’s saving methods, means, politics, ethics and spirituality; VIOLENCE. In particular for this centurion, his job was overseeing the violence of crucifixion which made a spectacle of would be revolutionaries that would challenge Caesar as Divine Ruler of the world.
Yet, one Friday the politics, ethics, spirituality and allegiance of this centurion of the oppressive Empire did a radical life changing back-flip. As Mark Gospel records it chapter 15:37-39:
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
“SON OF GOD?!” These words are not in the mouth of a Jew referring to the rich Jewish imagination associated with this term; the real King of Israel, the real liberating anointed leader (messiah). These words are instead in the mouth of someone who as a Roman Centurion knew the term “Son of God” to refer to his violent political leader, Caesar.
Yet, after maybe watching the death of thousands via crucifixion, something about the cry and the way this nonviolent messiah died, brought him to a conclusion that still threatens the heart of violent empires everywhere (including Burma this week). In this bloodied dying revolutionary he had seen and heard real power. Real leadership. Real sovereignty. Real divinity. The real ruler. The ‘Son of God’ that instead of ruling with violence would expose the “comic backfire” of violence and the structures which have institutionalised it’s reign, making a spectacle of it and triumphing over it “by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15)
As N.T. Wright has said,
“A close comparison of the “good news” of the Caesar cult with Paul’s words shows that Romans is, among other things, a deliberate parody of the [violent] pagan message. Paul’s readers in Rome must have understood this, and he must have intended them to. Paul’s ideas do not derive from the Caesar cult, as some have suggested; they confront it.”
The Apostle Paul is not, as some theologians have argued, (and sadder still, some Christians practice), lifting his ideas from the cult of Caesar worship in an act of political vasectomy to neutralise and hellenise a Judaism that would bow the knee to the Empire’s violent agenda. Instead the Apostle Paul is practicing the nonviolent ’spiritual jujitsu’, (to nick Wink’s term), that Jesus taught to subvert the language Empire (and it’s spirituality of domination and violence) to expose and undermine it.
The early church, filled with the Holy Spirit, did just that and it often cost them there lives. Much like the unarmed actions of the Buddhist monks in Burma this week, the early church showed a fearlessness in the face of the rebellious principalities and powers. Yet unlike the monks and their brave actions (which I admire deeply) where not simply fueled by the desperation of the situation but by the resurrection of the Son of God; the dawning of God’s nonviolent dream for creation. Unquestionably they understood the cross to be what God has done for us, empowering us to “put away the sword” and to take up the cross as our way of defeating evil (as seen in the early churches refusal to fight wars for first three centuries of Christianity).
Tragically today we even have church leaders who accuse those who challenge the hijacking of Christianity in service the diabolical exploitation of God’s good earth and the poor as ‘twisting the Scriptures’. That accuse those who are calling the church to obey Jesus Christ and therefore love our enemies like he did, (through the way of costly love NOT the way of ’smart bombs’ and preemptive strikes) of distorting Jesus for our own agenda.
I wonder if the challenge of a pagan solider at the cross of Jesus, the courageous unarmed Buddhist monks in Burma and the context of the Apostle Paul’s writing, will be enough for us to see how often we have made “Son of God” mean less than, (as Gandhiji put it), “Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and the will of God”. More than that, I wonder if the Scriptures will be enough for Christians to believe like the early Church did that Jesus is not less than the Messiah, God incarnate, God revealed fully to be nonviolent Love.
And calls us to live in ways that reflect such a love as revealed in Jesus.
here is one small way you can support the Burmese Protestors
Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:
“Jesus was the most active resister know perhaps to history. His was nonviolence par excellence.”
-Gandhi -Vol.84, June 26, 1946
I too hold that Jesus is not less than, as Gandhi put it elsewhere, “the greatest practitioner of nonviolence in history.” And while we could whine and moan in long self righteous diatribes about the extent of the distortion of Christianity today that often merely provides a ‘spirituality’ to accompany the satanic destruction of God’s good creation and the oppression of the poorest of poor all in nice sanitised suburban packaging that has somehow separated the nonviolent ‘Way of Jesus’ from ’Jesus being the Way’ making a mockery of the cross with it’s pro-power, pro-war, pro-greed stance, …that’s a little to easy 😉 and all gets a bit tiresome.
So instead like to suggest some Australians who might also seem odd at first when considering people to help us gain an imagination for one aspect of Jesus’ controversial and crucifixion inducing nonviolence that is often overlooked. His provocative, disarming, larrikin-like humour. I want to make the case that nonviolence, Jesus’ nonviolence that Gandhi considered “par excellence”, is what we were created for, as St. Irenaeus put it “The glory of God is a human fully alive” and to be fully alive is to be creative, fun and often funny! In considering this God given creativity to reflect the ”disarm[ing of the] the powers and authorities, making a spectacle of them” APEC comes to mind and the actions of… The Chaser boys!
For those that missed it here’s a link to the BBC’s coverage on youtube (click here)
In all honesty sometimes I hear nonviolence, (or love, or justice) being talked about… and it’s so bloody boring! Asked to think of creative ways to get back at our enemies our imaginations run wild yet invited to imagine blessing our enemies in transformative ways that speak truth to power and we often go blank.
We’ve been sold the lie that loving our enemies is just for saints or super humans not recovering sinners like me. As if those words where abstract philosophies to be written about in big books that gather dust instead of those words being evocative of our experience of the God revealed in Jesus. Nonviolence (or love, or justice, or beauty) sadly become words that no longer open us to what God wills the world to be ultimately, (that we have seen start in Jesus) but instead stagnant principles that don’t challenge the empires we are living through.
One of the most humbling shout-outs EPYC has received has come from that mega-phone of amazing grace, Shane Claiborne author of The Irresistible Revolution who said reflecting on his time in Iraq,
“One of the doctors I met in Iraq said (with tears in his eyes), ‘This violence is for people who have lost thier imagination.’ Jarrod McKenna and the good people of EPYC are prophets of imagination. They are on a mission to create new heroes and sheroes and to reclaim God’s dream for this world. And as they help young folks to learn not to hurt each other, hopefully the nations will take some lessons.”
I believe the Holy Spirit empowers us all to become prophets of imagination. Prophets of Jesus’ creative way out of the cycles of violence and retaliation. Then we’ll be able to resist the temptations to have our understandings of ‘nonviolence’ (or love, or justice) be made sanitised, safe, nice and all a bit Fat-Cat-Humphy-Bear-Barney’s-Worldish.
Jesus’ nonviolence provocatively and prophetically turns over tables in the temple while much we often consider ‘nonviolence’ is cowardly concern for owns own innocence rather than confronting injustice. This is only compounded when our understanding of Jesus gets separated from the earthy and engaging Jesus of the New Testament. (evangelicals are not exempt from when they treat the Scriptures like a context free collection of memory verses!) I’m not sure if it’s been in the interest of keeping Jesus ‘holy’ that we’ve often lost his earthiness, playfulness, creativity, anger, edginess, and humour. We’ve taken an amazing human and in the interest of saying he’s also ‘fully God’ made him less than ‘fully human’ (which is as heretical as saying Jesus isn’t the full revelation of God). We’ve made Jesus a bit 2-D. A bit plastic toyish. A bit weird and other worldish. A bit not as human as us. Comic bookesk. A bit cardboard cut out. A bit hard to call ‘brother’. And ultimately a bit boring!
I think the opposite is true. I think the more we witnesses to the fully humaness of Jesus the more the sandal of the incarnation comes to light. I think the New Testament witnesses to a fully alive, larrikin Jesus. As N.T. Wright puts it “the humility of God and the nobility of humanity.” Or as St. Ephrem the Syrian put it in the fourth century contemplating the Christ who reveals God to be a love that does no harm,
“it is so right that humans should acknowledge your divinity,
It is so right for heavenly beings to worship your humanity.”
Let’s pray we’ll have the imagination to follow the larrikin Jesus, the miraculous Patch Adams of Palestine, in his way of disarming humour. We’ll hear the call to be practical jokers of the peaceable kingdom that pull the pants down on our suicidal society bent on unsustainabllity and self destruction. We’ll walk the narrow road of the sacred silliness of love in a world of satanic serious which spends each fourteen times the amount of money we need to end absolute poverty around the world on weapons whose sole purpose is to take life.
May we come to see a messiah, God’s idea of a real king, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfils prophecy in such a surprising and disarming way that it makes an ass out of the Roman military war horses and the Jewish expectations of a violent messiah in an inspired and moving act of holy clowning that’s as ridiculous as the expected liberating leader arriving on a tricycle when everyone is expecting tanks. Maybe the Chasers boys can help give us eyes to see.
