Van Gogh, Malchus, Mick Foley. Lend me your ears.

Back in the day, I took a girl to a movie.  And I didn't like one of those things. 

Turned out it was the girl.  But I liked the movie, so it wasn't a total wash.  The movie itself was office space, and that movie was sort of a rallying cry for the disenfranchised culture of office workers in the 90s.  Disposable, replaceable, forgettable, working a dead end job with no chance of progress, and working an hour at a time for the benefit of a company that would grow richer as the worker stayed static.  As I say, a bit of a rallying cry for those people, and it included in it a particularly great sendup of restaurants like applebees, tgi friday's, all those.  The reason it was such a great sendup was because of the scene in which Jennifer Anniston (who was really popular back in the day) got into a fight with her manager over how many pieces of flair she was wearing (flair being buttons, badges, etc).

If you've seen it, you get it.  But the idea was that the restaurant mandated a minimum of 15 pieces of flair to be worn while on shift.  Anniston only wore the 15.  Her manager then told her that she should have more flair, to which Anniston responded that if he wanted the staff to wear more flair, then he should have made more flair the minimum.  

He replied by asking her what she'd think of someone who always did the bare minimum.

That exchange always reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  It does so because of the exchange that the lawyer has with Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”
²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Luke 10:25-29

Oh yes.  Who is my neighbor?  In other words, I'd like to inherit eternal life, but what's the absolute bear minimum I can do in order to get it?  We all know that it's the right thing to do to love our neighbors, but that's real hard.  So if we can't get God's laws relaxed based on content, we should at least be able to get them relaxed based on scope.  That is, if God is going to be inflexible on the notion that it's the right thing to love our neighbor, then he should at least be flexible on who that actually includes, right?  

The vision that we have of God's rules is that he wants us to be nice to the people who are nice to us.  He wants us to be good to those who are good to us, and to reciprocate in kind when people are helpful.  But there's a slight problem with that: You don't need any instruction in doing that.

The story of the Good Samaritan, and the discussion of neighbor that goes along with it reminds me of the topic of free speech, which in its simplest terms boils down to the idea that popular speech doesn't need to be protected.  That is, if you have something that people love to say and love to hear, that doesn't need protection under free speech laws.  Free speech laws exist to protect the speech that you or I or perhaps anyone don't want to hear.  And that's the point.  Popular things, good things, safe things, they don't need to be protected, because they will protect themselves.  Jesus says as much when he asks people what they expect from morality:  

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.
³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:27-36

Do you see what's happening here?  Jesus is well aware of our natural human desire to love those who love us - to form groups around each other, to share with those who share with us, to cherish those who cherish us, to be generally involved with those who are good to us.  That's the idea.  And that's the way of natural human progress, so we would think.  There has been a good amount of research recently into both humans and the great apes, suggesting that altruism is not what we originally thought.  That is, the concept of altruism has largely boiled down to:

Kin altruism - doing nice things for your family / tribe / community

Reciprocal altruism - doing nice things for people from whom you expect to get something eventually.

That's about it.  But those things are themselves a far cry from the altruism expected of us in the words of Christ.  He is very specific - that if you love those who love you, if you bless those who bless you, if you just spend a whole pile of time making sure that you like people who like you and that you do nice things for each, other, then what is that ?  Seriously, who cares?  That's not anything especially important, or anything that you'd need the son of God to show up in the flesh for.  Can you imagine it if Jesus showed up one day out of the clouds and told his disciples 

You should totally be nice to people who are nice to you. 

That would be a time, wouldn't it?  But Jesus didn't say that (and probably wouldn't use comic sans, either).  Instead, he told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  He told us to be mindful of the needs of all of God's creation, and to love and care especially for those who don't like us, and who have zero intention of ever paying us back.

That's altruism though.  Not reciprocation, not exchange, not a system in which everyone profits, but a situation in which you give and give and give until you're used up.  And who do you give to?  Anyone who may be in need.  Not just your friends and family and neighbors, but everyone.

Now, you may very well disagree with this, but know that if you do, it's your trouble, not that of Christ.  His rules and law are good and proper.  The problem is with you, and always has been.  And if you're trying to justify yourself like the lawyer did, trying to get Jesus to say that it's not actually about loving everyone, just a select few, if that's what your next action might be, then I hate to disappoint you, but it's not going to happen.  Jesus is not going to be that guy.  Instead, he tells us to be perfect, just as God is perfect.  What does that mean?

It means, quite frankly, that Jesus knows what it's like to do the right thing.

Think about it.  Jesus really REALLY put his money where his mouth is.  Do you remember Malchus from 

the New Testament? He was the servant of the high priest who came with the rest of the Temple security to arrest Jesus in the garden.  And when the moment came for the arrest of Christ, Peter pulled out a sword, and sliced off Malchus' ear.  And not only did Jesus call for an end to the violence, he put the man's ear back on.  Wow.  That's what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.  That was the last thing that Jesus did as a free man, and he spent his last seconds before being led away in chains putting a man's ear back on who had come to arrest him.  

That's the golden rule writ large, and the good samaritan in bold type, loving your enemies, and doing what is good and right for them.  Someone shows up to take Jesus away to a kangaroo court on trumped up charges so that he might be executed, and what does Jesus do?  Puts the man's ear back on.  

If Jesus could do that for that enemy that he had, you can understand who the Good Samaritan actually is in the parable.  It's not you.  It's not me.  It's Jesus himself.  Think about it - you and God are natural enemies.  You don't want the same things out of creation and so on.  You are worlds apart on a great many things, and don't think you're not.  Your sinful nature makes you a natural enemy of God, and its consequences leave you beaten and lying in a ditch.  You have nothing to offer except wounds to bind and thirst to slake.  And who shows up first to take care of you?  Who stops by to heal you and care for you?  Not the pastor, not the parishoner, not the people who should know better, not your friends not your family.  God himself.  Jesus Christ.  He's the one who picks up his enemies, you and me, who have been beaten down by the world, and carries them to safety, and promises to care for us no matter the cost.  

The golden rule is the gold standard.  It is the standard by which all other morality is measured.  And we are found wanting.  But as with any law in the Bible, it's not about what you do for God, it's about what he does for you.  He doesn't act like the priest or the levite in the parable, walking by the battered and bruised members of his people.  He doesn't pass on by, and he doesn't wait for you to get better.  He picks you up, and carries you to safety. 


And what did he die for?  All those times you refused to care.  all those times you walked right on by the beaten, the bruised, the bedraggled, the depressed, the poor, the weak, all that.  That's what he died for, that's your sin.  Each and every single time you walked right on by someone who was clearly suffering and in need of help, and you walked on by, that's what God's grace covers.  All the times you chose to ignore the golden rule, all those times you figured that knowing what the golden rule was equaled doing it, that's what Jesus Christ died for, and that's what his grace is all about.  It's about the golden rule, and why it's good.  Because it gets applied to you.

PJ.

P.S.  Sorry about the underlining.  I tried to include some words in comic sans, and it messed up the formatting for one time for all time.  So, uh, yeah.  Lesson learned.

Don't look back.

Do you know John Landy?  You probably don't. Do you know Roger Bannister? You might not either. But regardless of whether or not you know either of these two men, they have a lot to do with the readings from Sunday.  In a particular race, Landy was ahead, and Bannister was behind, and at a crucial moment, Landy looked behind him to see where Bannister was.  Apparently, you never do this.  You never do this because you change your focus, you spend time looking at what you've already passed.  And then it's too late.  You've been passed, you've been overtaken.  So taken up were you in what had already passed that your focus was elsewhere.  You see, the readings for Sunday are all about not looking back, and coming from Jesus Christ, they seem a bit harsh.  Jesus' words, in particular, are grating to our modern ears, who feel as though Jesus exists to make us happy, and to butter us up.  But then he drops stuff on us that we find to be frankly offensive.

 'As they were walking along the road, a man said to him 

"I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, 

but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

He said to another man "Follow me."

But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go bury my father."

Jesus said to him "Let he dead bury their own dead, but you go

and proclaim the Kingdom of God."

Still another said "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me 

go back and say goodbye to my family."

Jesus replied "No one who puts his hand to the plow

and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God."

Luke 20:57-62

Wow, Jesus, thanks a lot.  Thanks for that bit of kindness and compassion.  There are people talking to him saying 'Jesus, I'm on my way to follow you, but first let me get my affairs in order,' and Jesus tells them to get lost.  He is essentially actively discouraging them from following him.  He is telling them to take a powder, to get lost. That they're not up to it.  

But they aren't unreasonable requests, are they?  Jesus, I'd like to follow you, but I need to bury my father, and say goodbye to my family.  And Jesus says, with no mistake possible 'absolutely not.'

It's borderline unbelievable, isn't it?  That Jesus would be so cruel and heartless.  People have reasonable requests, and Jesus flat out denies them. But it's stuff like this that brings to mind all the other difficult, dangerous stuff that Jesus says.  You remember when he says stuff like 'Do not think that I have come to bring peace.  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.'  Stuff like 'Unless you hate your father and mother, your wife and children, and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple."  I'm paraphrasing from Luke 14, but not much.  And this is all stuff that gets conveniently forgotten, doesn't it?  It gets forgotten, lost in the shuffle, and disappears, beneath a cloud of grace alone, doing the right thing, and so on.  But there is Jesus, large as life, on a couple of occasions, telling people that they have to prize him above everything that exists.  They have to hate their family and themselves if they're planning on being disciples today.  

Do you hate your family?  No?  then forget being a disciple of Christ.  Oh, and while I'm at it, don't assume that if you haven't spoken to your brother Jerry for twelve years that you're doing some kind of holy work, because you're not.  

But why oh why would Jesus Christ ask you to hate everyone you know?  I thought Jesus was all about love, man! So why the command to hate?  Well, it's quite simple, and it's locked into the story from 1 Kings 19.

The story there is of Elijah calling Elisha to service, and Elisha asks to be allowed to kiss his father and his mother goodbye, which he does.  But he also has to leave his oxen that he was working with behind.  And he does, in spectacular fashion:

So Elisha left him and went back.  He took his yoke of 

oxen, and slaughtered them.  He burned the plowing equipment to cook

the meat, and gave it to the people and they ate.  Then he set out to follow

Elijah, and became his attendant.

1 Kings 19:21

Do you see what's happening?  Elisha is leaving it all behind, absolutely all of it.  He's killing his oxen, he's burning the plows, he's putting it all behind him, and he's leaving his family.  Why? To follow Elijah, and to take on his mantle.  And why is this theme of leaving and hating your life so important?  Because God is a clever God, and he understands who you are.  He understands something about the human condition, and understands something about who we are and how we operate.  Here's the juice: as you know, there are far more Christians in this country than Christians.  That is, a majority of people in this great nation of our identify themselves as Christians, and yet are never in church.  At all.  Well, perhaps once a year, at best.  And this is the issue: God is wise enough to understand how your brain works, and how your relationship with him works: As soon as something becomes more important to you than the Lord your God, then everything will.  As soon as something works its way into your life, everything else will as well.  It could be as simple as work, or family outings, or brunch, or whatever, but when that happens (and it does happen), then something peculiar happens.  You realize that nothing happened.  You didn't burst into flames, the ground didn't swallow you up, life just continued.  And you kept on being a Christian, right?  

Sure you did.  And as the years go on, you start to tell yourself that you don't need to go to church to be a Christian, and that you can keep on quite happily with how things are, and nothing will change.  You love your family, you love your house, you love your car, you love your home, all that. But then the unthinkable happens.  Your parents die.  Your child loses a leg, the house burns down or washes away,  things go badly for you.  And then what happens?  You end up cursing God, you end up forgetting about him completely, or getting mired in despair.  Because something very strange happens if you manage to forsake everything for the sake of God.

You get everything else thrown in, too.

God is the only permanent in this universe.  He's the only sure and certain thing that we've got.  All other ground is shifting sand.  This entire universe is grinding down, it's running out.  There will come a time at which the universe will cool, and all the heat will be gone. There will be essentially nothing left.  If it's just us, then nothing we have achieved will ever matter in the slightest.  And if this fills you with despair, as well it might, then there is only really one choice - to throw your hat in with Christ our Lord, who offers one big important thing - permanence.  He is forever.  And if we worship him in Spirit and in Truth, then that permanence is ours, too.  If we love something more than Jesus, we will lose both, no question.  We will lose Christ, and we will lose the object of our affection, because it isn't permanent at all.  That's the funny thing about the Christian faith: if we love something more than Christ, we lose everything. If we love Christ above all else, we keep it all.

That's why Jesus is so keen on you not looking back.  He knows you.  He knows what you're all about.  He knows that if you start by saying 'Jesus, I'll follow you, but first let me....' you're lost.  If there is one higher priority, then there will always be a higher priority.  As soon as something becomes more important than God, then any and everything else will be as well.  And there will never be an end to it.  But if you seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, then all these things will be added unto you.  It's a matter of priority.  

Instead of looking back, instead of looking over your shoulder always, instead of saying 'yes, I'll follow you but first...,' instead of any of that, keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.  He is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, and has promised unto us life everlasting. If we prize his truth and his love above all things, then we will receive all things - our family forever, our friends forever, love and peace and justice and truth and righteousness forever. But if we love any of those things more than Christ, we lose it all, and lose it for all time.  Jesus is the permanence, if we love him for his own sake, then we will be given all things.  Salvation, truth, justice, family, companionship, joy and peace.  

This is most certainly true.

PJ.