Jesus is not the answer

We all have heard the classic Christian one liner: “Jesus is the answer.” I remember as a kid in Sunday school, whatever the question was, we would always answer “Jesus”.  What if we had it all wrong, what if Jesus never intended on giving answers to life’s tough questions. 

Jesus never wrote anything himself. That must be our first clue. He did however told plenty of open ended stories. Funny enough, whenever he was confronted with a question, he responded with a story.

Or a question in return.

Although more than his stories, you’ll find his questions.

According to Richard Rohr, Jesus asked 189 questions in the four Gospels. Guess how many he answers.

Only three. 

(I really love that about Jesus.  Somewhat slippery. Jesus probably would have been a lousy Protestant preacher.)

So maybe Jesus is not the answer, but rather the question. Or questions. Tough, tricky questions we need to ask our ourselves.

Jesus is the mirror God holds up.

John Dear writes that Jesus’ questions can reposition you. Put you back on track. Reframe your God imagination and invites you into new creative possibilities. Rohr adds to this by saying that Jesus leaves us “betwixt and between”.  The questions Jesus asked, backed up with uncomfortable open ended silences or even better: his earthly yet timeless life parables, leads us into liminal, transformative spaces. As Christians we follow in the footsteps of a questionable Rabbi leading us into questionable spaces that can alter the direction of our lives. 

For that to happen we need not to find the right answers about God, but rather become (in the words of John Dear) answering persons responding to the questions asked by a questioning God.

Richard Rohr and John Dear says it way better than me, check it out.

God has scars

Today is Ascension Thursday. Christian churches all over the world celebrate the new reign of Jesus the Good Ruler.

The first faithful had one statement of faith which caused a lot of controversy in the first century world: Jesus is Lord.

A good, law abiding roman citizen would have been very nervous around friends and family who converted to the Christian faith proclaiming that Jesus is bigger than Ceaser. A good, faithful Jew in those time would have been appalled by such a statement. How can a human be Lord (Yahwe). Who in their right mind will compare a dead Rabbi with the Mighty Yahwe?

But in spite fierce criticism, they held on tight to the hope that the new life of Jesus and his ascension to the heavens is the beginning of a new way of life possible for all of mankind.

Tom Smit writes on his blog http://www.soulgardeners.com the following:

“Ascension is the celebration that God has rose to power. It is an image that places Jesus at the top. He is higher. In the heights he has ultimate power. In the creeds we confess that, “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God”. In Psalm 68 we hear tha this power is about:

Father of the fatherless and protector of widows

is God in his holy habitation.

God settles the solitary in a home;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.(v5-6)

Tom then brings Bruegemann into play with the following:

It turns out that the one who has ascended into power is not transcendent in remoteness, is not splendid in indifference, but is deeply in touch with the reality of the earth where money and power and social leverage and differentiation of gender, race, and class leave some dangerously exposed. This father-God to whom we pray “our father” rides the clouds not as a joy-rider, but rather to be in a position to see and to know and to care and to intervene and to feed and to heal and to forgive and to reconcile and to liberate. It turns out that ascension, whereby God is celebrated in power, is a claim that the earth is ordered differently because of the one who governs it. (p3-4).

I love this part that Tom wrote:

Ascension is therefore the day in which we celebrate that what God has done to Jesus now becomes the mandate of the church to serve the world. We become agents of the new government!

The ascension states that there is a regime change in the world.

A new order ruled by the one who was known as the Suffering Servant.

With this in mind I would like to add another angle to this day of celebration:

This coming Sunday our church will have reflections on Doubting Thomas and his moment of eternal fame when he touched the scars of Jesus’ suffering.

As far as know, Jesus went to heaven with those scars still in place. Or let us assume so for the sake of my heretic argument.

Today on twitter someone made the comment: “heaven is under human rule”, referring to Jesus the crucified human sitting on the right side of God: Right side being a metaphor for governing, ruling, being in charge alongside God.

I am not good with scars. I’ll rather embrace my doubt than stick my finger into someone’s wounds.

Popular culture is not good with scars, hence Photoshop and Botox.

We prefer perfection to be unblemished and unscarred.

Heaven is our ideal projection of perfection.

In heaven there are no scars. No reminders of a life of suffering. Just pure eternal bliss.

But maybe Ascension Thursday can invite us into another way of imagining heaven.

Jesus taking back the gift of humanity.

Wounds, scars, vulnerability, brokenness.

In a sense contaminating (the platonic version of a perfect) heaven with our frail humanity.

Inviting heaven downwards.

Ascending to bring heaven down.

Turning heaven into a home.

Where there is lots of room for the wounded.

Coffee Incarnation

I love writing in coffee shops. I usually look for a spot way at the back, some nook or cranny where it is just me and the occasional chit-chat with an over eager waiter. Today I got the table on the “outside”, right in the walkway, almost on the edge of the shop next-door. Outside is obviously the wrong term, because there is still a roof over my head, I am after all still indoors. But that is just typical shopping mall jargon, classic suburbia. The idea is to make you feel as if you are sitting somewhere in (pseudo)nature, when you are actually in the comfort of a controlled environment.

Back to where I am sitting: The so-called “outside”, the edge. The place I prefer to avoid. Here where “they” are right in my face, or rather “me” right in their way.

What is the drawback of sitting here? Why do I avoid it most of the time?

I don’t like the buzz of people when I need inner inspiration.

It is too noisy.

I might see someone I know, eye contact will lead to conversation, and things might get awkward. I hate small talk.

I prefer to check people out from a distance, it makes me feel safe. I feel uncomfortable when I feel like I am in the middle of them. Someone might be checking me out. Where is the fun in that?

I feel exposed.

I am confronted with the fact that I am one of them, whoever they might be.

Sometimes I need to be alone.

On the arrival of my second cuppa chino I need to reflect on the magic of the table on the outside.

I see things from a different angle.

I am forced to look at people, most of them strangely familiar.

I see the guy behind the till in the shop next door. He looks unhappy.

The waiters are more chit-chatty with me, because other customers can see us. I get to learn a lot of new names.

I am part of the action (bear in mind that “action” is relative to the context of a suburbia shopping mall)

My inner inspiration is complemented (or challenged?) by a multitude of external impetuses.

From here I am writing with a different reader in mind.

After a while I become more aware, more in tuned with the world I live in, faces, names, thoughts, ideas, movements, music, lyrics, marketing promises, noises and smells become a way of opening myself to new ways thinking.

Maybe this is what the incarnation in the Christian faith tradition is all about. Putting your “carne” your body in a different place, moving from the known to the unknown in the hope of experiencing Metanoia, the opening of the mind to a bigger reality.

Charter for Compassion

The Charter:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

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