"Mild" Jesus?

In his book, Your God is Too Small (1961), the late J.B. Phillips wrote:

Why mild? Of all the epithets that could be applied to Christ this seems one of the least appropriate. For what does "mild," as applied to a person, conjure up to our minds? Surely a picture of someone who wouldn't say "boo" to the proverbial goose; someone who would let sleeping dogs lie and avoid trouble wherever possible; someone of a placid temperament who is almost a stranger to the passions of red-blooded humanity; someone who is a bit of a nonentity, both uninspired and uninspiring.

This word "mild" is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of His day: a man who had such "personality" that He walked unscathed through a murderous crowd; a man so far from being a nonentity that He was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that He deliberately walked to what He knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends! Mild! What a word to use for a personality whose challenge and strange attractiveness nineteen centuries have by no means exhausted. Jesus Christ might well be called "meek," in the sense of being selfless and humble and utterly devoted to what He considered right, whatever the personal cost; but "mild," never!

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever

Those words, from Hebrews 13:8, are seen on the exterior of the former chapel of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus.

I pray that Christ's Church will always preach and teach the truth about Jesus found in the pages of Scripture.

Seeing Jesus at Panera

On Thursday night, my wife Ann and I ate at Panera in Lancaster. Through their rewards program, we'd accumulated enough credits to order a free drink. Ann only wanted a water and told me to pick something out. I was in the mood for a smoothie and ordered one flavor, only to change my mind about the flavor a nanosecond or two later. We payed for our order and took a table.

Not long after, the manager came to us with two smoothies. "I heard you order the one smoothie and had already started making it when you changed your mind. You can have the second one on us!"

Now think about that. The first one was free and the second one was on the restaurant. How often does a deal like that come along?

I was sliding one of the smoothies across the table to Ann when she pointed to the most adorable little girl, sitting with her parents at a table nearby, and said, "You could give it to her."

Ann had overheard the little girl's mom say that she was going back up to the cashier to order a smoothie for her daughter as a dessert. I offered my free gift to them and then, for the next fifteen minutes or so, enjoyed watching this twenty-one-month old sip and pour and thoroughly enjoy her smoothie, freezer headaches and all.

If Ann hadn't noticed this family sitting not more than five feet away, we wouldn't have experienced any of that joy or the brief discussion we had with this young couple.

How much joy do we miss out on in life because we're so wrapped up in our little cocoons of routine and selfishness that we don't see others? Speaking for myself, it happens a lot.

Yet, I believe that we are blessed to be blessings. The love of God in us grows the more we attend to others and give away His love.

That was underscored for me when the dad told us, "That was such a blessing to us. Thanks." When he said that, I thanked God for arranging this little rendezvous and for inspiring Ann to keep her antenna attuned to others even when I'm blind to those around me.

There's a praise song we've sung both at my former parish, Friendship in the Cincinnati area and here at Saint Matthew in Logan. It goes like this:

Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him
And say that we love Him
Open our ears, Lord
And help us to listen
Open our eyes, Lord
We want to see Jesus

Jesus says that we see Him in those around us, in those we serve. Maybe one reason I don't see Jesus as often as I could is that I don't serve others as often as I should. 

I'm thankful that Ann opened my eyes on Thursday night. I got to see Jesus again in a Panera! How cool is that?

Check Out Mark Roberts' Posts on the Divinity of Jesus

A common notion among some today, among both those within the Church and outside of it, is that the teaching that Jesus was both human and divine (or, as Martin Luther's Small Catechism puts it, "true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary"[see below]) was a later development. This notion, its proponents feel, buttresses their own belief that Jesus was not and is not God.

Scholar and pastor Mark D. Roberts, in the opening installment of a new series of blog articles, argues that while the first followers of Jesus could have been wrong in asserting the deity of Jesus, they clearly did believe that Jesus was human and divine. Mark is an accessible writer with three degrees from Harvard (Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate). Check out the introduction to his new series, Was Jesus Divine? Early Christian Perspectives and the first installment, Popular Theories About Why Early Christians Considered Jesus Divine, Part 1.

The Preacher, the Church, and Justice

The Christian preacher has a responsibility to speak for justice.

Pastor John Ortberg underscores this in a challenging article in the latest issue of Leadership Journal, Preaching Like the Prophets. There, he looks to the prophets of Old Testament times to show how important the quest for justice is for followers of the God Who revealed Himself to Israel and ultimately, in Jesus of Nazareth.

Writes Ortberg:

Events that horrified the prophets go on every day in our world, but we just get used to it--like you get used to wearing your watch. After awhile--we don't notice any more.

The prophets noticed. The prophets never got desensitized to sin. Injustice is sin. Justice is central to shalom.* We omit justice from our preaching at peril of our calling, and of our congregation's health and ability to see the reality around them.

Ortberg goes on to say that there are certain perils associated with preaching about justice, particularly in these times. "Our society has become so politicized," he points out, "that people often hear words like justice or life or the poor or compassion as code words for a partisan political allegiance in one direction or another." Also, he notes that preaching about justice can devolve into "self-righteous moralism" on the part of the preacher. But for all the perils it may entail, the preacher is still called to talk about justice as an outgrowth of Christian discipleship.

Most importantly maybe, Ortberg in this very good article, says that in preaching about justice, church leaders "will have to explain that the values embedded in the Bible do not necessarily have a straight-line translation into legislation." He writes:

For instance, all followers of Jesus are obligated to be concerned for the poor. But that does not mean that they should all be committed to passing a higher minimum wage law. Very bright economists disagree about whether such legislation actually results in helping the poor. As preachers, we do not further the cause of the authority of Scripture when we pretend to be experts over fields we have not mastered.

Amen!

Justice is an important element of the Christian's relationship with Jesus Christ. This is something we acknowledge in our Lutheran tradition, among other times, on the occasion of Confirmation, or Affirmation of Baptism, when adolescents or adult converts who have been baptized and trained in the faith publicly affirm their intention of living as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. Toward the end of the rite for Affirmation of Baptism, each individual is addressed and challenged to do just that:

You have made public profession of your faith. Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in Holy Baptism: to live among God's faithful people, to hear His Word and share in His supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?

The confirmand is then asked to respond with the words, "I do, and I ask God to help and guide me."

The message of the prophets was, in a nutshell, "Turn from sin, including injustice, and turn to God." None of them laid out specific political programs, recommended particular outlays of money to address specific issues, or commended particular laws. They trusted that if they shared God's Word, including the call and the command to seek justice, God would help the people see what they needed to do.

Today, preachers (and denominational groups) are called to preach justice and trust God to do the rest.

*Shalom is a Hebrew term. It means more than peace. It has the idea of our enjoyment of peace with God and all the good things--including justice and love--that flow from it in our relationships with others. Such peace begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ in which Jesus is our Lord, God, and Savior. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, "...since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

[UPDATE: Just today, Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA, released the text of a letter in which he got deep into the weeds of immigration reform, not my idea of what the bishop is best at or called to do.]