Never Shall You Wash My Feet

Never shall You wash my feet! These are the words Simon Peter spoke (exclaimed) to Jesus, as Jesus knelt before him to wash his feet. I do not know what really prompted Peter’s reaction but I do know this: it was spontaneous and it was sincere. Peter, obviously, found himself in a very difficult place and he reacted in an effort to avoid confronting his fear—being loved (really loved, up close, and personal) by the One who loves without condition, the One who does not keep a record of wrongs suffered, the One who never even notices when others do it wrong, the One who came, not to be served but to serve.
     In the end, he changed his mind and eagerly submitted to Jesus’ leadership in his life but not without first hearing and embracing Jesus’ powerful, loving, and compassionate words—If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me. Of course, per Peter’s usual modus operandi, he went overboard in the other direction with these words: Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!
     I have the strong feeling that Peter never forgot these precious moments when the creator of the universe, the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, Redeemer of the world gently splashed cool, clear water over his feet, carefully washing away the dust and dirt of the day’s journey and, finally, wiping them dry with a towel. But even more, I think he never forgot what happened within his heart as he experienced Jesus’ humility and compassion, expressed in His unconditional love, the love that gave him a foretaste of what it would mean to have a clean heart—forgiven and made righteous through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Beloved, foot-washing Messiah! What an incredible gift!
     Having said all of that, I wonder this: How often has Jesus come to you, kneeling before you (maybe in the form of one of your friends, maybe even a stranger, possibly even an enemy) and, thereby, moving you out of your comfort zone (way out of it), offering you the very gift that would forever change your life, only to hear your reacting with, “No! No!  I could never allow you to do that!” During these times, He has in all probability been offering you the gift that would draw you into an intimacy with Him that you could never imagine (a Song of Songs intimacy); the gift that would make you face your greatest fear and, thereby, release you from it; the gift that would eradicate the self-concept that has tortured you and controlled you all of your life and replace it with the exact representation (image) of the Son; the gift that would truly set you free to be the person He created you to be.
     Think twice before you reject Him again because He just might be trying to help you get a glimpse of what lies on the other side of the fence, the fence that has kept most (if not all) Christians corralled and, therefore, separated from the Promised Land—the land that flows with the milk and honey of freedom!
     Just thought I would share with you what I think He is telling me.

The Real Jesus?

     
Dear Fellow Travelers,
     For some reason, I have believed most of my life that these days would be the best days of my life; after all, I am 64 years old and have had plenty of time to rehearse the final act of my life’s drama. However, I have the feeling that my vision of these Golden Years was, indeed, seen through a dark and clouded glass.
     Without going through all the various details, let me cut to the chase and get to the point: I am more convinced than ever that those of us who call ourselves Christians have been deceived (really, seriously deceived) concerning Jesus, and I am just as convinced that the deception is intertwined in the fence we call “Christianity” (the fence that keeps all the Christian denominations corralled) much like the branches of a trumpet vine intertwine one’s backyard fence. Sure, the blossoms on the trumpet vine are very beautiful but removing the branches from the fence is very difficult—almost impossible—which is why I believe these Golden Years might not be quite what I have imagined.
     Anyway, I never dreamed that I would be in such a determined search to discover and to know the real Jesus, not the Jesus that Christian theologians have contrived, in order to make Him fit into their varying belief systems, but the Jesus of the Bible—the One who grew up like a tender shoot out of parched ground; the One who loved the poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled but shunned the religious; the One who spoke in parables, not to be understood but to bring even more confusion; the One who dared to refuse the mirrors of a thousand opinions and, instead, to choose to do only that which He saw His Father doing and to say only that which His Father told Him to say; the One who refused to get caught up in the religion of His day and, instead, to usher into His day His Father’s Kingdom (Empire); the One who dared to live outside the religious fences of His day and socialize with prostitutes and drunks; the One who had no reputation to uphold, no theological paradigm to defend—the Jesus who is the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah, and the Gentile’s Redeemer!
     I really do want to discover Him and get to know Him not only for me, but also for you because I really do believe that we are missing something—something incredibly good; however, the journey will be very difficult. Breaking up reinforced concrete always is, you know.
     Just thought I would tell you what is going on in me!

The Mysteries of the Kingdom

At the end of the parable of the sower, the disciples asked Jesus this question: Why do You speak to them in parables (Matthew 13:10b)? His answer was a bit strange, to say the least: To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted (Matthew 13: 11). What an incredible gift Jesus bestowed upon the disciples—to know (really know) the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven—but from what I can see, the rest were left in rather dire straights—completely excluded. (Please keep in mind, however, that I am probably more concerned about their “dire straights” than they were because they really had no interest in knowing these mysteries; in fact, they probably saw them as being foolishness.)
     Anyway, as the result of my having read Brian McLaren’s trilogy: A New Kind of Christian; The Story We Find Ourselves In; and The Last Word and the Word After That, this notion of the Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven) has been freshly stirred within me, and this “stirring” has caused me to wonder if there is not much more to the Kingdom of God, than I have ever imagined. I have the strong sense that the revelation of these mysteries has been shrouded in the influence of this outer fence, the one to which you have recently heard me refer—the one we call Christianity.
     Listen to some of the ways Jesus refers to the Kingdom: But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20); The Kingdom of God has come near  to you (Luke 10:9b); Blessed is everyone who eats bread in the Kingdom of God (Luke 14:15b); Do not be afraid little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32); For behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst (Luke 17:21b); The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened (Matthew 13:33); How hard it is for those who are rich to enter the Kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:24-25); My Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is My Kingdom is not of this realm (John 18:36).
     As you can see, the Kingdom of God might be more like a diamond with many facets, than like, well, like whatever we have idealized it to be based on our own limited abilities to visualize spiritual truths. I am convinced that we will never really know the mysteries of the Kingdom until we are willing to look over the fence, the fence that has for so long determined our belief systems, into the promised land—the One True Promised Land!

Casting into Stone

Dear Fellow Travelers,
     The older I become (and I am fast becoming), the more obvious it becomes (“it,” being the obvious) that it is very dangerous to cast into stone that which you believe to be truth, you know—make a monument out of it—especially, if you really want it to be truth, i.e., if your desire for it to be truth is greater than your desire to know if it is truth.
     Being in the funeral profession, monuments are a part of life for me, kind of like dead folk? You know, they just are—everywhere. As you might imagine, I have spent quite a bit of time in cemeteries; consequently, I have also spent quite a bit of time (mostly out of boredom but some out of intrigue) reading what someone cast into stone regarding the one who sleeps just beneath the stone slab—the deceased. In my reading, I have observed that not everything that has been cast into stone is truth. The name, along with the birth and death dates, might be accurate but the rest, well let me just say that it is not always truth. Sometimes, I think it is a statement of what someone wished to be truth, rather than truth itself, so much so, that they had come to see it as truth (it was more important that what they wished to be truth be viewed as truth, than whether or not it was actually truth).
     For example, the monument for the deceased, abusive father that reads, John Smith - Beloved Husband and Father, is more a statement of what someone wished to be truth, than a statement of actual truth. For some reason, I have never seen the words John Smith – Child Molester cast into the stone face of a cemetery monument. Sometimes (probably, much of the time), it is much easier to cast what you wish to be true into the stone, than to cast the truth itself, especially when the truth itself proves to be contrary to everything you desire.
     Why this? Well, the older I become, the more aware I become that I have tended to cast much of the theology I have believed (and really wished to be true) into stone monuments, so much so that the cemetery that now contains them is probably very overcrowded.
     For example, on the “Faith Lot,” one of the stone slabs has this carved into its face: Only Believe and All Things are Possible. There was a time when I believed this because I desperately wanted it to be true. In my mind, in order for what I had been taught to prove true, this had to be true; otherwise, I would have to ditch the self-righteous notion that I was a man of such faith that God could use me. The message was clear: if God doesn’t come through, it is because you do not have enough faith! As you can imagine, having enough faith was critical to the success of my self-righteousness (which by the way I loved!).
     On the “Sin Lot,” one of the stone slabs has this carved into its face: Sin Separates us From God, Therefore, We Must Stop Sinning. Sadly, there was a time when I believed this because I really wanted it to be true. In order for me to hold on to that which I held so dear (my ability to please God by my self-righteousness ability not to sin), this had to be true; otherwise, I had nothing about which to boast. On the surface, it appeared that I was quite capable of keeping my “sin list” short—very short; however, that which is on the surface is usually polluted, you know, like surface water. Obviously, I never wanted anyone to see below the surface, not even God; therefore, hiding was my drug of choice. Surely, you can see how important it was for me that what I cast into this stone monument be true; to say the least, I wanted it to be truth more than I wanted to know if it was truth!
     As you might imagine, this cemetery is not one of my favorite places to visit; it almost reminds me of the Holocaust Museum—the stench of unnecessary death is everywhere! I say “unnecessary” because had I been more determined to know truth than I was to enshrine what I believed and wanted to be truth, there would probably have been no need for this cemetery in the first place.
     Anyway, there is one more “lot” that I want to mention—the “Hell Lot” and I must admit that the stone slabs in this lot are discolored and tarnished, some even chipped, from the abuse of the years and years of winds and rains beating down upon them.  In this lot there is a granite slab on which I had engraved these words: The Place of Eternal Torment for Everyone Who Does Not See the Truth as I See the Truth. You see, for my entire life as a believer, I have believed that Hell is the place (a literal, burning, fiery, eternal torment) where those who have not put their faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life will spend eternity—the absence of the Presence of God and the exact opposite of Heaven. Well, who wouldn’t embrace this (“who” referring to a protestant believer)? What is wrong with casting this into stone and making a monument out of it? This is, after all, the teaching of Jesus, is it not?
     Well, in the first place Jesus’ definition of eternal life differs just a tad from the definition that this assumption implies. This is the way Jesus defined it . . . that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent (John 17:3; emphasis, mine). Did you notice what is obviously absent in His definition? He makes no reference to time! How interesting! Jesus talks about eternal life but makes no reference to time, whatsoever; instead He equates it with intimacy. Conversely, it is almost impossible for us even to think of eternal life without some reference to time. Attempting to do so is about like attempting to think of swimming without some reference to water.
     Why this? It leads me to think that we might need to reconsider, to rethink our notion of Hell. At the very least, we should consider which of these is most important: maintaining my present belief about Hell or knowing the actual truth about Hell? If you (like me) have already cast into a stone monument your idea of the truth concerning Hell, you will probably find it difficult even to consider an alternative; however, allow me to remind you that both of us have probably been more interested in defending and protecting our monument than we have in knowing truth, which by the way, at least according to Jesus is eternal life.
     I sincerely hope that your “cemetery of monuments” is not as crowded as mine because breaking up cement is NOT easy!