Jesus is causing a stir. Only 3 chapters into the Gospel and he is breaking religious and social rules left, right and centre. He is forgiving sins as though he is a priest, creating an alternate kingdom-community that includes all kind of riff-raff, ignoring traditional religious practices, and doing things that normally aren't done on the sabbath and in synagogue.
The people love him, and he empowers twelve of his followers to start doing more of the same kinds of things that he is. The leaders are understandably alarmed, and the religious teachers and some of their friends who have influence with the Jewish court and the Roman military begin to talk about how they can put an end to Jesus.
In the midst of this, he makes a visit back home.
It was Convocation Day at McMaster University. One of several that spring, this one for the Faculty of Arts. Hordes of graduating students and proud parents were on campus celebrating the young scholars’ success and hard-won achievements. Great day to be on campus and feel like part of the McMaster family.
In the Bookstore students were making
last-minute purchases. Parents were
buying gifts for their children and souvenirs for themselves. At one register parents lined up to help pay
off their children’s outstanding accounts, because the rule was no student
could graduate – couldn’t go up on stage when their name was called and be
given their degree along with their classmates, if they had any outstanding
debt to the University.
And the line had stopped. Two parents were there to pay off the
thousand dollars or so still owing on their child’s account, and they didn’t
have either VISA or Mastercard, that much cash, or a cheque book.
All they had was a Diners Club card which wasn’t on the list of companies
the University dealt with.
The parents were distraught. The cashier was sorry. The manager was called, and as soon as he
heard the problem, he thanked the cashier for calling him, turned to the
parents and said, “Everything is fine.
Just let me jot down the number on your card, if you don’t mind, and
we’ll take care of it.” He wrote down
the number, printed out an invoice of their child’s outstanding account,
hand-wrote “Paid in Full” at the bottom of it, signed and dated it, and gave it
to the parents, who then, able to breathe again, moved on to rejoin their young
scholar and celebrate the rest of the day.
The University never recovered that
money. And at the next meeting of
Student Affairs managers, the Vice-President of Student Affairs, the Bookstore
manager’s boss, told the story and happily commended the Bookstore manager for
a job well done. She said she hoped all
her other managers would act with similarly selfless and sacrificial service of
others in the name of the University when the need and opportunity arose.
In this story, I wonder, is the
Vice-President of Student Affairs kind of like God, and the Bookstore manager
like Jesus, knowing what God would want done in the situation, and just doing
it regardless of the rules? Is this a
story of the kingdom of God and of what the good will of God for life on Earth
looks like in the nitty-gritty of daily life?
Especially, how it sometimes requires a certain carelessness about the
rules?
Jesus got into trouble for not
worrying about rules that the gatekeepers of his day thought were important –
rules that helped define the people of God, and made clear who was and who was
not part of the family of God. Like who is
forgiven, or can be healed and included in the circle, who cannot or should
not, and who has authority to do it.
Like who the right people are, and who you need to be careful not to be
identified with. Like honouring and obeying
the old rituals and practices, and not doing
things on the Lord’s Day and in God’s house that everyone knows you just
shouldn’t.
Not that Jesus didn’t know the
rules. Nor that he went around
willy-nilly breaking them just for the fun of it. But he knew an authority higher than the
rules. He knew the rules were
provisional, and at times just have to be ignored in order to obey that higher
authority. Which is Love. Which is simply the outpouring, in-gathering,
forgiving, healing, lifting-up Love of God.
And each time he did it, it kind of
made sense as an exception to the rule.
Hardly noticeable and certainly forgivable in the grand scheme of
things. But as he went on, in situation
after situation, his behaviour became like the thin edge of a wedge. The exceptions added up. Until it was clear that he was not just
making exceptions to the rule, but challenging the rules themselves. He was questioning the whole system and
suggested that the way the family of God had come to be identified was no
longer adequate or helpful.
Some people got it, and started
following him. Some got it so deeply that
he named them disciples and empowered them compatriots in the kingdom of God.
What others got, though – what the
religious experts, ministers, priests and gatekeepers of the establishment got,
was in a snit, then into a Giant Upset, and then into a huddle to see what they
could do together to put a stop to this kingdom of God nonsense, this
Spirit-blowing-where-it-will kind of trouble in the places that they were in
charge of.
And that happens – that tension
between the kingdom of God and the institutions of the people of God, that
conflict between the freedom and creativity of Spirit and the rules that we try
to live by, and make sense of life by.
Sad thing is that even when Jesus went
home maybe just to get a little relief from the controversy and the strain, he
found his own family really didn’t get it, either. They were glad to welcome him home; who
doesn’t want their own personal Jesus?
But they were not so happy at the kind of Jesus he had become, and that
he had outgrown the limits of their rules and the simple, self-enclosed life
they wanted to be able to enjoy together.
“Why do you have to do stuff like
that, Jesus? Why cause such
trouble? Can’t you just do what we’ve
always done? And be happy?”
Among the people of God, and even in
the most intimate family of God, is there always this tension between where we
come from, what we have always been, and the rules and routines that define us
on one hand, and on the other, where we are called to go, what larger family we
are called to grow into, and how careless we sometimes have to be about the
rules we used to think were so important?
I think of the United Church of
Canada, 93 years old today. In its
beginning, there was real, Spirit-ual excitement about being part of a new
movement in God’s story of the church as the three founding denominations
crossed lines that had been ruled between them, and they learned to be together. But there was also a less Spirit-ual protectiveness
and fear that was being expressed.
At that time Canada was changing. The West was being settled with waves of
immigrants flooding the Prairies. Many
of the immigrants were East European.
And Catholic. Which made the Protestants
– small, struggling and divided, suddenly afraid the bigger and
better-resourced Roman Catholic Church would be taking over the Canadian
landscape. So Church Union – the pooling
of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist resources to compete with the
Catholics, was their way of trying to keep Canada the way they liked it, of
keeping the rules straight and the national family the way set.
To the UCC’s credit they got over
that, and we’ve followed Jesus and been open enough to Spirit to grow in the
Sixties into advocates of social justice for all, regardless of religious identity
and rightness, and today the United Church spares no expense in serving the
needs and acting as friend to the First Nations, to the LGBQT community, to Muslims
and people of other religious traditions, to the poor and disadvantaged
anywhere, to victims of disaster, and to Earth itself as a holy creature of
God.
But the tension is always there, and
today in our re-structuring of the United Church, making our structure simpler,
more stream-lined and more cost-efficient, it’s an honest question we’ll need
to keep asking ourselves – how much this is about making ourselves more open to
Spirit, more free to follow Jesus, and more able to act out the kingdom of God,
and how much it’s about just trying to survive, keep ourselves afloat, and hang
on to what we have left of what we once were.
And with our own church here. For a few months now Church Council has begun
looking at our congregational vision, mission and goals, and at stewardship and
commitment to our mission. And that
tension is here, too: on one hand, there’s a natural desire to be doing this to
save ourselves, survive as a congregation, and be able to stay what and where
we always have been; and on the other, a real desire to follow Jesus, be open
to the life and power of the Spirit, and be led beyond what we have been, to be
part of what God is doing, or wanting to do, in Winona today.
Like Jesus, the disciples, the people
around him, and the people against him we work it out as we go – what to do,
what to do no more, what rules and routines to hang on to, and what rules and
routines to let ourselves be careless about, and even let go of in the name of
a higher authority – that authority that is the outpouring, in-gathering,
forgiving, healing, lifting-up love of God – the authority that leads us into
selfless and sacrificial service of others in the name of God.
And what advice does Jesus give? Only this: don’t go against the Holy Spirit,
he says, or it won’t go well for you.
Don’t reject, and don’t speak ill of anything the Spirit is moving
people to do.
Which means, of course, that the
Spirit is here – in there. And there – out
there. And that Jesus has every
confidence we are able as a community of disciples, to learn to open ourselves
to the Spirit, and to discern together where this Spirit is leading.
And isn’t that good news? Thanks be to God.
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