I'm All In

 As the gospel of Mark reaches its halfway point, Jesus is surrounded by a committed bunch of followers, who are, if nothing else, confused.  Their lack of understanding does not disqualify them from following him, but Jesus knows that they do not fully know what they are getting into.  In fact, it won't be until after the resurrection that Jesus' disciples will truly understand what his kingdom is all about (and even then, in a still limited fashion).  Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah at this middle point of the story, but it is clear that Peter does not fully comprehend what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah.  Let's jump into the story in Mark 8:31-38 (ESV).

"And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.  And he said this plainly.  And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.  But turning to Peter and seeing his disciples he rebuked Peter and said, 'Get behind me Satan!  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.'

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?  For what can a man give in return for his soul?  For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with his holy angels.'" 

Though the disciples, including Peter didn't know it, their commitment to Jesus would cost them their lives.  It would cost them every single thing that they considered precious.  It would cost some of them friends, family, and their standing in their communities.  It would cost others of them their vocations.  But it would cost all of them their lives - their souls - their very selves!  The decision to follow Jesus is an "all-in" move.  There's no going back, there's no hedging bets, it's his way or the highway.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it like this, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him, 'Come and die!'."  

Peter and many of the earliest followers of Jesus did suffer death for their faith.  But even the disciples who did not die for their commitment to Jesus, were still required to alter their whole way of living.  Each morning when they woke up, the question that would have (or at least should have) come to their mind was not, "What's this day have in store for me?", but rather, "Where is Jesus and his Spirit leading me this day?".  

Please don't misunderstand me.  I am not saying that the earliest disciples always understood what Jesus and his Spirit was doing in their lives.  Nor am I suggesting that they always followed Jesus in complete fidelity or perfection.  One only needs to read the previous thirty verses in Mark 8 to see this.  One only needs to read the rest of the New Testament to grasp this.  And one only needs to look at his or her own life to be made painfully aware of this.  But what I am suggesting is that when one decides to follow Jesus, this cannot be a half-hearted endeavor.  We may not get it right all the time, but if we get it at all, we will not get it by only going half-way.  

According to Jesus, our decision to follow him is a life and death decision.  It is the life and death decision.  If we bet on Jesus - if we are willing to go all in with the belief that he is the Messiah, the King, the Son of God, then we will suffer loss and defeat according to how the world keeps score.  But we will win the ultimate prize in the end.  We'll enjoy eternal life under his rule and reign in the age to come.  But if we hedge our bets, or if we simply deny that Jesus is Lord, though we might win our fair share in this life, we'll miss out on eternal life in the world to come.  

Jesus doesn't require us to get it right all the time.  Discipleship is a journey and a process with a fair amount of stumbles and false steps along the way.  And following Jesus does not depend on us fully understanding everything now - or ever.  But the decision to follow Jesus is not one to be taken lightly.  Either, we are in, or we are out.  I'm all in! - Shay 

Tradition?

In religious circles, it seems "tradition" has fallen on hard times.  And this makes sense.  Throughout his ministry, Jesus consistently called out the religious leaders of his day for their reliance on human teaching or tradition at the expense of God's larger re-creational intention for people and society.  It seems they had missed the forest for the trees.  

Mark 7 gives us some insight into Jesus' battle with the Pharisees.  "Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is without washing them.  (For Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)  So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, 'Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?'  He said to them, 'Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'  You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.'" (Mark 7:1-8).

The rest of Mark 7 deals with the issue of human tradition vs. God's commands and what it actually means to be "unclean".  Later in the chapter, after Jesus journeys north to Gentile territory, he encounters a Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is possessed by an unclean spirit.  Being a Gentile, many Jews would have considered the woman to be unclean as well.  Jesus hits this issue head-on, even using a common "racial" slur that Jews would throw around regarding Gentiles (dogs).  Jesus' tactic really brought the message home!  He points his disciples ahead to a time when the global reign of the kingdom of God will extend far beyond the borders of Israel.  God's kingdom will be for male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile.  His disciples needed to know that it wasn't just the religious leaders who had held onto some cherished traditions that Jesus was more than happy to dismantle.

And that brings us back to the value, or lack-there-of, of tradition.  Are traditions valuable?  Do they play an important role in society and church?  Or are they "merely" human teachings that must be discarded at the first opportunity?  It depends.

It's been said that "tradition" is the living faith of dead people and that "traditionalism" is the dead faith of living people.  In other words, if we hold to tradition, simply for the sake of the tradition itself, we've probably missed the point.  But if we utilize the tradition to either remind us of the main point, or to use the tradition to aid us in achieving the main point, then the tradition is probably worthwhile and a benefit to us and our communities.

I've also heard tradition being described as a vessel.  Let's imagine that you have some very valuable cargo that you want to get from one side of the river to the other.  The water is deep, and the current is fast and there's no way you can get these valuable goods across without some reliable boat.  So, you use the barge as long as it's in good condition.  If it springs a leak, you fix the leak.  But if it gets to a point where the boat is no longer river-worthy, then it might be time to get a new vessel - a new tradition.  You see, what's most valuable is the cargo that you are transporting across the river, not the vessel.  The vessel is valuable, because of the purpose it serves, but it isn't valuable in and of itself.  It exists for the sake of the cargo, not vice versa.

The Pharisees that Jesus confronted in Mark 7 had flipped the script.  They had made the "tradition" the main thing.  They believed the cargo existed in order to facilitate the use of the vessel.  But their boat had sprung an unfixable leak, and it was time to get a new watercraft that might better handle the loads of the coming kingdom of God. 

So, what about us?  How do we discern the value of our traditions?  How do we know when it's time to fix a leaking vessel and when it might be time to get a brand-new boat?  How do we avoid making the tradition "the thing" - in other words, how do we continue to see the forest for the trees?  I think it takes three things.  Study, reflection, and prayer (in the context of community).

To understand what we believe and what we do, we need to understand why we believe it and why we do it.  It is unwise to simply discard traditions that have served God's people well simply for the sake of novelty.  So, we need to dig down to the roots under the tree, before we uproot the tree.  To mix metaphors, we need to uncover and test the foundation, before we demolish the building.

And then we need to reflect on what we've learned.  We need to consider God's larger purposes and how our past traditions may have faithfully served those purposes.  And then we would want to critically examine our current world and context, to see if those past traditions are capable of continuing to serve their older purposes.  It may be that we need to uproot an old plant, it may be that we need to bulldoze a dilapidated structure, and it may be that we need a brand-new boat.  Or maybe the tree just needs to be groomed a little.  It may be that we should restore the old building - renovate it.  Our old barge might simply need some TLC.  

As we reflect, we must commit ourselves to prayer, individually, and even more importantly, collectively.  We must never forget that traditions serve whole communities, not just us as individuals.  Any changes we make affect more than ourselves, and so we must be wise in making those changes.  Some of those changes will happen swiftly, while others may take more time.  No two situations are exactly alike, so we must consistently study, reflect, and pray as our communities evolve.

And at the end of the day, we are not involved in building our own personal, or even our own collective kingdoms.  For followers of Jesus, it's all about him and his Father.  It's God's kingdom, not ours.  That's why we pray, "Your kingdom come and your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven."  That's a tradition we should definitely hold onto! - Shay 

More Than We Think We Are

 

Are people capable of changing?  Is it possible to understand the inner workings of another's thoughts and motivations?  Do we really know other people like we think we do?  Do we even know ourselves?

There's an idea in Ireland (and probably other places around the world as well) that you shouldn't put yourself too far out in front of the pack.  You should be satisfied with your place in life and not aspire to greatness.  Self-confidence is only one step removed from hubris.  The tallest poppy is the first to get cut down.  

If you combine the ideas from these two paragraphs together (that we sometimes don't even fully understand ourselves, let alone others, that we as well as others are capable of change, and that there is a human tendency to want to pull others back to the pack when they venture too far out in front), then we might have a pretty good idea of what was going on in the minds of Jesus' neighbors from his hometown of Nazareth in Mark 6:1-6a (NRSV).

"He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.  On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded.  They said, 'Where did this man get all this?  What is this wisdom that has been given him?  What deeds of power are being done by his hands!  Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?'  And they took offense at him.  Then Jesus said to them, 'Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.'  And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.  And he was amazed at their unbelief."

I didn't grow up around anyone who has "hit the big time!"  No one from my hometown or the schools I attended has become famous.  I can imagine that though there would be great pride held by others on behalf of a local guy or gal done well, there might also be some level of envy directed towards them.  I played basketball my senior year in High School with a teammate who excelled in baseball and who pitched in college, the minors, in the Chinese league, had a brief stint in the majors.  Successful, yes, but a household name, no.  I should also mention that he's one of the most likeable and humble people I've ever met.  So, I don't personally know what it would be like to have grown up around someone who became renowned or acclaimed, but it must illicit mixed feelings on behalf of those who knew, or at least thought they knew them well.

Humans sometimes struggle with envy, but we also tend to put others in boxes.  We categorize people.  Someone is either introverted or extroverted.  They are either logical or creative.  They are a jock or a nerd.  Rather than acknowledging that most people reside somewhere on a spectrum in all of these categories (and that it is possible that these categories can be blended together), it's tidier to keep others safely behind the lock and key of our own, often imagined cages of categorization.  It might be hard to believe that the shy kid in the far corner, might have people skills just waiting to be unlocked at the right time and in the right situation.  It's easier to assume that the star football player, probably can't play an instrument, would never be an avid reader, or isn't possibly a gifted actor.  It's also easy to assume that what we see now, is what we'll get forever.  We often forget that people can and do change.  We are all capable of evolving and becoming more tomorrow, than what we are today.

So, for the people of Nazareth, it was hard to believe that Jesus, the local carpenter, had not only become a famous rabbi, but that his powerful teaching and his powerful acts of healing were legitimate.  They had seen this young man when he was but a toddler.  They had witnessed him, and his younger siblings attend synagogue and other local events with their parents through the years.  He might have been an awkward adolescent, as many precocious young people are.  Like every human being who has ever lived, it would have taken time for Jesus to develop and to slowly figure out this complex world and his place within it.  As the people of Nazareth attested, Jesus' upbringing was not extraordinary - probably no more extraordinary than most of ours.  Like all of us, Jesus could and did change.  He wasn't exactly the same person at the age of 30, as he had been at the age of 12, much less at those younger ages.  He was not one who fit easily into a box.

This story reminds us that it's probably unwise to try to fit anyone neatly into a box.  People are complex.  People are diverse.  People have the ability to change.  And people are also capable of achieving great things, even unexpected things if given the opportunity.  Who knows what might be possible if a person is in the right place at the right time under the right circumstances!!? 

This story also alerts us to the danger of envy and incredulity.  In Jesus' case, these two reactions went hand in hand.  The fact that the local carpenter's son was capable of far more than his friends, neighbors, and even family members were willing to give him credit for, reminds us that seeing isn't always believing.  They heard with their own ears his eloquent and wise teaching.  Some of them saw with their own eyes his ability to lay hands on people and cure them of their illnesses.  But their jealousy prevented them from even considering that God might actually be at work in the ministry of this young local upstart.  Rather than being amazed at what God was doing through Jesus, Jesus was amazed at their almost supernatural ability not to believe.

So, if you have put your faith in this humble, regular guy from Nazareth.  If you have imagined that it might be possible for the creator of everything, in the person of his Son, to incarnate himself and live a most ordinary, and yet extraordinary life.  If you believe that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God, then you owe your brother and your sister, your friend and your neighbor an open mind.  Not only should you not chain them to a real or imagined past, but you should also allow them the freedom to become more than you or even they might imagine they can be.  God is at work in our world, and he usually does his most important work through people.  Many times, it's those we least expect through whom God does his greatest work.  As we interact with those whom God places in our path, may we be open enough to avoid placing people in a box, may we be humble enough to celebrate his work through the unexpected, and may we be hopeful enough to embrace our own possibilities for the future. - Shay