Living the Question

Living the Question

Good Morning Friends,

The Jewish Rabbis of Jesus’ day created a culture that produced a lot of debates, some shared insights, often bitter comments and sometimes a harsh correction. It starts with a question related either to theology and God talk or philosophy and a deep love of wisdom. Often they do not converge in a debate about loving ones neighbor. The questions come faster than can be typed. Is there actually a God? Is Jesus God? Did he ever say he was? Did he actually live? Did he say the things the Bible says he said? Do Christians really do the things he said they should? Does believing in Jesus get you into heaven? Does not believing get you into hell? Is there actually a life after this one that contains either a heaven or a hell? Did God make the world from nothing in six days? Is the Bible original, or just a rehash of other myths? Am I really made in the image of God? The answers come too, but often at odds with the mainstream culture, with others, even with oneself. They come sometimes striding arrogantly, sometimes sheepishly. They grow complex and endless and rotten and make me just want to take out the trash. But instead I am writing and meditating on Christ and culture. I am going to focus on Jesus and try Living the Question.

Matthew 13:52 (NIV)

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Isaiah 58:8 (NIV)

25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.^* ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ²⁶He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ ²⁷He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ ²⁸And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ 29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ ³⁰Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii,^* gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” ³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ ³⁷He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV)

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 (NRSV)

Message: A true disciple of the kingdom of God knows that they are to bring from the treasure both new and old. Now, this is incredibly hard in our individualistic society. It’s all about now and today. There is no room for yesterday. Ok this maybe is a little outside the box but maybe that is what Jesus wants us to do in a wedding with something new and something old…. a combination of the law and the prophets…a connection with Jesus and the church universal. Here something old representing continuity and something new offering optimism for the future. We are to be out of the box and way beyond the market’s imagination. Jesus was loving Samaritans and enemies…facing up to the fears and substituting love. Jesus was outside the box. So this morning we try to imagine something outside the norm of the ideology that is operative in our society. Our biblical faith prepares us. Here we have a generative tradition…funded by specific Biblical traditions making possible new traditions. The challenge is beyond connecting the old and new testaments into one. This is not just about seeing Christ in the Tent of the Tabernacle as a means of salvation or in the Passover and the blood of the cross on the door. The root of revolutionary thought inhabited by the Spirit of God needs to energize us to imagine new things and refuse to adopt the imagination of society. You know this is true as you read the Exodus narrative as emancipation. So too we can embrace a liturgical practice of reorganizing social power. It is the Christian journey of the prophetic imagination that needs to articulate the social action needed. Prediction of the future is not enough…we need to connect it to scripture and argue its meaning against a new backdrop. We need to combine and construe a new construct reading the text in new ways that reflect the desired change in today’s society. The prophetic is always imaging a contemporary thinking. The future of the old with something new. Friends, if we argue from a point of fear we come to different conclusions than if we argue from a point a love. The problem is that we are oscillating between the two all the time.

Pray we realize that to really give God a chance to reveal Himself to us we need to wrestle with what is in Scripture and how it applies to our individual lives today. Pray we give God an opening into our lives to show us what His will is and His purpose is. Pray we not ignore God. Pray we become divine neighbors. Pray we not allow culture to subvert the Biblical faith but discover ways of connecting, changing and transforming through Jesus. Pray our answer to the question is Jesus.

Blessings,

John Lawson