Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it really was a question as general as was presented. Maybe it wasn’t a statement of dissatisfaction, or complaint, or contempt hidden behind a supposedly generic query about the thinking of preachers in general. Maybe. But it felt like an attack. Like a finger pointed. “Are preachers afraid...?” That was the question. “Why don’t we hear the church’s position on social issues of the day?” That was the context. “Are preachers afraid of upsetting people?”
We’re asking questions this month. All sorts of questions, if you’ve been following along. Bible questions, church questions, faith questions. I suppose if you’re going to open the door to questions you have to be prepared for questions that just might bother you some. Might get under your skin a little bit. “Are preachers afraid?” Well, maybe, if we’re thinking. Or maybe we know something about time and place. Maybe we know something about how people think and learn and grow and come to understanding of how faith works in their lives and that just handing out answers isn’t really going to accomplish the task of making disciples, but instead is bound to launch an opinion based response that will only cause people to react out of their prejudice instead of digging down into their relationship with Jesus to come up with a way that allows them follow the great commandment and still live in a complex society. Maybe.
Huh? What was that you said? Not sure, really. Kinda was ducking the question. Running for cover, as it were. Hiding. Taking a powder and keeping my head down. Cowardly? Maybe. But it has great biblical precedent. Take a look.
John 12:35-47 Jesus said to them, "The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light." After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. 37 Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" 39 And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said, 40 "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not look with their eyes, and understand with their heart and turn-- and I would heal them." 41 Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him. 42 Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God. 44 Then Jesus cried aloud: "Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. 47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
I picked this passage for our second week dealing with Christian Living Questions because of the last verse. “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” But once I started reading, it was latter part of verse thirty-six that jumped out at me. “After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.” Wait, what? He left and hid? Was he afraid of offending? That doesn’t seem like a very Jesus thing to do, does it?
And to make it worse, it sounds an awful lot like John thinks that God enjoys making sure we don’t get it. That God goes out the way to make us dumb. Or thick. Or opinion laden and unable to listen or see or understand anything that really matters. Isaiah claimed this outrageous behavior on God’s part and John shouts an “Amen!” from his corner of the New Testament.
So, let me get this straight, God doesn’t want us to understand, God doesn’t want us to turn to God and be healed, God likes us messed up. And Jesus drops a sort of zen bomb and then ducks and covers. Have I got that right? John? Is that what you’re saying here?
Yep, he grumbles. See, here’s the deal, he tells us, Jesus keeps trying and folks just won’t get it. “Although he performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.” He gives us every opportunity and we just don’t get it.
“Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believe in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it.” OK, John, which is it? Do we not believe because God won’t let us. Or do we believe but don’t act on it because we’re afraid? Yes, says John. Exactly. You got it!
No, I don’t get it. I don’t get anything. I feel as though someone is being consciously obscure. As though someone wants me to be confused. As though God is slamming the door on understanding, or Jesus is hiding from me and my prayer, my need for Him. As though ... oh. Oh. I get it. My goodness.
See what I did there? Maybe what John and Isaiah are doing is telling us what our experience is and not what the plan is. Maybe they are describing the human experience that says I don’t get it and God isn’t giving it to me for some reason, must be because God doesn’t want me to have it. And when Isaiah asks God, rather plaintively, how long is this going to go on? As long as there are humans, is the response, it seems like.
God indeed wants us to turn and be healed, don’t think that isn’t true. Jesus does want us to walk in the light, to become children of light. But the how and the where and the when we have to puzzle out on our own. On our own, not my own and your own. We are supposed to work together. We are supposed to share and teach and learn and mentor and cheer-lead and lift up and turn around one another all the time. That’s the Christian Living that we are looking for. A living that is guided by the Spirit (a plug for our fall series beginning Sept 13th!) and surrounded by the cloud of witnesses we have around us all the time. A living that has to deal with the experienced hiddenness of Christ and the experienced opposition of God.
In the end, John says, our worst enemies are ourselves – our egos (“they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God”), our fear (“for fear that they would be put out” of the community they loved and that gave them their identity) and our confused sense of checks and balances and being proved right and others wrong and we want Jesus to take our side and not their side (“I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”)
God seems against us, Jesus seems hidden because we don’t always speak the language of salvation. We speak of us and them, of sinners and saints, of included and outcast. And that makes God hard to understand. Jesus seems hidden from us because we want right more than we want relationship. We want a convenient faith, a no demands follow Him when it fits in our schedules, in between the dog eat dog and climbing to the top of the heap and the just getting by. And Jesus seems to hide behind our busyness. Hide from our self-centeredness. Our faith journey seems less like training for an Olympic marathon and more like a game of hide and seek in the twilight, with an elusive Jesus who defies our best attempts to nail him down.
Which, come to think of it, is sort of his modus operandi. Don’t you think?
Or do you?
Shalom,
Derek
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