mcknight_jesus

LOVING GOD, LOVING OTHERS

The Jesus Creed Scot McKnight

FOR Kris

The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others

2019 First Printing This Edition 2014 First Printing Tenth Anniversary Edition

ISBN 978-1-61261-578-3

All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) are trademarks of Paraclete Press, Inc.

 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKnight, Scot. The Jesus creed: loving God, loving others I Scot McKnight.—TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. pages cm ISBN 978-1-61261-578-3 (trade pbk.)

Love—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title. BV4639.M39 2014 241’.4—dc23 2014029000

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press Brewster, Massachusetts www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

FOREWORD PREFACE PREFACE TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: LOVE IN THE JESUS CREED

PART ONE The Jesus Creed A spiritually formed person loves God by following Jesus and loves others.

PROLOGUE 1 The Jesus Creed 2 Praying the Jesus Creed 3 The Abba of the Jesus Creed 4 The Jesus Creed as a Table 5 A Creed of Sacred Love 6 A Creed for Others

PART TWO Stories of the Jesus Creed A spiritually formed person embraces the stories of others who love Jesus.

PROLOGUE 7 John the Baptist: The Story of New Beginnings 8 Joseph: The Story of Reputation 9 Mary: The Story of Vocation 10 Peter: The Story of Conversion 11 John: The Story of Love 12 Women: The Story of Compassion

PART THREE The Society of the Jesus Creed A spiritually formed person lives out kingdom values.

PROLOGUE 13 A Society of Transformation 14 A Society of Mustard Seeds 15 A Society for Justice 16 A Society of Restoration 17 A Society of Joy 18 A Society with Perspective

PART FOUR Living the Jesus Creed A spiritually formed person loves Jesus.

PROLOGUE 19 Believing in Jesus 20 Abiding in Jesus 21 Surrendering in Jesus 22 Restoring in Jesus 23 Forgiving in Jesus 24 Reaching Out in Jesus

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS GLOSSARY OF TERMS REFERENCES RECOMMENDED READINGS

FOREWORD

My first exposure to the work of Scot McKnight came through my wife, Nancy. She breezed through the doorway one day and said, “I met a man at church who has a fabulous mind, you absolutely have to meet him.” Whenever my wife becomes that interested in another man, it piques my curiosity, so I arranged to have lunch with him. That first meeting led to a series of conversations and was the beginning of a relationship that continues to this day over a couple of thousand miles. Scot has the kind of fertile mind that ranges from conversion theory to the debate over the search for the historical Jesus to Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson’s triangle offense, in a single sitting. He relates well to people across every kind of spectrum. I suppose it’s a backhanded compliment to refer to a scholar as a normal guy, but I can’t think of a better term to describe Scot. Most of all, Scot has a great love for Jesus, a passionate commitment to discover all that can be learned about Jesus’ message and world. He combines this with a deep desire to help make the best of such learning accessible to people who will never earn a degree in Semitic languages or biblical archaeology. When I was in seminary, David Hubbard (who was both president and Old Testament professor) talked about how the average seminary student today has access to more information than Luther or Calvin did at the height of their learning. The problem, of course, is that in this era of information overload we have more information than we can handle streaming into our consciousness every day, from junk mail to high-definition screens and fiberoptic cables. In this book we find no such informational overload, because Scot keeps his information in the proper perspective. In The Jesus Creed, Scot has given a great gift to any follower of Jesus as he invites us back into the world in which Jesus lived. We learn, a step at a time, what it meant to be a Jewish rabbi in first-century Galilee. In these pages the identities, hopes, and struggles of Joseph and Mary, of John the Baptist, and of Simon Peter are portrayed in ways that are both fresh and deeply illuminating. Scot wears his learning lightly. We discover the significance of what it means to wrestle with being one of the tsadiqim* or the Am ha-aretz*—not simply for the sake of information, but because of the light it sheds on our own calling to follow Jesus. Scot, in the words of Garrison Keillor, “puts the hay down where the goats can get it.” I am excited for you as you begin your journey through the pages of this book. I believe two gaps will grow smaller for you as you read it. One is the distance between you and Jesus. His world will draw closer to yours. In discovering the actual identities and struggles of the people around Jesus, you will discover that you are reading your own story. You will find that little Gestalt aha! escaping from your lips as time after time you come to understand the essential dynamics at work in the gospel narratives. The other gap that will shrink is the one between the person you are right now and the person God created you to be. Dallas Willard has noted that all of us are constantly being spiritually formed for better or for worse—our wills and hearts are being shaped whether we want them to be or not. Jesus is, among other things, the maestro of spiritual formation. The Jesus Creed is both an invitation and a resource to put your spirit into his hands, to dine at the Master’s table. Enough with the preliminaries: time to get on with the main course.

John Ortberg Pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

PREFACE

I didn’t confess a creed until I discovered Jesus’ personal creed. Occasionally, of course, I’d find myself speaking at a church where we all confessed the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. Still, confessing a creed wasn’t routine for me. Now I begin each day in a quiet recitation of the one used and taught by Jesus. When it comes to mind throughout the day, I recite it again. It is, for me, his gentle reminder of what life is all about. All around the world, young and old, people are asking about spiritual formation. What does it mean, they are asking, to live before God in our world? For direction, they turn to modern writers as diverse as Thomas Merton and Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. As well, they turn to classical spiritual masters who have taught the church for the ages, masters like St. Augustine and Teresa of Avila and Brother Lawrence. I have turned to both the modern and classical myself, and I will turn to them again. But sometimes we forget the source of these spiritual masters. Sometimes we forget to turn to the source of their ideas, to Jesus and to his words about what it means to be spiritually formed. I ask you to turn to him in this book, to discover his answer to the great question about the center of spiritual growth. A Jewish expert on the Torah* (the Law) once asked Jesus what was the most important thing for spiritual formation. Jesus’ answer turned history upside down for those who followed him. This book is an invitation for you to explore Jesus’ answer to that man. I call it the Jesus Creed, and what he said should shape everything we say about Christian spirituality. Everything.

Note for the reader: In the following text many words in italics are explained in the Glossary of Terms at the back of this book. (The first time these words appear in the text they are marked with an asterisk.) The sources for quotations, including references to the Bible, can be found in References at the back of the book. Each chapter can be understood without reading the Gospel passages listed at the beginning of the chapters, but it is recommended that each reading begin with those biblical passages.

PREFACE TO THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

There were a number of unknowns when I first wrote The Jesus Creed a decade ago. The first was that I didn’t know how the “discovery” of the Jesus Creed—those words of Jesus at Mark 12:29–32—would change my life so much. In teaching college students about Jesus I became convinced that Jesus, as a good observant Jew, daily recited the Shema (love God) and that he amended that daily recitation by adding “love your neighbor as yourself.” The Jesus Creed, then, is loving God and loving others. What I didn’t know was what happens to a person—in this case, me—when you begin and end a day by reciting the Jesus Creed. What I didn’t know was that the Jesus Creed, like the Eastern Orthodox Jesus Prayer, would accompany me throughout the day so much that I found (and still find) myself saying the Jesus Creed dozens of times a day. It has become my mantra, my breath prayer, my spirituality. Saying the Jesus Creed like this is dangerous for your moral health. Why “dangerous”? Because this little creed-like prayer makes me aware of how often I don’t love someone else, how I need to love this specific person on my personal path in this very moment, and how pervasive love can become. I have discovered why the apostle Paul said loving your neighbor as yourself is the whole Torah, and not just one of the commandments. To follow the Jesus Creed is the biggest challenge of my life. The second unknown was that writing The Jesus Creed changed my career. Perhaps I can finesse that and say it turned my career into a pastoral vocation. My wonderful publicist at Paraclete, Carol Showalter, told me to get a website and then she encouraged me to maintain a blog, and so I did. Little did I know that my blog would take off and become a frequently visited site, and little did I know that pastors and lay folks alike would ask me questions and make confessions and tell me personal stories. Little did I know that I would shift my reading habits toward books that would help my blog’s readers, and little did I know what it meant when Carol told me that I had to be willing to “go on the road.” Well, Carol, I’ve been on the road for ten years thanks to you. Kris, my wife, and I have seen parts of the world we would never have seen apart from The Jesus Creed. We have sat in homes in South Africa, prayed with others in Denmark, taught the Jesus Creed in Australia, and have been to the four corners of the USA to encourage others to recite the Jesus Creed daily. Finally, I did not know that defining love would become so important to me. When I wrote The Jesus Creed I wanted to avoid a definition of love because I didn’t want others to put the book down because they didn’t agree with my definition. But deep in my heart I was not satisfied with not explaining what love is according to The Jesus Creed. So, here goes, four elements of love. Love is (1) a rugged commitment (2) to be with another person, (3) to be for another person, (4) and this commitment is aimed unto becoming Christlike—becoming loving, and holy, and righteous and good and just and peaceful. This translates into four principles: the principles of commitment, presence, advocacy, and direction. As you read The Jesus Creed keep this definition in mind: to love another person in this world means you are committed to being with that person and to being for that person, and you are committed to growing with them to become the person God made you to be. Jesus liked the unknown because he was one who loved others. He didn’t know who might interrupt his day and who might join the band of disciples, and he didn’t know that a life of love challenges us to the core of our being. Well, yes, okay, he did know that and it is now ours to know it. More than anything else, I want to encourage you to begin your day and end your day saying the Jesus Creed and then whenever it comes to mind, say it again.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

Scot McKnight Epiphany 2014

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: LOVE IN THE JESUS CREED

GOSPEL READINGS John 13:34–35

Jesus loved. Those associated with him are also to love. The first thing I learned about defining what it means to call God “love,” as one of Jesus’ first followers, John, did, is that love defies definition. The second was American English dictionaries help us understand how modern Americans use the word “love” but they don’t define love as Jesus understood and practiced love. The third thing I learned is that humans are not ones to watch if one wants to know what love is. Every now and then one meets a human about whom one can say, “That person knows how to love.” But isn’t it often the case that we soon are wondering What’s that seemingly loving person like when no one is watching? The fourth thing I learned about defining love is that if we want to know what Jesus meant by love we need to start with God. We need to watch God love if we want to understand what love is. To know and understand love is to know and understand God. Not everyone wants to play the definition game, especially when it comes to defining love. Yet, everyone loves a definition. Moms and dads do, neighbors do, friends do, workers do, bus commuters do, politicians do.… We could go on. It’s not very often someone says aloud, “I’m not very loving,” or “What I just said or did was not loving.” Even if some have to stretch their presumed definitions, most think they are loving. Are they? Are we? Am I? Are you? What are the marks of love? What are the marks of God’s love?

FIVE MARKS OF GOD’S LOVE

Reading the Bible from one end to the other with a goal of watching God love and then mapping out what God’s love is may take a long time but it’s worth the effort. I once did that very thing, and over time I have filled in that one-time reading. Here are five marks of what love means if we watch God love, but let’s get ourselves ready for what these marks imply: love is a great idea and a wonderful vision until we realize how challenging it is.

Love is a rugged commitment. God’s first major revelation of how he loves us humans is found in one of the Bible’s all-time weird events. In Genesis 15 God entered into a “covenant” relation with a man named Abram, who later would be renamed Abraham. A covenant is a binding agreement engaged between two parties, this one between God and Abram. Such covenants explain the terms of the agreement and the consequences of both being faithful and unfaithful to the terms. At the heart of God’s covenant with Abram was the promise that Abram and Sarai would have at least one baby and that the baby would become the first of innumerable descendants, and that God would give those descendants a land to live in. Abram said, “Great, when?” No—actually, the Bible tells us Abram believed in, or trusted, God. God then announced himself, but Abram seemed to be lost on the baby-making and land parts of the agreement, so Abram blurted out, “How can I know?” Now the weird part. God asked Abram to get a “heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram then cut each one in half and laid them out with space between the halves. (Incidental detail, the birds were not cut in half.) Then God put the man to sleep, predicted difficult days of slavery for his descendants, and then the covenant actually happened. How? God, in the form of a “smoking firepot,” “passed between the pieces.” What’s weird to us was not weird to Abram. This was God saying, “You can split me in half if I am not faithful to the terms of this covenant.” God put his life on the line for Abram and this covenant relationship. This is nothing less than a commitment. This relationship, however, was anything but smooth sailing: over and over the descendants would be unfaithful, would whine and complain and grumble, would disobey.… But God, who entered between the pieces, was committed to the descendants. Which means God’s commitment is rugged. Through good days, through bad days, through sleepless nights and in deserts. Rugged means faithful. Love, if we begin with God, begins with a rugged commitment to another person. It is to put one’s life on the line for another.

Love is affective. Some of us grew up being told love is a decision, a commitment, an action and not an emotion. But every one of us grew up being moved by love stories—ones we sometimes witnessed in those we love, in movies, and in books. The stories contradict the old idea that love is just a decision or an action. Yes, it is these, but it’s more. Love in the Bible—God’s love—is nothing less than affective, or emotional. One of the most thrilling terms used for God’s love appears in translations like this: “Yet the LORD set his affection.” This is the same term used in the Bible for a man falling in love, yea, swooning over a beautiful woman. One prophet says it was God’s swooning over him that saved him. The love God had for Abram and his descendants was a head-over-heels swooning over the beauty of humans, the beauty of their relationship with God, and the beauty of their life together. Love, at least God’s love, is an affective, rugged commitment.

Love is presence. A third mark of God’s love in the Bible is that his rugged, affective love is about presence. God loves us by being present with us. He was present with the children of Israel in a cloud, and with Israel in the tabernacle, and then in glory in the temple. When Jesus was born the good news of Christmas was in a name: “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.” When Jesus ascended, he sent the Spirit—the Paraclete—to be with us. The end of the New Testament describes the future time when God will wrap up history and turn this world into justice and peace and love. Revelation tells us that “God himself will be with them.” In fact, that promise to be with them is surrounded by the Bible’s language about covenant, or rugged, affective commitment: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” Those italicized words are the Bible’s most important words about the covenant. Love then is a rugged, affective commitment to be with someone, to be present to them. Now the challenge is starting to be clear: if we say we love someone—say, a neighbor, someone in our faith community, a person who likes a different politician—if we say we love that person, we have said we have made a rugged, affective commitment to be present in that person’s life. (Perhaps over coffee?)

Love is advocacy. Love is a rugged, affective commitment to be present to another person in a way that communicates advocacy. This is how God is with all humans. My paraphrase for this theme is that “God has our back.” The covenant language of “I will be your God and you will be my people” cited above also comes to expression in terms of advocacy: “I AM WHO I AM” and “the LORD is a warrior.” What do these words mean? I am who I am, as the name of God, means I will be your God and I will be what you need, and I am your Warrior means God is in front, behind, below, above, and to each side. I, God is saying, am present as the one who is in your corner, who has your back, and I am your Affirmer and Encourager. When we love someone they know we are there for them. Those who love in a rugged, affective commitment of presence know from that person’s physical space in our life that such a person is for us and is our advocate. In fact, these four marks make up the ordering of God’s love: God’s first mark is a rugged commitment, which leads into an affective relationship, and this rugged, affective relationship with us is both created and sustained by presence. That presence establishes in both persons the conviction that the other person is for us. To focus on the prepositions, then, we can say that with-ness promotes for-ness. One more and we’ll have a sketch of God’s love for us and a template for how we are to love.

Love has direction. Love is not aimless wandering with one another, an evening Spaziergang in the park with whomever and whenever doing whatever however. There is a kind of generous intentionality about love. God loves us to expand us into the persons he designed for us to be. Love, then, is not the Western political idea of tolerance but is much more like the way ancients, such as Aristotle, talked about friendship as growth in virtue. I’ll lay this on the line, then: God loves us so we will become like God, or like Christ. Christlikeness then is the direction of all love. Here’s proof: God is love and calls us to love. God is holy and calls us to be holy. God is just and calls us to be just. Who God is, is the template for love’s direction in our life. Now about order again: A rugged, affective commitment of presence and advocacy is the necessary foundation for us to speak into the lives of those we love about becoming more Christlike. We have no right to speak into a person’s life until we have formed a rugged, affective commitment of presence and advocacy. Let’s do this with prepositions: only those who are with and for another person can speak words of unto.

JESUS EMBODIES LOVE FOR OTHERS

Jesus calls us to love as God loves: with a rugged, affective commitment of presence, advocacy, and direction. Watch Jesus do this. Jesus summoned some to become his close followers. This was a commitment on his part. Peter and Andrew, summoned from fishing. So too James and John. So, too, Matthew (or Levi), the tax collector. We don’t know where he found the other seven of the twelve apostles, but they were clearly known for being in the inner circle. These are those with whom Jesus formed a special commitment, the same commitment he makes to you and to me. Jesus makes a rugged commitment to those he loves. He called disciples and they messed up often. His best followers, empowered with Jesus’ healing powers, couldn’t exorcise a demonized boy—and Jesus’ response? “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” Did he give up on them? No. His commitment was rugged. Any reading of the Gospels reveals the foibles of the followers of Jesus: Jesus taught them, they failed, he explained their failures, he picked them up, he encouraged them, and he encouraged them to keep on walking with him. Jesus makes a rugged and affective commitment to those he loves. When Jesus was told that one of his very best friends, a man named Lazarus, had died, the Bible tells us that “Jesus wept.” Besides being the Bible’s shortest verse, this verse opens up a window on the penetrating, deep, emotional love Jesus had for his friend (and all of us). Jesus makes a rugged, affective commitment of presence and advocacy. Jesus, we are told, summoned some followers—notice this—“that they might be with him.” He was with them as someone who was for them, and they knew his for-ness by his with-ness. Never did they doubt that he had their back. Finally, Jesus embodies direction in that his rugged, affective commitment of presence and advocacy was at the same time a call for them to follow him. Education in the world of Jesus was not about information but about emulation or imitation. To “follow” Jesus, then, was to watch him, to listen to him, to learn how to live by living like Jesus. Most of all that means learning a life of love.

The challenge of love, then, is the challenge to turn enemies into neighbors, to turn those we don’t like into those we do like, and to turn people who are invisible in our society into bright visibility. We do this by making rugged, affective commitments to other people to be with them, to be for them, and to grow together into copies of Jesus. Five simple marks. Five challenging marks. They are God’s marks of love.

PART ONE

The Jesus Creed

PROLOGUE

When asked by an expert in the law where to begin with spiritual formation, Jesus answered by giving the Jesus Creed. The Jesus Creed defines what spiritual formation is.

THE JESUS CREED “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.

Jesus thereby amends the Shema of Judaism (Deuteronomy 6:4–9) by adding Leviticus 19:18, revealing that spiritual formation is about the love of God and others.

The first principle of spiritual formation is this: A spiritually formed person loves God and others.

In the next six chapters we will explore how spiritual formation begins with loving God and loving others. Spiritual formation is about relationship—with God and with others.

CHAPTER 1

The Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 12:28–33; Luke 9:57–62

Jesus knows what life is all about. Thomas à Kempis knows: he wants to be in complete union with God. Brother Lawrence knows: he desires to converse with God constantly. John Woolman knows: he strives to do what is right in every situation. J. I. Packer knows: he longs to be fired with holy zeal for God. Richard Foster knows: he craves the grace of inner spiritual transformation through the spiritual disciplines. Dallas Willard knows: he hungers, in this physical existence of ours, to be like Christ. John Ortberg knows: he pines to morph into the image of Christ. Rick Warren knows: he thirsts for a life driven by God’s purposes. What makes these spiritual masters so attractive to us today is this: They know what they mean when they discuss “spiritual formation.” They know what a spiritually formed person looks like, and they yearn to see it happen in each of their lives and in the lives of others. I learn from them on a daily basis, and so I am deeply aware that my attempts even to summarize their “aim” don’t do them justice. But behind these influential masters is Jesus, and he also knows. So, the big questions are these: What does Jesus know (and say) about spiritual formation? What, according to Jesus, does a spiritually formed person look like? These questions are different than to ask which spiritual disciplines Jesus practices and teaches. These questions stand quietly behind the disciplines and ask: What are they for? Did Jesus ever express his view of spiritual formation? Yes. And he does so by transforming a creed. I call it the Jesus Creed, and the Jesus Creed becomes clear (on nearly every page of the four Gospels) when we recall the Jewish context of Jesus. So, we begin there. (To highlight the importance of this creed for Jesus, I will refer to his amendment of the Shema as the Jesus Creed throughout the book.)

THE CREED OF JUDAISM

Daily, when awaking and when retiring, the observant Jew recites aloud a creed. This creed is lifted from the Bible, from one of the books of Moses, Deuteronomy 6:4–9, along with two other texts. (It is completely presented in the Glossary of Terms section at the end of the book.) This sacred Jewish creed is called the Shema* (pronounced, Shē-mə or Sh’ma). Anyone who wants to understand what Jesus means by spiritual formation needs to meditate on the Shema of Judaism. It is the Jewish creed of spiritual formation, and Jesus liked it and, as we will see, transformed it for his followers:

Hear (shema), O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

According to a specialist of modern Jewish devotion, the Shema “is the first ‘prayer’ that [Jewish] children are taught to say,” and it is the “quintessential expression of the most fundamental belief and commitment of Judaism.” The Shema expresses what is most important for spiritual formation: YHWH* (the sacred Hebrew name for God) alone is Israel’s God, Israel is chosen by God, and Israel is to love God—with heart, soul, and strength. The Shema outlines a Torah* lifestyle for spiritual formation: memorize, recite, instruct, and write out the Torah, and wear tzitzit (fringes) to remind themselves of Torah. There is promise attached to living life according to the Shema: when Jews lived by the Shema they would be “blessed” beyond imagination. One can say, then, that the creed of Judaism is this: Love God by living the Torah. So where does Jesus stand in a world of Judaism that affirms a Shema of loving God by living the Torah?

THE JESUS CREED AS THE FIRST AMENDMENT

As a good Jew, Jesus devotionally recites the Shema daily. Later in his life, he encounters an expert in the law who asks him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” For a Jew this man’s question is the ultimate question about spiritual formation. He is asking for the spiritual center of Judaism. He thinks Jesus might know. He does. Jesus answers the man by reciting the Shema but adds to it, and in so doing, transforms a creed so he can shape the spiritual center of his followers. I call it the Jesus Creed.

THE JESUS CREED

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” [So far, so good; this is Deuteronomy. 6:4–5.] [And now Jesus adds a verse from Leviticus. 19:18.] The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.

Right here we discover the Jesus Creed for spiritual formation. As Thomas à Kempis puts it, in the Jesus Creed Jesus has “put a whole dictionary into just one dictum.” Everything about spiritual formation for Jesus is shaped by his version of the Shema. For Jesus, love of God and love of others is the core. Love, a term almost indefinable, is unconditional regard for a person that prompts and shapes behaviors in order to help that person to become what God desires. Love, when working properly, is both emotion and will, affection and action. We cannot overemphasize the importance of the Shema for Jewish spiritual formation. So when Jesus amended the Shema, we need to take note. To be sure, Jesus accepted the Shema, but he also added to it. The question we then ask is this: Is Jesus suggesting only a subtle amendment? No. It takes real pluck (or chutzpah) to add to the sacred Shema, but this addition reveals the heart of the Jesus Creed. Most of my readers will know the Apostles’ Creed and will know if I were to add a few lines after “and life everlasting”—such as, “and in supporting your local church by giving a tithe of income, before taxes!”—that even in a civilized church I would get sucker-punched. “You don’t mess with creeds, sugar,” the attendant would say to me in the ambulance as she carted me away. But, adding is just exactly what Jesus does. Instead of a Love-God Shema, it is a Love-God-and-Others Shema. What Jesus adds is not unknown to Judaism, and he is not criticizing Judaism. Jesus is setting up his very own shop within Judaism. Loving others is central to Judaism, but it is not central to the creed of Judaism, to the Shema. So, what Jesus says is Jewish. But the emphasis on loving others is not found in Judaism’s creed the way it is found in the Jesus Creed. Making the love of others part of his own version of the Shema shows that he sees love of others as central to spiritual formation. It is not enough just to observe that Jesus amends the Shema of Judaism. There is more here than first meets the eye. When the Shema becomes the Jesus Creed, it becomes personal. To see this we need to look at the Gospel of Luke to see how Jesus explains what it means to love God, because for Jesus loving God now means following him.

THE SHEMA GETS PERSONAL IN THE JESUS CREED

Jesus regularly invites others to join his small band of disciples. When one man hears about this, he volunteers to join and, in so doing, he thinks he will love God more deeply. The man comes to Jesus with a simple request, “Lord,” I want to love God and follow you, but “first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus abruptly states: “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Ouch! All this man is asking for is an opportunity, with perhaps a little delay, but still an opportunity to love God with all his heart. Jesus, however, is redefining what it means to love God. Surely, it is a stretch to understand Jesus’ telling a man not to attend his father’s funeral. So important is it in Judaism to bury one’s father, an exception is made: “One whose dead is lying before him [awaiting burial] is exempt from the recitation of the Shema.” Even the sacred Shema is suspended to bury one’s father. Still, how could Jesus ask a man to skip his father’s funeral? A little understanding of burial customs sheds light on how the Jesus Creed worked itself out in real life. These customs show how loving God becomes personal for Jesus. At the time of Jesus, burials took place in two stages. First, immediately after the death of a father, the family (led by the oldest son) placed the body in a casket and then into a tomb so the body could decompose. The family sat shiva* (mourned) for seven days. The body decayed for approximately one year in the tomb. Then, second, the bones were removed from the tomb and casket, placed in an ossuary (a box for bones), and then reburied, this time for good. This is how good Jews showed respect for a father, how they applied the commandment to honor one’s parents, how they loved God by following the Torah. Many today think the proper context of Jesus’ encounter with this man is between the first burial and the second burial. To begin with, it is unlikely that a family member sitting shiva* (after first burial) would be out and about anyway, and it is hard to imagine Jesus’ refusing this most sacred obligation. If the encounter with Jesus occurs between the first and second burial, then as much as a year’s lag could occur before he would begin to follow Jesus. The man is caught in the dilemma that the Jesus Creed creates: Should he follow Jesus or should he follow (how he understands) the Torah? Jesus calls the man to follow him and, in so doing, equates loving God to having a personal relationship with Jesus. To use other terms, the Shema of Judaism becomes the Jesus Creed: One loves God by following Jesus. This is a revolutionary understanding of the Shema, and it is what the spiritual life is all about for Jesus. Let’s put this all together now: As a normal Jew, spiritual formation for Jesus begins with the Shema of Judaism. But Jesus revises the Shema in two ways: loving others is added to loving God, and loving God is understood as following Jesus. This is the Jesus Creed, and it is the foundation of everything Jesus teaches about spiritual formation. Jesus, too, knows what life is all about, and that life is about love—for God and for others. As Rick Warren states, “Life minus love equals zero.” And: “The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.” It is also time to put that love into practice by learning the Jesus Creed.

THE JESUS CREED TODAY

After teaching about Jesus for twenty years, I have come to the conviction that the most historically accurate way of presenting what Jesus teaches about spiritual formation is the Jesus Creed. Jesus learned to recite the Shema as a child, and his own followers, as Jews, would have recited it as a matter of course. I have every reason to believe that his followers would have continued this practice after they met Jesus, but they would have recited it in a slightly amended form: they would have recited a “love God and love others” creed, what I call the Jesus Creed. Put in its simplest form, Jesus gave to his followers a creed in order to shape their spiritual formation. That creed has been given to us as well. It is my recommendation that each of us, in an experiment of ordering our lives around the spiritual-formation principle of Jesus, memorize and then repeat the Jesus Creed daily—to remind ourselves of what our Lord asks of us. The Jesus Creed has become a silent partner in my life: Sometimes when I sit, sometimes when I walk, sometimes when I lie down, but always when I rise in the morning, I simply and quietly recite to myself, and before God, the Jesus Creed. It punctuates my morning; it sets a rhythm to my day and settles my day into a comfortable spot. It constantly reminds me, not as a command but as a confession, that whatever I do throughout the day is to be shaped by loving God and loving others. I need that reminder. Whatever our vocations, spiritual formation, for Jesus, begins with the Jesus Creed. Jesus calls each of us to offer our vocations to him so that we might, in the words of Parker Palmer, “let our life speak.” What you become and what I become will be different, but it will be the life we have been given to speak to others—and that life is to be shaped by the Jesus Creed. A scribe asks Jesus about the essence of spiritual formation, and Jesus gives him an old answer with a revolutionary twist: Love God and love others, and love God by following me. The scribe realizes that he will need to recenter everything.

CHAPTER 2

Praying the Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 11:1–4; Matthew 6:9–13

Sometimes prayer is like dry lima beans in a dry mouth on a dry day. Other times, in the words of Richard Foster, prayer “catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life” and “is the central avenue God uses to transform us.” Maybe so, but it doesn’t always feel that way. In fact, each year scads of new strategies and routines become available so we can get more from our prayer lives. Why? Prayer is hard, it gnaws into our schedule, and it can be as much a source of frustration as satisfaction. Brother Lawrence, who has probably encouraged more people in prayer than anyone in the history of the Church, found routines in prayer dry and dull. He was bluntly honest about his own perplexity with prayer. Such honesty about prayer by a champion of prayer encourages us all in our own struggle to pray. At the bottom, prayer is simple. It is loving communication with God. All we need for prayer is an open heart. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t prayer sessions that drag, times when our lips are uttering graceful words while our minds are murmuring clumsy thoughts. “Struggle” is the true news about prayer. The good news for us is that it was struggle with prayer that gave rise to the Lord’s Prayer. The disciples were struggling with their own prayer lives. After observing Jesus pray, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” To help them with prayer, he gave them a prayer; Christians call it the “Our Father” or the “Lord’s Prayer.” When the disciples heard Jesus give this to them the first time, they recognized it—but there was something different. To see this, we need to look at that ancient Jewish prayer and then observe how Jesus amended it in light of the Jesus Creed.

THE KADDISH OF JUDAISM AND THE KADDISH OF JESUS

At the time of Jesus there was a Jewish prayer called the Kaddish (“The Sanctification”):

Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the world He created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, speedily and in the near future. And say Amen.

This liturgical prayer, with some striking similarities to the Lord’s Prayer, is one of Jesus’ favorite prayers. So favorite he makes it his own. When the disciples ask Jesus for a prayer, he takes this Kaddish and amends it. The Kaddish of Judaism Prayer) The Kaddish of Jesus (Lord’s Father Name magnified and sanctified Name sanctified [not magnified] Kingdom established soon Kingdom established [not soon] Bread Forgiveness Temptation Amen [no Amen, no big deal, they said it anyway]

We observed earlier that Jesus amended the Shema of Judaism to form his own Shema. Now Jesus revises a sacred prayer. If what Jesus does to the Shema is the “first amendment,” what he does to the Kaddish is the “second amendment.” There are three basic changes: First, the Lord’s Prayer begins with “Father” (Abba*). Second, Jesus adds three lines (italics above). Third, the additional lines shift from “your” to “us.” As a result of these changes, the Lord’s Prayer has two parts: the “You” petitions and the “We/Us” petitions. You petitions We/Us petitions May your Name be hallowed Give us our daily bread May your kingdom come Forgive us our sins as we for give those … May your will be done on earth … Lead us not into temptation but deliver …

Why amend a sacred prayer? Recall that Jesus amends the sacred love God-only Shema to a (just as sacred) love God-and-others Shema. Something similar happens to the Kaddish. In the Kaddish of Judaism there is a concern for God, but in the Kaddish of Jesus there is a concern both for God and for others. So, we have this: Shema of Judaism: Love God (by following Torah) Shema of Jesus: Love God (by following Jesus) and love others. Kaddish of Judaism: Petition for God’s glory Kaddish of Jesus: Petition for Abba’s glory and petition for others

These last few paragraphs show us that the Lord’s Prayer has two sections: one on love of God and one on love of others. The proof of one’s theology is in prayer. Jesus’ creed of loving God and loving others (the Jesus Creed) morphs into a prayer of love of God and love of others (the Lord’s Prayer). Thus: Love-of-God petitions Love-of-others petitions May your Name be hallowed Give us our daily bread May your kingdom come Forgive us our sins as we … May your will be done on earth … Lead us not into temptation but …

THE LORD’S PRAYER AS A GIFT FOR LITURGY

When the disciples asked Jesus for a prayer, he said, “When you pray, say.” Literally, “say” means “repeat.” Some Christians (including me) are wary of liturgical prayers because they may turn into mindless, heartless repetition, to mere rote memory, and to external ritual. But surely Jesus was aware of these problems when he gave this prayer to his disciples. From experience in his Jewish world (where liturgical prayers had a long history), Jesus knows that his liturgical prayer will provide a framework for prayer, some hooks on which his disciples can hang their own praises and requests, their own complaints and queries. Also, the Lord’s Prayer provides for each of us a structured conversation with God. Dallas Willard relates how using the Lord’s Prayer as a framework strengthened his prayer life and how he began to “live” in the prayer. Jesus also knows this prayer will remind his followers of his priorities—priorities like God’s Name, kingdom and will, priorities physical, spiritual, and moral. As Richard Foster puts it, “In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves.” As Thomas à Kempis puts it: “O Lord, You know what’s good and bad, what’s better and worse, what’s best and worst—may my prayer be as You wish it to be.” Jesus also knows that his own prayer will prevent his disciples from lapsing into self-saturated prayers. Lauren Winner, a convert from liturgical Judaism to liturgical Christianity, observes, “Liturgy is not, in the end, open to our emotional whims.” And Jesus knows that giving them this prayer gift will establish a new tradition to inform and inspire all his followers—world without end. There you have it, a brief defense of the personal, liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer. Again, Richard Foster tells how one of the most liberating experiences of his life was when he learned to pray “so that my experience conformed to the words of Jesus rather than trying to make his words conform to my impoverished experience.” Two years ago, as a result of pondering the Lord’s Prayer, I became convinced of its centrality for understanding Jesus. The Lord impressed upon me that if I thought this way, I needed to make it more real in my teaching. Now, when each of my Jesus classes is over, we all recite the Lord’s Prayer. I am daily amazed at the truth of what Tertullian, an early Christian leader, observed: “In the [Lord’s] Prayer is comprised an epitome [summary] of the whole Gospel.” (Not only do we end each class with the Lord’s Prayer, but we begin each class by reciting the Jesus Creed.) The Lord’s Prayer is a gift to guide our prayers, and when we use the Lord’s Prayer to nurture our prayers, we rub the oil of the Jesus Creed into the chambers of our heart. We learn at least four things when we permit the Lord’s Prayer to mentor our prayer life.

We learn to approach God as Abba The first distinctive feature of the Lord’s Prayer is its emphasis on addressing God as Abba. We begin right here: confident, eye-to-eye love with our Abba. To love God means, in prayer, to call him Abba. This is the signature term of Jesus, and it marks the center of his teaching about God.

We learn what God really wants If we love someone, we love what they love. God’s love plan is for his glorious Name to be honored and his will to become concrete reality on earth. Earth is Abba’s frontier; heaven is already his. In pondering God’s Name, kingdom and will, we are prompted (daily) to yearn for what God yearns for. Love always prompts yearning. When our daughter, Laura, first went off to school, we noticed that she loved her teachers and yearned to become a teacher. As parents, we joined in her yearning to teach, which she was already “doing.” In her first year of school, in Nottingham (England), she came home from class, wrapped her chair and herself behind the long curtains of our living room, and taught her class behind the curtains. When we moved back to the United States, our attic became a classroom with a desk, chalkboard, table, and bookshelf. When she went off to college, her little classroom went silent, but it was no surprise to us when, in her senior year of college, she returned to sort through her things for a “real” classroom. Weekends at home meant endless conversations with her about how to draw up a résumé, how to write a cover letter, which schools to contact and which references to include. Her life was prompted by her love: a yearning to teach. We were all grateful when the opportunity came; she signed the contract, and (now five years later) she loves what she yearned to be: a teacher. How do we learn to yearn for what Jesus taught? The wisdom of our fathers teaches us to use the Lord’s Prayer as a framework for how our love for God is to be expressed in prayer. Each day we can repeat the Lord’s Prayer and “hang our own words” on its hooks. We repeat “Hallowed be your name,” and we ponder it; then we repeat “your kingdom come,” and we do the same; and then the same for “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The prayer provides structure; its content is rock solid; it helps us avoid selfishness; and these simple words quietly create a little miracle of transformation.

We learn to think of others The most conspicuous amendment to the Kaddish? Petitions about others. As Jesus didn’t leave the Shema to be a God-only thing, so he didn’t leave the Kaddish to be a God-only thing. And he doesn’t want it to be an I-only thing either. If we learn to hang our prayers on the framework of the Lord’s Prayer, we will learn to pray for others. We do this, not to observe a routine, but because this is what happens to love for others when it morphs into prayer.

We learn what everyone needs Hanging our prayers on the framework of the Lord’s Prayer will lead us to yearn that all will have provision, be granted forgiveness, and be spared temptation. What do these mean? We need to think our way back into Jesus’ world by recalling that we have just petitioned the Abba about his Name, kingdom, and will. Our concern is with God’s breaking into history to make this world right for all of us. And that means praying for others so that they will have adequate provisions, spiritual purity*, and moral stability. I don’t know about you, but I tend to begin my prayers for others with what I know about them and what they need. Jesus offers another path: We can begin with what he wants for them. By using the Lord’s Prayer, we join his loving prayer for them.

THE LORD’S PRAYER AS GIFT FOR ACTION

Prayer does not stop with the “Amen.” It rises to its feet and walks off, with our built-up yearning turned into action. For years I have taught that the Lord’s Prayer is a commitment of the pray-er to the values of the Lord’s Prayer, but no one has said this better than Frank Laubach:

It [the Lord’s Prayer] is the prayer most used and least understood. People think they are asking God for something. They are not—they are offering God something. … the Lord’s Prayer is not a prayer to God to do something we want done. It is more nearly God’s prayer to us, to help Him do what He wants done.… He wanted that entire prayer answered before we prayed it.… The Lord’s Prayer is not intercession. It is enlistment.

Again, the Lord’s Prayer is what happens to the Jesus Creed when it turns into prayer. But it is the Jesus Creed ultimately that is the design of God for our lives. We are made to love God by following Jesus and to love others. Mike Breaux, formerly pastor at Southland Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, realized that Jesus’ words in Luke 14:13–14 about inviting the poor and the disabled to banquets were intended to be practiced as well as prayed. High school proms are the extravagant event of the year where students divide up into social classes, display privilege, and dance the night into their dreams. Mike noticed that the disabled students in the community found the traditional prom to be disprivileging and nightmarish. Acting on what the Bible says about loving others enough to do something about it, he and his team devised what they call the “Jesus Prom: Night of the Stars.” If Jesus invited all to his table, so the church could and would—to the tune of about 500 disabled (and not just disabled) promgoers! Donors in the church provided tuxes and dresses and limousine services, as well as a lavish banquet and the dance. These kids might not be graceful dancers or have the quickest feet, but the joy on their faces when they experienced the Jesus Prom thrilled the hearts of Southland Christian Church and brought a little of the kingdom to Lexington. What Breaux and his team did is exactly what Jesus meant when he amended the Kaddish in light of the Jesus Creed. Pray for what your Abba wants; pray for what others need; and when done praying, live out the Jesus Creed.

CHAPTER 3

The Abba of the Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 6:9–15; Luke 15:11–32

As a nine-year-old I took up the game of golf, much to my mother’s delight. At a minimum, she reasoned, my hyperactivity would vanish from the house for five hours—or, with any luck at all, for six or seven hours. My father’s joy, so I think now, was a response to my mother’s relief. My father golfed only occasionally, but one time he told me this golfing truth: “If you hit the ball straight, you will have better scores.” The problem with truths, of course, is absorbing them into the core of our being so that they can shape our lives. Even today, when traipsing through weeds off the fairway or poking my club into some pond to retrieve a ball, I recall that little golfing truth my father told me. He was, and is, right. The most important divine truth ever given is far truer and even more difficult for us to absorb than a simple golfing truth. From Moses to Malachi and from Jesus to John, the Bible witnesses to this elemental truth: God loves us. He loves you, and he loves me—as individuals. This big truth needs to be absorbed into our beings. God’s love is an easy creed to confess but difficult to absorb. The Jesus Creed works like this: Because God loves us, because he knows what is best for us and wants what is best for us, he invites us to find that “what is best” by loving him back. When this happens, the windows are thrown open to the breezes of his healing love. If the content of the Jesus Creed is loving God and loving others, the premise of the Jesus Creed is that God loves us. That love is expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, the distinctive prayer of Jesus that begins with a name for God. When uttered by humans, this name opens the window to God’s very loving presence.

ABBA, FATHER

The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Abba, Father.” Jesus is decidedly lopsided when it comes to names for God: every prayer of Jesus recorded in the Gospels begins with “Abba, Father” except the famous “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” utterance from the cross. Jesus’ contemporaries had plenty of “names” for God—the most notable of which (YHWH) was never pronounced. Other names were used, like Lord and God and God Almighty. Rarely did they address God as “Father” in prayer. So why does Jesus focus so narrowly on Abba as the name for God? God may be YHWH, but that sacred name evokes mystery; YHWH may be King, but that term evokes distance. From a long list of names, Jesus chooses Abba. What Jesus wants to evoke with the name Abba is God’s unconditional, unlimited, and unwavering love for his people. In this name for God we are standing face-to-face with the very premise of spiritual formation: God loves us and we are his children. In Abba Jesus chooses a term from home because love originates in the home where an Abba dwells. Not only does love begin there, but our first understandings of God begin at home and are transfers from both parents to God. We are wired this way. This is not something we do rationally and intentionally. It is something we do instinctually. Grant me this point, and I’ll give you one back: since none of us has perfect parents, none of us has a perfect sense of love to transfer to God. In fact, some of us—and I say this with the empathy of someone who has heard students’ stories for two decades—had awful childhoods, and just thinking about God’s love is confusing, bewildering, and nearly incomprehensible. Some of our heart openings are rusted shut because of the way our parents loved (or didn’t love) us. Those of us with this past need the reeducation of our hearts and a new vision of the beauty of God’s love taught by Jesus. What we need is the oil of Abba’s love to penetrate through our rusty heart openings, as it did to the heart of Wesley Nelson. Wesley was an emotional, sensitive child, and a self-confessed crybaby. When family members teased him in good fun, it wounded him. He describes the crucial moment.

One day we were out in front of our farmhouse when I suddenly realized that my mother had left. She probably just went into the house, but as soon as I missed her I began, as usual, to scream for her. My father had grown weary of this endless crying and had begun to chide me for it. This time he said, “Mother is gone. She’s tired of your yelling. She’s left for good. She’ll never come back.” With that, of course, I only screamed louder.… I am sure that my mind would have told me that it was not true, but all I could do was feel the weight of his words and the yearning for my mother.

At the simplest of physical levels, of course, he did find her. But hear these life-shaping words of his:

The fact is that my mother did not come back to me. I am sure that she must have come back and taken me in her arms and comforted me as she always had done before, but that act was blotted from my memory. What my father had said made such an impression on me that I had to make it come true. I know, of course, that she continued to care for me, but for me the emotional ties were broken, and her love and care were no longer even a memory to me.… For fifty years I cried for her.

This story takes a psychologist to unravel, but this much I can understand: Wesley’s perception of God as a loving Abba was distorted by some cruel words from his father and some insensitive moments from his mother. It would take fifty years of heart work for Wesley to come to terms with Abba’s love for him. This is what I mean when I say that God’s love for us originates in our homes with our mothers and our fathers. If being spiritually formed means we are to love God, that formation can begin only if we are open to receive Abba’s unconditional love for us. To compensate for his emotional pain, Wesley Nelson transferred his love to the unwavering consistency of machines and science and rational formulas. Internally, he rusted shut. Time with the gospel of Abba’s love, however, worked like a solvent and shifted his trust from love of machines to love of God, and then to love of others. Fifty years later, Wesley records the day when God’s gracious solvent penetrated into his heart to release God’s love:

One warm afternoon … I drove to the top of the Berkeley hills, to a spot overlooking the Golden Gate. I sat on the ground and read awhile; and then I just sat and meditated. Suddenly it was as though I heard a voice saying, “I love you.” … What made this moment unique was that it was the God of steadfast love himself who was inviting me to apprehend the gospel.… Relaxed and released, I drove home, just in time for the evening meal. As we sat chatting together around the table, Margaret [his wife] said, “It’s nice to have you home again.”

Wesley Nelson’s life was never the same again: The solvent of Abba’s love dissolved the rust clogging his heart. As he says it, “The difference was that I had for once really heard with my soul the word that God loved me just as I was, with all my anxieties, defeats, frustrations, and problems.” God’s love is the premise of the Jesus Creed, and there is no better place to see this premise than in the oft-told Parable of the Prodigal Son.

ABBA WELCOMES A SON BACK HOME

If the center of Jesus’ heart is the Jesus Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer is what the Jesus Creed looks like in prayer, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is what the Jesus Creed looks like as a story. Jesus is surrounded by a crowd, and accusations are being made about his association with sinners with a sort of “What on earth is he up to now?” air hanging over everyone’s heads. So, Jesus tells a story and tells his audience what God is up to on earth—and what he is up to is surprising. A father has two sons, and the younger one wants his share of the estate early so he can venture off into a remote corner of the Roman Empire to goof off. Surprisingly, the father grants him his wish and cashes in some property, and the son abandons the Holy Land to waste the cash in wild living. The kid, bless his heart, runs out of money and works for a Gentile pig farmer (not your typical Jewish vocation). Reduced to yearning for pig slop, he comes to his senses and returns home. He confesses his selfish sinfulness for taking his father’s money and for disgracing his father’s name. Surprisingly, this Abba blows Torah-honoring social gaskets by throwing a party for the filthy son. To complete the picture, Jesus also tells of a not-all-that-surprising older son who pouts at his Abba’s love for his brother and who (again not surprisingly) pleads for special attention because of his own traditional good behavior. Remember, Jesus is surrounded and is being asked why he eats with sinners. Jesus tells this story to justify his behavior. He justifies his love for others (the second part of the Jesus Creed) by appealing to an Abba who is the focus of the parable. And when we look at this parable carefully, we see that this Abba is surprisingly loving and gracious. Another surprising feature of this parable is that the Abba is the first to notice his son’s return. Some Bible scholars observe a Jewish custom between the lines: when a son disgraces his father through sinful behaviors, runs away from him, and then later returns, the elders of the city take the young man to the village center and break a pot at his feet. The broken pot is a legal act of banishment. These scholars also think, in this parable, the Abba runs to his son so that he can prevent the really awful event he fears: others banning him from the community if they reach him first. So, the Abba sprints to the son and announces, “Quick! Bring the best robe.” The parable also tells us that the Abba celebrates reunion with his children. No public rebuke here when the son returns, and no need to drag the kid through the mud in front of everyone. His son’s return was clear proof of a softened heart. The Abba who justifies Jesus’ eating with sinners throws a party for his repentant children and grants them the clothing of elevated acceptance: they wear his robe, his ring, and his sandals. They roast the best calf and celebrate! This, Jesus says, is why I eat with sinners: I’m like the Abba who celebrates reunions with returning sons. The premise of the Jesus Creed is that God loves us. And that premise is all found in the term Abba.

ABSORBING THE TRUTH

Even better, the premise that God loves us is also a promise. God takes the first step toward us. It all begins with his gracious love for us, regardless of who we are and what we have done. He promises this much: he will love us. Jesus gives to each of us the name Abba to remind us daily, as we pray the Lord’s Prayer, that God loves us. But this truth is hard to absorb, partly because our wiring has been distorted by wounds in our pasts. So what can we do to absorb the truth of his love more completely? What can we do to make a living reality of what Jesus meant when he said his creed was to love God? Knowing God’s love begins when we open our hearts to Abba’s love. Opening here is a metaphor for vulnerability to God in the quiet of our hearts; it is trusting God’s love the way we relax on a doctor’s table, knowing he or she can heal us. Healing can’t happen until we relax in trust. We trust or become “open” to Abba’s love by sitting in his presence until we are inwardly still, clearing our minds of clutter, focusing on God, and consciously opening our hearts to Abba’s love. We trust him; we abide in his presence; we surrender to his love. The key to opening the heart is that we have hearts that have been keyed to open: God made our hearts, and he put in them openings for his key of love. Another way to open up to Abba’s love is to repeat throughout the day a short prayer reminder: “Father, thank you for loving me.” The wisdom of short—sometimes called breath—prayers has been planted in the church, in the pages of the Bible, and in the lives of spiritual advisors. Third, we can practice one faith action of God’s love a day. Most obvious is the act of faith we may call self-talk: telling ourselves that God loves us. We can say: “God loves me. He loves me, especially me. He knows me, especially me. I am loved by God.” I can shrug off a wounding comment by telling myself that even though some person (the jerk) might not like me, God loves me. We can turn the assault of a painful memory into a glancing blow by reminding ourselves that, like the prodigal son, God welcomes the sinful home. Or, when we are tempted to think God loves only the (apparently) lovable people—who’ve got it all together, who are successful, who look great and are popular, who speak well in public, who’ve got big houses and cute kids and nice cars—we can remind ourselves of the sin-infested, pig-smelling, and years-wasting son who returned to the Abba. It was for him that the Abba threw a party. We can tell ourselves: A seat at Abba’s feast is better than anything, even if we arrive a bit late in dirty clothes. The Jesus Creed is to love God, and the premise under the Jesus Creed is a promise of truth: Abba loves us.

CHAPTER 4

The Jesus Creed as a Table

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 11:16–19; Mark 2:14–17; Luke 19:1–10

Tables create societies. A few years ago my son, Lukas, and some of his high school friends created their own holiday meal. However they came up with the name—and I’m told it was from a TV show—they now celebrate Festivus between Thanksgiving and Christmas. “Festivus,” they say, “for the rest of us and the best of us.” A better name would be “Crude-idicus Man-icus.” They’ve combined a medieval menu with medieval table manners. (We have a “don’t ask” arrangement.) When Festivus began, the young men were all single and women weren’t invited—unless they were willing to cook (in crude medieval fashion). Festivus is nothing but meat, potatoes, dessert, and libations. They eat with their hands—scooping potatoes with slabs of meat and spooning pie out of a plate with their fingers. Sleeves do quite well as napkins. For libation, they have a common bucket—they downed a small oak tree, cut out a small section, carved out its center, and each year they line it with a small plastic bag—for hygiene, they say. But, mostly, because it leaks like a politician’s office. Good, clean fun. Mostly. What interests me is the choice of a table to express their “fellowship” and “values.” Tired of the frills of holiday-season meals, put off by the choice of dishes at family holiday meals, wearied by the hours spent preparing such meals, annoyed by the need to wear uncomfortable clothing, and knowing that the mother of all holidays (Christmas) was now officially inching into their lives—they hopped off the rails that take us from Thanksgiving to Christmas and created a “man’s kind of meal.” Festivus: for the rest of us and the best of us. Their table created a society.

THE TABLE: A THICK WALL OR AN OPEN DOOR?

Tables can create societies; they can also divide societies. Jesus used the table to create an inclusive society, but some of his contemporaries understood his table to create a dangerous society. Jesus used the table to declare the Jesus Creed, while some of his critics wanted the table to speak tradition. He wanted to include people, while his opponents wanted to uphold purity customs. At the time of Jesus, table customs could be used to measure one’s commitment to the Torah. That is, fellow Jews were to eat with those who were pure; they were to eat what was kosher. Some who were careful about observing the Torah frowned on Jesus’ table customs. Frowned is a gentle description. “Denounced” would be a better term. An overlooked accusation against Jesus is this: “Here is a glutton and a drunkard.” The accusation is more than it first appears. It is a precise quotation of an ancient Israelite law book, which we’ll look at soon, and it is pinned to Jesus’ lapel because of his table customs. They saw in Jesus’ table customs, a table that was creating a society that was not the society they wanted. So what was Jesus doing? The apostle Matthew, to celebrate his newfound faith in Jesus, once hosted an evening dinner for Jesus. He invited his friends, who happened to be a group of raw reformed sinners, but some Pharisees raised their eyebrows and winced and then whined over the presence of such people at table. For the Pharisees, the table was supposed to talk, but it was to say “kosher” and “purity.” For them, the table became a wall between the observant and nonobservant—not because they were mean, but because they were zealous in their commitment to how they thought the Torah should be applied. But for Jesus the table was to be a place of fellowship and inclusion and acceptance. For Jesus the table was to embody the Jesus Creed: To love God and to love others means to invite all to the table. Jesus’ attitude gave him a bad name. For his custom of including all at the table, Jesus was called a “glutton and drunkard.” This expression points to a legal charge against Jesus. The accusers of Jesus use the specific language from a passage regulating how parents are to make legal charges against a rebellious son. Parents are to take the son to the elders and say, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then they are to stone the rebellious son to death in order to purge evil from the community. Yikes! All because of what Jesus is doing at the table. Tables can create a society. Jesus was trying to communicate something powerful in his table practice; they took his practice as awful. Why? Because they thought the table was to create a society of “Torah and tradition.” Jesus wanted his table to create a society shaped by the Jesus Creed. We can now put together our first few chapters. Jesus teaches that the center of life before God is the Jesus Creed. When the Jesus Creed turns into prayer, it becomes the Lord’s Prayer; when it becomes a story, it becomes the Parable of the Prodigal Son. And when it becomes a society, it becomes the table of welcome around Jesus. So when Jesus gets into trouble with the Pharisees about his table customs, it is the Jesus Creed that is being called into question. What Jesus wants his table customs to reveal is that the table is an open door for others to enter and not a thick wall between people. When Jesus opens the table to all, the table begins to tell a new story. But it is a story unlike the story of his contemporaries.

THE JESUS CREED AS A TABLE

The observant person’s table story: You can eat with me if you are clean. If you are unclean, take a bath and come back tomorrow evening. Jesus’ table story: clean or unclean, you can eat with me, and I will make you clean. Instead of his table requiring purity, his table creates purity. Jesus chooses the table to be a place of grace. When the table becomes a place of grace, it begins to act. What does it do? It heals, it envisions, and it hopes.

The table heals Jesus invites to his table those who are (spiritually and socially) sick, because Jesus can heal. When chided by the Pharisees for eating at Matthew’s table, Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” He heals them by inviting them to the table and dispensing grace through his presence and his words. In other words, at the table of Jesus other human beings found Abba’s love, and they find love of others—a fellowship of the Jesus Creed. I am often amazed at what a physical object can do to create space for the invasion of grace. Sometimes the object is a park where people can find quiet and wander about in wonder. Sometimes it is a church into which people can slip away from the bustle of a city to find a tranquil place to hear God speak. At other times it is a chair in a home, or a back screened porch, or a table at the local diner. These are physical objects that bring us into contact with Abba, objects that by themselves create for us a story—and tell a story of healing. My favorite story of a physical object’s leading to the onset of healing is about Alec Guinness (known to most of us as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the megahit Star Wars). While acting the role and wearing the garb of the priest Father Brown in Burgundy, France, he tells of a late-evening shoot that attracts a fair number of local folk, including children. He walks to his room that evening still wearing his priestly “costume” with no thought of what is to happen. He writes in his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise:

A room had been put at my disposal in the little station hotel three kilometers away [from location]. By the time dusk fell I was bored and, dressed in my priestly black, I climbed the gritty winding road to the village. In the square children were squealing, having mock battles with sticks for swords and dustbin lids for shields.… Discovering I wouldn’t be needed for at least four hours [I] turned back towards the station. By now it was dark. I hadn’t gone far when I heard scampering footsteps and a piping voice calling, “Mon père!” [French for “my Father”]. My hand was seized by a boy of seven or eight, who clutched it tightly, swung it and kept up a non-stop prattle. He was full of excitement, hops, skips and jumps, but never let go of me.… Although I was a total stranger he obviously took me for a priest and so to be trusted. Suddenly with a “Bonsoir, mon père,” and a hurried sideways sort of bow, he disappeared through a hole in a hedge.

Guinness continues with a reflection about the little boy that stood time still for him and created a story of healing:

He had had a happy, reassuring walk home, and I was left with an odd calm sense of elation. Continuing my walk I reflected that a Church which could inspire such confidence in a child, making its priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable could not be as scheming and creepy as so often made out. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed prejudices.

As the physical garment Guinness wears evokes the onset of healing for this movie star, so the table Jesus establishes evokes healing for the many who gather around it. That table does more than just heal people; it creates an alternative reality for them.

The table envisions Jesus’ table fellowship actually creates a new vision of what Israel means and is to become. When people sit at the table with Jesus, they are seeing and living a new society—the kingdom society of Jesus. Jesus’ kingdom society is the society in which the Jesus Creed transforms life. “Israel” now refers to those who love God by following Jesus. “Israel” describes those who are spiritually attached to Jesus. For Jesus, the table envisions a new society, and that means that the table is a boundary breaker and grace giver—a place where we can see what God can do when people are restored to fellowship with Abba. The table envisions because it is a door that opens and invites and includes. As such, the table creates a society. We should never lose touch with the power of sight, with the power that physical objects contain. Jesus uses a physical object, a table, to embody his vision for a kingdom society, those who are living out the Jesus Creed. The table of Jesus talks by envisioning a new society, a society of grace, of inclusion, of restoration, and of transformation. We need to ask what, at the physical level, our churches are saying.

The table hopes Jesus’ table customs anticipate the Age to Come. This is a bit of a claim, so notice how Jesus talks about his table fellowship. He states very clearly that his table anticipates eternity. He tells his followers that Gentiles can respond to him because in the Age to Come Gentiles will sit at his table. In that Day, Jesus says, ethnic boundaries will no longer matter. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples that he will not eat with them again until he sits at the table with them again in the kingdom. These two statements by Jesus lead to this perception: sharing table with Jesus is a foretaste of the kingdom of God for each of us. Take time, Jesus is saying to those who sit with him at the table, for a little taste of paradise.

WHEN THE JESUS CREED BECOMES A TABLE IN OUR WORLD

Abba loves us. Therefore, we are to love Abba and share Abba love with others. This will mean inviting people to our “table,” or our church, fellowship, home, or office, regardless of who they are or what they have been. What they will discover at the table is healing, envisioning, and hoping. My family and I attend Willow Creek, a “local” fellowship where doors have been thrown open to one and all, where healing occurs, where envisioning excites the imagination, and where hope settles in. Willow Creek, under the direction of its pastor, Bill Hybels, reaches into its community to invite all to the “table of fellowship,” and in reaching that community, it has set an example to churches across the globe. It tries to answer the question “Is there room at your table for me?” with a resounding “Yes!” No church is perfect; Willow is not either. But as a local expression of the table of Jesus, it is doing its part to live out the vision Jesus created at his table. It welcomes to the table with loving, ministering arms those with sexual problems, those with cancer and their families, those who need career guidance, those with addictions, those who need simple supplies and food, those with marriage and family problems, and those with developmental challenges. It helps families with financial advice, it has a special ministry for motorcyclists (called “Cruisin’ Creekers”!), it has a shop that “heals” broken-down cars and donates them to those who need cars. Also, it has a special knack at encouraging those with gifts in the arts, and it has a flourishing ministry for single adults (the most-neglected group in many churches). And among evangelical churches, no church has done more for embracing and ennobling women in ministry. It has a developing ministry for Latin Americans, and the ministry team is working hard for greater integration of African Americans. Nothing creates a society like a table, especially the table that turns the Jesus Creed into concrete realities.

CHAPTER 5

A Creed of Sacred Love

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 6:9–15; Luke 7:36–50; 19:1–10

Our love for God is sacred. Followers of Jesus daily confess in the Jesus Creed that they love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is the word all that reveals the nature of our love for God: It is a sacred love. Love is sacred because genuine love is total in its commitment. Love asks from us either “everything” or it asks for “nothing.” It asks for “all.” As Lewis Smedes says, in making a commitment of love to another “we surrender our freedom and we surrender our individuality.” God’s love for us is sacred. In Smedes’s memorable language, “Yahweh is the sort who sticks with what he is stuck with.” Any love that does not “stick with what it is stuck with” is not sacred, and it soon surrenders its splendor. And because love is sacred, compromises of love can crush the heart, darken the day, and harden the arteries of trust, as the following story reveals.

THE NIGHTMARE

Surely one of the most honest, penetrating, and heart-wrenching stories about the sacredness of love is Laurie Hall’s An Affair of the Mind. In this book Laurie painfully and carefully details how her husband, Jack, offered not his “all” but only “some” of his love to Laurie. Jack spiraled into sexual addictions, Laurie was nearly destroyed by his shallow love, and they are struggling to regain the sacredness of their former love. After enduring disappointments, dinners alone, excuses about Jack to the children, and then discovering what Jack was really doing, Laurie separates from him. She then begins to write him letters.

Here I am, three weeks into our separation. I didn’t sleep much last night. The bed seemed so cold without you in it. Finally, somewhere in the wee hours, I dozed off fitfully. When I woke up this morning, I thought back to that first morning when I awakened in your arms, so happy, so hopeful of all the bright tomorrows we were going to have. Yet, here I am 20 years later, thinking about how I might never again lie in your arms. Besides loneliness, I feel sick—like I’m going to throw up—and I tell myself I have to be strong for the children. But that’s not all I feel. What I feel mostly is anger. I’m mad. I don’t understand why you won’t let go of the pornography and the hookers. How could you choose them over the children? How could you choose them over me? You were all I ever wanted. How come I wasn’t enough for you?

Why does she ask this series of questions? Because love is sacred and survives only when it is held in honor. We know our love must be sacred because God’s love is sacred. One of Israel’s great prophets, back in the eighth century BC, discovered this secret about God’s love.

HOSEA’S OPEN SECRET: GOD IS A LOVER

The prophet Hosea openly revealed his secret to Israel by announcing that an entire nation needed to revise its understanding of its God. Prior to Hosea the relationship of God with Israel went something like this: “I am your God” and “you are my people.” After Hosea the relationship of God with Israel was: “I am your Lover and I want you, Israel, for myself.” Prior to Hosea no one dared to speak of God as a Lover. YHWH loves Israel the way a husband is to love his wife. Israel is to love YHWH with the same kind of love. Shockingly, Hosea then has the temerity to compare Israel’s love to the “love” of a wife who walks out the door one day and turns herself into a prostitute. It may be a little cheeky on Hosea’s part, but you’ve got to give him this: “prostitute” is an image that sticks in the mind, and his message doesn’t vaporize like a bland sermon. Incredibly, Hosea next suggests that God is so heartsick over his people’s unfaithfulness to him that he pleads with Israel to come back to him. YHWH, the spurned Lover of Israel, sounds like someone singing on an FM station. Speaking about his unfaithful wife, he announces:

I am now going to allure [or, romance] her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt (Hos. 2:14–15).

Hosea says God will romance Israel into exile, into the wilderness, into a honeymoon experience. There Israel will recollect herself, and begin to respond to him as she originally did. There she will, like Celine Dion, sing “it’s all coming back to me now.” Then, Hosea says, Israel will repeat her wedding vows to YHWH, saying “My husband.” This is Hosea’s open secret: God is the Lover of Israel. God loves his people with a sacred love. He won’t let go. Israel’s love is to be sacred. So, when the Jesus Creed calls us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are called to form a love relationship with God that is utterly sacred.

JESUS’ OPEN SECRET: GOD IS AN ABBA LOVER

According to Jesus, Hosea doesn’t go far enough when he reveals his open secret that God is a Lover. Jesus wants his disciples to know that God is a Lover whose sacred name is Abba. Jesus’ open secret, that God is to be loved as a human loves her or his own father, makes discipleship a relationship of sacred love to a loving Abba. Over and over, as we saw in chapter 3, Jesus calls God Abba. By revealing this secret, Jesus is not being disrespectful to, or overly familiar with, God. Indeed, Jesus urges his followers to speak of God’s special Abbahood uniquely: “Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” That is sacred love, written into the fabric of a name. That Jesus chooses Abba as the Name of God intensifies the significance of “love” in the Jesus Creed. When we comprehend our love of God as a sacred love for an Abba who loves us with a sacred love, we will learn to honor that love in heart, soul, mind, and strength. That is, our love for God is only truly sacred when we surrender to him totally, when it is our “all,” as the Jesus Creed emphasizes.

A LIFE OF SACRED LOVE

John Woolman, an early American Quaker*, was a sensitive soul who demonstrates what it means to live out the Jesus Creed with a sacred love. One of America’s finest writers on spiritual formation, Richard Foster, says that “no book outside the Bible has influenced me more than The Journal of John Woolman.” Converted to obedient faith in Jesus Christ as a young man, Woolman’s creed is the Jesus Creed: “True religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learn to exercise true justice and goodness [toward others].” What makes Woolman’s love sacred is that this creed shaped his entire life. Woolman’s focus in life was to call the world to equal treatment of all (especially African Americans and Native Americans) because Abba’s sacred love is for all. This means that we are to love others—all others. Nothing better illustrates Woolman’s response to Abba than a series of events in his last year. In 1772, as a result of the typical Quaker openness to God’s leading, Woolman was drawn to England to declare in that country that slavery was contrary to the gospel of a God who loves all and the Gospel call for Christians to love others. So sensitive was he of disturbing his wife, whom he deeply loved, that he vanished from his bed before daybreak without even saying good-bye. Instead of traveling in the nicer cabins on the ship, he bunked with the sailors in their sloppy, musty, cramped quarters—to minister to them and so he could empathize with the squalor of slave trade. What struck person after person after Woolman’s arrival in England was his plain-clothing witness to a simplicity that was fired by his sacred love of God as well as by his love of all creation. Instead of riding from London to the north of England, he walked, believing that the coach business abused animals and overworked its drivers. When Woolman made his trip, he was in weak health and tragically died in York, England, of smallpox. The family attending him was humbled (as we are) by his desire not to be a burden to them. What we see in Woolman, in fact, is what Jesus expects of anyone who comprehends what happens when one surrenders completely to, and in, the sacred love of Abba. This Creed of a sacred love transforms our lives; it calls for our “all.” When we genuinely love God with all of our hearts, all of our souls, all of our minds, and all of our strength, this sacred love will transform our speech, convert our actions, and inspire our worship.

Sacred love transforms our speech Jews at the time of Jesus speak of God with reserve. In so doing, they give us a little lesson on how speech can be transformed by sacred love. “Verbal” reserve begins with the command not to take the Name (YHWH) in vain. The logic of Jesus’ contemporaries is this: if we never pronounce YHWH, we will never use YHWH in vain. So, they figure out ways to avoid using the Name. Here’s a good illustration of Jesus’ own reserve: when on trial, he tells the authorities that they “will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One.” Instead of using the Name of God, Jesus says “The Mighty One” out of reverence. Jesus follows the Jewish custom of verbal reverence in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, hallowed be your name.” Messianic Jews today seek to retain the piety of this sort of Judaism. Some of them apply “verbal reserve” in how they write “God”: they write “G—d” so “God” can’t be pronounced. While I am not in favor of getting nutty here, it wouldn’t hurt modern Christians to develop some reserve in their “God talk.” But this reserve does not arise because God is a judge who, like Zeus, threatens the world with death-dealing thunderbolts if humans get out of hand. No, reserve in speech is what happens to a Christian’s speech when that speech is shaped by a sacred love for God, when the Christian loves God with “all the mind.” Sacred love not only transforms speech; it quickly makes an impact on our actions.

Sacred love converts our acts If the Jesus Creed expresses the essence of what God asks of us, then what he asks of us is to love him and to love others. Sin is any action that violates that love. Repentance is what happens when we realize in our deepest selves that we have violated the sacred trust of love with Abba and seek to renew our commitment. Repentance needs to be removed from the legal desk of “divine scorekeeping” where one line is balanced by another. Instead, it needs to be placed in Hosea’s divine bedroom of love. What animates this repentance is the utter awe of seeing what the sacred love of God is really all about. Abba is impeccably pure, majestically marvelous, and embarrassingly faithful in his love for us. It is this good sense of embarrassment that evokes repentance from us, and helps us to see our violations of love against God and others as sin. From the story Luke tells us about Zacchaeus, we learn that he is a “wee little man.” More important, he is a tax collector. What he collects above the taxes owed to the Roman Empire is his to keep. That is how the system works. Tax collectors at the time of Jesus were notorious for fraud, and that is why the Gospel writers list them with sinners. In acting the part, though, Zacchaeus violates the sacred trust of living with a sacred love for a loving God. And he violates a proper love for others by treating them and their property without integrity and respect. Sacred love once learned, however, converts acts of sin to acts of love. Jesus finds Zacchaeus in a tree and invites himself to eat at his house. Normally, Jews would not enter the home of a tax collector because the home would not be kosher. Jesus vindicates his socially unacceptable behavior of eating in a nonkosher home by drawing from the heart of Zacchaeus a sacred love—cleansing repentance. Zacchaeus stands tall, renews his love for others, and gives half his possessions to the poor and repays those he has poached fourfold. This is what happens when humans permit the sacred love of God to enter their lives. Soon that sacred love for God inspires worship, as can be seen in the life of a woman who lives out the prophecy of Hosea’s prostitute.

Sacred love inspires our worship Luke tells us of Jesus’ dining in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. A woman who “earns her oil” as a courtesan (a female prostitute reserved for wealthy Roman leaders) discovers the sacredness of loving God in Jesus. Assuming a place at the feet of Jesus, she weeps buckets of tears, kisses his feet, and then dries them with her hair. Then she pours expensive oil on his feet. The Torah-observant and tradition-conscious host pitches a fit, informing Jesus that this woman is a “sinner”—a nice euphemism for “hooker.” Jesus responds by reminding the host that this woman has loads of sins in her memory, a memory that reminds her constantly of how she has violated love of God and herself. She now adores Jesus because he leads her to the sacred love of Abba and his forgiveness. I can think of no better illustration of what genuine Christian worship is all about: Worship happens when I comprehend (1) who I really am before God—a love-violating sinner, (2) how faithful and gracious God is to his sacred commitment of love for me, and (3) how incredibly good God is to open the floodgates of that love to me. When I comprehend this, I anoint his feet with oil and wipe dry his feet of grace.

CHAPTER 6

A Creed for Others

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 10:25–37; Mark 12:28–34

Sometimes we need to get caught in order to learn. One time I got caught. My father was a driver’s-education instructor. One of his lectures taught that it was unsafe to drive in the winter before we had completely (and he meant completely) cleaned the windshield of all ice and snow. One night it rained hard, then it got cold, and then the rain froze. My junky station wagon’s windshield was covered with about a half inch of ice. I scraped for what seemed an eternity and was able only to clear a circle about the size of a basketball on the windshield. Running late to pick up my girlfriend (now wife), I took a chance that I would be able to see well enough. I could see well what was ahead, and what I saw was that I was heading into the side of a new Buick Electra. I smashed into a nice lady’s car and did some serious damage to it. She escaped unhurt. My car showed no signs of damage, with only some ice cracked off in a few places. My station wagon had the bulk and strength of a Hummer. I got caught driving contrary to good sense, and I learned my lesson. I gave the same lecture to my children and still do to unsuspecting students.

GETTING CAUGHT BY JESUS

Jesus tells parables that catch his readers in the web of a moral dilemma so they can learn. A good example is the Parable of the Good Samaritan.* An “expert in the Torah” asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus says, “What does the Torah say?” The expert answers, probably because he has heard the Jesus Creed from others: “Love your God … and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “A+!” Riding a little wave of Jesus’ approval, he gets a little chesty like a first-year theology student: “Well then, who is my neighbor?” What the scribe is really asking is not just “Who is my neighbor?” but “Who is pure and who is not?” He’s asking about a classification system. The “Who is pure?” question is also a “Who is to be loved?” question. Knowing that the question masks a larger concern, Jesus tells a story to catch this expert in the web of a moral dilemma so we can all learn. On a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho a man is attacked by a gang of robbers, leaving him nearly dead. A priest and a temple assistant (a Levite) come upon him separately, but fearing impurity* from contact with a corpse, they skirt to the other side of the road. They are following the Torah, mind you. One of Moses’ books spells it out: Dead bodies spread impurity.* In another of his books, priests are told not to contract corpse impurity unless from the body of a “close relative.” If close enough to a corpse to cast one’s shadow over the corpse, the person casting the shadow becomes impure. So, they shuffle to the other side of the road. This is not heartlessness so much as it is obedience. Therein lies the learning. There is not a Jew who hears Jesus’ parable who thinks the priest (or the Levite) is doing anything but what the Torah regulates. The irony of his little plot is that in “obeying” the Torah the priest and Levite are disobeying what is at the bottom of the Torah: loving others. Ironically, it is a stereotyped character that does what is right: a Samaritan. Samaritan in this parable stands for social hostility and religious heresy. The priest and Levite get caught while the Samaritan gets the teacher’s thumbs up. If we are to love God and love others, Jesus is asking his audience, what happens when love-of-God-as-obeying-Torah (the Shema of Judaism) comes into conflict with love-of-God-as-following-Jesus (the Shema of Jesus)? That’s a tough one, for all of us. But for Jesus the answer is clear: Loving God properly always means that we will tend to those in need. A plot within a plot. Jesus catches anyone who attends to the Torah (like avoiding impurity) but fails to attend to a person in need.

LOVE OF TORAH OR TORAH OF LOVE?

The Torah, so says Jesus, is a love-God-and-love-others Torah. Jesus is not against the Torah. He is against understanding it in such a way that its fundamental teachings about loving God and others are missed. The priest and Levite followed the letter of the Torah but failed in the spirit of the Torah. The expert’s question is “Who is my neighbor?” By catching the Torah-down-to-the-letter followers in an unloving act, Jesus reshapes that Torah-like question about classification into another question: “To whom can you be neighborly?” First-class plotting, I’d say, and few there are who are not caught on the rough side of this plot. Put differently, we are not called to the love of Torah but to the Torah of love. It is easy for us, in our twenty-first-century catbird seat, to look down our noses at the priest and Levite and toss on hot coals of criticism. It is easy but misguided because it shows that we, too, are caught in love of Torah instead of a Torah of love. “Love doesn’t sound so dangerous until you’ve tried it,” says Paul Wadell. Jesus calls us to surrender our “safe neighbor love,” which the priest and Levite were doing when they looked straight ahead; Jesus calls us instead to look to the side to see our neighbor who is in need, which is what the Samaritan did. Neighborly love looks to the side. When he walked on that path, he looked to the side and saw a wounded man in need. There are many Christians today doing all they can to look to the side and show compassion to those in need.

LOOKING TO THE SIDE TO SEE OUR NEIGHBOR

Southeast Asia’s Singapore Anglican churches are looking to the side. When they do, they see the mangled lives of the wounded in their communities. Instead of skirting around the wounded out of devotion to their own piety, they are dirtying their hands in help. Their work can inspire a new vision for ministries elsewhere. To avoid the so-frequent “division of labor” into evangelism or social action, they have developed an integrated ministry of reaching into the community called SHOW: Softening Hearts and Opening Windows. This work is not just for individuals “with the gift” of social action. All are learning that a broad and integrated ministry is the heart of following Jesus. Leaders lead in this effort, and families serve as families. Perhaps most significantly, the budget of the local churches is constructed in such a manner that as much as 50 percent is spent on (what Americans would call) social work for the community. To keep this vision for an integrated ministry fresh, the leaders of these churches have a strategy of intentionally looking to the side so they can find new needs: praying for the community corporately and privately, profiling their local community so they can discover the real needs, pursuing projects of both kindness and penetration, and partnering with other Christians to enhance their impact. Perhaps like the Samaritan and like these Singapore Christians, we need to spend more of our time looking to the side by profiling our communities in neighborly love. When we do, I suggest the following is what our love for others will look like.

Neighborly love begins in the home Surely one of the most touching scenes in the life of Jesus is when, on the cross, he issues the request to John to take responsibility for his mother, by saying, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to his disciple, “Here is your mother.” Jesus clearly affirms here the duty of loving one’s family. Sadly, far too many Christians love others with abandon while their own families are starving for their love. Let this be clear: Our home is also in our neighborhood. It is attention-grabbing to love the poor, to show compassion to AIDS sufferers, and to show mercy to victims. But it is attention-deflecting to wake up in the morning and ask, “What does my wife or husband, my daughter or son need?” and then attend to those needs. It is easier to see love in the public square than to show love in the home. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is often misused here: as if love is shown only in the most extravagant of places, at the most unusual of times, and to the most needy of all persons. Not so, Jesus suggests: neighborly love begins in the home. In fact, if it is not shown in the home, it is a sham in public. How can we show such love? A suggestion: In our morning prayers for our families, we could perhaps ponder each person in the family with this question: “What can I do for [name] today?” In so doing, our prayers for our families will become both private prayers of love and plans of neighborly love for the day.

Neighborly love is whenever love and wherever love In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is calling his listeners to act with compassion whenever and wherever a need arises. It was normal to travel from Jerusalem to Jericho. It was not normal to defile oneself in order to show compassion. But neither is it normal to come upon a man hovering near death. What the priest and Levite manage to circumnavigate (an unclean corpse) is a person whom the Samaritan manages to surround with compassion. We can’t calculate when the call of the second part of the Jesus Creed will be heard. We are to be ready whenever needed, as some friends were with us when I was studying in England. I teach today (in part, or even more) because of some “whenever” neighborly love by people who were like the good Samaritan: By “looking to the side,” they saw someone in need. One day a neighbor, Claire, asked Kris what we were going to do the following year. Kris said in passing that we were not sure how long our funds would last. Claire made it a concern of hers. When John (our pastor) and Elisabeth Corrie heard this, they prayed over the matter—all unknown to us. One Sunday, John asked if he could come by some evening for a chat. The knock came, we asked him in, and after the exchange of pleasantries that the British are so good at, he said, “Elisabeth and I have heard you may have a financial need if you are to continue your research. Some years ago we received some funds, and we have dedicated them to helping people like you. We will pay for your tuition bills next year. If the Lord blesses you, we’d like you to replenish the funds.” We gasped in gratitude, but inwardly our hearts were leaping in the joy of knowing Abba’s provision. It was their act of “whenever” neighborly love that set off a series of good events for us: it permitted me to finish the degree, which permitted me to get a teaching position, which permitted us to replenish their fund for others—and it is still going on. The Jesus Creed is a creed to love others, whenever and wherever. And as the Jesus Creed calls us to a sacred love for God, so it calls us to a sacred love for others.

Neighborly love is moral love Because our society has elevated tolerance to the highest of virtues, our society remains confused about what “love” means. Christians are not called to tolerance; Christians are called to love. Toleration condescends; love honors. But for many, love-as-toleration implies not exercising moral judgment about another’s choices and actions. We all hear about Christian love aplenty—and what we hear is that Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Thus, they infer, Jesus teaches love that means we are not to make moral judgments about others. Au contraire: Jesus’ love is always moral, because love is always sacred. Love is the human response to others in light of the Abba’s sacred love and our sacred love for Abba. Jesus’ amendment of loving God is revealing: He adds to the sacred Shema of Israel a verse from Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus hereby endorses the authority and meaning of “love” in Leviticus at some level. Jesus never defines what he means by love, but by quoting Leviticus he doesn’t have to: That chapter defines it for him. Love in that book of Moses means respecting parents, providing for the poor, protecting private property, honoring one’s word, caring for the physically challenged, seeking justice for the powerless, living in sexual purity, showing love for one’s enemies—and lots more! This is the source for the amendment in the Jesus Creed. And that source reveals that love is morally sound, or sacred. The Jesus Creed is a call for each of us to become channels of God’s love to others in need. James Bryan Smith, in his Embracing the Love of God, succinctly sums up the second part of the Jesus Creed: “God has created a world in which we are the ones who care for one another. To put it another way, God cares for us through one another.” No book was more influential in the heady days of the late 1960s and early 1970s among evangelicals than Francis Schaeffer’s The Mark of a Christian. His final words are profound because they reflect a sacred love in search of others:

Love—and the unity it attests to—is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.

PART TWO

Stories of the Jesus Creed

PROLOGUE

A spiritually formed person loves God by following Jesus and loving others.

As an expression of loving God and loving others, a spiritually formed person embraces the stories of others who love Jesus.

In later creeds, Christians will confess that they believe in the “communion of saints.” This communion was under way during the lifetime of Jesus. Already, those who were associated with Jesus were sharing their stories and their lives. Already during the lifetime of Jesus, the disciples were living out the second table of the Jesus Creed by loving one another.

At the table in the community of Jesus, we listen to the stories of a number of people: the predecessor of Jesus, John the Baptist; the family of Jesus, especially Joseph and Mary; the special followers of Jesus, including Peter and John; and the growing number of women who find joy in the community of Jesus. Each has a story to tell. In the community of Jesus, each story is embraced.

CHAPTER 7

John the Baptist: The Story of New Beginnings

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 3:1–20; John 1:6–9, 15, 19–34

Yellow is not my favorite color. But now that I know the story of Vincent van Gogh, I have come to value yellow differently. This famous Dutch painter, sadly, tossed away the truth imparted to him in his Christian home and sank into depression and destruction. By the grace of God, as he later began to embrace that truth again, his life took on hope, and he gave that hope color. The best-kept secret of van Gogh’s life is that the truth he was discovering is seen in the gradual increase of the presence of the color yellow in his paintings. Yellow evoked (for him) the hope and warmth of the truth of God’s love. In one of his depressive periods, seen in his famous The Starry Night, one finds a yellow sun and yellow swirling stars, because van Gogh thought truth was present only in nature. Tragically, the church, which stands tall in this painting and should be the house of truth, is about the only item in the painting showing no traces of yellow. But by the time he painted The Raising of Lazarus, his life was on the mend as he began to face the truth about himself. The entire picture is (blindingly) bathed in yellow. In fact, van Gogh put his own face on Lazarus to express his own hope in the Resurrection. Yellow tells the whole story: life can begin all over again because of the truth of God’s love. Each of us, whether with actual yellows or metaphorical yellows, can begin to paint our lives with the fresh hope of a new beginning. Some, like van Gogh, may need to start opening their hearts to God. Some need to hop back on the tracks after failures have derailed them. Some simply need a time of retreat to discover once again God’s restoring Spirit. Some are suffering through divorce and are struggling to glue together the remaining chunks of life. Others are enduring a particularly stressful time at work and need to settle into a more balanced life. Some have recently lost their jobs and need to hear from God that he is with them. Some are swirling in an internal vertigo as a result of an illness, while others are struggling with their children packing off to college. (Others holler a hoot of joy!) Some are grieving the death of a best friend, or a spouse, a parent, or a child. Each of us sometimes needs to begin life all over again, all the time. If the promise is that we can begin all over again, the question for us is “How?” The first thing we need to do is return to the Jordan River, where the prophet John the Baptist urges his listeners to begin again.

A PROPHET AT THE JORDAN

The Jordan River calls to mind two crucial moments in history. Each is about new beginnings. First, when the children of Israel finally crossed that river they began a new life in the Land of Israel. Second, those who were baptized by John began life all over again—and they, too, crossed back over the Jordan to live in the Land of Israel. To understand how John offered his audience the opportunity of beginning life all over again, it is important to grasp how prophets in Israel operated in their day. Three items shape what we can learn from John. We can begin by comparing priests and prophets, a good comparison because John’s father was a priest and John was a prophet. A priest speaks for humans to God in the privacy of the temple. A prophet speaks for God to humans in the publicity of the town square. Priests wiped sins from the people; prophets wiped sins in their faces. Most important, priests summoned people to tell the truth so they could make restitution, but prophets summoned people to tell the truth so they could start all over again. But prophets didn’t always use words. Occasionally, they acted things out. Readers of the Bible know that the ancient prophets often acted out their messages. Consider, from the Old Testament, the following prophetic dramas: • Jeremiah burying his “underwear” (Jer. 13:1–7) • Ezekiel acting out a “trip to Babylon” (Ezek. 12) • Isaiah walking around naked for three years (no kidding, look it up in Isa. 20) John the Baptist, the son of a priest, digs in his feet at the edge of the Jordan River and acts out his drama. For his act, he baptizes people in the famous River Jordan. Location also matters. John sets up his baptismal stage on the far side of the Jordan. It is here that the children of Israel entered the water to cross the Jordan to enter the Land. John is saying that if Israel wants to enjoy the blessings of God, they need to go back to the Jordan and begin again. Amazingly, John’s prophetic drama is a reenactment of the entry into the Land. This is the only way to make sense of John in his world: He wants his audience to see that life can begin all over again. At the Jordan, John gives us the opportunity to start over. How? John has a word for it.

LIFE BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN WITH TRUTHTELLING

The first word out of John’s mouth is “Repent!” This is repentance with an edge—a sharp one. As Frederick Buechner puts it so memorably: “No one ever invited a prophet home for dinner more than once.” John maybe not even once. John explains that repentance means they must confess their sins. Herein lies the secret to a new beginning, a secret van Gogh began to discover only late in his life. To confess means that we tell God the truth. Nothing simpler, nothing harder. Why? As America’s essayist Joseph Epstein says,

We all exist on at least three levels: there is the person as he or she appears in public; the person as he or she is known to intimates, which include family and dear friends; and that person, deepest of all, who is only known to him-or herself, where all the aspirations, resentments, fantasies, desires, and much else that is not ready for public knowledge reside.

Facing reality is telling the truth about each of our levels to God: our public persona (not so hard), our family image (that’s meddling), and our inner self (the hard part). The Jesus Creed begins with loving God. Love, for it to work at all, requires truthtelling. Telling this truth to God is how we genuinely love Abba, and it creates a new beginning in life. Our “Yes” to God is, in the words of theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand, “the primal word” and “cannot be spoken too clearly, too wakefully, too explicitly.” Ever since Eve and Adam, we have been trying to hide from God, to no avail, for the Creator of Eden continues to summon us in our own gardens, asking, “Where are you?” Because we have learned to hide, we need new beginnings to set us free, and the new beginnings begin at our own Jordans when we tell the truth. As John Paul II has put it:

To acknowledge one’s misery in the sight of God is not to abase oneself, but to live the truth of one’s own condition.… The truth thus lived is the only thing in the human condition that makes us free.

It takes utter honesty to tell the (real) truth to God, and we are inclined to blame others. Mark Twain gave some advice to “good little boys” that included this line: “You should never do anything wicked and then lay it on your brother …”—and, had he stopped there, it would be sound advice. But, Twain being Twain, he continues, “… when it is just as convenient to lay it on some other boy.” This won’t do. We need to take responsibility for our lives. In the words of Henri Nouwen, who was not a Twain, we have to “drink our own cup.” Drinking our own cup permits truth to penetrate and awaken us at the deepest levels of the heart.

TRUTHTELLING AWAKENS FORGIVENESS

Telling God the truth awakens forgiveness. Sometimes one gets the impression from misguided experts that God is holding a club over our heads, and the moment we tell the truth he cracks us a good one and then says, “You ugly little sinner!” But Abba is not like that. The promise of the Jesus Creed is that Abba loves us. He creates us to love him; he desires our fellowship. So, truthtelling is not an opportunity for head bashing, but an opportunity for the heart of Abba to be thrilled by reconciling forgiveness. Henri Nouwen once confessed the following about truthtelling:

I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding.

Truthtelling reunites us with God because it unleashes his forgiveness. Prior to telling the truth, we hide and are in what Philip Yancey calls the cycle of ungrace. By failing to tell the truth, we face God with our heads cocked sidewise. Lewis Smedes, who has poured grace all over the discussion of forgiveness, tells us, “without truthfulness, your reunion [with God] is humbug.” About what are we to tell the truth? Our whole self, of course. But let’s look at what sins John trots out on his stage at the Jordan. He makes repentance real.

TRUTHTELLING GETS REAL

He calls us to tell the truth about a number of things:

Our spirituality: Luke 3:7–9 Some religious experts in John’s audience think they can appeal to their heritage, clinging to their faith line with Abraham. John stands on the shoulders of other prophets who gave the same warning: “Your ethnic background won’t save you,” he tells his audience. John is no doubt proud to be a Jew, but he knows that spirituality is more than good spiritual genes. We need to hear the same: we may live in the spirituality of our fathers and mothers, but our father’s and mother’s faith won’t live in us (until we tell the truth to God about ourselves). If we transcend our backgrounds by telling the truth, life can begin all over again. We need to tell the truth about our spirituality: where is it anchored? John faces another set of people gathered at the Jordan, and in so doing faces us as well.
Our possessions: Luke 3:10–11 The Bible speaks often of money because it is with money that we exercise the freedoms of choice. This is hard for many Western Christians, because so many of us are soaking in what J. I. Packer calls “hot tub religion.” The unquenching human desire for more—bigger houses, spiffier cars, trendier clothes—is what led St. Francis to renounce possessions, what led the Mennonites to a simple lifestyle, and what leads some to urge all Westerners to live more with less. “The man with two tunics,” John says, “should share with him who has none.” This warning about accumulating things only for ourselves John barks out on the banks of the Jordan. Jesus soon will echo John’s message about economic justice on the hills of Galilee. Their warnings still await a Church that will listen. Heeding the call of John leads to a new beginning. If we love God and love others, we will find the truth about how close our hearts are to our possessions. We need to tell the truth about our possessions: How important are they? John turns to two more groups. In facing them, he also sees our faces.
Our power: Luke 3:12–14

John sees the faces of tax collectors who’ve gathered to listen to him at the Jordan. John knows they are freelance experts in theft. He then faces the soldiers, who are known for extortion and injustice. The two groups stand together in the name of abusing power. But power is not just in their hands. Abusive power is seen when fathers wrench the hearts out of their daughters with despicable acts, bosses break the spirits of employees with unrealistic or uncommunicated demands, and pastors devastate their congregations when they carry on behind closed doors. Power is also wielded destructively when brutal words brand themselves on the memories of those we love or with whom we work. If we love God and love others, we will use our power for the good of others. When we do, we are offered a new beginning in life. We need to tell the truth about power: how do we use it? For those who learn to tell the truth, John implies, there will be a story to tell. And a spiritually formed person embraces the stories of those who love God and others, who embrace the Jesus Creed. In the next few chapters we will focus on some of those stories, but we conclude this chapter by looking at a man who changed the world because his story was one of truthtelling.

A TRUTHTELLER

Every Christmas many of us encounter men and women standing in public places ringing bells near suspended red buckets. They are members of the Salvation Army. They collect funds to relieve the spiritual and social suffering of a quarter of a million persons a year. These efforts began with William Booth, who is a good example of truthtelling. Here Booth faces the truth eye-to-eye:

The entrance to the Heavenly Kingdom was closed against me by an evil act of the past which required restitution. [He had deceived his friends and received a silver pencil-case as a reward. He knew it was wrong and should give it back.] … to confess the deception I had practiced upon them was a humiliation to which for some days I could not bring myself. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, … the resolution to end the matter, the rising up and rushing forth, the finding of the young fellow I had chiefly wronged, the acknowledgement of my sin, the return of the pencil-case—the instant rolling away from my heart of the guilty burden, the peace that came in its place, and the going forth to serve my God and my generation from that hour.

Booth told the truth to God and to others, and because he did, his life began all over again. When we tell God the truth and accept responsibility for who we are and what we’ve done, we find the Jordan to be a stream of living and forgiving and empowering water, a river that washes us so we can begin all over again. This river, so I suggest, is awash in van Gogh’s yellow.

CHAPTER 8

Joseph: The Story of Reputation

GOSPEL READING Matthew 1:18–25

I was converted in high school. My pride suffered because my reputation was so important to me. I was an athlete, and that was my identity. I ran cross country, played basketball, and competed for the track team. A three-sports kind of guy. That was my reputation, and I liked it. I wasn’t Bo Jackson or anything, but I wasn’t a wimp either. I was somebody, and I had a reputation because, so I thought, I was an athlete. When I wasn’t looking over my shoulder, and when I was least expecting it, the Lord invaded my life, worked the miracle we call “conversion,” and simply “ruined” my reputation. It happened early in the month of August, and by the time school started up, I had a whole new set of friends and habits, including a voracious appetite to read the Bible, pray, and spend time in group Bible studies. We quickly organized a high school Bible study at our church at seven o’clock on Friday mornings, and as that word got around, word also got around that “McKnight had religion.” I remember entering the locker room the first time my senior year. I had a Bible on top of my books and one of my friends grabbed it, held it up for all to see, and said something rather insulting about my manhood—as only athletes can do. It hurt, but I held my tongue. When I explained to a teacher that I had decided to go to a Christian college instead of somewhere else, he told me (in front of my classmates) that I was “wasting my life.” That hurt too. But deep inside, I was so contented I was able to deflect the wounding words. I reached a point where I didn’t mind the hassle, but I also discovered that I had to learn to think of myself in different terms. I was no longer “Mr. Athlete” but an ordinary Christian like any other Christian. I learned in the low-heat crucible of high school interaction that what someone else thinks of me (my reputation) is not the final answer: I know what I “think” of me and I know what God thinks of me (my identity), and it is what God thinks that really matters. Our reputation (what others think of us) is not as important as our identity (who we really are). Spiritual formation begins when we untangle reputation and identity, and when what God thinks of us is more important than what we think of ourselves or what others think of us. Around the table of Jesus sit people who tell stories of their newfound identities. One of those is Jesus’ own father, and the story he has to tell us about his life—his autobiography—is a story about his losing a hard-earned reputation and gaining an identity. The story of Joseph begins with his Jewish religious context. Joseph’s story is one of the great ones of the New Testament, though few know it. But to understand what Joseph went through, we have to explain Joseph’s religious and social dilemma.

I AM A TSADIQ*

What is Joseph’s reputation? The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Joseph is “righteous.” That is, in the Hebrew word of his day, he is a tsadiq. Sounds like tsa-DEEK. This label, this reputation, is given to anyone who studies, learns, and observes the Torah scrupulously. In Joseph’s world, that means he recites and lives the Shema daily, that he follows the food laws, that he supports the synagogue, and that he regularly celebrates the high holy days in Jerusalem. Joseph is proud of his reputation. In Joseph’s world there are no reputations more desirable than tsadiq—unless you are a priest (unusual), a prophet (rare), or the Messiah (very rare). Joseph’s reputation as a tsadiq is about to be challenged because things are being said in the “locker rooms” of Nazareth about his fiancée.

MY REPUTATION IS CHALLENGED

Before their marriage, word is out that Mary is pregnant. Neighbors are saying, to use that clever term of the American South, that Mary is “common.” Transfer “common” to the world of Joseph, who follows the Torah, and get another reputation for Joseph. If Joseph continues in his relationship with Mary, he will be called what Jews called the religiously common, or Torah-tacky people of their day. They will call him a member of the Am ha-aretz.* Such people don’t observe the Torah: they eat ham sandwiches, pass on tithing, and idle on street corners with Gentiles. Young women who dabble in sexual relations before marriage are not much different—for that is what the neighbors are thinking Mary has done. And Joseph is about to marry such a woman. If he does, he will lose his reputation as a tsadiq, and reputation matters to Joseph. Joseph will be no better than the Am ha-aretz, common people who think the Torah is hooey. So, what is Joseph to do?

I APPEAL TO TORAH

Joseph knows what to do if he wants to maintain his reputation. He is a tsadiq, a Bible believer, so he consults the Books of Moses to see what he is to do. We need to slow down here to explain a few complex “legal” matters, because these are going through Joseph’s head as he struggles to maintain his reputation. In the Torah he learns what to do with Mary: She has either been seduced or raped. If she has been seduced, the Torah says that both Mary and her seducer are to be stoned to death. If she has been raped, the rapist is to be put to death. But, if no one confesses, the Torah says that Mary is to drink the “waters of bitterness.” If she dies from the water, she is guilty; if she doesn’t die, she is innocent. Or, from yet another part of the Torah Joseph could have consulted, her parents could produce “tokens of virginity,” which needs no explanation. With these options swirling in Joseph’s head, he hears Mary’s story: she claims that she was neither seduced nor raped. Instead, she claims the pregnancy is the result of a miracle: God has done this. Here is where Joseph finds himself: he is a tsadiq who will do anything to follow the Torah. Mary, the woman he loves and wants to marry, is pregnant. She claims her pregnancy is from God. If Joseph marries her, he loses his reputation. But, he asks himself, what if Mary is right? What if the baby is a miracle baby? Joseph is struggling with God. Would God do something like this?

I STRUGGLE WITH GOD

Joseph wants to know what to do. He is caught on the horns of a dilemma: will he love God by obeying the Torah (as understood in his circle), or will he love Mary and take her as his wife? Unknown to Joseph, he is caught on the horns of the dilemma created by what will become the Jesus Creed. With his reputation grasping for control, he chooses a “private” divorce to avoid a public spectacle … until an angel tells him not to fear. Not to “fear”—why? Because if he marries Mary, he will destroy his reputation. The angel explains to him that the baby has been conceived virginally. Joseph is acutely aware that few of his friends will believe his story about the angelic visitation, and (surely) no one will buy the report of a conception* through the Holy Spirit. Joseph, they will be thinking, is attempting to cover up Mary’s big fat miracle story with a kosher Jewish wedding! Sometimes the implication of listening to the voice of God is that we ruin our reputation in the public square. Loving God, as the Jesus Creed teaches, involves surrendering ourselves to God in heart, soul, mind, strength—and reputation. The minute we turn exclusively to the Lord to find our true identity is the day reputation dies. We learn, as Thomas à Kempis puts it, that when you surrender your reputation, “you won’t care a fig for the wagglings of ten thousand tongues.” This is what Joseph and Mary learn. It is also what John Stott had to learn. John Stott, the Church of England pastor who may be the most influential evangelical leader of the twentieth century, faced Joseph’s dilemma between identity and reputation while in college. When he became convinced that the Lord was calling him into the ministry, John informed his father, Arnold, a physician. John knew that his father would think his gospel calling “would bring to nothing, in his [father’s] eyes, the high hopes he cherishe[s] for his son.” If Arnold Stott sees in John’s decision to go into the ministry a destruction of reputation, it is no wonder that John later defined spiritual formation in terms of identity: “When the Christian loses himself, he finds himself, he discovers his true identity.” Hinting at his own personal struggle, Stott says that Christ’s Lordship “includes our career.… God’s plan may be different from our parents’ or our own.” We don’t know what Joseph’s parents thought, but we do know what his heavenly Father thought. Joseph turns to God.

I AM MARY’S HUSBAND AND JESUS’ (LEGAL) FATHER

The decisive act of Joseph is found in a simple expression: “He did as he was told.” Soon Joseph gives Mary’s little boy a name, and so makes the relationship to the child legal. Joseph’s reputation was getting worse as his identity was getting better. Legally, now, Joseph is tied to two persons with sullied reputations: Mary is perceived as an adulteress (a na’ap) and Jesus is considered an illegitimate child (a mamzer*). The decision to take Mary home and legally adopt Jesus is unbecoming for a tsadiq. For Joseph it is a decision of obedience, for he now finds his identity in God. Joseph is no longer a tsadiq. Instead, he is husband of Mary and the (legal) father of Jesus.

JOSEPH AND THE JESUS CREED

Joseph, while Jesus is but an “embed” in Mary, is already learning the Jesus Creed: Joseph is to love God by following Jesus (not by following the Torah and its interpretation), and he is to love others—both Mary and the baby. In fact, we can be forgiven if we wonder if maybe Jesus learned the Jesus Creed at the feet of his father and mother. The first story heard around the table of Jesus is that identity is more important than reputation. Joseph learns that who he is before God (his identity) is more important than who he is in the circle of his pious friends (his reputation). Another who followed the example of Joseph is St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (North Africa), the telling of whose story set new standards of honesty. His autobiography charts a journey from reputation to identity. He says of his preconversion days: “For in those days my notion of a good life was to win the approval of these people” (reputation). And of his postconversion days: “I find no safe place for my soul except in you [God]” (identity). God, too, “loses his reputation” when he chooses for his Son to be born to parents with bad reputations—Mary as an adulteress and Joseph as a disgraced tsadiq. God also chooses to reveal himself most dramatically in the reputation-losing death of his very Son on a cross. Ironically, it is in the reputation-losing death of that Son where an identity-forming life is discovered for those who live out the Jesus Creed. Joseph is one of the first to pull his story up to the table. Joseph becomes like the Am ha-aretz in the eyes of the tsadiqim to provide room for a baby boy who gives the Am ha-aretz an even better reputation than tsadiq. So, what God asks of Joseph he himself has already done: “Whatever game He is playing with His creation,” Dorothy Sayers observes, “He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself.” On one evening, Joseph, Mary, and the child Jesus step out the front door of their humble dwelling, face the wind, and somehow know that this was just the beginning. Just the three of them. Three who would change the world, but who would have to do it climbing uphill.

CHAPTER 9

Mary: The Story of Vocation

GOSPEL READING Luke 1:46–55 (the Magnificat) extra reading: Psalm 149)

Each of us has a vocation. This great term vocation has two meanings. In a general sense, vocation is what all Christians are to do as Christians (live out the Jesus Creed). But specifically, vocation is the special assignment that only you can do (parenting your kids, exercising your spiritual gifts, working at the office). In the potent words of Dorothy Sayers, our vocation

is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred.

Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside it.

Whatever we are called to “do” is not a “job” but a sacred vocation.

A VOCATION FOR EACH OF US

Our vocation is to be what God made us to be, as many have learned only after considerable struggle. Parker Palmer, after decades of wrestling to please others, came to a shady oasis when he absorbed some Quaker wisdom on vocation: “Let your life speak.” His spark of insight: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.” What Palmer is asking us to learn is this: God will not ask us, “Were you (like) Mother Teresa or the prophet Daniel or Peter or your father or mother?” Instead, God will ask us, “Were you the ‘you’ I made you to be?” Os Guinness echoes this wisdom: “The truth is not that God is finding us a place for our gifts but that God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing—and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there.” You are to be who God meant you to be, as the wise of the Church have always known. One who learned this lesson so well is the mother of Jesus, Mary, who also pulls her story up to the table of Jesus. It is the story of her past being swallowed up in the goodness of God.

I HAVE A REPUTATION

God’s special work, Mary tells us, is to turn difficult pasts into a vocation. Mary’s difficult past is this: Well before Joseph knows that Mary is pregnant, Mary is told by the angel Gabriel that she is to conceive supernaturally. Mary instantaneously grasps what this means: She will be labeled in her community as a na’ap (adulteress). The label is inaccurate, but it sticks. She also grasps that this revelation is from an angel, and angels come from God. And that means God must have chosen something special for her. It was this label that was most difficult for Mary to live with. But God sends this Mary “on vocation” to be Mother of Messiah, and her response is a glorious song of joy. One of the Bible’s highlighted passages is the Song of Mary, often given its Latin name, the Magnificat. As Tom Wright describes it, Mary’s Song is the “gospel before the gospel” and it “goes with a swing and a clap and a stamp.” Mary’s Song is an expression of gratitude for God morphing her bad reputation into a messianic vocation. But her past is even more than this unfortunate label.

I AM POOR, BUT I HOPE FOR LIBERATION

Joseph is a tsadiq, a man totally observant of the Torah. But, Mary pokes her head out of a different nest, the Anawim* (the pious poor). Historians agree on three characteristics of Mary’s people, the Anawim. These people suffer because they are poor, but they express their hope by gathering at the temple in Jerusalem. There they express to God their yearning for justice, for the end of oppression, and for the coming of the Messiah. Each of these characteristics of the Anawim finds expression in the life of Mary and especially in the Magnificat. For instance, Mary is poor. At Jesus’ dedication, his parents present to the temple assistants two birds for their offering. Why? The real question is, “Why did they not offer a lamb?” Back in the days when Israel’s neighbors were sacrificing babies to nonexistent gods, Israelites instead sacrificed a lamb. But the offering of Mary and Joseph is two birds, the offering prescribed in the Torah for those who could not afford the lamb. Their offering is that of a poor family. Mary may have been poor, but she was not hopeless—which is another characteristic of the Anawim. Notice these lines in Mary’s Song that express yearning for liberation from injustices that she knows by experience:

[God] has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

When Mary and Joseph take Jesus home after his temple dedication, they place that little baby in a bed prayed over in the hope that justice will come to God’s people. Mary’s Song is actually announcing a social revolution. The King at the time is Herod the Great, and he is a power-tossing and death-dealing tyrant. Mary is announcing that he will be dealt his own due and have his power tossed to the winds. In his place, Mary declares, God will establish her very own son. Unlike Herod, he will rule with mercy and justice. Now here’s the story Mary pulls up to the table of Jesus: Mary has a sullied reputation, and she is poor, but God accepts her past, creates it anew, and sends her “on vocation” to announce the Good News that the Messiah is ready to appear. If spiritual formation is about learning to love God with our “all,” then one dimension of loving God is surrendering the “all” of our past to God. We dare not make light of our past—whether it was wondrous or abusive, reckless or righteous. All we can do, like Mary, is offer to the Lord who we are and what we’ve been. He accepts us—past and all. Roberta Bondi, in her account of learning to love God in Memories of God, expresses the importance of coming to terms with her own identity when she reflects on a breakthrough encounter: “Never before, I think, had I actually been glad that I was me and not somebody else.” This is not easy to achieve: to dig deep enough to discover who we are, to accept who we are, and to look into the mirror with our eyes open and be grateful for what we see. Roberta learns she can accept who she is because “it is only God who can look with compassion on the depth and variety of our individual experience and our suffering, and know us as we really are.” Our vocation, whatever that might mean for each of us, sweeps up our entire past, for, as Roberta says so memorably, “even Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.” I like that: we, too, are raised to a vocation with the wounds of our past intact, visible, and a witness to what God can do. Mary knew her own wounds, but knew also that God was about to heal those wounds with a vocation.

I HAVE A VOCATION: TO NURTURE THE CHILDREN

In the history of the Church, Christian traditions have differed on the physical relations of Joseph and Mary after the birth of Jesus. Some think they never engaged in marital relations, while others think they did. Some think the “siblings” of Jesus are merely cousins, others that they are children of Joseph from a previous marriage, and others that Mary actually gave birth to them. What is important here is that, whichever view one takes, each agrees that Mary assumes responsibility for these children. Since most biblical scholars think Joseph died when Jesus was fairly young, Mary’s responsibility becomes all the more significant. Mary now has a vocation: she is to help nurture the faith of the girls (at least two) and boys (four plus Jesus). But, the names of the boys tells a story itself. One of the deepest memories of Israel was that she was at one time enslaved in Egypt where the patriarch Israel (or Jacob) had twelve sons. According to Matthew, Joseph and Mary lived for a short while in that same Egypt. It is clear that while they were there they were immersed in Israel’s former captivity and dreamed of the day they would return to the Land. It is no accident that the names of the boys under their care are the same names of the patriarch Israel’s sons, those who were to lead Israel when she returned to the Land. In Hebrew the boys’ names are: Yakov (James), Yosef (Joseph), Yehudah (Judah), and Shimeon (Simeon). With Jesus as Yeshua (or Joshua), they become five Jewish boys whose names tell the story of Israel’s liberation from slavery. Mary nurtures these children, and their names evoke her Anawim hope in the kingdom of God. These actions were part of the vocation God gives to her. Also part of that vocation is the secret that her son, Jesus (Yeshua), is to be Messiah.

I HAVE A VOCATION: TO TEACH THE CHILDREN

And a part of that secret is how much Mary taught Jesus. Most Bible readers fail to connect Jesus with Mary when they think of the teachings of Jesus. This failure fulfills what I think should be the (tongue-in-cheek) correct translation of Luke 1:48: “From now on all generations (except Protestants!) will call me blessed.” While some tend to adore Mary a little too much, Protestants tend to avoid her too often. Most Protestants have less respect for Mary than Frederica Mathewes-Green, who needed to adjust to Mary when she became Eastern Orthodox. She confessed,

I like her [Mary] and everything. I respect her. She’s his Mom.… I feel a formal distance, like we’re still at the pleased-to-meetcha stage.

There is good reason, then, for many of us to reconsider Mary’s impact on Jesus, because the Gospels clearly show that she had a significant influence on his teachings. On any reading of the Magnificat (Mary’s Song), we find five of the major themes of Jesus’ very own teachings and mission. It is not hard to figure which came first. To begin with, as Mary blesses the holy Name of God and asks God to fill the hungry, so Jesus hallows God’s Name, prays for daily bread, and blesses the hungry. Second, as Mary is poor and from the Anawim, so Jesus blesses the poor and opens banquet doors to the poor. As Mary is a widow, so Jesus frequently shows mercy to widows. Third, as Mary prays for the powerful to be stripped of their unjust powers, so Jesus regularly tussles with unjust powers. Fourth, as Mary’s prayer emphasizes God’s mercy and compassion, so Jesus is known for mercy and compassion. And, fifth, Mary’s own prayerful concern for Israel’s redemption is seen in Jesus’ wrenching prayer for Jerusalem. These similarities are not accidents. We must conclude that Mary passes on her own vision and vocation to her son. Our own vocations are not just to accomplish our special assignments, but to pass God’s claim on our lives to our children and the next generation. What is the secret to passing on God’s claim on each of us to the next generation? The answer is as old as Moses, and it is certainly a custom adopted by Joseph and Mary. The fundamental confession of pious Jews is the Shema. Inasmuch as it is central to Jewish faith, and inasmuch as Jesus makes it his own Creed, we can infer that Jesus first heard the Shema in his home. The secret of the Shema principle of training our children in the faith is simple. It is about linking generations. We are to pray for our children, be Christians before their eyes, include them in our lives, and include ourselves in their lives by linking our children to us in our faith. The holy family provides the first link, and the second link was forged as Jesus passed it on to his followers. We are to continue the links into the very world in which we live. It is through this linkage of generations that the story of vocation is told from one generation to another. As Mary’s own past was taken up by God and transformed into a story of vocation, so many others have offered their pasts to God and have seen him create a vocation.

FICTION WRITER WITH A NEW VOCATION

Dorothy Sayers is known to many for her detective stories (centering on a certain Lord Peter Wimsey). She is also known for developing, later in her career, a pointed Christian pen, a pen that transformed the ink of detective stories into the ink of vocation. What is less known is her past: Though from a Christian home (her father was a pastor), faith didn’t come knocking until midlife. Before that time, she had a son out of wedlock with a married man. (His daughter later called him a charming rotter!) Dorothy decided her lifestyle and a young boy’s needs could not coexist, so she persuaded her cousin, Ivy, to take in the child and nurture him. She never did live with her son, even though she “cared” for all his needs financially—which her success as a writer permitted. Dorothy had a past that was not “conducive” to a spiritual calling. But, in his mysterious grace, God simply swept up this past into a new vocation for Dorothy. When she was asked to write a play for the annual Canterbury Festival (The Zeal of Thy House), her life powerfully shifted into a new vocation: in addition to her detective stories, Sayers’ zeal shifted to the house built by Jesus Christ. If her past held her back, we’ll never know, but her own comment provides a serious clue: “What has happened has happened, the past cannot be undone, only redeemed and made good.” Hers was. There was not a day that she did not realize what had happened; there was also not a day when her pen was not “on vocation.” If the past of Dorothy Sayers surprises us, we simply have to stand back and let God do what he chooses. God takes this bitter experience, stirred up as it was by complicating bad decisions, and gives her a vocation. In the same way God gives a vocation to Mary, mother of Jesus. If the neighborhood rumors about Mary shape what many at that time think of her, what God does through her speaks so loudly that little remains of the gossip. When Mary sits among the crowds and listens to Jesus, she surely thinks back to the days in Egypt, to the days in Nazareth, and to what God is now doing as the angel Gabriel had promised her some three decades earlier. What she had once sung about and yearned for is now being heard by and is coming to pass for a growing number of Israelites. This spindly band of believers is finding in her own Son not just another teacher but the one who will liberate Israel and turn rags into riches. Mary wears those riches, daily, over her wounds. With the generations, let us call her “blessed” for her vocation.

CHAPTER 10

Peter: The Story of Conversion

GOSPEL READING Luke 5:1–11

Conversion, like wisdom, takes a lifetime. For some, conversion is like a birth certificate, while for others it is like a driver’s license. For the first, the ultimate question is “What do I need to do to get to heaven?” For the second, the question is “How do I love God?” For the first, the concern is a moment; for the second, the concern is a life. The Jesus Creed is more like a driver’s license than a birth certificate. The difference between the two is dramatic. A birth certificate proves that we were born on a specific date at a given location. A driver’s license is just that: a license to drive, permission to operate. If conversion is likened to a birth certificate, we produce babies who need to be pushed around in strollers. If it is like a driver’s license, we produce adults who can operate on life’s pathways. The Jesus Creed is about the totality of life, and so conversion to Jesus and the Jesus Creed is total conversion—heart, soul, mind, and strength. To see how total conversion is at the time of Jesus, we need to sit at the table with Jesus in first-century Galilee. At that table is one of Jesus’ closest friends, who is also an apostle, one commissioned by Jesus to represent his mission. This friend’s name is Shimeon Kepha, but we call him “Simon Peter.” When we pull up to listen to Peter, we hear his story of conversion. A good place to begin is with Peter’s own beginning: when, we might ask, is Peter converted?

WHEN IS PETER CONVERTED?

McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, 15th Anniversary Edition. Paraclete Press, 2004.

Exported from Logos Bible Study, 6:26 PM May 15, 2026.

CHAPTER 1

The Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 12:28–33; Luke 9:57–62

THE CREED OF JUDAISM

THE JESUS CREED AS THE FIRST AMENDMENT

THE JESUS CREED

THE SHEMA GETS PERSONAL IN THE JESUS CREED

THE JESUS CREED TODAY

CHAPTER 2

Praying the Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 11:1–4; Matthew 6:9–13

THE KADDISH OF JUDAISM AND THE KADDISH OF JESUS

At the time of Jesus there was a Jewish prayer called the Kaddish (“The Sanctification”):

THE LORD’S PRAYER AS A GIFT FOR LITURGY

THE LORD’S PRAYER AS GIFT FOR ACTION

CHAPTER 3

The Abba of the Jesus Creed

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 6:9–15; Luke 15:11–32

ABBA, FATHER

At the simplest of physical levels, of course, he did find her. But hear these life-shaping words of his:

ABBA WELCOMES A SON BACK HOME

ABSORBING THE TRUTH

CHAPTER 4

The Jesus Creed as a Table

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 11:16–19; Mark 2:14–17; Luke 19:1–10

THE TABLE: A THICK WALL OR AN OPEN DOOR?

THE JESUS CREED AS A TABLE

Guinness continues with a reflection about the little boy that stood time still for him and created a story of healing:

WHEN THE JESUS CREED BECOMES A TABLE IN OUR WORLD

CHAPTER 5

A Creed of Sacred Love

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 6:9–15; Luke 7:36–50; 19:1–10

THE NIGHTMARE

HOSEA’S OPEN SECRET: GOD IS A LOVER

JESUS’ OPEN SECRET: GOD IS AN ABBA LOVER

A LIFE OF SACRED LOVE

CHAPTER 6

A Creed for Others

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 10:25–37; Mark 12:28–34

GETTING CAUGHT BY JESUS

LOVE OF TORAH OR TORAH OF LOVE?

LOOKING TO THE SIDE TO SEE OUR NEIGHBOR

PART TWO

Stories of the Jesus Creed

PROLOGUE

A spiritually formed person loves God by following Jesus and loving others.

As an expression of loving God and loving others, a spiritually formed person embraces the stories of others who love Jesus.

CHAPTER 7

John the Baptist: The Story of New Beginnings

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 3:1–20; John 1:6–9, 15, 19–34

A PROPHET AT THE JORDAN

LIFE BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN WITH TRUTHTELLING

TRUTHTELLING AWAKENS FORGIVENESS

TRUTHTELLING GETS REAL

He calls us to tell the truth about a number of things:

Our spirituality: Luke 3:7–9 Some religious experts in John’s audience think they can appeal to their heritage, clinging to their faith line with Abraham. John stands on the shoulders of other prophets who gave the same warning: “Your ethnic background won’t save you,” he tells his audience. John is no doubt proud to be a Jew, but he knows that spirituality is more than good spiritual genes. We need to hear the same: we may live in the spirituality of our fathers and mothers, but our father’s and mother’s faith won’t live in us (until we tell the truth to God about ourselves). If we transcend our backgrounds by telling the truth, life can begin all over again. We need to tell the truth about our spirituality: where is it anchored? John faces another set of people gathered at the Jordan, and in so doing faces us as well.
Our possessions: Luke 3:10–11 The Bible speaks often of money because it is with money that we exercise the freedoms of choice. This is hard for many Western Christians, because so many of us are soaking in what J. I. Packer calls “hot tub religion.” The unquenching human desire for more—bigger houses, spiffier cars, trendier clothes—is what led St. Francis to renounce possessions, what led the Mennonites to a simple lifestyle, and what leads some to urge all Westerners to live more with less. “The man with two tunics,” John says, “should share with him who has none.” This warning about accumulating things only for ourselves John barks out on the banks of the Jordan. Jesus soon will echo John’s message about economic justice on the hills of Galilee. Their warnings still await a Church that will listen. Heeding the call of John leads to a new beginning. If we love God and love others, we will find the truth about how close our hearts are to our possessions. We need to tell the truth about our possessions: How important are they? John turns to two more groups. In facing them, he also sees our faces.
Our power: Luke 3:12–14

A TRUTHTELLER

CHAPTER 8

Joseph: The Story of Reputation

GOSPEL READING Matthew 1:18–25

I AM A TSADIQ*

MY REPUTATION IS CHALLENGED

I APPEAL TO TORAH

I STRUGGLE WITH GOD

I AM MARY’S HUSBAND AND JESUS’ (LEGAL) FATHER

JOSEPH AND THE JESUS CREED

CHAPTER 9

Mary: The Story of Vocation

GOSPEL READING Luke 1:46–55 (the Magnificat) extra reading: Psalm 149)

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred.

Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside it.

Whatever we are called to “do” is not a “job” but a sacred vocation.

A VOCATION FOR EACH OF US

I HAVE A REPUTATION

I AM POOR, BUT I HOPE FOR LIBERATION

[God] has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

I HAVE A VOCATION: TO NURTURE THE CHILDREN

I HAVE A VOCATION: TO TEACH THE CHILDREN

I like her [Mary] and everything. I respect her. She’s his Mom.… I feel a formal distance, like we’re still at the pleased-to-meetcha stage.

FICTION WRITER WITH A NEW VOCATION

CHAPTER 10

Peter: The Story of Conversion

GOSPEL READING Luke 5:1–11

WHEN IS PETER CONVERTED?

In which of the five scenes below do you think Peter is converted? Is it when he is introduced to Jesus? Simon Peter’s brother, Andrew, is at one time a disciple of John the Baptist. While in Jerusalem for a feast, John tells Andrew about Jesus, and Andrew spends most of the day with Jesus. Andrew tells his brother Simon that he thinks Jesus just might be the Messiah, the long-awaited king and liberator of Israel, and he introduces Simon to Jesus. When Jesus sees Simon, he reveals to him that someday he will be called “Peter.” Is he converted here? Or, is it when Peter confesses he is a sinner? After fishing all night, not catching anything and cleaning out his nets on the lake shore, Peter is asked by Jesus to oar his boat out into the water to listen to his teachings. Then Jesus asks Peter to let down his nets again. Peter, the fisherman, obliges Jesus, the carpenter. Peter’s catch is wildly abundant. Peter falls to his knees and declares, “I am a sinful man!” How about now? Or, is it when Peter, prodded by Jesus, confesses Jesus is Messiah? “But what about you?” Jesus asks Peter. “Who do you say I am?” Peter gets it right: “You are the Christ [or, the Messiah].” How about here? Or, is he only converted after the death and resurrection of Jesus? During the questioning of Jesus, Peter is asked three times if he is one of the followers of Jesus, and each time he flat-out denies it. After the Resurrection, Jesus meets up with Peter, and Jesus asks Peter to renew the Jesus Creed: Do you love, do you love me, do you love? Peter says, Yes, yes, yes. How about here? Or, is his conversion only complete when he and the others receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the next major Jewish holiday is Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks). Some of Jesus’ disciples are in a room together on Pentecost when the group is bushwacked by the Holy Spirit, and Peter is among them. The Spirit emboldens Peter to tell everyone around about Jesus. Is this Peter’s conversion? Two other events can be mentioned—Peter’s vision of a church that is both Jewish and Gentile, and Peter’s letters to churches. But only celestial snobs who inspect others from back pews think Peter isn’t really converted until just before he writes 1 Peter, and it takes someone with higher ideas than Socrates to think Peter can’t be called a convert until he embraces (what had been for him the dreaded) Gentiles. But, serious Christians can make a case for each of the first five events mentioned above. The unserious can humor themselves with this: Number-counting groups might like the first sign of life in Peter in scene one, confession-oriented theologians hear “I am a sinner” and smile ever so slightly, while creedal Christians stand up at Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ. Surely the charismatics finally find a brother when Peter is flooded from above with the Holy Spirit’s fire, and the socially active churches are unenthusiastically satisfied when Peter finally embraces the multicultural acceptance of Gentiles! Only utopians wait until the end of someone’s life to make a ruling. But this is humor … perhaps. No one doubts that Peter is converted, but we may not be sure when the “moment” occurs, when he gets his birth certificate. And therein lies the mystery of conversion. Conversion is more than just an event; it is a process. Like wisdom, it takes a lifetime. Conversion is a lifelong series of gentle (or noisy) nods of the soul. The question of when someone is converted is much less important than that they are converting. Some Christians are like the apostle Paul and know the date and time of their conversion. They tell a story of a “big moment.” They get their birth certificate and their driver’s license on the same day. As with Paul, the ground shakes, the sun flashes, voices boom, eyes twitter, and they’ve survived to tell us all about it. But few have such experiences. For most Christians, conversion is more like the evening soft-shoe dance of the summer shadows across the lawn. It’s hard to see, but the shadow is moving, and at some point we see that it has, in fact, covered the lawn. Conversion, for these, is a series of gentle nods of the soul—from childhood through adulthood. There is no reason to think Paul’s is the definitive model. Peter’s story is not Paul’s, and Peter is as welcome to the table with Jesus, Joseph, and Mary as anyone. Here’s his story:

I GROW IN MY UNDERSTANDING OF JESUS

A close reading of the biblical texts about Peter reveals an ongoing conversion, a developing understanding of who Jesus is. Here are seven chapters in that development: 1. Peter suspects Jesus might be Messiah. 2. Peter recognizes Jesus as someone profoundly superior. 3. Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah. [But Peter disagrees with the Messiah on whether or not the Messiah ought to suffer.] 4. Peter perceives the Messiah must suffer. 5. Peter confesses Jesus is Lord. 6. Peter realizes that Jesus is not just the Lord of the Jews, but the Lord of all. Here Peter sees that the Jesus Creed is about loving all others. 7. Peter embraces Jesus’ life as the paradigm of Christian living. From suspecting Jesus might be the Messiah to making him the example of life is progress indeed. But, lest we get too systematic, Peter’s growth is not consistent. Every time Peter learns something new about Jesus, he reorients his heart and life, but sometimes he lapses and falls backward. Our perception of who Jesus is cannot be charted on a straight-line graph. Titles, definitions, and perceptions of Jesus are not the issue: response to Jesus is. If full understanding of Jesus Christ—including the later theological sophistications about his nature, person, and relationship to the Father and Spirit, backward in time and forward into eternity—is required for conversion, none of us will make it for one simple reason: No one really understands the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ! What is to be understood is that we are to respond, in love, to Jesus as we continue to grow in our perception of him. Peter’s conversion is a gradual growth of what he understood about Jesus. There is also a gradual growth in his willingness to go public with his faith in Jesus Christ.

I GO PUBLIC STEP BY STEP

Peter’s conversion progressed (sometimes with baby steps) from the private to the public. In the first four “chapters” of Peter’s life, his encounters with Jesus and others were more or less in private. But in chapters five through seven, Peter went public and, in fact, (to coin an expression) he went Rome! In the public phase of his witness before others, Peter urged the Christians of Asia Minor to respect Roman authorities, to live lives of utter holiness, and to be ready to defend their faith publicly. Loving God, Peter said, means to follow Jesus—even to the Cross. So realistic was the Cross for Peter’s “public confession” that tradition tells us that Peter was himself crucified in Rome. He asked that his crucifixion be upside down, knowing he was still inferior to the Messiah who told him to fish on the other side of the boat. Peter was perhaps crucified upside down. What is certainly clear is that he left for us a wonderful example of how conversion progresses in understanding Jesus Christ and how it shifts from a private to a public courage. At the beginning of his life as an apostle, Peter thinks of converting fellow Galileans and Judeans; at the end of his life, he is thinking in terms of how to reach the Roman Empire. A more recent example of progressive conversion can be seen in Frank C. Laubach.

A MISSIONARY GOES PUBLIC

In the annals of world history of the twentieth century, the most famous missionary in the mind of most was Albert Schweitzer. But many think the missionary with the most complete impact on the world was a man of much less fame: Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). Reared in the comforts of the farming communities of Pennsylvania at the hands of a Presbyterian father and a Baptist mother, Frank found faith with another group, the Methodists. But while serving as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines, Laubach had an experience while praying on Signal Hill behind his home in Lanao, where he was ministering to the Moros people. Experiencing total failure at the hands of a people who had no place for the gospel, he cried to the Father, “What can I do for hateful people like these: murderers, thieves, dirty filthy betel nut chewers—our enemies?” God answered him.

My lips began to move and it seemed to me that God was speaking. “My child,” my lips said, “you have failed because you do not really love these Moros. You feel superior to them because you are white. If you can forget you are an American and think only how I love them, they will respond.”

Laubach’s life was gradually but dramatically transformed in his understanding of the “others” he was called to love, and his work grew from a private to a public mission. The Jesus Creed formed the center of Laubach’s life. Thus, he later confesses: “I choose to look at people through God, using God as my glasses, colored with His love for them.” His little book Letters by a Modern Mystic has sold nearly a million copies. Partly to his credit go the practice of “breath prayers” and the decision to live in the continual presence of God, which he had learned in seminary from Brother Lawrence. He went down from that Signal Hill experience with a mission “to respond to God as a violin responds to the bow of the master,” and he believed that such “oneness with God is the most normal condition one can have.” He found such oneness, for he confesses in April 1930 that “God was so close and so amazingly lovely that I felt like melting all over with a strange blissful contentment.” One of his most potent statements about private, personal conversion is this: “Now I like God’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so He slips out of mind—as He does many times a day—I feel as though I had deserted Him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life.” “But the result of Laubach’s prayer life was more than radiant being; it was also energetic doing.” Laubach lived by balancing a love of God with a love of others: “It is as much our duty,” he says, “to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white with Christ as it is for us to go down where they [needy people] grope, and grovel, and groan, and lift them to new life.” And just what did he do about moving, as Peter did, from the private to the public? Frank C. Laubach is not only a legend in prayer, but also a pioneer in literacy with his plan “Each One Teach One.” His prayer: may everyone who learns to read teach one more to read. In his lifetime he tirelessly set up literacy programs in more than one hundred countries and, amazingly, was responsible for teaching over sixty million people to read! Reading was more than a social act for Laubach. For him, teaching literacy was preparation for the gospel and for the transformation of society. For mission groups “he developed an approach for telling learners the story of Jesus” in the first person. Like Peter, Laubach was transformed from the private to the public, and in the process he learned, like Peter, to love God and to love all others. Just the sort of thing that happens when we, at the suggestion of the Lord, toss our nets into unknown waters.

CHAPTER 11

John: The Story of Love

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 10:35–45; Luke 9:49–56; John 13

Good biographies tell the truth. Israel’s once-famous King Saul is the Pete Rose of the Bible. Propped up by magnificent gifts, he had some splendid successes and some blatant failures. His end was tragic. Chosen by Samuel to be Israel’s first king, he’s a shoo-in for hero in Israel’s storybooks for millennia to come; but, no, Saul breaks the rules. The Bible has a knack for telling the truth about people. Think of Adam and Eve, Abraham, and the kings of Israel. At the other end of the spectrum is Christian biography, sometimes called “hagiography.” Such Christian biographies often drift into fiction as the authors wipe away every trace of sin in order to make the person’s life exemplary. But the Bible tells the truth about people. Telling ugly truths about leaders may encourage sin, so doting biographers tend to hide the facts. But shading the truth may exhaust other Christians who conclude that they could never live such a perfect life. What is the solution? Tell the truth. Telling the truth is exactly what the Christian leader and Old Testament scholar John Goldingay does in his book of reflections on faith, Walk On. John’s wife, Ann, suffers from multiple sclerosis, and he explores the ups and downs of his own faith as he lives with her crippling disease. In his chapter on “Friendship,” John says this:

I have had several experiences of women telling me they have fallen in love with me when I had no such feelings for them. I have also had the experience of getting sexually entangled with someone and thus doing wrong by her, by Ann, by God—and by the people who think I am an upright man who does a good job of living with the loss involved in his wife’s illness. [After quoting a letter from a student who found John and his wife’s relationship an encouragement to marriage, John adds this line of truth:] I wish the student’s letter were more unequivocally justified.

I don’t retell John’s story to pounce on him or to rationalize his behavior by appealing to the all-too-easy “we are, after all, sinners.” Instead, this story is true; it is part of John’s life. Because John is a clear-minded reader of the Bible, he told his own story the way Bible authors told the biographies of others. Around the table of Jesus, his followers were telling the true stories of their lives. We’ve already heard the stories of Joseph, Mary, and Peter. Another one of those about whom the Bible tells a true story is the apostle John. John’s own story has been shaded more than perhaps anyone’s in the Bible.

DO YOU KNOW JOHN’S STORY?

Readers of the Bible rarely put together a complete picture of the apostle John. Instead, most readers focus on the glowing picture of what John was like later in life. One word comes to mind when we think of the apostle John: love. But John’s own “story of love” is not pretty. Love, for John, didn’t come easy. In fact, if we sort out every reference to John in the Gospels we see this: John is with Jesus at some dramatic moments, but not once does John do anything that would lead us to think he would later become the celebrated apostle of love. We know this because the Gospel writers told the truth about John’s life. If we were to ask John about his life, he would respond by telling us the story of learning to love. Here is where he would begin:

I LEARN ABOUT LOVE

The skinny on John begins with his family context. Many scholars think John was a cousin of Jesus. John’s father, Zebedee, was a Galilean fisherman who employed John and his brother James. James was also an apostle of Jesus. Jesus rocks the boat of all three when he calls James and John to “follow him.” To follow Jesus means to travel with him, to learn from him, and to live as he lived. John will later write a Gospel and a significant letter to Christians, explaining to them and to us what he had learned from Jesus. The one theme that consistently runs through John’s writings is the theme of love. John sums it all up by telling us that Jesus gave to his followers a “new” commandment, and it was to “love one another.” Why is it “new”? Because Jesus added the “love others” line to the Shema of Judaism when he taught the Jesus Creed. John even ties together the two parts of the Jesus Creed in another of his statements: “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” What John learned from Jesus was “love God, love others.” When he sums up what he learned from Jesus, John says he learned about love. But, learning about love doesn’t mean living lovingly. Or knowing is not always the same as doing.

MY LOVE IS TESTED (AND I DON’T DO WELL)

In a moving, tender story of the love of a father and son, author Brian Doyle talks about the ups and downs of his own love for his parents:

Like most children, I loved my parents without qualification until I was a teenager, when I began to hate them for the boundaries they placed about me; and then when I woke up from those years, at about age nineteen, I began again to love them without qualification but also with a deepening sense of the thousand ways in which they had given their lives for me, to me.

The rest of Doyle’s book is a story of love, but a story incomplete if those five years are not mentioned. As Brian Doyle “learned” love from his parents, so the apostle John learned love from Jesus. But just as Doyle didn’t always practice it, so John didn’t either. As Aesop said about what really matters, “Deeds, not words.” John is about to be tested to see if his deeds match up to his words. This young apostle of Jesus, the Gospel writers truthfully tell us, had some love to learn. In fact, they tell us—if we listen to what they are saying—that John fails when he is tested in love. Three times. We blame Peter for his three denials. Let’s not forget John’s failures. What are they? First, John and James approach Jesus and, banking on grace, state: “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Jesus humors their obvious pettiness and asks them to proceed to their request. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory,” they say. We are not surprised to learn that the rest of the apostles bristle over the snobbish chutzpah of these two brothers. If love is service (which is what Jesus goes on to explain to the brothers), then John fails in love. Second, John’s love for others is tested when he doesn’t recognize someone exorcising demons in Jesus’ name. John tries to stop the person from doing miracles and “tells on him” to Jesus. To which Jesus gives the agelessly valuable response “whoever is not against us is for us.” Anyone following the Jesus Creed would not denounce someone who is breaking down demonic walls. Except John. Third, John hears that some Samaritans refuse hospitality to Jesus “because he was heading for Jerusalem.” John’s response: “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” Ouch! He prays for hell to fall on these people. John was in the Thunderbolt Gang before he was an apostle of love. Jesus explains that his followers are not to think of Sodom and Gomorrah, to call for “ash in a flash,” every time they encounter someone who doesn’t respond properly. When John’s love for the Samaritans is tested, he fails. For someone who spends his last days writing about love-love-love, John sure fails when his love is tested. John may learn about love, but as a young man, he is crusty and cranky. But he does have something going for him: he spends plenty of time with Jesus. Perhaps we need to join him with Jesus. “Example is better than precept,” as Aesop also said. John has both precept and example in Jesus: Jesus keeps on loving John.

I AM LOVED ANYWAY

Nothing is more important for the development of love than being loved—we may be taught the importance of love, but to experience it is to know it. This is why Lewis Smedes, in his marvelous memoir of his own slow and painful growth in love of God and others, describes the love he looked for in his mother:

Every comfort I was taught to see from my heavenly Father I looked for in her, my earthly mother, but, all the time I was growing up, she was working too hard and working too much to have either time or energy to get close to me long enough for me to find God’s comfort in her. I was never conscious of my missing father whom I had never known, but I missed my mother all too often.

But Lew’s growth in love all comes together when his mother was eighty-six and broke her hip for the second time. Lew is able (by providential accidents) to spend every afternoon with her. One afternoon Lew opens his heart of pain to his mother. After his mother expresses gratitude to the Lord for forgiving all her sins, Lew probes another serious issue.

Why had she never gotten married again? [He asked her,] “Didn’t you ever want a man in your life? A man to take care of you? A man to talk to at the end of a day? A man to sleep with you?” “Oh yes,” she said, “I did; I felt so tired and so alone, and I sometimes wished that I had a husband, but I was afraid that if another man came into the house, he might not care for my children as I did.” I knew then [Smedes continues] that I had found the love of my heavenly Father tucked into the love of my earthly mother.

For Lewis Smedes, a painful process leads to a personal knowledge that God loves him. That love had not been obvious in the love of his parents, but one day, many years later, he does see that God’s love has been there all the time in his earthly mother. To be loved is to know love. John learns that love is more than learning. He had learned the Jesus Creed from Jesus, and he had seen Jesus live a life of love, but he is struggling with loving others himself. What eventually circles him is Jesus’ love. John knows what it is to be loved. He is, after all, “teacher’s pet.” Jesus loves him so deeply he includes him in everything. Several incidents in the life of Jesus reveal how specially Jesus treats John. When Jesus goes to the synagogue ruler’s home to heal his daughter, he takes John along. When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain, he permits John to see it take place. And when Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, he asks John to stay close by. In each of these, John experiences the special loving attention of Jesus. So much is John the teacher’s pet that John refers to himself in his Gospel as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Perhaps the most fascinating dimension of John’s calling himself the “disciple whom Jesus loved” is when he describes a famous meal with Jesus and says he was “reclining next to him [Jesus].” Literally, the text says that John was “reclining in his bosom.” Now, it is a short step from this statement back to John’s statement about Jesus: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side.” Literally, this text says “who is in the bosom of the Father.” Put together, John’s own language suggests he thinks the love he experiences from Jesus is the same sort the Son experiences from the Father! John knows what it means to be loved by Jesus, even though when tested, he goes belly-up. The love he experiences in the bosom of Jesus is what eventually transforms John’s story from Thunderbolt to an apostle of Love.

FINALLY, I LEARN TO LOVE OTHERS

We know Mr. Thunderbolt became the apostle of love from John’s later writings. Several considerations show the transformation of John’s life: First, John abandons his idea that he is the most important apostle. In fact, so profound is John’s own self-humiliation and service to others that he doesn’t even identify himself in the narrative of the Gospel he wrote. John gives himself only one name: the “one Jesus loved.” The would-be MVP becomes the anonymous loved one. Second, John writes for us a theology of love. The young apostle who wanted to turn Samaritans into ash and who thought gifts of exorcism were limited to one small group of disciples comes full circle. It doesn’t take much imagination to know how John would have responded to each test later in his life. Third, we need to count some words. The epistles of John are about 2 percent of the New Testament, yet they contain more than 20 percent of the instances of the term “love.” It is not just usage. It is about centrality. John learned from Day One that Jesus wanted his followers to love God and love others. If Jesus adapts the Shema in his Jesus Creed, John adapts the Jesus Creed ever so slightly: “This is his command,” John says, “to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” That is, love God, believe in Jesus, and love others. This is the story of John: the rascally thunderbolt becomes a tender apostle of love. This is the true story of John’s life, and by telling the truth, we see the fullness of God’s gracious work in his life. We need to tell the truth about our lives too. By telling the whole story of our lives, we awaken sleeping paragraphs in our own lives and in the lives of others, and when they awaken, they give to our lives a fullness, a continuity in time, and a richness. In the community of Jesus there are many stories, none more exemplary than this story about the apostle John. As an old man, it is said, all John wanted to talk about was love. His own students were amazed at how loving he was. He would have been the first to remind them that “it was not always so.”

CHAPTER 12

Women: The Story of Compassion

GOSPEL READING Luke 7:11–17, 36–50; 8:1–3

Compassion is a story everyone loves to hear. In the community of Jesus we sit at table with one another and learn to embrace the stories of others as our own, even when those stories raise eyebrows. Jesus, in his radical actions of compassion, does not permit his followers to embrace the stories of only those who are similar—we are to love all those who sit at Jesus’ table. At the table with Jesus is an unusual collection of people. Some have done wicked things—like prostitution and theft—and need forgiveness and redemption. Some have fallen victim to tragic fate—like disability and poverty—and need healing and help. Jesus, oddly enough, seems “anxious to get them [gathered round his table] and have the difficulties begin”—to hitch a ride on an expression from Flannery O’Connor. Sometimes we treat the needy as if they are pariahs, as if they have done something to deserve their fate. Sometimes our social allergies to others are the result of a moral judgment. More often they come from a profound inner disturbance of not knowing what to do with people who have profound needs. Even when we believe that God loves everyone, we still don’t know what to do with some people. The distance between “us” and “them” creates hostility between the haves and the have-nots. And any effort to move “from hostility to hospitality,” as Henri Nouwen dubs it, is not easy. But Jesus, with eyes abrightin’ and heart awarmin’ and hands astretchin’ and feet amovin’, does offer hospitality to persons at the edges of society. He enters the safety zone, walks to the edges, takes the needy in his hand, escorts them back across the zone, offers them a spot at his table, and utters the deepest words they are to hear: “Welcome to my table!” He offers them a “free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.” The Gospel writers use the term compassion for this kind of behavior by Jesus. The Jesus Creed is to love God and to love others. Jesus exhibits both, and love sometimes manifests itself in mercy shown to those with deep needs. Some women, stories of whom are tucked into the narrative of Luke 7–8, are part of the community of Jesus, and from them we hear and embrace the story of Jesus’ compassionate love for others. The Gospels show a genre: a story of compassion. It has three chapters.

MY GRIEF IS OBSERVED BY JESUS

When Jesus and his disciples enter Nain, a place for nobodies going nowhere, they encounter a funeral procession. A dead son is being carted away in a casket. A woman customarily walks first in a Jewish funeral procession to remind Israel that Eve, a woman, sinned first and kick-started this “mortality thing.” Leading the procession that Jesus and his followers come upon is a widow. Jesus knows widowhood firsthand because his mother is widowed. Even though Judaism developed a small bundle of laws protecting widows, the label “widow” (Hebrew: almanah*) quickly became synonymous with poverty. Jesus’ Parable of the Widow Demanding Justice, who badgers the judge until he listens to her case, illustrates the all-too-common powerlessness and poverty of a widow. The widow from Nain had already seen the death of her husband, and she is now losing her “only son.” And thus she is probably losing her income. She is weeping in grief when Jesus observes her. Sometimes the grief observed by Jesus is caused by the suffering of leprosy, by spiritual and physical malnutrition, by the helplessness of epilepsy, or by the misery of blindness. Whether it is caused by physical or spiritual issues, Jesus observes the grief because his “compassion radar” is set on high. He is a walking emergency room, so it seems. Others are like this. A story is told of the famous Rebbe Wolfe of Zbaraj who was known for finding the needy and showing them compassion. One day he was attending a circumcision. Stepping outside for a moment, he noticed the coachman shivering with cold: “Inside it is warm,” he told him. “Go in, warm yourself, have a drink and something to eat.” “Who will watch the horses?” [the coachman says] “I will,” [the Rebbe answers.] The coachman did as the Master wished. Several hours later people saw Rebbe Wolfe, half frozen in the snow, jumping from one foot to the other, at a loss to understand why the guests were making such a fuss.

Rebbe Wolfe, like Jesus, was a famous person, held in honor by many. And also like Jesus, he sees a person in need because he observes the need. The story of women who find compassionate mercy begins with Jesus observing their grief. Their story quickly turns to Jesus’ emotion and empathy.

I SEE JESUS’ EMOTION AND KNOW HIS EMPATHY

When Jesus sees the widow, Luke tells us that “his heart went out to her,” or “he had compassion on her.” The next words he utters he had probably spoken many times to his own mother: “Don’t cry.” We have a picture of Jesus here that is profoundly emotional. How do we know when a person is filled with compassion? Clearly, “his heart went out to her” is virtually synonymous with “tears filled his eyes.” Jesus shows the woman emotional empathy, an empathy he derives from his mother and from his God. Love and compassion, as they say, start in the home. Jesus knows the realities of widowhood at home because Mary was a widow. Mary, steeped in Israel’s Scriptures, found help in the Torah. Because Jesus has also heard the Psalms over and over, he knows that his Abba will defend the needy because he is the “Abba of the abba-less.” Both Jesus’ experience at home and his theology prompt his emotional response and empathy to widows. Jesus’ empathy extends to many others in need. In the home of Simon the Pharisee, Jesus encounters a prostitute (zonah) who lavishes her gratitude and adoration on Jesus. She weeps at his feet, wipes them dry with her hair, and then pours ointment on them as a gesture of gratitude. Preoccupied with “Bulls and Cycles” from the authorities on how to treat the impure, Simon is not happy with Jesus’ behavior. But, Jesus sees the prostitute for what Abba made her to be. In the words of Thomas Kelly, Jesus could see that all humans are “tinged with deeper shadows” but also “touched with Galilean glories.” That includes everyone, to swipe a line from William Griffin, “from the wormy to the pachydermy.” And, to grab a line from Nancy Mairs, “for even the grudgingest of creatures,” like us. That’s how Jesus sees this zonah. But not Simon. He has already failed to be courteous to Jesus, which Jesus brings to the surface because Simon is in need of some moral instruction. Simon also fails to show this woman compassion. He wonders about her character, but Jesus marvels at her love. Simon forgets that Rahab the zonah entered the community of YHWH, so Jesus encourages this zonah to enter his community. For Simon, the woman is “guilty until proven innocent,” but for Jesus, she is guilty but now forgiven. She is forgiven because Jesus sees her grief and reaches out to her in empathy. As we enter the third chapter of the story of compassion we need to pause to remind ourselves of the awkwardness that empathy sometimes creates. We may see someone in need, and we may feel empathy, but compassion asks for one more thing.

I AM RESTORED BY JESUS’ ACTION

All of us are caught on the horns of a dilemma at times: we observe grief and we empathize. But do we have time? Do we want to be bothered? What will it cost us? Once again, a story of a compassionate rabbi, Abba Tachnah the Pious, shows the way.

When he was entering his city on Sabbath eve at dusk [with scarcely enough time to get home], a bundle slung over his shoulder [which if Sabbath begins he violates by working], came upon a man afflicted with boils lying (helplessly) at a crossroads. The man said to him, “Master, do an act of compassion—carry me into the city.” … Abba Tachnah set his bundle on the road [risking theft] and carried the man into the city.… Everyone was astonished to see someone so pious carrying a bundle, with Shabbat about to begin.… The Holy One, feeling his suffering, caused the sun to continue to shine a while longer, delaying the onset of the Shabbat until Abba Tachnah arrived home with his bundle.

When grief is observed and empathy expressed, the next stage is set: a person who loves others acts to alleviate the need. Observing grief for what it really is and emotionally empathizing with it is not enough. In the words of Frederica Mathewes-Green, compassion without action is “one of those truths that run out of gas halfway home.” The love of the Jesus Creed prompts the action of compassion. Notice how Jesus’ compassion for these women turns into action to resolve the problem: he raises the widow’s son, he forgives the prostitute and gives her a new vocation, he exorcises demons from Mary Magdalene, and he heals Joanna, Susanna, and others. On other occasions, Jesus’ compassion prompts other actions: he cleanses a leper, he feeds a crowd, he heals an epileptic, he sends out the disciples to evangelize and heal, and he gives sight to the blind. Jesus’ kind of compassion is not abstract commitment. It is real and personal and concrete. Compassion moves from the heart to the hands and feet. Jesus doesn’t act in compassion in order to dazzle people into adoring him. He acts out of love and to transform the life of the grieving person. The widow gets her son back and has an income again. The prostitute’s life is transformed from impurity to purity. Each woman of Luke 8—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and others—has a special story to tell about what Jesus has done: one tells a story of spiritual cleansing, another of physical healing, and others (if I may guess) of learning that Roman money is to be distributed to the needy, including Jesus. Wealthy people at the time of Jesus—and these women were evidently wealthy—did not pay taxes. Instead, if they had good hearts, they distributed their funds to charities. The chosen charity of these women was Jesus, whom they support and follow his entire life. It is these same women who become witnesses of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We know some of their stories, and we know what became of them. We don’t know what became of the widow or of the prostitute, but we can guess that their lives were also changed to form a coherent story of

McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, 15th Anniversary Edition. Paraclete Press, 2004.

Exported from Logos Bible Study, 6:40 PM May 15, 2026.

CHAPTER 17

A Society of Joy

GOSPEL READING John 2:1–11

Yearning for more can be a good thing. There aren’t many of us who wouldn’t admit that we’d like to have more of something (money, cars, clothes, success, time, children, joy, love). Most of us think life could be better with that “more.” Someday, we yearn. Yearning, in and of itself, is worth exploring. Why do we yearn? Craig Barnes, in Yearning, observes: “The deep yearnings of the spirit are part of what makes us human.” Barnes has me in his grip with this: “The confession that we are unable to get the life of our dreams is the first step toward authentic spirituality.” And with this: “What distinguishes humanity in creation is not moral superiority but the mark of a need—a craving to have meaning that is eternal and thus able to sustain us through the shifting tides of our years.… This godlike mark, then, serves two functions. The first is that it is the source of our hunger for life’s meaning, and the second is that it refuses to be satisfied with any meaning other than the eternal.” Our yearning indicates our hunger for something eternal. We are all looking for the “Great Someday.” If we dig deep enough in our hearts to discover what our yearning thirsts for the most, we will discover that we are yearning for the eternal joy that comes from knowing God. This yearning “simply leads us back to the world with the strange message that our limited humanity is the mark of our need for God.” We are, in other words, soul-thirsty for a drink of joy that will satisfy us eternally and infinitely. The kingdom is the society in which the Jesus Creed transforms life. One feature of that transformation is that what humans yearn for they find in Jesus. This joy is not giddiness; it is inner contentment that comes from knowing that what we yearn for is loving God and others. Here’s the good news: Jesus claims that the yearned-for joy is already here, that he’s provided us with an abundant drink of it, and that his offer will satisfy our thirst forever and ever. To reveal that joy, Jesus performs miracles that draw down a little bit of heaven’s joy to earth, that suddenly make life in this world light up in glory, and that convert the humdrum routine of reality into the joy of life. The Gospel of John calls some miracles “signs.” A sign is a miracle that is at the same time a flash of revelation. But this flash is seen only by the person who looks at the sign with the eyes of faith. For this person, the miracle of Jesus is a window into what God is doing. These flashes of revelation, like aha! moments in life, occur unpredictably. Jesus provides such a flash at a wedding, when no one is expecting it.

WEDDING WINE AS SIGN

I’m a curmudgeon when it comes to weddings. I’d prefer not to go, but compared with Kris, I rarely offer the better argument, so I tag along. There are three exceptions: I loved the wedding when our daughter Laura was married, and I’m looking forward to our son Lukas’s wedding. I can only wish I had attended the wedding in Cana of Galilee. The whole village and other villages such as Nazareth turn out in their Sabbath best to wish the young man and woman, as Jews say today, Mazel Tov (good luck). Not too long into the wedding, the hosts run out of wine. Running out of wine is not so much tacky as it is a mood killer. Wine is to weddings what a tree surrounded by presents is to a family Christmas, what fans are to a sports contest, and what discovery is to a search. Without wine the wedding falls flat; the joy vaporizes. Without joy a wedding is just not a wedding. Mary thinks, with good reason, that Jesus can do something about the lack of wine and suggests he do something. But he slows her step a bit with this: “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” She thinks Jesus ought to step forward and show his powers. Jesus thinks not. The Messiah, he is suggesting, is not a tame lion; he roars and roams when and where he chooses. And he is about to choose to do so, but not until Mary clears herself from the picture. The miracle of transforming water into wine itself is triggered by Mary’s wonderful surrender to her son’s timing: “Do whatever he tells you,” she tells the servants. Nearby, the Gospel of John continues, there are six large earthenware vessels—“each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.” Jesus has the servants fill them with water, and he changes the water into wine. For the one who sees with an eye of faith, as the joy of the wedding returns to the wedding guests, so the yearned-for joy of the kingdom is present. This is what John means when he calls the wedding miracle a “sign.” The eye of faith sees through the miracle to what the miracle reveals: the joyous glory of the Son.

MIRACLE AS SIGN

The apostle John also tells us that the vessels at the wedding are “for ceremonial washing.” John’s decision to state this is not the persistent jottings of a journalist who records everything he or she sees. No, John wants to make a point: The water in these stone jars is not for hygiene. This water is sacred. This water is used to purify people and things. People and things are made pure to get them in the proper order before God, to render them fit to enter into God’s presence. Observant Jews wash their hands in this water so they can eat their food in a state of purity.

Of Joy Jesus transforms the water of purity into the wine of joy, eternal joy. The eye of faith sees through the wine to its inner mystery, the way families see beyond a Christmas present’s material benefit to its inner expression of love. In Jesus’ sign, ceremonial purification rites are being swallowed up by the joy of the new society’s wedding feast. Purity comes, not from water, but from drinking in the wedding wine of Jesus. Jesus not only transforms water into wine, he does so in abundance. If the guests have already consumed the prepared drink for the wedding, then the miraculous transformation of water into about 120 gallons of wine is more than enough. Abundant joy is a feature of the kingdom, just as abundant love is often a feature of a family Christmas. Whoever said Christmas is about only what we need is missing what the celebration is all about. So also, the kingdom of God, which is the society in which the Jesus Creed is practiced, is a kingdom where there is more than enough of all the joy we truly need.

Of Jesus What this sign reveals, John tells us, is “his glory.” Jesus, who is himself the manifestation of God’s glory, reveals his own glory—who he is and what he is here to do—in this miracle. When the water turns to wine and the eye of faith peers into the purification vessels, it sees not sacred water but sacred wine. The eye of faith sees not an image of itself but the image of Jesus floating on the surface of the wine. Jesus is seen in this wine for who he really is: the one who not only provides but is himself the joy of the kingdom. All human yearning is ultimately a yearning for an abundance of the sort of wedding wine that is Jesus himself. This is to say that our yearning is really to know the joy that comes from knowing the love of God (in Jesus). The Jesus Creed reveals that what humans ultimately yearn for is love for God and others. To know that love is to know the joy of the wedding wine Jesus alone provides.

POTLUCKS AS SIGNS OF THE SIGN When I was a little boy and tagging along to church with my parents, the only Wednesday-night prayer meetings I enjoyed were the ones that started with a potluck. (I found prayer meetings to be a source of joy later in my life.) Our Wednesday-night feasts were a “pot” of “luck” because, instead of listening to some boring sermon while bobbing around on an uncomfortable wooden pew, I could sit at table with my friends and eat and tell stories. Good food, too. Stews, chicken, hams, casseroles, potatoes, fresh vegetables from the local farmers. There were always homemade pies and cakes. Occasionally someone cranked ice cream in a rock salt–lined ice-cream maker. What I vividly remember is this: no matter how many people came, there were always pots of food left over. There is something about church people: when they get together for a potluck, the vegetarians sample the other side, the calorie counters transgress, and the food flows. Why? Because when Christians get together, somehow they are showing off what they think the final kingdom is all about; they act out the joy and the love of God’s new society. Jesus can’t hold back at the wedding, and humans can’t hold back at potlucks. Potlucks, for the eye of faith, are imitations of that sign Jesus performed long ago to show that he can provide more than enough. More than enough is exactly what Jesus provides at the wedding at Cana. And through that abundance he offers a glimpse into who he is. He reveals himself as the abundant provider of the joy that comes from knowing the love of God.

SURPRISED BY JOY C. S. Lewis also found the joy of the wedding wine. Lewis tells us that from his earliest days he yearned for those occasional tastes of joy he experienced in his reading and writing of stories and myths. But, he confesses, the stories and myths offered only snatches of joy. There was more, so he thought, and he was chasing it down. What he was chasing, however, he learned was actually chasing him, and he first became aware of it at Oxford. In a late night discussion on September 19, 1931, some fellow intellectuals asked Lewis some pointed questions. They were both Christians, and one of them was the (now quite famous) J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings. The other was Hugo Dyson, a lecturer and tutor at Reading. Both were to become fellow members with Lewis of a literary group called The Inklings. Their questions that night settled into one: Why are you, they asked C. S. Lewis, mysteriously moved by the notion of sacrifice when you read it in pagan stories, but not also moved when you read of it in the story of Jesus? For Lewis, as the English (or Irish) might say, “the penny dropped.” The weight of the question and its answer dawned on him, and he began to ask if maybe the story of Jesus was the joy he was chasing. Lewis writes, after he embraced the answer to Tolkien and Dyson’s question, in a letter to his good friend Arthur Greeves, “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened … remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths.” This is a well-known passage of Lewis, asking us only to accept a fiction writer’s understanding of the term “myth”—the truth, this time, in story form and historical reality. Importantly, Lewis calls what he found that night “Joy.” He occasionally had caught a glimpse of this joy in pictures of nature, in reading about Nordic myths, and in wandering about on hillsides or seeing moonlit landscapes. These momentary, sense-flooding visitations of joy drove Lewis to find their source, because they left him dissatisfied with the present world. That joy did not come to him until he came to faith in Jesus Christ. Its presence and discovery surprised him, for it was not, in fact, joy that he was yearning for, after all. It was the Person to whom this joy was pointing all along. As Lewis himself explains his quest, “But what, in conclusion, of Joy?… To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian.” Why? Because the joy Lewis found is only the effect of drinking the wine of Jesus—it is not the wine itself. Joy is a person, and his name is Jesus. When Jesus transforms the waters of purification into the wine of celebration he is saying that the daily grind of yearning for joy through purity has come to an end. “You need search no longer,” Jesus is saying, “the wedding wine is at the table, drink it, all of you. Drink of me, for I am the wedding wine of joy, for the forgiveness of sin. I am what you yearn for. I make all things pure.”

CHAPTER 18

A Society with Perspective

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 14:25; Matthew 25:31–46

The Bible gives us only an occasional glimpse of heaven. So Christians have guessed about it for nearly two millennia. Guesses have a habit of becoming paintings. Because humans are visual, paintings impress our minds powerfully, and before long our guesses become convictions about heaven. Even so, from century to century our convictions about heaven have changed. Shifts in perceptions of heaven have occasionally been so drastic that one image of “heaven” is placed in the attic of embarrassment and replaced by a more tasteful “heaven.” One of the classical presentations of Renaissance “high society heaven” was painted by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). It hung in a church in Neuberg on the Danube River and influenced the convictions of many worshipers, until the Jesuits of Bavaria came to a different conviction in the middle of the eighteenth century about what heaven was like. When they did, they removed the painting. Rubens’s famous piece depicted plump (unclad) females and (barely clad) muscular males either entering the light of heaven or descending into the abyss of darkness. The Jesuits, in a rare agreement with the Reformers, judged Rubens’s famous painting distracting. Indeed, irreverent. While Mr. Baroque and Ms. Renaissance thought of heaven as an extravagant cultural display of their own society, the Msgr. Jesuit and Mr. and Mrs. Reformer saw heaven as more than an improvement of high society. They thought heaven was a place of worship. Because these reformers thought heaven was for worship, their lives were conducted to ready themselves for that worship—so they focused on worship and the sacred love of God. Their view of heaven, in other words, gave them a perspective on life. A perspective on life gives us a spiritual center around which to organize our lives and a moral filter through which we can judge the good from the bad. By speaking about heaven, about eternity, Jesus gives his followers such a perspective.

WORSHIP OR SOCIETY?

Some argue that heaven will be all God—all praise, worship, blessed union, and repose. The final kingdom will be total absorption in the Triune God. The chief end of humans, the Reformers teach in the Westminster Confession, is to glorify God forever. Many in all the major Christian traditions agree with them. Such a heaven appeals to the theologian, the mystic, those who love solitude, and those who prefer (especially classical) music during travel time. Their heaven is “heavenly.” Other Christians depict heaven as a glorified world, as society perfected—as worship, family, and society. Parents will be reunited with children, and friendships will be renewed. Each person will have a gloriously eternal vocation of service in the perfect society. Such a heaven appeals to interpersonal sorts, to those who love committee work, to those who crave the bustle of big city life, and to those who prefer (especially cultural) talk shows during travel time. Their heaven is “earthy.” Our vacation of choice, so I’ve heard, corresponds to our view of heaven. Those who hike into the mountains with their tents to secluded spots seem to think of heaven as a place of solitude and worship. Those who take vacations to big cities or to Disney World or to crowded beaches or to tourist locations with groups on tour buses seem to think of heaven as a place of society and worship. Well, which is it? Do we have to choose? Could it perhaps be both? A two-story paradise where there is both an upper-story worship center in the presence of God as well as a lower story for the delight of human society and the pleasure of perfect culture? How does the Jesus Creed shape our view of eternity? How can we know what eternity is like? I suggest, once again, we ask Jesus. He doesn’t have to guess. To find out what he says about heaven, we need to turn once again to the Bible.

JESUS AND HEAVEN: A BIBLICAL SKETCH

Jesus teaches that heaven, or the eternal kingdom, begins with a judgment; that heaven is entered by the followers of Jesus; that heaven involves table fellowship between Abba and his people; and that heaven is magnificent in its glory, intensity, and splendor. In short, heaven begins with the judgment and then, once that is over, the whole place is decked out for eternal fellowship with God and others.

First the Judgment … Judgment, in the Christian scheme of the future, follows resurrection. Christians have argued about the Resurrection as much as they have guessed about heaven. Resurrection only makes sense if it means that, after death, our present bodies are transformed into bodies fit for eternal fellowship. I join hands with Alan Jacobs, who admits: “I’m not interested in any reconfiguration of the notion of eternal life that doesn’t at some point—I don’t mind a long sleep—get me out of the grave, and I doubt that many other people are either.” The judgment is described by Jesus as the Son of Man judging humans as a farmer separates the “sheep” and “goats”—sending sheep to eternal life and goats to eternal fire. Eternal standing matters a great deal to Jesus, and he talks about it quite often. Sincere Christians differ wildly about other issues. Some, on the basis of 1 Thessalonians 4–5 and Revelation, argue (rather confidently) for a complex arrangement of rapture, tribulation, Second Coming, millennium, final judgment, and heaven. Others, less confidently, keep the scene far simpler and know less and think that less is better. While Christians differ on specific events, they don’t differ on what is next.

Then the fellowship Following judgment, there follows an enormous banquet of fellowship. Jesus promises a resumption of fellowship with his disciples, and he speaks of that fellowship as an eternal banquet. Whether we are to think of physical tables, crystal glasses, expensive china, sturdy goldware, and padded gold thrones is unimportant: What matters is that the eternal state is one of fellowship in the love of God and love of others. If the present kingdom is imperfectly shaped by the Jesus Creed, then surely the final kingdom will be perfectly shaped by it. Anything established around Jesus, whether earthly or eternal, will be a society. A glimpse of the eternal society can be seen when Jesus describes the twelve apostles as somehow presiding. They will, he says, “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” We may not know all the details of the eternal painting, but we do know the broad strokes, and what we also know is that these broad strokes are clear enough. What needs to be made more clear is that these broad strokes give us a perspective on life now. They give us a place to stand.

PERSPECTIVE: THE END IS THE BEGINNING

The place to stand, the perspective it gives us, is this: The end is the beginning. That is, one’s view of the eternal (the end) gives one perspective in this life (our beginning each day). The most potent incentive to spiritual formation is to see the end of history, to ponder God’s eternity, and to realize that this end shapes our beginning each day. So, in the words of Thomas à Kempis, “Practice now what you’ll have to put into practice then.” We can turn the argument of this book on its head now: the Jesus Creed is the creed of life now because the Jesus Creed is the creed of the eternal kingdom. We are to live the Jesus Creed now because it is the eternal plan of God. Knowing this gives us a perspective and shapes an entire society around Jesus with that perspective. That society has a perspective on life that begins with knowing and loving God.

KNOWING AND LOVING GOD

J. I. Packer, in his potent study of what the Bible teaches about God, develops the subtle distinction between knowledge about God (mind) and knowledge of God personally (mind and heart—as well as soul and strength). If eternity is eternal fellowship with the Father (and not a theology test), then we need to get started right now in knowing this One with whom we will share the table. As Packer says it, “The rule … is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into a matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.” Some in the Christian tradition have taken the “love God” part of the Jesus Creed so seriously that they devote their entire lives to adoration of God. Kristin Ohlson, a journalist struggling for faith, wanted to understand why it was that the Poor Clares of St. Paul Shrine in Cleveland spent so much of their lives in silent prayer. She asked one of the Poor Clares, Mother James. “It was the perpetual adoration,” Mother James said. “We’re going to be doing that for all eternity, adoring God. When you do this, it’s like your heaven begins on earth.” We can agree that Mother James gets at least this right: if eternity is about eternal communion with God, then we can prepare ourselves by learning to fellowship with him now. A concrete suggestion to aid us in preparing for eternal fellowship with Abba: we need to read the Bible Abba-centrically, or “Father-centered.” Christians sometimes read the Bible too often to “figure things out,” to come to terms with a theological debate, or to settle an old score. They read it for information. But as M. Robert Mulholland explains in his very important book, Shaped by the Word, in reading the Bible for knowledge, we can (and often do) miss the mission: for Abba to love us and for us to love Abba. When we let Abba speak to us through the Bible, we come to know him (and not just about him), and our reading moves from communication from God to communion with God, from “information to formation,” from learning about love to learning to love. My suggestion is simple: put away study aids, commentaries, group Bible-study materials; get out a piece of paper and a pen and write down what we learn about God in a passage of Scripture. Just what we learn about the Abba. We read, we meditate, and we pray. In time these parts of spiritual reading can become indistinguishable. When they do become one, we are reading Abba-centrically. There is no substitute for reading the Bible in order to hear from God. It has changed the lives of many, including St. Augustine. Augustine was converted when, groaning in prayer to God in a garden, he heard a voice—as from a little boy or girl—say, “Pick it up and read it.” So he picked up the Bible, opened it, and read two verses. “No sooner had I finished,” he says, “than it was as if the light of steadfast trust poured into my heart.” Reading the Bible with one’s heart open to Abba, as did Augustine, can unleash the flooding power of God’s Spirit. In addition to reading the Bible, many have strengthened their fellowship with God by reading the spiritual writings of giants in the Christian tradition. I must mention here a few of those giants (and their books) from four different Christian traditions, whom many have found helpful: The Philokalia of the Orthodox tradition, Thomas Merton’s Inner Experience from the Roman Catholic tradition, J. I. Packer’s Knowing God from the Reformed-Evangelical tradition, and A. W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy from the Holiness-Evangelical tradition. Finding a regular source of fellowship by reading the Bible and reading giants in the Christian tradition prepares us for what the eternal kingdom is all about: loving fellowship with God. This is a perspective on life that the Jesus Creed gives us. That perspective also encourages us to know that the “end is the beginning” when it comes to fellowship with others who live the Jesus Creed.

FELLOWSHIP IN THE KINGDOM SOCIETY OF JESUS

If the end is the beginning, and the end is about loving God and loving others in eternal fellowship, then we are challenged to make fellowship with Jesus’ society a regular feature of our lives—in the now. In fellowship with others we can begin our eternity. I am reminded of this in my commute to my office. Perhaps my experience is not yours, but it can serve to remind us of what daily fellowship can be. This commute begins with a walk of about ten minutes to the train station, where I grab a cup of coffee at the local café. At that café on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I see a group of three to four men poring over some passage in the Bible; sometimes I see them in prayer, sometimes in discussion, and sometimes in quiet reflection. On the train I sit across from a man who sometimes is with a young man; they pray together (sometimes in tongues), but mostly the younger man listens to the older man explain how to live the Christian faith. At times I see a man, whether Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox I am unable to determine, who reads a line or two from what appears to be a devotional guide and then crosses himself, sometimes once and sometimes thrice, but always in big motions: head to belly button, shoulder to shoulder. I generally pray and read. This year I have worked my way through The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water, Henry Carrigan’s Eternal Wisdom from the Desert, Thomas Merton’s The Inner Experience, and David Larsen’s Biblical Spirituality. After the train, I climb aboard Chicago Metra Bus #92, and more often than not I sit near an elderly lady reading a daily devotional in some Eastern European language. Sometimes she is with another woman, and they speak to one another between reading paragraphs. I assume their whisperings are not about my being a nosy Parker! For three years an elderly Indian man met me at the bus stop, mostly to ask me questions about the Bible, but our times were more often than not little more than the gentle, daily comfort of a Christian brushing up against another Christian and experiencing the kinship that is itself a brush with the Age to Come, the end that can begin each day.

PART FOUR

Living the Jesus Creed

PROLOGUE

THE JESUS CREED “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.

A spiritually formed person loves God by following Jesus and loving others. A spiritually formed person embraces the stories of others who love Jesus. A spiritually formed person lives out kingdom values, and a spiritually formed person loves Jesus.

What does it mean to love Jesus?

It means to believe in him, to abide in him, to surrender to him, to be restored in him, to forgive others in him, and to reach out with the good news about him.

This is how a disciple of Jesus loves Jesus.

CHAPTER 19

Believing in Jesus

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 7:24–30; Matthew 15:21–28

The goal of a disciple of Jesus is relationship, not perfection. There is no better example of a person who confused relationship with perfection—and got ahead of himself—than Ben Franklin, America’s icon of the homespun man with a mindspun religion. “It was about this time,” he confesses, “I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time.” Franklin listed thirteen virtues and began to tame one moral lion per week, hoping he would master one a week. In a journal he assessed himself every evening, marking a • for each failure in a given virtue. Franklin’s list of moral virtues was this: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. After sweating his way through his system for a while, he admits: “I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.” Indeed! When the moral life becomes a system of dots on a chart of moral progress toward perfection, the moral life unravels into externalism and futile attempts to tame wild lions. If a person is telling the truth, what he or she discovers in the human heart is an unconquerable sinful disposition that is in need, not of taming, but of renovation, as Dallas Willard has explained so well. Or, in the words of John Ortberg, we are to “morph indeed”—we discover that we are to be changed from the inside out. It is this “morph indeed” business that leads Christians to make the claim that discipleship is about relationship and not perfection. Lest I be given a D for moral standards, let me quickly add that the relationship will inevitably create good, moral persons. The issue is one of order—and discipleship begins, Jesus says, with relationship.

BELIEVING IS A RELATIONSHIP

Everyone knows that anyone claiming “I am a disciple of Jesus” had better be a good person. In fact, we’d all agree that such a person would have to be extraordinarily good. We might shy away from saying they have to be perfect, but we might as well admit that inside we are holding any person making such a claim to a pretty lofty standard. But Jesus, so it seems to me, would not have joined us in these thoughts. He thinks the primary point is about “believing.” According to the Gospel of Mark, the very first expectation of Jesus for a disciple is this: “Repent and believe the good news!” To “believe” is to have “faith” and to “trust.” (Each is a translation of the same Hebrew or Greek term.) Faith and trust are what Jesus wants, and these express a relationship to Jesus rather than moral perfection. Faith can be analyzed theoretically, but it is best understood when it is seen in action in the real world. A good place to begin, therefore, is Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Jesus is “on a vacation” from his ministry demands in Galilee and needs rest. This woman is “on a mission” from her daughter, who is spiritually ill with demons tormenting her and needs help. The mother hears that Jesus is in town, finds him, and disturbs his vacation—and herein lies the gateway to the biblical idea of faith. Jesus at first puts her off, but her faith won’t let go, and Jesus responds to her persistent faith by healing her daughter. If we describe a disciple as one who believes in Jesus, which this woman does, we also need to remind ourselves that believing is a dimension of love. This is clear if we substitute “trust” for “believing” or “faith.” Love and trust are constant friends. The Jesus Creed calls people to love God (by following Jesus) and to love others. To follow Jesus as an act of love means to trust him. The Jesus Creed is not a system for moral improvement like the one used (temporarily) by Ben Franklin. This is not to say that any of Franklin’s virtues is unacceptable to a disciple of Jesus. But, a disciple is someone who engages Jesus as a person by trusting him, and because of that relationship, begins to live out the virtues Jesus talks about. It all begins here, in this order, and if it doesn’t begin here, it doesn’t begin at all.

FAITH AND ITS FRIENDS

Faith is an ongoing relationship and therefore like a marathon. The Jesus Creed is not for someone who believed, in the past, but someone who believes. Christians are called believers not believeders. Relationships have dimensions. When two people begin a relationship, they come to know one another mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, physically, financially—and the list goes on. The relationship of a disciple to Jesus also has its dimensions, and I call them the “friends” of faith. There are at least three elements, or three constant friends, of faith. Each is always present in the relationship. The Jesus Creed exhorts us to love God with our “all.” The Syro-Phoenician woman who interrupts Jesus’ vacation responds to Jesus in mind, body, and heart.

Faith’s friend of the mind: affirming kingdom truths The Syro-Phoenician woman, the mother of a spiritually tormented daughter, hears about Jesus and thinks he is the person who can heal her daughter. We can assume that the mother doesn’t know what the disciples know about Jesus. She probably doesn’t know all that much about YHWH or the Torah. But she knows Jesus can heal and that God is doing great things through him. If she did not believe these things about him, she would stay home and attend to her daughter. Her knowledge about Jesus is “mental faith,” the affirmation of certain truths about Jesus: He can heal; he is sent from God, he will help. This is why Christians have, at times, reduced a dimension of their faith to certain creedal statements. Faith may transcend the creedal statements, but it surely involves those creedal statements. To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe at least this one irreducible Truth: Abba redeems in Jesus’ death and resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit. Not all of this would have been known by the Syro-Phoenician mother in detail, but like a big backyard satellite dish, she was pointing in the right direction so she could receive the power Jesus could send. In effect, she believes that God’s kingdom was now at work in and through this Jesus, this Son of David. She goes to Jesus; she gets near Jesus; she spends time with Jesus; she wants to be in his presence. A great rabbi, a contemporary with Jesus, was named Shammai. Once a potential proselyte asked Shammai to summarize the entire Torah while he stood on one foot—a sort of fast-food Torah. Shammai repulsed the Gentile. Hillel, a more merciful rabbi, converted the man by teaching him a summary creed: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” We can summarize our faith while we stand on one foot with this: “I believe in Jesus Christ.” This creed defines the object we love when we recite the Jesus Creed. But we need to remind ourselves of this: the credo (“I believe”) of the creed is a relationship with the subject of the creed, Jesus. Reminding ourselves that a genuine creed is a relationship does not minimize the importance of the mind, which is a “friend of faith.” In fact, ongoing orthodox Christian thinking is what keeps our gospel true to the New Testament shape of faith. Even more, sound thinking makes the relationship with Jesus a relationship with the person he really is. So yes, the mind is always present in faith—and one can even say that the relationship can’t exist without our orthodox friend being present. The mind has a friend in the body, our second dimension of faith.

Faith’s friend of the body: acting on kingdom truths Notice the evidence of the Syro-Phoenician mother’s faith. Jesus is seeking privacy, but she physically seeks him out. She falls at his feet in an act of total desperation and begs him on behalf of her daughter. This woman’s faith does not simply reside in the mind as a set of cognitive affirmations (“I believe that …”). Faith, in other words, is seen in action, in the concrete deed of trust. Genuine faith prompts action. When I was in graduate school, I worked at a local warehouse packing orders for a company that supplied local stores. Mark, a fellow worker, spent his off days parachuting. He came in on Mondays with stories—and we all sat on the edges of our seats listening to them. I became interested in parachuting. He began to explain how it worked—where the airport was, what days they jumped, what the price was, what the air felt like, and (as my imagination got into it) what I would see, what I would need to wear, and so forth. He gave me ample stastistics (as he called them) on safety. I grew more interested as I became more convinced of the safety. I decided I’d try it. Then one day, after explaining it all again, he said, “We’re going tomorrow. You wanna go?” I was confronted with a decision—I was mentally persuaded it was safe, and I knew it would be cool, but my body wasn’t cooperating with my mind. My answer: “No. I’m not getting in the plane.” What he called me is not repeatable here, but you get the point. I believed in my mind, but not with my body. My actions betrayed my mental faith. Genuine faith not only believes in the mind, it also beckons the body to act. Perhaps we do not notice our actions for what they are, but we often express our faith “bodily”: we give money, believing God will use our gifts; we risk financial security by changing careers, believing God has called us to something new; we make that difficult, emotional phone call to someone, hoping on reconciliation among God’s people; and we turn our backs on temptation, trusting God will honor our obedience in the kingdom. Faith acts out its mental affirmations in the body. And it also has heart.

Faith’s friend of the heart: persisting in kingdom truths The Syro-Phoenician mother’s faith is not only in her mind and in her body. It has settled deeply into her heart—and heart-rooted faith shows itself as persistence. She knows enough about Jesus to know that he can heal, and so she steps out on behalf of her daughter. But Jesus permits two challenges to test her heart. First challenge: When the disciples of Jesus come to the conclusion that this woman is pestering Jesus, they ask Jesus to send her away. After all, she’s a Gentile and a woman, and her daughter has demons. She doesn’t budge. She meets the first challenge. Second: Jesus challenges her faith with a riddle. Jesus says: “Let the children of Israel eat from the kingdom table first. Wait your turn.” Not to be denied even by Jesus, the woman pulls a remarkable twist out of her own bag of riddles: “Even the dogs [Jewish code word for “Gentiles”] eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Challenge met again. Jesus unleashes power: “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” Jesus responds to her because her faith has heart; it is persistent and will not back down when challenges block her way to the Great Healer. Speaking of persistence, the lake around which Kris and I walk has now spawned a separate pond—the beavers have created it. In the spring we observed the daily growth of a beaver dam at the neck of the lake on its western end. After a rain we noted that the water level was a bit high on the western side of the beaver dam. Before long the neighbors were flipping open their little cell phones to register concerns with the Parks & Recreation Department. Rob, our hard-working and good-natured supervisor, was soon on the scene dismantling the beaver dam. I could imagine the beavers huddling together to plot their next move. Beavers are like that. Not to be deprived of their need for security, the beavers rebuilt the dam that very night—only a little higher, a little better, and a little stronger. Rob dismantled it again, this time leaving the debris on the bank to “show’em.” That night the beavers were back at it—fooling with Rob by leaving the debris where it was and using other sticks, twigs, and even a small pole they found. About a week later we noticed the dam was untouched, filled with mud and growing weeds; apparently the dam was settling into a quiet life on the lake. We asked Rob about it. His comment: “I gave up. The beavers can’t be denied.” The neighbors and the beavers have become friends.

FAITH IS …

Like the persistent family of beavers, the Syro-Phoenician woman, begging Jesus to heal her daughter and banish the powers of darkness, overcomes obstacles to reach Jesus’ power to heal. Her faith—a relationship with Jesus—is accompanied by a sound mind, an active body, and a persistent heart. Faith is a relationship with Jesus Christ. A friend of mine and author of many academic books, Mark Allan Powell, is writing a book about loving Jesus in a complicated world. In that book, he speaks about the relational nature of faith:

We cannot have a relationship with our christology—we can have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Our soteriology cannot save us from our sins—our Savior can. Our ecclesiology does not make us one—the Lord of the Church does. Our eschatology will not transform this flawed universe—Jesus the King of kings and Prince of Peace will do that. And, no matter how much we love theology—it will never love us back.

Only God in Christ loves us, and that is why believing is a relationship.

CHAPTER 20

Abiding in Jesus

GOSPEL READINGS Luke 10:38–42; John 15:1–17

Sometimes it takes a jolt to get the point. And sometimes Jesus is the one who has to provide the jolt, even to his closest friends. Martha, a close friend of Jesus and his disciples, needs a jolt, and Jesus gives it to her. In her own home, with Jesus sitting in the “living room” teaching her sister, Mary, Martha finds herself in the “kitchen” toiling away. Martha is “distracted” with a Wall Street share of groaning and grunting, and she lets Jesus know that Mary could poke her spoon into the pot to help. Jesus responds with wisdom drawn from deep wells:

Martha, Martha, … you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

What is that “one thing needed”? What distinguishes Martha’s distraction from Mary’s devotion? I suggest it is not so much their location as their posture.

THE PROPER POSTURE

Martha flits about the kitchen with her mind on many things, mostly herself, while her sister, Mary, sits in front of Jesus at his feet, with her mind on anything but herself. There you have it. Mary’s posture tells the story. Her posture is that of a student, of someone who wants to listen to what Jesus has to say, of someone who can wait for dinner. It is the posture, in fact, of someone who is so enthralled with Jesus that dinner might not even happen. What Peter and others experience on the mountain when Jesus is transfigured is what Mary experiences at the feet of Jesus. Disciples at the time of Jesus didn’t sit in chairs and listen to teachers who lectured behind Torah-lecterns with each Torah-point on the screen. Instead, teachers often taught in homes. When they did, their students sat at their feet, the way kindergarten students gather round their teachers in a circle and open up their minds for learning, like little birds in a nest with open beaks waiting for food. Because this posture is the custom for disciples, “sitting at the feet” of someone becomes an idiom for “being a disciple.” The apostle Paul, when he was a budding rabbi, sat at the feet of Gamaliel. Mary sat at the feet of her rabbi, Jesus. At the feet of Jesus, Mary is seemingly serene. Mary’s serenity derives from attending to Jesus, an expression that sums up Mary’s posture. Humans, Jesus says, are defined not by their labor for him, as Martha thinks, but by their relationship to him, as Mary learns. Catherine Clark Kroeger, who has devoted her academic life to studying women in the early church, concludes in a sentence just shy of pure poetry that a woman in Jesus’ kingdom society “is not ultimately defined by the excellence of the table she spreads but on spreading her heart open to God’s Word.”

CONSTANT ACCESS

An analogy may help us understand what “attending to” Jesus means. The first Internet service in our home required that we dial into the server whenever we wanted to access the Internet. At peak times the phone line was sometimes busy, and so at those times we weren’t able to gain access. Once on, if we weren’t active on the service for fifteen minutes, the company disconnected us. Our children informed us one evening, in order to ruffle our feathers, that our form of access was more obsolete than Morse code. We made a change. Our second service (which we still have) comes through a cable, and our computer is now on “constant access.” We simply have to click the appropriate buttons and we have access. However, we do not have access if we are in another room, or if we get in the car, or if we go on a trip. Our son, still not satisfied with our system, has a third kind of service that gives him greater access. He calls it cellular access, and it is rigged up to our cable modem through a device that sends off a remote signal. Lukas can sit in his bedroom, in our living room, and even on our back porch, and be “online.” And this still is inadequate as far as the “techies” are concerned. Lukas has greater access to the Internet than do we, but he still must be within 150 feet of the “router” to have access. The days are coming, he informs me, when Internet access will be constant—like a cell phone. “Way cool,” as he might say. “When,” we ask, “can we get used to something before it becomes obsolete?” Never mind change: We’ve got access and that is what matters. God’s love for us in Christ is like a cellular connection: It is constantly available. He calls us to sit at his feet, attend to him, and absorb his life and love for us. How might we attend to Jesus so we have constant access to his love and life?

ATTENDING TO JESUS

We can best attend to Jesus in at least three ways: listening to the Word, participating physically in worship and the sacraments, and engaging in Christian fellowship.

Attending to the Lord in the Word One of the most common disciplines that shapes our lives according to the Jesus Creed is to spend regular time in the presence of Jesus by reading the Bible and listening to his teachings. As mentioned in a previous chapter, M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., has devoted his ministry (and life) to the spiritual reading of the Bible. He calls attention to the distinction between “informational” and “formational” reading of the Bible. The difference has to do with how we read the Bible and why we read the Bible. Either we read the Bible informationally (to learn more) or we read the Bible formationally (to be changed). Mulholland provides a set of comparisons of the two kinds of Bible reading that can provide for us a checklist of what we do when we open the Bible. In Informational reading, we: In Formational reading, we: Cover as much as possible Cover what we need to Read line after line Read for depth, perhaps only a word Have a goal of mastering the text Have a goal of being mastered by the text Treat the text as an “object” Treat ourselves as the object of the text Read analytically Read receptively Solve problems Are open to mystery

As a trained and certified “informational” reader, I am keenly aware of the accuracy and importance of Mulholland’s comparison of these two kinds of Bible reading. I am also convinced of the absolute importance of formational reading. His suggestions to read formationally push us away from the yen to know and shift us to the yearning to become. Formational reading implies readiness for kingdom transformation. We perhaps need to remind ourselves, when reading the Bible, that that kingdom is the society in which the Jesus Creed transforms our very lives. Those who are devoted to the formational, as Mary clearly is, attend to Jesus because when they read the Bible they both learn and listen. Attending to Jesus creates a society where he is adored, and that is a second form of attending to Jesus.

Attending to the Lord in worship Any form of liturgy, whether structured or spontaneous, is designed to be both a spiritual and a physical encounter with Jesus himself. Thus, praying together, observing an act of worship, or even walking around the church building in prayer (as some traditions do) is a way of attending to the Lord. At an Easter service we attended, the worship team had constructed a large bridge on the stage. The pastor’s sermon addressed our need for reconciliation with God and others, and he explained how the power of the Resurrection makes that reconciliation possible. When the joyous celebration of Easter was coming to an end, the pastor encouraged anyone who desired to do so to “walk the bridge” with someone as a reenactment of a recent experience of reconciliation. To our amazement, many walked forward and walked over the bridge—some hugging each other, some in tears, and some in the joy of a renewed relationship. For those who participated, and for those who observed it, that act was a form of attending to Jesus in a concrete act of worship. In fact, just being together, fellowship itself, is being in the presence of Jesus himself. He says so.

Attending to the Lord in fellowship Of all Jesus’ amazing statements, this one might rank at the top:

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

Every time we fellowship with other disciples, we are in the presence of Jesus, and he is in our presence. What I mean here by “fellowship” is any connection of Christians where, because they are together, they are in the presence of the Lord. Because the church is the body of Christ, each gathering of believers offers a whisper of his presence or the lingering aroma of his fragrance. This means that when we are in fellowship with others, we are actually attending to Jesus. These three considerations on how we can “attend to” Jesus—reading the Bible, worshiping together, and fellowshipping together—are as simple as they are wise. Both parents and the great spiritual classics teach them. We are called by Jesus to the Jesus Creed, and that means loving him. The one needful thing for such love is to attend to Jesus, and another expression for this is abiding in him.

WE ATTEND TO JESUS BY ABIDING IN HIM

Abiding is the central theme of Jesus on the last night he spent with his disciples. Abiding is Jesus’ own commentary on what he means by the “one needful thing.” On that last night, Jesus taught:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.… Remain [or, Abide] in me, and I will remain [or, abide] in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain [or, abide] in the vine.

As a branch draws its sap of life from the vine from which it grows, so also the disciple of Jesus draws spiritual life from Jesus. The manner of drawing life from Jesus is profoundly simple: Abide in him, or open up to the flow. Abiding in Jesus is a discipline of prayer and receiving life from Jesus; it is a way of life. We don’t stumble onto it accidentally; we have to make it a conscious pattern of life. Abiding in Jesus as constant prayer takes practice if it is to become a constant mode of life, as one notable saint in the church taught us.

PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD

Brother Lawrence lived in a monastery, but he found that he struggled to recite formal prayers meaningfully. To overcome his problem, he decided he wanted to practice “continual conversation with God.” The location where this legendary man of prayer established his discipline was the kitchen. For fifteen years he found constant access to God in kitchen service through simple conversation with God. Brother Lawrence let everything in his life become a path of expressing his love for God. His wisdom for prayer can be summarized in three points. First, he wants us to learn that God “is closer to us than we think.” Second: “No one sees anything of it [our prayers]; there is nothing easier than to repeat these little interior acts of worship throughout the day.” And, third: “We can make our heart a prayer room into which we can retire from time to time to converse with Him gently, humbly, and lovingly.” “I do this simply by keeping my attention on God and by being generally and lovingly aware of Him.” Perhaps his greatest success is seen in this: “My fixed hours of prayer are no longer anything other than a continuation of this same exercise.” Jesus calls us to the Jesus Creed—to be people who love God and who love others. We can be spiritually formed people if we learn to abide in him, for then the great love focus of the Jesus Creed begins to appear in our lives. Jesus promised this is what would happen to those who would abide in him.

THE FRUIT OF ABIDING

Jesus makes a claim for abiding: The branch that remains in the vine produces “fruit.” That fruit is God’s love energizing us. God is love. And because his life is coursing down through the vine (Jesus) constantly toward the branches (the disciples), when that life gets to the branches, it produces the fruit of love: “Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.” If abiding in Jesus produces love, that love expresses itself as self-sacrifice for others. A disciple of Jesus is called to the Jesus Creed, to love God (by following Jesus) and to love others. What Jesus says about “abiding” clarifies how the love of the Jesus Creed works: God loves us, his love flows to his Son, and by abiding in him (following him), God’s love flows to us. We, in turn, can let that love flow to others. It couldn’t be simpler.

CHAPTER 21

Surrendering in Jesus

GOSPEL READING Mark 8:34–9:1; 12:28–31

A disciple of Jesus holds aloft the white flag of surrender. The white flag is actually a prayer. Here’s the simple white-flag prayer a disciple carries each day: “May your will be done.” The Jesus Creed teaches us that a disciple’s responsibility is to love God by following Jesus. You only follow someone else when your own lights or sense of direction are not good enough. When a disciple of Jesus utters that white-flag prayer and begins to let Jesus show the way, the disciple admits that he or she has lost the way and needs direction. This disciple is living a life of surrender. Sometimes it hurts, but disciples will tell you right away that surrendering to Jesus is a good kind of hurt. My colleague at North Park University, Rajkumar Boaz Johnson and his wife, Sarita, know the good hurt of surrender. Boaz himself was converted to Jesus Christ while studying in a Hindu seminary, and he suffered ostracism for his commitment, but we will focus on Sarita here. Sarita’s well-to-do family was Hindu, and social status mattered to them. When Sarita began to consider the Christian faith, she knew the implications. Still, she surrendered herself to Jesus Christ. When she was publicly baptized, she received from her family an official notice that she was to vacate the home within one week or renounce, in the newspaper, her newfound faith. With a little flick of her sari, she left home with bags packed. It is amazing that a woman named Sheila had just opened a hostel for converted women from Hindu and Sikh backgrounds who were struggling with their families. Because Sheila knew the danger of seeking out such young women, she prayed that if it was God’s will for women to learn from her, they would find her home. Sarita showed up at her doorstep on a miserably hot day and learned faith at the feet of this dear woman. Sarita and Boaz met when both were studying in a seminary and then married some years later. To prepare for an academic career, they moved to the United States, finished their degrees, and developed an international ministry. Now I am privileged to work alongside the Johnsons. They minister throughout the world because they weighed the cost and surrendered themselves to Jesus. It hurt, but it has turned out for the good. Surrendering to Jesus is a dimension of what it means to love God. All genuine love involves surrender.

JESUS AND SURRENDER

It was Jesus’ own love for Abba and for his disciples that led him to die for them. His love for them set the tone for how they were to love God, him, and others. Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” In historical context, this statement of Jesus suggests martyrdom. But a careful reading of similar statements by Jesus leads to the conclusion that he is speaking of an orientation in life: a life of surrender, whether it involves martyrdom or not. Letting Jesus show the way, as Dallas Willard says, “is the controlling principle of the renovated heart and the restored soul.” But as John Stott observes, this life of surrender paradoxically is a life of blessing, a good hurt:

Only if we serve, will we experience freedom. Only if we lose ourselves in loving, will we find ourselves. Only if we die to our own self-centredness, will we begin to live.

The Jesus Creed is about loving God with the heart, soul, mind, and strength—with the entire person. In short, Jesus is calling us to total surrender: personally (heart and soul), mentally (mind), and physically (strength). Or as Dale Allison puts it, “with every globule of one’s being.”

SURRENDERING PERSONALLY

Surrender begins in the heart and soul. Jesus calls the disciple to surrender his or her heart because it is in the heart that the inner self is located. As Thomas Merton describes it,

The inner self is not a part of our being, like a motor in a car. It is our entire substantial reality itself, on its highest and most personal and most existential level. It is like life, and it is life: it is our spiritual life when it is most alive. It is the life by which everything else in us lives and moves. It is in and through and beyond everything that we are.

Contrary to reports, surrendering our hearts and inner selves to God does not mean God will make us wear itchy wool garments in one-hundred-degree humid conditions, while holed up in some godforsaken hut without air conditioning where the major sport is swatting man-sized diseased mosquitoes. This bizarre image fueling our fears is the opposite of what surrender is. Surrendering is the secret to every genuine love, and surrendering our hearts and souls to God (by following Jesus) unleashes our personalities to become what they are really meant to be. Surrendering the heart is really about our identities being transformed. It is what Jesus saw in his family, in Joseph and Mary. The Christian story of surrender as transformation of self-identity is told often. For Alicia Chester, who was a ballet dancer, surrender has to do with her heart’s commitment to dance:

[My parents] were actually more surprised when I told them I wanted to stop dancing. Ballet had become a sort of religion for me, an all-encompassing way of life that required a single-minded devotion I was no longer willing to give.… But what worried me most was that dance had become my whole identity. It defined not just my schedule, but my sense of self; I hardly knew who I was without it and the recognition it brought. My ballet teacher worried that I was throwing away a God-given gift. I knew it was a gift, one which, once given up, could never be retrieved. Yet God was calling me—not as a dancer, or a student, but simply as me—and I knew this was a break I had to make. In the first few weeks of not going to ballet class, I had a sense of peace I had not felt in many years. Body and soul, it was a tremendous liberation.

And Alicia also knows that surrendering to God is a lifetime disposition of love, not a one-off act. As Jesus says it, a disciple “must deny himself and take up his cross daily.” The Lord’s Prayer contains a gentle reminder of ongoing surrender: “May your [not my] will be done.” Love of God is a sacred love, a total love, and it involves not only the heart and soul, but also the mind.

SURRENDERING MENTALLY

The apostle Peter has trouble surrendering his mind. After Jesus predicts that he will die in Jerusalem, Peter pulls Jesus off to the side and gives him an earful of rebuke—this according to the Gospels. Jesus’ response gets to the heart of what loving God with the mind means: “Get behind me, Satan!” he says to Peter. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” What kind of mind did Jesus think we should have? The sort of mind that followed Jesus with the mind, the sort of mind that surrendered to Jesus mentally, the sort of mind that knew that it was lost—mentally. And it was that sort of mind that Peter didn’t have when he rebuked Jesus for thinking God’s plan for him involved the Cross. A mentally surrendered disciple of Jesus follows Jesus even with the mind. How can we surrender mentally? It begins with what we hope to accomplish with our mind. Wise Christians devote themselves to wisdom—a mind shaped to please God, as Dallas Willard has emphasized. Wisdom begins when we reverence God. We gain wisdom in several ways, but one well-worn path is reading the Bible in a disciplined manner with a disposition to learn about and hear God. When Christians think Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife, that Sodom and Gomorrah are husband and wife, that Mary sings the Magna Carta, and that Jesus eats with the Republicans—when these things are going on, I need to say one more time that surrendering mentally to God begins with reading the Bible. Wise Christians also learn the history of the Church, from the days of the apostles to our own day. They learn about the theological conclusions of the first five hundred years, the major moments of church history (like the missionary movement of the nineteenth century), significant locations (like Carthage), and “heroes” of the faith (like Perpetua or the Anabaptists). Wise Christians also comprehend their own culture. They read newspapers, they read magazines, they seek to comprehend all sides of the political frays of our day, they grapple with influential philosophers and thinkers, and they come to terms with modern cultural expressions. They want to understand what the current “postmodern” view of reality is—which is exactly what it isn’t—there is no right “view” of reality. Many thinkers today are attempting to comprehend the culture, such as J. Richard Middleton, Brian J. Walsh, and Brian McLaren. Mental surrender involves this sort of response to culture, and it should be a priority. To surrender mentally is to give up thinking we know everything. After her conversion from her own brand of Bohemian feminism, Frederica Mathewes-Green describes the beginning of her own mental surrender in these terms:

I felt a pressing need to read a Bible. If this guy Jesus is going to be my boss, who the heck is he? I bought a small King James Version in London and plunged into the Gospel of Matthew. I wasn’t pleased. I found a lot to argue with. But a conviction was slowly seeping into me: I didn’t make the world, I didn’t know everything, and it was time to sit down and listen.

Because Frederica wisely did sit down and listen and accepted what she learned, a career in journalism became a vocation of addressing Christian issues, telling her own story of conversion and grace and of an ongoing mental surrender to gospel truths—even when unfashionable.

SURRENDERING PHYSICALLY

The Jesus Creed also says we are to surrender in love to God “with all our strength,” a Jewish idiom for physical strength and physical resources. A disciple of Jesus recognizes the significance of what is physical. As Dallas Willard makes clear in several of his books, “the body lies right at the center of the spiritual life.” The challenge for spiritual formation is for our bodies to love God and others so that they “honor God.” While some people need to discipline the body more than others, the extravagances of some forms of monasticism, however well intended, express a fundamental misconception of the proper place of the body in spiritual formation. Having said that, however, the disciplines of the Christian life are “body acts of love” and cannot be set aside if we are being spiritually formed. In fact, the body cries for the opportunity to surrender itself to the Jesus Creed. How so? We surrender our bodies by recognizing that body and spirit are related. Jesus says, “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ … For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts,” etc. That is, humans work from the spirit to the body, but the two are connected. Cultivation of the interior life is the only path to transformation of the exterior—with the goal of a body that is fully surrendered to loving God. We surrender our bodies by relinquishing our quest for agelessness. We do this by embracing our mortality, by learning how to live the Jesus Creed in each “phase” of life, by denouncing the rampant “youthism” of modern culture, by honoring senior citizens as not only fellow human beings but as storehouses of wisdom, and by preparing not only to live and retire well but also to die well. Aging isn’t so bad, as Mark Twain observes with a twinkle in his eye.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.

We surrender our bodies to the legitimate use of power. We surrender our bodies to God by tending to our physical health. We surrender our bodies when we jettison our yearnings for vanity. We surrender our bodies to the goodness of sexual pleasure. To do so, we accept our sexuality as a gift from God and protect ourselves from temptation. Jesus’ call for each of us to surrender to him—personally, mentally, and physically—when sifted through the Jesus Creed, reveals what surrender really is: a total expression of love. The white-flag prayer that Christians utter each day, “May your will be done,” is a white flag that speaks of a total love for God (by following Jesus) and for others. Surrendering ourselves to love God is not giving up things for God so much as giving ourselves to God.

CHAPTER 22

Restoring in Jesus

GOSPEL READINGS Mark 4:35–41; 9:14–19; John 21:1–25

When we fall, Jesus picks us up. He’s busy. A disciple is called to love God and to love others, and this means: trust completely, abide constantly, and surrender totally. This is difficult. No one sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to the Beatitudes, or to his incisive comments on hypocrisy, or to his profound concentration on righteousness, gets up and says, “Give me a challenge!” In fact, those who hear Jesus say “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” walk away with an acid pit in their stomachs. Some dilute the acid by contending that “perfection” means “maturity” or “mercifulness.” The problem here is not the term “perfect,” but the expression “as God is …”—whether the call is to be “mature” or “merciful” or “perfect,” the standard is God. We fall and we get lost morally. Whether we look at Jesus’ demands for us through the lens of the Jesus Creed, or whether we dig into the categories of trusting completely, abiding constantly, and surrendering totally, or whether we take our hands away from our eyes to see that testy little word “perfection,” it all comes down to one fundamental problem: we fail. The best news yet is that we can be restored in Jesus. Yes, even leaders fail and leaders sometimes need restoration in Jesus.

FAILURE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS SIN

A professor at a Christian college finds time in his schedule of teaching and writing about the faith to have an affair with a friend’s wife. Roman Catholic priests are presently being scorched in the media for their sin and for their response to their sin. Sometimes Christians, leaders or not, simply fall apart in their love for God and others. Michael Green, currently Advisor in Evangelism to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and noted author of more than forty books, confesses that he and Rosemary, his wife, at one time had serious marriage difficulties and jeopardized their family of four children. Such upheaval occurred in the middle of two thriving ministries, and it almost shipwrecked their lives and ministries. As a friend put it: “Rosemary and Michael are walking in broadly the same direction, but on different sides of a river.” Both had busy schedules. Psychological issues were running deep for Rosemary while ecclesiastical demands were running high for Michael. He who on the outside was a pastor of pastors describes the inside of his home:

After all, it was my over-busyness and neglect which had been a substantial part of the trouble. We reached a very low point during that year, and Rosemary’s thoughts sometimes turned towards divorce, sometimes even to suicide. She graphically described her affection towards me as being like one solitary little white flower crushed in on every side by brambles. The love was flickering and almost gone. We began working on it, however, and the leadership team in the church helped us. By the end of the year we were very much together again, and have been ever since. Nobody meeting us now would ever imagine that we had ever had any difficulties in our marriage.… We have a very good relationship, but it would all have been thrown away, and both our ministries would have been ruined, had we yielded to the impulse to break away from each other.… We worked at it, prayed about it, deliberately set about serving one another and allowed others to help us—and, because of these things, the marriage was restored and is the joy of our lives today.

Not only does Michael put a “fallen face” in a biography with many glorious chapters, and not only does he show that restoration of marriage does occur, he also reveals that failure in discipleship can accompany a life of ministry and that failure can be addressed and overcome. Admission of failure and addressing failure can lead to restoration for the one who loves Jesus.

FAILURE FROM THE GET-GO

Failure is an element of being a disciple, and that is why the disciples are shown for what they really are. The disciples exhibit enough examples of failure to suggest a pattern. They fail to understand Jesus’ teachings, they scream in the middle of a storm, they don’t understand how Jesus can provide for others, … and that’s just a start! As for the final failure, when they fall asleep on Jesus in Gethsemane, Thomas à Kempis has it right: at first “they become bellicose, then lachrymose, then comatose.” This pattern of imperfection found in the Gospel stories reveals that a disciple of Jesus is not sinless. Without minimizing the demand of Jesus, we can say that we will fail, even if failure gradually weakens. In the Jesus Creed is a basic recognition of human sinfulness: love is not about perfection but about relationship. This pattern of imperfection should manifest itself in every understanding of spiritual formation shaped by his Creed. A careful reading of any of the Gospels reveals what I call the “pattern of imperfection”: failure is followed by rebuke, and rebuke by repentance, and repentance by restoration. These are the Three Rs of Failure. If Peter is a good example of the process of conversion, he is also a good example of the pattern of imperfection.

Failure Peter’s reputation is established by a life of good things: his confession of Jesus as Messiah, his leadership of the apostles, and his role in the early church. But this fisherman does not always experience smooth sailing. Thinking he’s the bee’s knees, Peter tries to walk on water but plunges into the water of failure. When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain, Peter desecrates a revelatory moment with words sounding like a child pleading to go potty during a sacred moment in church. When Jesus needs him the most, Peter publicly denies any association with Jesus at all—the worst sin against Jesus a disciple can commit. The honesty of the Gospel writers make Peter’s failures public. Some judge public declaration of failure a taboo. If so, Phillip Yancey breaks the taboo as he describes his own racism. “I grew up in Atlanta,” he begins. “I grew up a racist,” Yancey continues. “Stores in downtown Atlanta had three restrooms: White Men, White Women, and Colored.” When the Civil Rights Act made restaurant segregation illegal, Yancey tells us, Lester Maddox (later Governor of Georgia) “sold clubs and ax handles in three different sizes—Daddy, Mama, and Junior—replicas of the clubs used to beat black civil rights demonstrators.” In a painful moment of truth, Yancey confesses his failure: “I bought one of those ax handles with money earned from my paper route.” Because of escalating racial tensions, Yancey’s church quickly founded a private white school and shooed away a little black daughter of a Bible professor,

… but most of us approved of the decision. A year later the church board rejected a Carver Bible Institute student for membership (his name was Tony Evans and he went to become a prominent pastor and speaker). We used to call Martin Luther King, Jr. “Martin Lucifer Coon.” … Today as I look back on my childhood I feel shame, remorse, and also repentance. It took years for God to break through my armor of blatant racism—I wonder if any of us sheds its more subtle forms—and I now see that sin as one of the most malevolent, with perhaps the greatest societal impact.

Phillip Yancey knows that racism is a Christian moral failure that is standing, like the proverbial elephant, in front of us. Yancey tells the truth. Failure is not confronted until we tell the truth, but sometimes that truth doesn’t come to the surface until someone points it out—someone like Jesus.

Rebuke After Jesus predicts his death, Peter butts into Jesus’ disclosure of the plan of God with an alternative strategy: “kingdom without death” is his “strateegery.” To this suggestion, Jesus gives Peter what he needs: a clear rebuke that his mind is grubbing around in diabolical and fiendish places. Sometimes we, too, need to see the argumentative index finger of Jesus. Sometimes we sin, some things are wrong, and however much it hurts and potentially “damages” our self-esteem, the truth has to be told. Whether we call it admonishment or instruction, the point is the same: sinful behavior must be pointed out. Here are two examples from the Bible. Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will invade our hearts, and that one of the Spirit’s missions is to rebuke us of our sins. And Paul will later tell Peter, with the finesse of a Scud missile, that Peter is doing something grossly inconsistent with God’s gospel love for all. Sometimes, the Bible tells us, the truth needs to be told—and it tells us to relate that truth in love. When we do, good things can happen.

Repentance The best result is that the person who needs to hear the truth swallows the pill of truth and repents. Peter was offered a pill, but like a child examining that first adult-sized aspirin, it took him a while to down it. After denying Jesus, Peter hears the rooster that Jesus predicted, remembers the words of Jesus, and weeps bitterly. Then Peter and Jesus meet up in Galilee. Jesus probes Peter’s heart in terms of whether or not he is willing to live out the Jesus Creed. Peter is led to think through his disastrous night three more times, absorb each failure as his own, and verbally recommit his love for Jesus. Genuine repentance, seen here, involves three more Rs: taking responsibility, making restitution when necessary and possible, and recommitment. Phillip Yancey, now years later when repentance from racism was beginning to crawl into public places, continues his journey in and out of racism and illustrates repentance:

Even my childhood church learned to repent. As the neighborhood changed, attendance at the church began to decline. When I attended a service several years ago, I was shocked to find only a few hundred worshipers scattered in the large sanctuary that, in my childhood, used to be packed with fifteen hundred. The church seemed cursed, blighted.… Finally the pastor, a classmate of mine from childhood, took the unusual step of scheduling a service of repentance. In advance of the service he wrote to Tony Evans and to the Bible professor, asking their forgiveness. Then publicly, painfully, with African-American leaders present, he recounted the sin of racism as it had been practiced by the church in the past.

Yancey and his fellow Christians, because they recognize their sin and repent from it, stand in a long line of those who need restoration, beginning with the apostle Peter.

Restoration After the Resurrection, at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus meets up with Peter to deal with his repentance after denying him. Jesus requires Peter to answer his soul-searching question of the Jesus Creed again: “Peter, do you love me?” Three times Jesus says to Peter some variation of “Feed my lambs.” To cap it off, standing on the same seashore, Jesus returns to the original call: “Follow me.” Peter is restored to his call to serve Jesus. These two commands were the best words Peter ever heard in his life. With Jesus there is always room at the table of restoration for the one who will remember the words of Jesus and repent. Yancey, in another brush with the restoring grace of God, continues his story:

[The pastor of the Atlanta church] confessed—and received their forgiveness. Although a burden seemed to lift from the congregation after that service, it was not sufficient to save the church. A few years later the white congregation moved out to the suburbs, and today a rousing African-American congregation, The Wings of Faith, fills the building and rattles its windows once more.

Restoration, one learns, doesn’t necessarily mean we can set the clock back. But, there is forgiveness. Lauren Winner, whose spiritual path led her from liberal Judaism to Orthodox Judaism to an evangelical Episcopal faith, tells of the time she nervously wrote out her sins on a legal pad so she could remember them when she confessed to Father Peter. She had a six-page list of sins by the time she got to her confession and then processed through them, embarrassed by what he might think. Father Peter said after her confession, “The Lord has put away all your sins.” “Thanks be to God,” Lauren responded. “Go in peace and pray for me, a sinner,” said Father Peter. Then he asked her for the sheets of paper.

I clutched my yellow sheets … and, reluctantly, handed over my sins, and then I watched as Father Peter ripped my six sheets into shreds.… “It’s funny,” said Father Peter, as we walked out of the church, “it happens whenever I hear a confession. After I leave the altar, I can never, for the life of me, remember a single thing the penitent said.”

Phillip Yancey, standing next to Lauren Winner, reminds us of the possibilities of social and interpersonal restoration and forgiveness with this:

The Benedictines, for example, have a moving service of forgiveness and reconciliation. After giving instruction from the Bible, the leaders ask each one attending to identify issues that require forgiveness. Worshipers then submerge their hands in a large crystal bowl of water, “holding” the grievance in their cupped hands. As they pray for the grace to forgive, gradually their hands open to symbolically “release” the grievance.… What impact might it have if blacks and whites in … the United States of America plunge their hands repeatedly into a common bowl of forgiveness? Jesus and Peter plunged their hands into the bowl, Jesus’ hands came out empty, and Peter was restored. That night, along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, between the water and the fire, more than one shadow was seen dancing to the song of restoration. All the disciples had tasted the fish, and it breathed new life into their flagging hearts.

CHAPTER 23

Forgiving in Jesus

GOSPEL READING Matthew 6:12, 14–15; 18:21–35

The Jesus Creed expands forgiveness. In the Old Testament, God’s gracious forgiveness is center stage, but we don’t find a challenge for humans to forgive. With Jesus, since he believes that what God does is what humans are to do, humans join God in the action. They, too, are to forgive. Because many are so accustomed to hearing about the importance of forgiveness, it surprises us to hear that forgiveness gets a new shape with Jesus. Forgiveness doesn’t appear in any of Moses’ lists of commandments. In all the prayers of David, we don’t find the prayers concerned with forgiving one another. And, the prophets don’t call Israelites to forgive one another. This is not the way these biblical figures talk. One of the rare instances of human forgiveness concerns the patriarch Joseph. After they buried their father, Jacob, Joseph’s brothers worry that Joseph may turn on them, so they concoct a falsehood and claim their father said: “This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.” When they throw themselves at Joseph’s feet, Joseph simply asks, “Am I in the place of God?” The Scripture continues, “And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” This story is really the only instance in the Old Testament of humans forgiving one another. If human forgiveness figures so prominently in Christian teaching, why is it so rare that humans are urged to forgive one another in the Old Testament? What does it teach about forgiveness?

A “GOD THING” AND A “REPENTANCE THING”

The simplest answer to that question is that forgiveness is something God does, not something humans do. If forgiveness is the objective reality of wiping the slate clean of one’s sinful behaviors and thoughts, then most of us would agree that only God can wipe the slate clean. This is why the vast majority of references to forgiveness in the Bible describe this process: Israel sins, YHWH forgives. There’s another consideration. Forgiveness is generally granted in the Old Testament on the condition of repentance. One doesn’t walk around Israel handing out pardons or amnesty certificates to sinners unless and until they repent. This requirement of repentance prior to forgiveness expresses an important system of justice in Israel. It is (at some level) simply unjust to forgive because it would be giving someone something they don’t deserve. (Herein is found the secret to forgiveness.) Forgiveness, in the Old Testament, is a “God thing” and a “repentance thing.” In this understanding Christianity and Judaism differ significantly. The Jewish scholar Solomon Schimmel has written the most complete study of forgiveness. While he respects the differences among Jewish thinkers on forgiveness, he represents a representative viewpoint of how Jews understood their tradition about forgiveness. And Schimmel observes a fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity when it comes to forgiveness: Judaism overall is more concerned with guaranteeing justice than with forgiving incorrigible sinners, whereas Christianity, at least in its foundational prayer and creeds, if not in its actions, talks more of forgiveness as an act of grace, given even to the undeserving and not-yet-repentant, than of justice. In what probably strikes Christians as a bit slender on mercy, Schimmel adds:

We have to imitate God, and God, for the most part, punishes unrepentant sinners and forgives repentant ones.

Schimmel’s understanding of Judaism’s essential view is grounded in the emphases we find in the Old Testament. There is something different about Jesus when it comes to forgiveness.

THE PREEMPTIVE STRIKE OF FORGIVENESS

Because forgiveness is such a familiar idea, we run the risk of missing just what Jesus was saying. To begin with, forgiveness begins with God’s loving act of forgiving. It suspends any system of justice: Instead of sinful humans getting what they deserve (a system of justice), they are granted forgiveness (a system of forgiveness). This loving act of forgiveness reveals God’s inner nature: he is a forgiving God. He preemptively strikes the human condition with an offer of grace. That strike of God’s forgiving love to us produces in us a cascading flow of forgiveness to others, which is where the Jesus Creed begins to expand what forgiveness is all about. Notice these statements by Jesus:

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, “I repent,” forgive him.

If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

[From the cross,] Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

A brief summary of each: First, Jesus innovates in his world when he urges his followers to have a disposition of forgiveness rather than of strict justice. Second, so important is forgiveness to Jesus that forgiving others is a litmus test of whether or not one is a follower of Jesus. Third, forgiving others knows no limit for Jesus’ followers. Fourth, forgiving others is effective in his society of followers. The ultimate observation we make is that Jesus is the example: On the cross Jesus looks to those who are crucifying him and forgives them. What Jesus says about forgiveness is rooted in the Jesus Creed: God loves us, so we are to love others and to love God. Loving others means forgiving them. Put succinctly, the Jesus Creed manifests itself in gracious, preemptive strikes of forgiveness.

FROM YOM KIPPUR TO FORGIVENESS SUNDAY

Jesus innovates within the lines of Judaism and declares that the sacred Shema needs to be more than a “love God thing.” The Shema of Jesus (the Jesus Creed) is a “love God” and “love others” thing. Jesus also says the Kaddish needs to be expanded to include others, and thus he gave us the Lord’s Prayer. And now forgiveness is expanded: both God and humans are to forgive. I am not a historian of liturgy, but I do know that in the Orthodox tradition there is a day in the church calendar called Forgiveness Sunday, and at the Vespers service initiating the days of Lent, at least one Orthodox church has a custom of forgiving one another publicly. (The Orthodox do a lot of things publicly.) After a lengthy series of liturgical prayers and gestures, these Orthodox form two lines facing one another. Bowing before one another, they ask one another for forgiveness. Then they shift so that each person in the congregation asks forgiveness from everyone. The parade of forgiveness begins when Frederica Mathewes-Green’s husband, Gary, and her son, David, embrace one another, speaking to one another words of grace and forgiveness. Frederica’s emotions begin to well up inside her as she sees her own flesh and blood participate in the grace of God and watch the people of God extend to each other what God has offered to each. Then her two sons, David and Stephen, forgive one another in a public act. Walls between humans, between family members, begin to tumble as grace blows through the congregation. “One at a time I bow to people I worship with every week, looking each one in the eye, men and women, children and aged. Each interchange is an intimate moment, and I feel on the wobbly border between embarrassment, laughter and tears.” Forgiveness, sometimes, is easier between strangers than between family members. And it is easier to watch than to do. The challenge to forgive is now a family member standing in front of Frederica: her daughter, Megan, about whom Frederica has told many stories, now faces her mother. Here’s an encounter that can’t be faked; there are things between them. Frederica asks her daughter for forgiveness; Megan asks for the same grace from her mother. And Frederica caps it off with this, “Can a mother do such a thing? You bet. A moment later we are in a marshmallowy embrace.” Forgiveness on a Sunday is a good custom, but not a new one. This is a custom that has a deep root not only in Church history but in the very teachings of Jesus: not only do we ask God to forgive us, but we are to forgive one another, and to do so preemptively.

DISTINGUISHING SORTS OF FORGIVENESS

C. S. Lewis once said, “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” Some take the words of Jesus to mean that Christians are to forgive whomever for whatever at all times. But there are some issues to think about first. Simon Wiesenthal, for instance, is a Jew who was brought face-to-face with a young, dying Nazi officer who described an atrocity—herding hundreds of Jews into a home, blowing the home up with grenades, hearing the screams, and watching small children die. When the Nazi officer, to make peace with himself, pleaded for forgiveness from Wiesenthal because he was a Jew, Wiesenthal walked away without offering the man one ounce of hope for forgiveness. It has been asked of many: is the Christian to offer such a person forgiveness? A woman is abused by her husband—she is a Christian and he is not (does it matter?). Is she to forgive him? A neighbor is asked to care for a home when a family is on vacation, rifles through the drawers, steals some money, and the family learns of it. Is that Christian family to forgive the neighbor and ask him to care for the home the next time they leave? These questions lead to this fundamental issue: What is forgiveness? Even though the Bible never sorts out the various kinds of forgiveness, I believe there are two fundamental dimensions of forgiveness that need to be distinguished: objective forgiveness and subjective forgiveness. “Objective forgiveness” refers to the elimination of the offense in the relationship, that is, it refers to “reconciliation.” The “subjective” includes both a disposition to forgive and an experience of forgiving: release of anger, hatred, and resentment—ending the internal recycling of the offense. I will attempt to make a complex discussion as simple as possible: Because a disciple of Jesus loves God and loves others, the disciple develops a disposition to forgive that is ready to release the negative emotions caused by offenses (subjective) but reconciliation is not always possible (objective). So much for definitions. How do we go about forgiving others?

FORGIVING OTHERS

The disposition of a follower of Jesus is to forgive others so that all relationships are reconciled to reflect the Jesus Creed. To move through the process, from the subjective disposition and experience to the objective, involves the following: First, the victim of an offense really confronts the offense and the offender’s responsibility. There can be no genuine reconciliation or forgiveness until a person confronts “who did what.” Shoving an abusive situation into a hidden pocket of the heart only lets it fester until it abscesses. The victim meets the offender and the offense by naming it what it really is: stealing, sexual abuse, fraud, etc. The offense is a moral wrong, and it is not minimized by an effort to reduce the pain or hurry a reconciliation. This takes time, sometimes lots of time. Second, the victim recognizes the impact. A victim does not subjectively forgive until he or she recognizes what the offense has done to the relationship: whether it “merely” harmed the relationship or actually destroyed it (as infidelity can do). Forgiveness admits into view the real emotions that have emerged because of the offense. Third, the victim chooses to pursue (objective) forgiveness. Even with the disposition to forgive, a victim still needs to decide to “get over it” or “get it behind me” or “release the anger” or “let it go.” To do so the victim will need to absorb injustice by accepting the offender as a human who has sinned. Then the victim suspends justice and offers (subjective) forgiveness. The offer of grace sometimes melts the heart of the offender. Fourth, the victim strives for justifiable reconciliation (or, objective forgiveness). The lovely idea, as C. S. Lewis states, suddenly becomes even harder now. The disciple of Jesus knows God’s immense love for sinful humans and Jesus’ shining example of asking God to forgive those who were crucifying him. Because of these truths, the disciple is challenged to reconcile with the offender. Again, this can take time. Furthermore, the degree of reconciliation is shaped by other factors: our hurts, whether or not the offender has repented, how long the offender may have served time in prison, if the offender is a dangerous person, if the offender is even alive, etc. Finally, forgiveness creates an alternative reality: those who forgive unleash a flow of love for others. The simple fact is this: When we are forgiven by those whom we have offended, we suddenly become alive internally in a way we did not expect, and it creates a “cycle of grace” and a “moral cease-fire.” No one said the Jesus Creed was the easy way.

CHAPTER 24

Reaching Out in Jesus

GOSPEL READINGS Matthew 9:36–11:1; 28:16–20; John 20:21

Love has arms that reach out—always. As I was shoveling the snow out of my driveway before dawn today, it occurred to me, because of what I had been reading the night before, that I was facing a typical day: approximately 90,000 people would turn their lives over to Jesus Christ. The Church continues to extend its arms to others. In the Christian world today, 1.06 billion are Roman Catholic, 386 million are Independent-Pentecostal, 342 million are Protestant, 215 million are Orthodox, and 79 million are Anglican. There are more nonwhite Christians than white, more in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern, and the center of gravity is shifting to the South and to the East. By the year 2050 only about one-fifth of the world’s Christians will be non-Hispanic whites; the vast majority will be conservative and charismatic. These changes will have occurred all because missionaries have reached out. While shoveling, I gave thanks to the Lord as I pondered these mind-boggling statistics. I also thought back to where it all began.

THE ORIGINS OF MISSIONARY WORK

Here’s the “official” moment: “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” A fisherman of that era pulled a net of fish into his boat, then hauled the fish ashore to separate the bad from the good. Fishing, then, is about netting and separating. Fishing “for others,” then, involves declaring (netting) and offering forgiveness or warning of judgment (separating). Jesus regularly called his disciples to “fish for others.” After his resurrection, he commissioned the eleven remaining disciples to “make disciples of all nations.” In another context, he said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And, then just before the Ascension, he said, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We call this the “missionary task” of the Church: The Church is to reach out with good news. This missionary task is the inevitable manifestation of the Jesus Creed: those who love others reach out with the Good News of God’s love, just as a medical person always reaches out to those in need.

FROM JESUS TO OTHERS

To get a firm grip on what the missionary task of the Church is, we need to examine several texts in the Gospel of Matthew; once we connect these texts, we will see that the missionary task is very specific: it is to reach out with the mission of Jesus to new people. First, Matthew describes Jesus’ ministry: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” Then he describes the disciples’ mission in identical terms: “[Jesus] called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.” In other words, what Jesus does, the Twelve are to do. This understanding of mission becomes even more direct in a fourth text, the instructions of which I have numbered:

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: [1.] Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. [2.] As you go, preach this message: “The kingdom of heaven is near.” [3.] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. [4.] Freely you have received, freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.

Each of these instructions asks the disciples to do exactly as Jesus did in other chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Add up all these instructions and we arrive at this important understanding of the missionary task of the disciple of Jesus: the mission of a disciple is to reach out to others with the mission of Jesus. This is our task too.

TEACHING JESUS IS REACHING OUT

Each of us can reach out with Jesus in our own ways, through our vocations. My vocation gives me a direct way of reaching out, and from it I share this story. After eleven happy years of teaching seminary students, I sensed a leading to teach college students. So, nine years ago I began teaching at North Park University. The students I encountered changed dramatically: thirty-five-year-old (mostly) men with (in the case of the men) moustaches, drinking cups of coffee became men and women eighteen to twenty years old. College students, bless their hearts, attend early classes in their pajama flannels, wear baseball hats to mask their not-yet-combed hair, slouch their trousers low enough that all can see their undies (or where some undies ought to be), dye their hair in previously unseen colors, and pierce and tattoo their bodies in public places. These things are fine, I suppose, as long as the person in question is not your own child. When I began teaching at North Park, the students changed, but the subject didn’t. And this time I knew the subject would have a different impact. Because North Park does not require that students follow the Christian faith, and because it is successful in attracting students from Chicagoland, about half of my introductory students are not Christians. We go through the Bible in two chunks: the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the New Testament portion, we focus on Jesus and Paul. I cannot tell you how many students become Christians, but end-of-course assessments show that many students either gain or renew their faith. The class is not evangelistic; Jesus, the subject, is. Like a centripetal force, Jesus attracts. One student, Asha Gandhi, came to my office a few years ago to inform me that she was Hindu and didn’t want to take the required Bible class. I explained to her that the course was mandated by the Board. She said “OK” and left my office. She walked down the hall to her advisor and promptly lied: “Professor McKnight told me I didn’t have to take 1850 because I am Hindu.” To which her wise advisor said, “Professor McKnight does not have that option. You’ll have to take the course.” The next morning Asha sat in the back row with that sweet look of mandated misery. By the second week she was listening; by the fourth week she was interested. Later in the semester she approached me: “Are there any empty seats in your Jesus class next semester? I need to take a second religion course, and I really like Jesus.” Asha took the second class, did well, and showed dramatic signs of turning her life over to Jesus. The subject matter, Jesus and his Creed, drew her in. I am privileged, by vocation, to be able to extend Jesus through teaching about him. Each of us is privileged to be persons who can reach out to others.

FROM VILLAGE-TO-VILLAGE TO SEEKER GROUPS

When Jesus reaches out through his disciples to others, he expects them to go from village to village declaring the “kingdom of God”—this expression is Jesus’ code word for what God is doing. Kingdom, it will be remembered, is the society in which the Jesus Creed transforms life. That kingdom is seen in loving God and loving others, in table fellowship, in restoring persons to the table of God through forgiveness and healing, in the paradoxical smallness of mustard seed–like power, in working for justice, and in an abundant joy. As Dorothy Sayers asks, “If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting?” Those who respond favorably to Jesus’ first disciples’ declaration of the kingdom of God invite the disciples home. There the new disciple sees the kingdom story and observes kingdom people. The kingdom’s most visible trait in the first century was not renovation of the synagogue but revolution in the home, not a program hoping for change but a person making changes, not the distant seat of Moses but a close seat at the table. This is how the first followers of Jesus extended the mission of Jesus to others. This is how they “evangelized,” or “declared the good news.” Evangelism is not always a positive term among Christians today. Indeed, because the Western Church has become hesitant to declare the Good News about Jesus, it needs to be called back to the task of reaching out to others. The Anglican leader and evangelist Michael Green cuts through church cant: “God’s church exists not for itself but for the benefit of those who are not yet members.… [and] the church which lives for itself will be sure to die by itself.” The church is not a religious club and it does not have a secular mission. Instead, it is a worshiping and sending community. Most writers about spiritual formation tend to dwell on what happens in the inner life, on what happens to an individual in the heart, but M. Robert Mulholland gets it right:

Christian spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.

A part of “for the sake of others” is reaching out with Jesus’ mission to others. This is why “spiritual formation” needs to be understood as Jesus understood it: A spiritually formed person loves God and loves others. In one of my first classes teaching seminary students was a blonde-haired, good-looking young man from Indiana University who had the gift of evangelism more than any student I have ever taught. His name is Garry Poole. After graduating from seminary, Garry and I kept in touch. When I was teaching an extension course in Indianapolis, Garry, then church planting, would pick me up at the airport to chat, take me to a restaurant for an early dinner, and then take me to my classroom. When I stopped teaching those courses, I lost contact with Garry until I bumped into him in one of Willow Creek’s mazelike lobbies. Garry, to my delight, was on staff and directing Willow’s seeker Bible studies. He has since informed me that there are over one hundred seeker small groups with at least ten people in each group. These successful Bible studies build a bridge of friendship to seekers, hoping to present the Good News about Jesus through a holistic ministry (as Jesus had). The Alpha course, directed in England by Nicky Gumbel, has been anointed in a similar manner, and over two million have become Christians through its ministries. Recently, Garry Poole published Seeker Small Groups, and he gave me a copy, signed it, and capped it off by writing Acts 20:24.

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

This verse captures Garry’s life.

In the introduction to his book Garry says this:

I have spent my whole life on the lookout to develop and implement the best ways to convey the compelling message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Along the way, however, I’ve come to discover one of the greatest challenges within the evangelism process: to find and strike that important balance between presenting the truths of the Bible with boldness and clarity while, at the same time, keeping my treasured friendships with seekers safely intact.

This vision began when Garry was offered an opportunity to lead a group on the campus of Indiana University, but the offer came with this hitch: He’d have to find the people. His leader had one question: “Who knows what God might do through you? Just give it your best shot.” Little did he know. Garry advertised his group and nine people showed up. The problem was that Garry was ready for an in-depth Bible study for Christians, but no Christians came. In a stroke of wisdom that altered his life, Garry let the “seekers” talk. Soon they were sharing hurts and questions; bridges were built. The group met for the rest of the year. Six of the original nine came to faith. What Garry learned there now shapes the heart of his entire ministry: the way to reach out is to build bridges to others so they can cross that bridge to Jesus. Whether we are talking about Willow Creek’s Garry Poole and its seeker studies, Anglicanism’s Michael Green, or Nicky Gumbel’s Alpha course, or any one of us, each of us has a task: through our vocations to reach out with the Good News of the kingdom. Reaching out to others is what happens when a person lives the Jesus Creed; that person loves others, and love means seeking God’s best for someone.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I dedicate this book to Kris. Her wisdom, love, encouragement, and judgment can be found in every chapter and on every page. In simple terms, I am honored to live with someone who lives out the Jesus Creed daily. Many friends and colleagues have read portions of this manuscript or have listened to me chat about them. John Ortberg has been a constant source of encouragement, both in word and book. I am grateful that he agreed to write the Foreword. Sonia Bodi has read and commented on every chapter. She always has the right word and expresses it with élan and compassion. Garry Poole interrupted his own busy schedule of ministry to read chapters, meet with me, and offer encouragement. Greg and Heather Clark, Doreen and Mark Olson, Kent Palmer, Steve Ratliff, Wes Olmstead, Kermit Zarley, Joe Modica, Bob Mulholland, and Rob Merola read the entire manuscript or portions of it, and I thank them for their suggestions. Mark Allan Powell, David Larsen, Akiva Cohen, and Greg Strand made extensive notes on various chapters; to them I give my heartfelt thanks. Two other North Park colleagues deserve my thanks: David Nystrom has been my colleague for nine years, but is now returning to California to serve the Covenant Church. I will miss him as a brother, and our school will miss him as a leader. Jim Nelson, my golfing partner throughout the warmer months of the year, has walked many a fairway in silence listening to my ideas, many of which are in this book—and I thank him for his wise counsel and bibliographical expertise. My daughter, Laura, and her husband, Mark Barringer, heard more than they cared to hear of what I was writing—usually in some restaurant—and their questions have settled into this book in some ways. My son, Lukas, when he was home during the off-season, read each chapter. As an English major, he had literary suggestions that made me proud; as a son, he encouraged his father (which also made me proud). In the Spring semester of 2004 I read the entire manuscript of this book to my fourth-year practicum on spiritual formation, and I wish to record my gratitude to them. They relished the opportunity of turning the tables to make suggestions on my prose and ideas. Not a few of their ideas show up. Jacob Eisele, Chris Nelson, Jinny Chieu, Jessie Wuollet, and Andrew Kjer make teaching a holiday. Finally, with perhaps the most enduring impact on the manuscript, I mention Lil Copan, my editor at Paraclete Press. She is the Melchizedek of editors, accepting my verbal offerings and turning them into a fragrance acceptable to God and others.

Holy Week 2004

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Abba: the Aramaic term for “father”; the Hebrew term is Ab (or Av). While fatherhood is not the emphasis in Judaism for its understanding of God (YHWH*), it is clear that Judaism understood God at times in terms of his fatherly relations to Israel. (Barbra Streisand sings a song by that name!). Christians are mistaken when they claim Jesus was the first to use the term for God, and they also fail to grasp the historical record when they claim Jesus was the first to understand God in loving, gracious terms. There is ample evidence for the gracious love of YHWH* as Ab in the Old Testament (Pss. 68:5; 103:13–14; Jer. 3:19; 31:9, 20; Hos. 11:1–8; Mal. 2:10). Nor do Christians understand the term accurately when they think the language is simply baby talk and translate it “Daddy.” The term Abba comprises the relationship of a child to a father from birth to death: hence, “Father” is surely the most accurate translation.

Almanah: Hebrew term for “widow.” The almanah is stereotypically impoverished, destitute, and dismal (cf. Ruth 1:20–21). Although laws were enacted to protect widows (Deut. 14:28–29; 24:19–24), the laws were apparently neglected, because a theme arises in the Bible that God is the defender of the widow (Pss. 68:5; 146:9).

Am ha-aretz: Hebrew for “people of the Land.” This term, which once meant “landed gentry in Judah,” became a pejorative term for (1) those who were intentionally careless about following the specifics of the Torah* and its interpretation, and (2) those who might be called today “country bumpkins.” I consider highly likely that the colleagues of Joseph would have considered his decision to marry the unacceptably pregnant Mary unworthy of a person considered to be a tsadiq*. In their perception, Joseph was no better than the intentionally careless of the Land. A good example of this attitude can be seen in Luke 15:1–2.

Anawim: Hebrew for “poor, humble.” The “pious poor” of Judaism. After the Exile in Babylon (587 BC), a social class of Jews who returned were known as much for their commitment to the Torah* and the temple as for their economic poverty. Their situation led them to trust in God and to pray for him to establish his justice in the Land. Accordingly, this group was one in which hopes for the Messiah flourished. Two other wonderful examples of the Anawim can be found in the accounts of Simeon (Lk. 2:25–35) and Anna (2:36–38). They seem to live in the cracks of society, they are near the temple, and their expectations for the Messiah strike the reader immediately. Some have suggested that the letter of James, which was written by the brother of Jesus, reflects the piety of the Anawim. A reading of the following passages from James confirms the suggestions: 1:9–10, 27; 2:1–13, 14–17; 4:13–17; 5:1–6.

God-fearer: a Gentile who partly converted to Judaism (without undergoing circumcision) and who participated in the Jewish life of the synagogue. See Acts 10:1–11:18; 13:16, 26, 43, 50; 17:4, 17; 18:7.

Impure: see Purity.

Mamzer: an illegitimate child. Because of Jesus’ irregular conception through a virgin, he would have been considered by some in his world as (if truth be told) a mamzer. Such a social classification would have restricted Jesus’ life in a variety of ways. Sanhedrin 67a).

Mechitza: a physical wall in an Orthodox synagogue, designed to prevent mixing of the sexes, to create a sense of order under YHWH*, to foster a sense of the sacred, and to discourage distraction.

Metsora’: a leper. See Leviticus 13–14.

Mikveh: an underground “sacred Jacuzzi,” or cistern, in which Jews performed water purification in order to restore unclean items (like pots, pans, chairs, etc.) to their ritual purity. The rule was that one side of the mikveh had to be lower than the other so that, if there was sufficient water, there would be a continuous stream of water (hence, “living water”).

Na’ap: an adulteress.

Niddah: a woman ceremonially unclean (or impure) because of the regular cycle of blood flow during menstruation. The levitical law prescribes the specifics (Lev. 15).

Pesah: Passover. Exodus 12.

Purity and impurity, clean and unclean: Purity is about the orderly classification of the temple. What is classified as irregular or abnormal is generally impure. Purity is not the same as morality but is about who or what is fit for the temple, and so classifications are made. Morality is about a heart that is right before God. Purity and morality get mixed up. A niddah* may be [and often was] levitically impure and morally pure at the same time. Read Leviticus 11–16. Jesus broke down the purity system of Judaism and established a moral purity that transcended the temple’s system. See Mark. 7:1–20; Acts 10–11; 15; 1 Corinthians 8–10; Galatians 3:28.

Quaker: or, Friends. At the origins of most Christian denominations and movements is a charismatic leader, and for the Quakers that person was George Fox. Other prominent leaders include William Penn (who founded Pennsylvania) and John Woolman. A modern well-known (evangelical) Quaker is Richard Foster. Quakers have always focused, to various degrees, on the Inner Light given by God to all humans. Some think the Inner Light is constrained by Scripture, and such Quakers are more evangelical, while others find the Scriptures subject to the Inner Light, and these Quakers have at times wandered off into odd quarters. Quakers have exercised a significant influence in Christian mysticism. They were the first large social group to oppose slavery.

Samaritan: a society inhabiting the central hill country of Samaria, between Jerusalem and Galilee. They worshiped on Mount Gerizim (rather than Mount Zion) and followed a slightly revised Torah*. By the first century, Samaritans were the stereotype enemy of Judaism, the embodiment of heretical faith, and the denier of Jerusalemcentered hope and faith. They still exist today at the same location.

Shema: Deuteronomy 6:4–9, where the first major term, “Hear,” is shema in Hebrew. These verses were repeated two times daily in the first century by pious Jews—at the break of the morning and after sunset. Some added Deuteronomy 11:13–21 and Numbers 15:37–41 to Deuteronomy 6:4–9. A later rabbi called anyone who did not recite the Shema twice daily an Am ha-aretz*. Here is a full text of the Shema, with modern liturgical lines added (noted in italics).

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Blessed is the name of His Glorious Majesty forever and ever. God, King forever. [This line is an acrostic: A-M-N. Thus, “Amen” became a line.] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4–9) So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. (Deut. 11:13–21) The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.’ ” (Num. 15:37–41)

Shiva: literally, “seven.” After burial in Judaism, the mourners return home and sit shiva* for seven days. They sit on low stools to express that they are feeling low. There are many more customs connected to sitting shiva.

Torah: Hebrew for “instruction.” The term Torah* has been used for a number of items: (1) the entire Old Testament, (2) the first five books of the Old Testament, commonly called the Pentateuch, or (3) specific sections or laws within the Pentateuch—four are especially noteworthy: the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1–20), the Covenant Code (Exod. 20:21–23:19), the Holiness Code (Lev. 17–26), and Deuteronomy. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, the Torah governed all of life (not just the spiritual) and was entirely from God (hence the sacredness of Scripture).

Tsadiq, tsadiqim: Hebrew for “righteous one, righteous ones.” In Judaism the term described the person who observed the Torah faithfully and completely (Mt. 1:19) and also would apply to the person who treated others with full respect and love. More completely, the term refers to the person who is conformed to the will of God as taught in the Torah. In much the same way that Jesus reshaped the will of God in his own teachings (e.g., Mt. 5:21–48; 7:12; 8:18–22), a tsadiq was a person who followed his interpretation of the will of God (cf. Mt. 5:17–20).

Tzitzit: the fringes at the bottom of Jewish clothing. The commandment to wear them comes from Numbers 15:38–39 and Deuteronomy 22:12. It represents obedience to the Torah.*

Unclean and clean: see Purity.

Virginal conception: Mary’s supernatural conception is usually called a “virgin birth,” which is short for “birth of a baby from a mother who was a virgin at conception.” “Virginal conception” is a more accurate expression. The “immaculate conception,” which is Roman Catholic dogma, does not refer to Mary’s virginal conception, but instead to the special act of God on Mary to preserve her from the effects of original sin from the moment of her (own) conception. In this way, many think that Mary would not pass on the sinful nature to her Son, Jesus the Messiah. This dogma was declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

YHWH: the “Name” of God in the Old Testament; Hebrew was written only with consonants, and vowels were added later. Many Orthodox Jews today do not use vowels when they refer to God: e.g., “Lord” is spelled “L—rd” and “God” is “G—d.” The name YHWH finds its origins in Exodus 3:14, and various interpretations have been given, including “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be.” As a result of Jewish reserve in pronouncing the name (often called the tetragrammaton—“four letters”); when Jews were reading the Bible aloud, they substituted Adonai (“Lord”) for YHWH. Later, the vowels for Adonai were placed under the consonants for YHWH, and led to the hybrid (but nonexistent) word “Yehovah,” which in English has become standardized (however inaccurate) as “Jehovah.”

Zealots: a Jewish movement in the first century AD that focused on the use of violence to restore the Land and establish the kingdom of God.

Zavah: a woman with a discharge of blood outside the rhythm of her monthly cycle. Such a woman is unclean; regulations for her are found in Leviticus 15:25–30. See also niddah*.

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

xvii “to call God ‘love’ …” 1 John 4:8.

xix “Abram believed in, or trusted, God …” Genesis 15:6. All citations below in this section are from Genesis 15.

xix “How can I know?”. Genesis 15:8.

xix “heifer, a goat …” Genesis 15:9.

xix “smoking firepot,” “passed between” Genesis 15:17.

xx “the Lord set his affection …” Deuteronomy 10:15.

xx “swooning over a beautiful woman …” Genesis 34:8; Deuteronomy 21:11.

xx “One prophet …” Isaiah 38:17.

xx “Immanuel …” Matthew 1:23.

xx “the Paraclete …” John 14:16.

xx “God himself …” Revelation 21:3.

xxi “I am who I am” Genesis 3:14 and 15:3.

xxiii “You faithless …” Matthew 17:17.

xxiv “Jesus wept …” John 11:35.

xxiv “That they might be with him …”

CHAPTER ONE

5 Thomas à Kempis knows … On these authors, see the Recommended Readings at p. 267 below

7 According to a specialist of modern Jewish devotion … Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, To Pray as a Jew: A Guide to the Prayer Book and the Synagogue Service (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 144.

7 And it is the “quintessential expression …” Jeffery H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Abba Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publishing Society, 1996/5756), 441.

8 “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Mark 12:28; the Jesus Creed is found at Mark 12:29–31.

8 Jesus has “put a whole dictionary into just one dictum.” The Imitation of Christ, trans. W. Griffin (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000), 160.

10 “Lord,” I want to love God … Luke 9:59. This discussion is based on the whole paragraph, 9:57–62.

10 “One whose dead is lying before him [awaiting burial] is exempt from the recitation of the Shema.” Mishnah Berakot 3:1.

10 At the time of Jesus, burials took place in two stages. Mishnah Moed Qatan 1:5–7; Semahot 12.

11 … applied the commandment to honor one’s parents. see Exodus 20:12.

11 As Rick Warren states, “Life minus love equals zero.” The Purpose-Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2002), 125, 128.

13 “let our life speak.” Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).

CHAPTER TWO

14 In the words of Richard Foster, prayer “catapults us …” Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 30.

14 He was bluntly honest about his own perplexity with prayer. Hal M. Helms, ed., The Practice of the Presence of God (Brewster, Mass: Paraclete, 1985).

15 “Lord, teach us to pray.” Luke 11:1; the Lord’s Prayer is in Luke 11:2–4.

15 At the time of Jesus there was a Jewish prayer called the Kaddish (“The Sanctification”). See Donin, To Pray as a Jew, 216.

18 Dallas Willard relates how using the Lord’s Prayer as a framework strengthened his … The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 268.

18 As Richard Foster puts it, “In prayer, real prayer …” Celebration of Discipline, 30.

18 As Thomas à Kempis puts it: “O Lord …” Imitation of Christ, 124.

18 Lauren Winner, a convert from liturgical Judaism to liturgical Christianity … Mudhouse Sabbath (Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete, 2003), 61.

18 Again, Richard Foster tells how one of the most liberating experiences of his life … Celebration of Discipline, 33.

19 I am daily amazed at the truth of what Tertullian, an early Christian leader … Tertullian, On Prayer, 1.

22 … but no one has said this better than Frank Laubach: “Meditation on the Lord’s Prayer,” in Man of Prayer, Karen R. Norton, ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Laubach Literacy International, 1990), 325–326.

CHAPTER THREE

25 “Abba, Father” Luke 11:2.

25 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34.

26 Wesley was an emotional … Crying for My Mother: The Intimate Life of a Minister, 2nd edition (Chicago: Covenant Publications, 2003), 6, 50, 51.

27 the Parable of the Prodigal Son … See Luke 15:11–32.

CHAPTER FOUR

34 “Here is a glutton and a drunkard.” Matthew 11:19, emphasis added.

35 Matthew … once hosted an evening dinner for Jesus … See Mark 2:14–17.

35 For his custom of including all at the table, Jesus was called … See Deuteronomy 21:18–21.

36 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Mark 2:17.

37 On Alec Guiness Blessings in Disguise (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 36.

39 in the Age to Come Gentiles will sit at his table. See Matthew 8:11–12.

39 At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples … See Mark 14:25.

CHAPTER FIVE

42 As Lewis Smedes says: … The Making and Keeping of Commitments, in Seeking Understanding: The Stob Lectures 1986–1998 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001), 7, 9.

43 Laurie Hall’s An Affair of the Mind (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Focus on the Family, 1996), 49.

44 “I am your God.” See Genesis 17:8; Leviticus 26:13; Jeremiah 7:23. I am drawing on Hosea, chapters 1–3.

44 I am now going to allure her … Hosea 2:14–15. The “Valley of Achor” refers back to Joshua 7, originally a bad memory for Israel: there Israel broke faith with God. Achan, of the tribe of Judah, stole sacred objects for his own use. Thus, the “Valley of Achor” evoked in Israel’s memory a desecration. Hosea announces that this Valley will become a place that evokes hope, because it will be here that Israel once again returns to sacred love.

45 “My husband.” Hosea 2:16.

46 “do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” Matthew 23:9.

46 John Woolman, an early American Quaker … I have relied in this paragraph on Phillips Moulton, ed., The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman (New York: Oxford, 1971), and on David Sox, John Woolman, Quintessential Quaker, 1720–1772: (Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1999).

46 Richard Foster, says that “no book outside the Bible has influenced me …” Streams of Living Water (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 144.

46 What makes Woolman’s love sacred was that this creed shaped his entire life … Woolman, The Journal and Major Essays of John Woolman, 31.

48 “Verbal” reserve begins with the command not to take the Name (YHWH) in vain. See Exodus 20:7.

48 … they “will see the Son of Man …” Mark 14:62.

48 “Our Father, hallowed be your name,” emphasis added. Matthew 6:9.

49 From the story Luke tells us about Zacchaeus … See Luke 19:1–10.

49 that is why the Gospel writers list them with sinners. For example, Mark 2:15.

50 Luke tells us of Jesus’ dining in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. See Luke 7:36–50

CHAPTER SIX

53 A good example is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. See Luke 10:25–37.

53 One of Moses’ books … See Numbers 19:11–22.

53 In another of his books … See Leviticus 21:1–4.

55 “Love doesn’t sound so dangerous until you’ve tried it.” Paul Wadell, Becoming Friends (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2002), 30, 32.

55 Southeast Asia’s Singapore Anglican churches … Michael Green, Adventures of Faith (London, England: Zondervan, 2001), 357–362.

56 “Dear woman, here is your son” … John 19:26–27.

59 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Matthew 7:1.

59 “God has created a world in which we are the ones who care for one another …” James Bryan Smith, Embracing the Love of God: The Path and Promise of Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 150.

59 No book was more influential in the heady days of the late 1960s and early 1970s among evangelicals than Francis Schaeffer’s The Mark of a Christian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1970), 35.

CHAPTER SEVEN

65 Now that I know the story of Vincent van Gogh … See Kathleen Powers Erickson, At Eternity’s Gate (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998).

66 First, when the children of Israel finally crossed that river … See Joshua 3:1–4:18.

66 Second, those who were baptized by John began life all over again. See Luke 3:1–18.

67 John sets up his baptismal stage on the far side of the Jordan. See John 1:28.

68 As Frederick Buechner puts it so memorably … See Alan Jacobs, A Visit to Vanity Fair (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2001), 45.

68 As America’s essayist Joseph Epstein says … Envy: The Seven Deadly Sins (New York Public Library; New York: Oxford, 2003), 15.

69 Our “Yes” to God is, in the words of Dietrich von Hildebrand … Transformation in Christ (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2001), 69.

69 “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9.

69 As John Paul II has put it … Joseph Durepos, ed., Go in Peace: A Gift of Enduring Love (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 23.

69 Mark Twain gave some advice to “good little boys” … Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, 1852–1890, 2 vols. (New York: Library of America, 1992), 1.163 (from June 3, 1865).

69 In the words of Henri Nouwen … Robert A. Jonas, ed., Henri Nouwen (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998), 30–31.

70 Henri Nouwen once confessed the following about truthtelling … Jonas, Henri Nouwen, 79.

70 … Philip Yancey calls the cycle of ungrace. What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1997), 83–93.

70 Lewis Smedes, who has poured grace all over the discussion of forgiveness … Forgive and Forget (New York: Guideposts, 1984), 32.

71 J. I. Packer … Hot Tub Religion (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1987).

73 On William Booth’s conversion Hugh T. Kerr, John M. Mulder, Conversions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983), 140–143.

CHAPTER EIGHT

77 The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Joseph is “righteous.” Matthew 1:19.

78 So he consults the Books of Moses to see what he is to do. See Deuteronomy 22:13–27; Numbers 5.

79 With his reputation grasping … See Matthew 1:18–25.

79 We learn, as Thomas à Kempis puts it, that when you surrender … Imitation of Christ, 184.

80 John informed his father, Arnold, a physician. Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott: A Biography, The Making of a Leader: The Early Years (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1999), 154.

80 John later defined spiritual formation in terms of identity … Basic Christianity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1974), 112, 113, emphasis added.

81 Another who followed the example of Joseph is St. Augustine … Confessions, 1.19.30; 10.40.65.

82 … Dorothy Sayers observes … Creed or Chaos? (Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute, 1999), 6.

CHAPTER NINE

83 In the potent words of Dorothy Sayers … Creed or Chaos? (Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute, 1995), 101, 105, 107.

84 Parker Palmer, after decades of wrestling to please others … Let Your Life Speak, 3.

84 Os Guinness echoes this wisdom … The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nashville: Word, 1998), 47.

85 One of the Bible’s highlighted passages is the Song of Mary. See Luke 1:46–55.

85 As Tom Wright describes it, Mary’s Song … Luke for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2001), 14.

86 Israelites instead sacrificed a lamb. See Exodus 13:11–15.

86 in the Torah for those who could not afford the lamb. See Leviticus 12:6–8.

86 [God] has scattered … Luke 1:51–53, emphasis added.

87 Roberta Bondi, in her account … Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 15, 78, 174.

89 Frederica Mathewes-Green … Facing East (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 38.

89 As Mary blesses the holy Name of God … See the following passages: Luke 1:49, 53 and Matthew 6:9–13 with Luke 6:21; Luke 6:20; 14:21 and 7:11–17; 18:1–8; Luke 1:51–52 and 13:32–33; Luke 1:50, 53–55 and Matthew 9:36; Luke 1:54–55 and 13:34.

91 On Dorothy Sayers, Barbara Reynolds, Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 293.

CHAPTER TEN This chapter is based on my (more academic) book Turning to Jesus (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). The best academic study of conversion as an experience is Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

94 This friend’s name is Shimeon Kepha, but we call him “Simon Peter.” “Shimeon” is often translated “Simon;” and “Kepha” (English, “Rock”), as “Cephas”. “Peter” is the Greek translation of Kepha.

94 In which of the five scenes below do you think Peter is converted? The following account of Peter refers to John 1:35–42; Luke 5:1–11; Mark 8:27–9:1; 14:66–72; John 21:15–22; Acts 2; 10; and 1 Peter 2:18–25.

97 Here are seven chapters in that development: See the chapters and verses in the previous reference.

98 Peter urged the Christians of Asia Minor … See 1 Peter 2:11–17; 3:15.

99 … the missionary with the most complete impact on the world was a man of much less fame … On Frank Laubach, see the short (fact-oriented) biography by Karen R. Norton, One Burning Heart, Heritage Collection 4 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Laubach Literacy International, 1990). See also David E. Mason, Apostle to the Illliterates (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1966).

99 “What can I do for hateful people like these …” Norton, One Burning Heart, 13.

99 My lips began to move and it seemed to me … Frank C. Laubach, Forty Years with the Silent Billion (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1970), 421.

100 “I choose to look at people through God …” Letters by a Modern Mystic, Heritage Collection 1 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Laubach Literacy International, 1990), 44 (from September 28, 1931), also 20 (from January 26, 1930), 26 (from March 23, 1930), 27, 29 (from May 14, 1930).

100 “But the result of Laubach’s prayer life …” Norton, One Burning Heart, 12.

100 It is as much our duty … Letters by a Modern Mystic, 39 (from September 22, 1930).

101 For mission groups “he developed an approach …” Norton, One Burning Heart, 29. For Laubach’s book about Jesus, see The Autobiography of Jesus (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).

CHAPTER ELEVEN

102 Israel’s once-famous King Saul is the Pete Rose of the Bible. See 1 Samuel 8–15.

103 the Christian leader and Old Testament scholar John Goldingay … Walk On (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2002), 75–76.

104 Many scholars think John was a cousin of Jesus. If you compare Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40–41 with John 19:25, Salome appears to be the mother of John. Furthermore, Salome is Mary’s sister. This would make John the cousin of Jesus.

104 Jesus rocks the boat of all three when he calls James and John to “follow him.” See Mark 1:16–20.

104 a “new” commandment … John 13:34 and 1 John 4:21.

105 In a moving, tender story of the love of a father and son, author Brian Doyle … Two Voices: A Father and Son Discuss Family and Faith (Liguori, Mo.: Liguori, 1996), xiv.

105 “Deeds, not words.” Aesop, Aesop’s Fables (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003), 60 (#49).

106 First, John and James approach Jesus … See Mark 10:35–45.

106 Second, John’s love for others is tested when he doesn’t recognize someone exorcising demons in Jesus’ name. See Mark 9:38–41.

106 Third, John hears that some Samaritans refuse hospitality … See Luke 9:51–56.

106 John was in the Thunderbolt Gang before he was an apostle of love. See Mark 3:17.

107 “Example is better than precept.” Aesop’s Fables, 60 (#50).

107 This is why Lewis Smedes … My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 16, 22–23.

108 Several incidents in the life of Jesus reveal how specially Jesus treats John. See Mark 5:37–40; Matthew 17:1; 26:37.

109 John refers to himself in his gospel as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20.

109 He was “reclining next to him [Jesus].” John 13:23 and 1:18.

110 “this is his command,” John says … 1 John 3:23.

CHAPTER TWELVE

111 Jesus, oddly enough, seems “anxious to get them …” Flannery O’Connor, Collected Works (New York: Library of America, 1988), 894.

112 any effort to move “from hostility to hospitality” … Henry Nouwen Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Image, 1986), 65, 71.

112 When Jesus and his disciples enter Nain, a place for nobodies going nowhere, they encounter a funeral procession. See Luke 7:11–17.

113 Jesus’ Parable of the Widow Demanding Justice … See Luke 18:1–8.

113 Sometimes the grief observed by Jesus is caused … See Mark 1:41; 6:34; 9:22; Matthew 20:34.

113 A story is told of the famous Rebbe Wolfe of Zbaraj … See Elie Wiesel, Souls on Fire (New York: Random House, 1972), 51.

114 “Abba of the abba-less” See Psalms 68:5; 146:9.

114 In the home of Simon the Pharisee, Jesus encounters a prostitute … See Luke 7:36–50.

115 In the words of Thomas Kelly … A Testament of Devotion (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 4; William Griffin’s translation of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, 65; Nancy Mairs, Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal (Boston: Beacon, 1993), 91.

115 Once again, a story of a compassionate rabbi, Abba Tachnah the Pious … Found in Eugene B. Borowitz, Frances W. Schwartz, The Jewish Moral Virtues (Philadelphia: Jewish Publishing Society, 1999), 78.

116 In the words of Frederica Mathewes-Green, compassion without action … The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation (Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete, 2001), 38.

116 Notice how Jesus’ compassion … See Luke 7:14–15, 48; 8:1–3.

116 On other occasions, Jesus’ compassion prompts other actions See Mark 1:41; 6:34; 9:22; Matthew 10:1–8; 20:34.

117 It is these same women … See Mark 15:40–41; Luke 23:49.

118 One of her biographers explains her single-minded focus on compassion … Kathryn Spink, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” in Great Spirits, 1000–2000: The Fifty-Two Chistians Who Most Influenced Their Millennium, ed. Selina O’Grady and John Wilkins; foreword by K. Norris (New York: Paulist, 2002), 188–189.

119 As an illustration of her empathy, an English volunteer once said of her … Mother Teresa: A Simple Path, compiled by Lucinda Vardey (New York: Ballantine, 1995), xxiv, 99.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

127 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching …, emphasis added. Matthew 4:23.

128 “The kingdom of God does not come visibly …” Luke 17:20–21.

129 Whoever acknowledges me before men … Matthew 10:32–33, emphasis added.

129 Isaiah’s kingdom predictions were about him … See Luke 4:16–30.

129 Most will remember the day Payne Stewart, a professional golfer … The story has been told in Tracey Stewart with Ken Abraham, Payne Stewart: The Authorized Biography (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000).

130 Jesus teaches that “Torah-style” needs a kingdom upgrade to “Jesusstyle.” See Matthew 5:17–48.

130 Come to me, all you who are weary … Matthew 11:28–30.

131 The apostle Peter complained … See Acts 15:10.

131 G. K. Chesterton gets to the heart of how many felt … The Everlasting Man (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 169.

132 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Mark 3:31–35.

132 As a family they learn from Jesus about this new transforming … See Matthew 9:9–13; 18; Luke 4:18–19; 6:20; Matthew 23:8–12.

132 … the upside-down nature of the kingdom itself. I borrow here the language of the Mennonite scholar Donald Kraybill, The Upside-Down Kingdom (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald Press, 1990).

132 Instead of acting with power, his family serves … See Mark 10:35–45; John 13:34–35.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

135 Jesus’ audience knows the great kingdom dream of the Bible … See Isaiah 2:4; 11:3–5; 11:6–9; 26:2; 45:22; 51:5; Jeremiah 3:17; 23:5–6; 31:33; Ezekiel 37:24; Zephaniah 3:9; Zechariah 9:9–10.

135 The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed …” Matthew 13:31–32.

136 As Thomas à Kempis has said, “humongous doesn’t count” with Jesus … The Imitation of Christ, 25.

136 June Sprigg … Simple Gifts: A Memoir of a Shaker Village (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 90.

136 Jesus chooses four unschooled fishermen … See Acts 4:13; Luke 19:1–10; 7:36–50; Matthew 9:9–13.

137 Don’t get me wrong, sometimes Jesus speaks to large crowds … See Matthew 5:1 and Mark 11–13.

138 His Parable of the Wheat and Weeds explains his choice of peace. See Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43.

139 But Bob Muzikowski … knew better. Bob Muzikowski with Gregg Lewis, Safe at Home (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001). This book corrects the screenplay version of Daniel Coyle, Hardball: A Season in the Projects (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 42, 152, 187, 163, 237–244.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

144 We are learning, as Jim Wallis illustrates time and time again, that “faith works.” Faith Works: Lessons from the Life of an Activist Preacher (New York: Random House, 2000).

146 The follower of Jesus is to “hunger and thirst for righteousness [or justice …]” Matthew 5:6.

146 We can begin with Jesus’ first public sermon … Luke 4:16–30; quotation is Luke 4:18–19, emphasis added.

146 Blessed are you who are poor … Luke 6:20–23, emphasis added.

147 At the end of his life, Jesus gives us a clear view of Judgment Day in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. See Matthew 25:31–46.

147 “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat …” Matthew 25:35–40.

148 Are we aware of the potential dangers of the growing, insidious cycle of hate … A brilliant, and altogether fair analysis of this can be found in Carol M. Swain, The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

148 Is the gospel preached by established churches a subtle form of racism … Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

149 Virginia Stem Owens … Living Next Door to the Death House (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 190–91.

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152 Frank Morison … Who Moved the Stone? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, n.d.), 12, 68, 192.

154 “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” John 9:2–3, emphasis added.

155 Jewish society at the time of Jesus … For this text, see The Rule of the Congregation, 1Qsa 2:3–9.

156 A menstruating woman is classified as a niddah (nee-dah). A woman who bleeds beyond the normal cycle is classified as a zavah. See Leviticus 15. Though concerned exclusively about modern Orthodox Jewish women’s purity alone, the chapter on mikvehs* in Sue Fishkoff’s The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (New York: Schocken, 2003), 148–159, provides interesting details of modern practice.

157 Merrill Joan Gerber, a (not all that observant) Jewish woman … All quotations are from her Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 50–55.

158 Lepers Come to the Table See Leviticus 13–14; Numbers 12:10–16; Luke 17:11–19.

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161 Craig Barnes, in Yearning, observes … Yearning: Living Between How It Is and How It Ought to Be (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1991), 31, 55, 56, 65, emphasis added.

163 I can only wish I had attended the wedding in Cana of Galilee. See John 2:1–11.

167 Lewis writes … in a letter to his good friend Arthur Greeves W. H. Lewis and Walter Hooper, eds., Letters of C. S. Lewis, rev. and enlarged ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 288–289. For a nice recent study of Lewis’s conversion, see David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2002). Downing is especially insightful on the meaning of joy in Lewis’s writings. Of course, Lewis tells his own story through the lens of joy; see his Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956).

168 As Lewis himself explains his quest, “But what, in conclusion, of Joy? Surprised by Joy, 238.

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172 I join hands with Alan Jacobs, who admits: “I’m not interested in any reconfiguration of the notion of eternal life …” A Visit to Vanity Fair (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2001), 68. The resurrection body is discussed in the following passages: Matthew 17:1–13; 22:23–33; 28; Luke 24; John 20–21; 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 5:1–10.

172 the Son of Man … separates the “sheep” and “goats” … Matthew 25:31–46.

172 Eternal standing matters a great deal to Jesus, and he talks about it quite often. See Matthew 13:36–43, 47–50; 24–25; Luke 22:28–30; 23:42.

172 Jesus promises a resumption of fellowship with his disciples … Mark 14:25; Matthew 8:11; 22:1–10.

173 They will, he says, “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Matthew 19:28.

173 So, in the words of Thomas à Kempis, “Practice now …” The Imitation of Christ, 49.

174 J. I. Packer, in his potent study of what the Bible teaches about God … Knowing God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1993), 17–23.

174 “It was the perpetual adoration …” Kristin Ohlson, Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith with the Poor Clares (New York: Hyperion, 2003), 44.

175 … from “information to formation” … M. Robert Mulholland, Shaped by the Word (Nashville: Upper Room, 2000), 49–63

175 “No sooner had I finished … than it was as if the light of steadfast trust poured into my heart.” Augustine, Confessions 8.12.29.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, 15th Anniversary Edition. Paraclete Press, 2004.

Exported from Logos Bible Study, 6:54 PM May 15, 2026.