students of jesus

It is one of his specialties: ask of us the impossible. Jesus was the merry prankster who specialized not only in confounding the wise, but bewildering us all. There are times I read his words and think, “Surely you’re joking.”

I like it when Jesus belittles the church hypocrites and blowhards. I like it when he turns the tables on all the “good people” and utterly upsets their religious sensibilities. I love it when he calls them blind guides, snakes, and vipers—then I hate it when I realize he’s also talking about me. 

Here are some of his sayings, taken from here and there in the gospels:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

And

Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

And

Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

And

Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

OK, I lied: these four sayings are not taken from “here and there in the gospels.” These four statements appear one after another: bang, bang, bang, bang—Matthew 5:17-20, near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is sneaky: he lulled me into poetic sleep with all those words about blessed people and how we are the light of the world. (Talk about cozying up to your audience.)

Then the gunfire starts. It turns out he’s serious about all the stuff Moses wrote. Worse: he turns my anger into murder and my lust into adultery. Before the gunsmoke clears he will tell me to be perfect. While the shots are still ringing in my ears he will tell me the only way to build my life on the rock is to actually do what he says. That Jesus—what a joker.

Four times this past week the question has come up in conversation, “Can we ‘live up to’ the stuff Jesus teaches—especially in the Sermon on the Mount?” The question puts us ill at ease. Everyone slides into a cautious theological mode.  Who wants to be the guy who says, “Sure, no problem”?

Some deal wit the tension using legal metaphors: “We are sinful, but the Father sees us ‘in Christ’, so our standing is righteous even though we cannot live out the Lord’s teaching.” This may be satisfying if you are a lawyer, but who wants to be a spiritual lawyer? Others find their way to the safety of the gospel presentation: “The Sermon on the Mount is impossible to do, which shows why we need a savior.” The only way to come to this conclusion is to believe he preached the greatest sermon in world history just to show us what pathetic losers we are. The poets try something sure to please the ear: “Jesus bids us, ‘Come, fly about the room’; Grace gives us wings.” I like the poetic approach, but then I start thinking about exactly how grace grows wings or if I’m supposed to strap them on or what about Icarus until I finally say, “wait—what?”

Then the quiet guy in the back of the room suggests the unthinkable: “Give it a try.” And he’s serious. With disarming modesty he makes no claim to superiority, nor judgment of others.

His reasoning is simple: “Jesus is my Lord, and he asked me to.”

Surely Jesus believed that prostitutes were sinners, yet he welcomed them to his table. He ate and drank with them.

Surely Jesus understood that tax collectors betrayed their countrymen by helping the brutal Roman occupiers in his homeland, yet he welcomed tax collectors to his table as well.

Surely Jesus knew that religious hypocrites misrepresented Yahweh’s heart toward his people and laid heavy burdens on God’s people, yet he dined with them and invited them to participate in his Father’s kingdom.

Surely Jesus saw first-hand Peter’s temper, James and John’s foolish nationalism, even Judas’ tortured and divided motivations, yet he broke bread with each one of them, sharing his very body and blood.

Wherever Jesus ate, it was his table, and Jesus welcomed everyone to his table. He welcomed the clueless and the cruel. He engaged the outcast and the insider. He shared his life with his enemies because he came to turn enemies into family. His method was startling: he ate and drank with them. He turned water into wine and transformed ritual into everlasting love.

Still, he gave no one a pass on their rebellious or self destructive ways. Jesus—the sinless perfect representative of God’s heart—never lowered his standards or winked at injustice. Still, around his table everyone was welcome. He was no lightweight: if a moment called for brutal honestly, he fulfilled that need as well. He did not negotiate, he fellowshipped.

He set an example for us to follow. On his way to the cross he stopped to eat and drink each day, and each day he welcomed his enemies to his table. At the cross, he did what only he could do. At the table, he demonstrated what we should do.

He refused to let disagreement separate him from others. Jesus possessed the proper opinions, the right positions, and perfect perspective, but never—not once—did he use his correct standing as a reason to alienate other people.

As he prepared to leave his friends, he drew them to the table once more. There, at the sacred table, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We can transform every table into sacred space by who we welcome.

How will we remember him? Who is welcome at our table?

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Before time began, grace and truth were joined in Jesus Christ. What God has joined, let no man separate—the problem is, we keep trying to do just that.

We somehow believe grace and truth stand in opposition to one another; that truth is hard and cold; that grace is soft and shallow, but somehow not really the truth. We are wrong: grace is no more opposed to truth than Jesus is opposed to the Father.

We talk about finding a balance between grace and truth the same way we talk about balancing calories and exercise, unaware that one fuels the other. Grace loves truth, and truth welcomes grace.

Grace speaks the truth without a hint of judgment, confident that the truth sets us free. Grace is the medium of truth: if you change the medium, and you change the very message itself. Grace offers truth the way a guide offers to show the way. Grace rejoices in the truth.

Truth delights in grace because truth is made full only in grace. Truth is robed in grace—and truth would never show herself indecent. Truth speaks but one language: grace.

There is no glory in truth alone, nor is their glory in grace apart from truth. Together as one, grace and truth are the stuff of glory, and this world has seen to little glory. We saw such glory once, and we tried to tear it apart. But our everlasting good the glory was resurrected. Resurrection is truth. Resurrection is grace. To walk in newness of life is to walk as one with grace and truth.

Knowledge can become a terrible burden. The weight of information can bend the back of the strongest man. We are loaded down with so many shoulds we find ourselves paralyzed by the inability to apply what we know. We open up our web browser and ten thousand voices shout for our attention, each one urgent. Through our computers, radios, televisions, and even our friends urgent knowledge reaches out and tries to shake us into action.

Here are a dozen smooth stones with only one aim: to provide rest. These lessons do claim ultimate authority; they are not a call to action; they do not command obedience. They whisper simply, “Here . . .”

One dozen liberating life lessons

1). I don’t have to know the answer.

2). Just because I know an answer doesn’t mean I have to answer the question.

3). The answer is rarely as interesting as the person asking the question.

4). Knowing the answer sometimes keeps me from asking the right question.

5). Facts are never true. They are merely facts.

6). God’s presence is an observable, objective fact, and we can recognize his presence.

7). Faith, hope, and love are abiding, eternal things, and I can start cultivating them now.

8). Celebrity authenticates no one—but neither does it disqualify anyone from speaking the truth.

9). The wisdom of Yoda was not very deep, but it was interesting because he was small, green, and funny-looking.

10). If a picture is worth a thousand words, actually being there is worth a trillion.

11). The end of a matter is better than its beginning; patience is better than pride.

12). Lists convey a false sense of authority.

What about you? Do you have a collection of quiet truths, the kind that give you peace and rest? What gems have you picked up along the way?

Moses saw the glory of God. The encounter was transformational—it changed him so much the people of Israel asked him, “Please, cover it up, you’re freaking us out.”

Glory is a strange word these days. It has the feel of movies like Gladiator, or the hyped opening of a Super Bowl. Religious people use it, too, but I’m not sure we know what it’s all about. It conjures up notions of Pentecostals run amuck shouting “Glory, Hallelujah!” or even that God’s glory is in the sunset—which is true, but not very useful.

But what if the glory of God wasn’t the stuff of Old Testament stories, Hollywood hoopla, or religious delusions? What if glory was a substance so real it killed cancer better than chemo? What if God designed his glory to be an agent of change? Apparently the Apostle Paul had such a notion: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Another what if: What if, in quoting Romans 3:23 we focused on God’s intention instead of our sin? The famous verse reminds us “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But we have walked the Romans road so often we think only of our shortcomings, but not the destination. In this case, that we were made to live in his glory, to reflect his glory, to interact with his glorious, manifest presence. That’s a game-changer for me, and the possibilities are quite literally, endless.

If we dare to circle back to the 2 Corinthians verse quoted above we are faced with the question, "What would it mean--in real-life, practical terms--to progress from glory to glory?" What would it mean in real life if our expectations were focused on an infinite path, a path designed to transform us more and more into his image? How would it change things if we awoke to our destiny to be conformed to the image of Christ?

One of the unspoken needs of the western church is to rediscover the stuff of Biblical legend, called glory. We, too, could ask “Show me your glory!” Someone has seen that day. He spoke of what he saw when he said the sons and daughters of the kingdom will shine like the sun, but we thought he was just being poetic.