God's Style Statement

Projecting the right image is sometimes important. Some of us spend longer standing in front of our wardrobes than others, but all of us know that at certain times we need to take control of how others see us. Jesus had one of those moments on the day he arrived in Jerusalem, five days before his death.
The city was awash with rumours and theories about the unconventional rabbi from Nazareth. Some were saying that he was sent by God; others believed he was inspired by the devil. The more energetically the first group dreamed of making Jesus their king, the more carefully the latter group planned his execution. Jesus needed to make a statement that would direct people’s minds away from their pre-set fears and fantasies, and focus their attention on the priorities of God.
Jesus had spent a few years trying to tell people, and show them, what God is like, but they had consistently failed to shift from their deeply ingrained assumptions. It was time for a different approach. Rather than talk to people, he decided to show them the kind of Messiah that God had raised up. To achieve this, he chose to enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
I highly recommend doing an internet image search for “man riding donkey” (there is a small sample in the attached picture). Apart from the occasional paying tourist or comedy stunt, there is a certain consistency of style among the donkey riders of the world. Again and again you see low status, hard working people going about the dull routines of their lives. This was Jesus’ style statement. This is the kind of man he was, and that he intended to be. If Jesus was indeed God’s Messiah, God’s anointed one, then this is the kind of God Jesus represented.
A second internet image search for “religious leaders” brings a very different set of images, featuring a remarkable array of long robes and strange hats, with the occasional tailored suit. It would have been much the same in Jesus’ day, and Jesus deliberately chose a strongly contrasting image.
He decided to make a style statement - a message without words. He was the one appointed and anointed by God to reveal to the world what God is really like. He chose to do that by riding a donkey.

Good Instincts

We all know the experience of going about our business - coping with the familiar stresses and strains of life - when something unexpected happens, which pressurises and challenges us. At moments like that we tend to reveal our true colours. The usual internal mechanisms that strive to project a positive image to the world do not have the chance to adapt. Caught off balance, our deeper instincts take over, and the world gets a glimpse of what we are really like under the surface.
This happened to Jesus one day when he was travelling with his followers. Unexpectedly, a man with leprosy came right up to him and begged him to make him better.
In those days leprosy was thought to be highly contagious; it was also understood to be a divine punishment for sin. Someone who had leprosy was not permitted to enter a town or village for fear of physical contact. Anyone who touched someone with leprosy immediately became ritually unclean, and could not return to normal life until they had performed a complex set of religious cleansing rituals. No wonder leprosy was greatly feared!
Most people, guided by social convention, would have backed off from the infected man. They would do so to protect themselves, claiming - in their defence - that they were following the requirements of law and custom. Jesus was not that sort of a person.
In that off-guard moment when Jesus reacted on instinct, his instinct was to reach out and to care. He touched the untouchable man. That’s the kind of person Jesus was. His impulse was not directed by personal fear, social habit or religious law, but by pity (arguably even anger) for the wretched circumstance that society had put the man in.
In the 21st century we also have our own social conventions that make us shy away from people in real need. We easily justify our lack of compassion citing something that we have seen on television, or been told by some expert of the other.
Jesus demonstrates that humanity can be better than that. We can become people whose primary instinct - like his - is to care and to help.

Found in the Crowd

Crowds are powerful things. Whether it is travelling at rush hour, shopping in the sales, enjoying a festival, or attending a demonstration, crowds affect us. They undermine our individuality. They suck us into communal behaviour. When we are in a crowd, whether we like it of not, we become part of that crowd. This can be a wonderful experience (at a party, a concert or a festival); it can also be terrifying.
Jesus, it seems, had a remarkable resistance to the draw of mob mentality. Even when jostled and shoved by those tightly packed around him in ancient Palestine’s narrow streets, he was able to maintain his own focus and be attentive to unique individuals around him.
On one notable day, Jesus was approaching the city of Jericho with a crowd of excited Galileans, who wrongly believed that their hero was travelling to Jerusalem to proclaim himself as king of the Jewish people. Just as this animated crowd were squeezing their way through the city gates, Jesus stopped. Above all the noise of the crowd he had heard a voice calling out for help. The voice belonged to a blind beggar called Bartimaeus. Jesus talked with him, cured him of his blindness, reassured him of the high value of his faith in God, and then resumed his journey.
A few minutes later, when the same crowd was squashed into the tightly packed streets of the city, Jesus stopped for another needy individual in the crowd. This wasn’t a handicapped beggar, but one of the richest (and possibly loneliest) individuals in Jericho: the chief tax-collector, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus - a man famous for his finances, not his faith - was so keen to see Jesus that he climbed a tree to get a better look. Nobody else cared, but Jesus noticed, and invited himself to eat at Zacchaeus’ home.
I don’t know how Jesus picked out those two, contrasting, yet equally needy individuals from all the noise and bustle of that excited crowd. But he did. That’s the kind of person he was. That is what God is like.

Making Life Easier

When Jesus thought about the role that religion played in the lives of the people around him, he came up with the image of an ox, fitted with a cumbersome wooden yoke, trudging along, pulling a heavy load behind it. It is not an inspiring image.
We live in an age which is increasingly sceptical of organised religion. Many of the people around us would share Jesus’ impression. All too often, religion weighs people down and ties them up them up in its rules. What should be a liberating influence in their lives, becomes an additional complication, an additional expense - an additional burden to carry.
What Jesus observed was that for all the extra demand that religion put on people’s lives, it still didn’t bring them any closer to God. His life’s work was to show people that they could come to God and experience his love without any of the paraphernalia of religion, and without the heavy load of guilt that a law-based faith imposed on anyone who tried to follow it.
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Sadly, the Christian religion has repeatedly failed to follow Jesus’ lead. Christianity has defined its own laws, and established its own set of religious rituals; it has repeatedly made heavy demands on people’s finances, and imposed tight controls on their personal lives. Christianity has placed on its followers the very same burdens of guilt and fear that Jesus was seeking to alleviate.
We need to follow Jesus’ lead. Our role, as carriers of his beautiful message, is to lighten the load of people who feel weighed down by the complications of life, and assure them that close relationship with God is easy, not difficult. Our role is to release people from guilt, and remind them that the only law that matters is the call to love God and neighbour.
If we are not making life easier for people, if our yoke is not easy and our burden not light, then we are not doing the work of Jesus.

Jesus' Gender Politics

Gender equality is a big issue around the world today: from equal pay for Hollywood superstars to educational bias in schools. We know it’s only fair for men and women to be treated equally, but society finds it strangely difficult to put into practice.
The Christian Church has been a bastion of male domination for centuries. One brief comment by St Paul, backed up by the fact that Jesus’ 12 apostles were all men, has been been enough to justify extremely unequal treatment of women.
The historical context of Jesus’ life, however, tells a very different story. Jesus was, in fact, a trailblazer for the inclusion of women.
St Luke tells us that when Jesus went on tour with his disciples, the group included a number of women - who he names. The world of 1st century rabbis and disciples was an exclusively male province. Wives and girlfriends were left at home. Luke isn’t telling us that Jesus took his own domestic staff with him; he is telling us that Jesus’ mission team was made up of both men and women.
Luke also tells us the wonderful story of Mary and Martha. While Martha was busy cooking dinner, her sister, Mary, was ‘sitting at Jesus feet, listening to what he was saying’. We imagine Mary sat on the floor like a child or a pet, but that is completely the wrong image. Rabbis would sit on the floor with their most senior disciples sitting directly in front of them. Lesser disciples sat in rows behind, and those who were just listening to their teaching would stand around the edge and at the back. But Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet which places her right at the front with Jesus’ core group of most valued disciples. Martha struggled to accept that Mary should be sitting with the men, but Jesus robustly defended her right to be there.
Some time later, Mary showed that her place in Jesus’ front row was well deserved. She was the one who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume, expressing her understanding and acceptance of his decision to let the authorities arrest and kill him. Jesus’ male disciples all struggled to grasp his intention to die, but front-row-Mary clearly understood.
Jesus’ female followers were not his support crew; they were the ones who best understood his mission. They were the ones who were still there at his death, when all but one of their male colleagues had run away.
Jesus understood the importance and distinctive value of women. He broke deeply established conventions to have women in his team. As we struggle with the gender challenges of our day, we would do well to follow his example.

Being Yourself - Sunday 11th February 2018

There is an intriguing story from the final days of Jesus’ life, that relates a moment when one of the many Marys anointed his feet using some staggeringly expensive perfume, causing a embarrassed debate amongst his disciples. John’s account of the incident states that the perfume was worth a year’s wages, and identifies Judas as the disciple who questioned whether it would have been better for the perfume to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor.
I find myself to be firmly on Judas’ side in this. Surely, to pour such an extravagance over Jesus’ feet was a pointless waste of resources which could have been used to much better effect elsewhere.
Jesus, however, defended Mary - boldly and strongly. And so I find my own attitude to be lovingly rebuked, along with Judas.
The story shows Jesus to be a man who is very comfortable in his own skin. Most of us would be hideously embarrassed to have someone attending to our feet in the middle of a dinner party, but Jesus seems untroubled.
Despite the moral outrage being expressed, Jesus allowed Mary to be herself, and to proceed with the action that she, in her own wisdom, had chosen. He made no attempt to control her, or correct or redirect her actions.
This is a consistent theme throughout Jesus' life. He did not attempt to control people, or tell them how they should behave. He allowed people to follow the paths that they have chosen, and continued to love them. Even on the last day of his life, Jesus did not interfere with the actions of the high priests, Pontius Pilate or Herod. He let them be themselves, even though that would lead to his death.
The history of religion (including Christianity) is very much a history of control. Religion regulates and restricts people’s lives, telling them what they may or may not do. Yet Jesus does not. He defended Mary’s choice - outrageously extravagant though it was - and commended her for it.
Our religions seek to limit and control our choices in so many ways, but God - it seems - loves for us to be lovingly and generously ourselves.

A Beautiful Message - Sunday 14th January 2018

We all know something beautiful when we come across it. Although each of us has a unique taste for beauty, there is a surprising consensus across the whole human race when it comes to identifying something as beautiful.
In English speaking Christianity, we are familiar with the word ‘Gospel’, but it is a word that has no independent meaning in our language outside its New Testament context, so it makes little impact on us. The word that St Paul used (on 60 different occasions) was a word that had immediate meaning to his readers - it meant ‘beautiful message’.
During Paul’s 30 year mission, the growth in Jesus’ followers across the Roman empire was enormous. One of the key factors to that exponential growth was the fact that Paul’s message was a beautiful one. Paul had a message that delighted people’s hearts, that eased their guilt, that guided their lives. Almost everywhere Paul travelled, there was an instant response to the simple beauty of Jesus’ message.
In the centuries that have followed, Christianity’s message has not always been beautiful. The church has repeatedly condemned and accused, threatening people with punishment rather than showing them divine love. Christian leaders have been quick to forbid, but slow to forgive.
The message of Jesus was beautiful, and immediately recognisable as being so. We human beings love to be encouraged, affirmed, loved and forgiven; we dislike being criticised, judged, threatened or condemned. Today, we are the messengers of the ‘Gospel’; we are the ambassadors of Jesus. If our message as a church or as individual Christians is not recognisably beautiful, then it is not ‘Gospel’.
Say something beautiful to someone this week.