The Jesus Style

Subtitle The Hand-Me-Down Set The greatest among you should be like the youngest. Firstborns always did have it better. Statistically, they achieve more, reach higher positions, score higher on IQ tests, etc. They receive more undivided attention from their parents than subsequent children. They are given responsibility earlier, and that provides for rapid maturity. In a real sense, the elder needs little outside help. He has it made. Not so the younger. First of all, he has to deal with the problems of a somewhat arrogant elder brother. That can give him lifelong hang-ups. Many of his possessions are second-hand offerings from the brother who has outgrown them or used them. The standard by which he is judged is often the elder brother. His identity is tied up with him in the school system. Oh, yes, you are so-and-so's brother. He is expected to excel in the same areas his brother did. Much of life becomes an odyssey to discover just who he himself is. Being the younger is, by its nature, not a position of strength or authority. It does not speak dominance. It tends to be a position that waits and accepts whatever comes to it after others have had first choice. When Jesus used the word younger, it was filled with much more meaning than it is today. The younger brother was stereotypically a rebel, a person who had no stake in the status quo. The system under which he lived was an oppressor to him. Success in life depended upon his own abilities and the mercy of others. Life in general and tradition in particular were not a benefactor to him. The elder received the birthright and, in some cases, all of the inherited property. Why shouldn't the youngest be a rebel? Power was strictly on the other side. Even the slightest self-preservative action would brand him as a rebel by the elders in control. In contrast, the elder brothers had a vested interest in the existing system. Just by birth order they had secured future positions. For them, the watchword was, protect the status quo, things are working well now, let's keep them that way. Elders were the governors. The positions of authority went to them. As far as the world was concerned, it was the most advantageous position to be in. But Jesus said we must be as the younger, even if we are elders. Any power or advantage we have that is not handled as if we were the younger is a violation of the nature of Jesus. For the status quo power systems of the world and the church, this is a declaration of war. Since in Jewish tradition and law, the elder brother received an extra portion of the inheritance, Jesus, by this statement to be as the youngest, urges us to hold lightly to material goods. In a sense, Jesus weakens the desire for power and greed with this command. I thought I had this part of my life under control until my wife and I moved twice in one summer. I couldn't believe how many boxes we filled. Many simply could only be identified as stuff. I realized then that I was a collector of stuff. I even had items in my possession that went back 30 years. I had three cabinets with plastic shelves to hold them, but I could not identify the shelves because I didn't know what they were. But they looked too interesting to throw away for 30 years. Why would Jesus want us to travel light? Simple. So we wouldn't be greedy, and so we could be flexible enough to go wherever he wanted to use us. I travel an immense number of miles every year. I've discovered that the joy of my journey is directly related to how much luggage I take. The more luggage, the less joy. The less luggage, the more joy. Heaven is carry-on. So, being as the younger has its own joys, though we are the disadvantaged ones, and perhaps the poorer ones, we are the free ones, and he who has overcome the world is on our team. Subtitle Bringing Up the Rear If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last. The very last. How much this is in keeping with the whole lifestyle of one who would be a servant. But how different from our human nature. When my family was young, we would travel together during the summers in a Volkswagen van and tent camp along the way to speaking engagements. It combined business and pleasure very well. After a drive of 200 miles or so, we would begin to be bone-weary, and I would pick a place to stop and rest, occasionally a small neighborhood park. Can you picture my children bounding out of the van, racing toward the only swing at the park, and shouting all the way, I'm last, I'm last, I'm last? Don't try too hard to envision it, because it didn't and simply doesn't happen. The nature of our humanity drives us to be first. This is a competitive age. But competition is meaningless unless there is a best or first to be gained, and a competitor to be conquered. It's very difficult to compete with someone who chooses to be last, who refuses to join in the race to prove himself superior. Whether I wish it to be so or not, being first means to relegate others to lesser positions. My superiority is always at the expense of someone else. So I have a choice. Will I be self-seeking? Or will I love and serve others? So powerful is my selfishness that I will go to great lengths to prove that the Scripture permits me to be this way, that God just wills some of us to grab the brass ring and, well, who am I to argue with God? I often find myself first in the art of rationalization, subhead, sibling rivalry. Because they seem good in our secular society, a host of customs have been brought across without question into the Church. Competition is one of them. Early in our lives we are steeped in the concept of winning, getting there first, getting the most, garnering top honors. School is a daily dose of the competitive spirit. It provides a lot of enjoyment in what would otherwise be unbearably long times. It is unquestionably a good form of motivation. We work harder in a good competitive situation. But what are the implications of competition in the body of Christ? No body can survive with its parts competing against each other. A body is designed to be healthy when each part is doing its job in a thoroughly cooperative manner. Competition, by its very nature, is self-serving, the very opposite of the servant, self-giving nature of Jesus. Some specific attributes of competition should prove our case. For competition to work, there must be a prize, either a material one of value, or else the prize of simply proving mastery over others and being number one. First, to seek a material prize as the result of doing the work of God is to misunderstand or disobey Scripture. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Second, to desire to be master over others is to disobey the injunction to be last for the kingdom of God. To seek and achieve a position over others is to feed one's pride. Without pride, the achievement of being better than others would be meaningless. Because of the value of the prize and our drive toward it, competition tends to give rise to cheating. Rather than fostering the best attributes, it brings out the things that go along with the spirit of materialism and pride. I have discovered that I'm a poor winner. When I have bettered someone, I gloat. I can't help it. It's the natural me. Sometimes in friendly kidding, I will remind him frequently of the fact that I have beaten him. I can become rather obnoxious. But if I'm a poor winner, I'm an even poorer loser. After losing, I ransack my storehouse of rationalizations. My feelings of jealousy and resentment toward anyone who would be so arrogant as to defeat me run rampant. From the moment of the loss, I enter the scheming phase, planning for that moment when I can even the score. It dawned on me one day that the attitudes I had in both winning and losing had little Christ-likeness about them. Another problem of competition is that it can only measure the least significant of our actions. One can never give a prize for spirituality or faith or love because these cannot be measured. Instead, we measure specific physical actions like the number of visitors brought to Sunday school or the most money collected for missions. The prize given for such actions gives a good clue to the actual motivation. Every contest has to have rules. Who decides the rules? Someone sits down and comes up with a set of rules depending on what action the rule-setter desires. This is a rather arbitrary way to let our lives be guided. Perhaps the biggest problem for the health of the body of Christ is that competition creates so many losers and so few winners. To belong to Christ is to be a winner as far as eternity is concerned. Any activity that does not enhance that reality but instead reinforces the common human feeling of being a loser does not fit within the pattern of the nature of Jesus. Now, people have argued vehemently with me that competition is fine within the body, that it's fun and its motivation makes it worthwhile. The one thing I have noticed is that only people who are accustomed to winning—those who by reason of their birth, not their choice, were blessed with strong and coordinated bodies and minds—are so vehement in defending competition. That seems to the whole point to me. I do believe that competition can be redeemed. Making the prize valueless or only of value inherent within the action would be the first step, such as the sheer joy of the activity or of being with friends. Designing games so that athletic prowess is of no value and everyone, regardless of ability, is on equal footing would be a second step. Creating situations that build the spirit of fellowship more than the spirit of competition would be a third step. To devise means of giving the less honorable parts special honor, as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 12, verses 20 through 25, would be a fourth step. A subtle problem can arise that we must be aware of and resist. We are not to say, since I am the greatest, you be the first, I will be last. How nauseating. No, if we love others the way Jesus does, we will rejoice so much in seeing them achieve and enjoy the position of being first that we will hardly notice that in our efforts to help them we turned up last. This is the result of the totally others-oriented servant. The exciting question to be pondered is, what would happen to the Church if we all treated each other this way? I believe this loving servanthood within the body of Christ would inspire the members and so captivate the hearts of searchers that the masses would seek us out. Love is irresistible. I long for the world's commentary to once again be, my, how those Christians love one another. It was out of the disciples' spirit of competition, the desire to be greater than the other, that Jesus began to teach the opposite, the traits of the greatest in the kingdom. If I am to live after the pattern of Jesus, it must touch every part of my life, including that innate pride that drives me to defeat my brothers. Subtitle Room in the Manger For he who is least among you all, he is the greatest. No prizes that I know of go to those who are least. Those who are least are not therefore the glory it offers. Willingness to be the least is possible only if we are comfortable with ourselves and with who we are. If it is injurious to us to lose face, then we will never choose to be least. If we have an unhealthy need for recognition and crave praise for accomplishment, then we won't go in the direction of the least. Leaders with a desperate need for success have found awards and honors a profitable way to manipulate their followers. Dignified statesmen have been shamelessly compromised for the sake of potential recognition. Just as competition works only because of the drive for self-exaltation, so the fires of our desire for honor are fueled by a trait different from the one that motivated Jesus. He made himself of no reputation. Our violations of his nature in the area of honors and recognition are so obvious that I choose only to call a few to our attention. The society I live in is an advertising and public relations oriented society. The weekly church page in the local newspaper is filled with the same self-chosen superlatives that Hollywood uses to present its product. What a judgment that it should be the least read page in the newspaper. Individual and corporate church public relations releases list accomplishments and honors in the same fashion that the world does. To hear the introductions given at Christian festivals and conventions is a painful experience and aggrandizement. The use of honorary degrees by Christian colleges to gain donations or other reciprocal benefits is a scandal. Some college honor plans are devised to cash in on vanity and sell books to the honored recipient. Some denominational public relations agents have as one of their job tasks to gain public honors for denominational hierarchy. I, to my shame, have worked intimately with others on honor giving schemes designed to tap this weakness of humanity and move them to achieve our goals. How we can ignore the warnings of scripture and continue to use honors for manipulation and continue to clamor for them is a dangerously unanswered question. The teaching of Jesus is very clear about the things we do for the view of others, and I quote scripture. Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets. By the way, I tell you the truth. They have received their reward in full. Matthew 6, 1 and 2. Jesus invites us to secret giving and a few sentences later to secret praying, so that the Father is free to reward us openly. It must, however, be left to the Father to handle the reward, not to the hands of men. We cannot rationalize once we have become part of a self-honoring system, that it comes from the Father because the system honored us and not we ourselves. Paul draws the demarcation line firmly in 2nd Corinthians 10, 17 and 18. But let him who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the man who commends himself who is approved, but the man whom the Lord commends. Two instances in which Jesus was apparently given commendation do not provide adequate reason for our own systems of commendation. In Luke 2.52 it says, Jesus grew in favor with men. However, these same people in whose favor he grew were the very ones who later scoffed at him and rejected him, causing Jesus to state that a prophet was not without honor except in his own country. Later in the triumphal entry passage of Matthew 21, the crowds that honored him with the palms and hosannas also called for his crucifixion. The honors of men, no matter how obtained, are empty and fickle. The only prize legitimate for us to seek, the only prize that will not be brought low, is the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3.14, King James Version. That high calling is the call to servanthood. Subhead. When the inn is full. It isn't that least is the cellar in which the indolent, inadequate, apathetic riffraff justly find themselves collected. In the nature of Jesus, least is a choice you make when you have such a high view of others that you want to do all you can to elevate them, and your position happens, because of your efforts in their behalf, to end up least. And you really didn't notice. Very few people can make it to the top in this world. Some are injured. Some are discouraged. But even if all were able, there is so little room at the top that even capable deserving ones will be thwarted. The inn called fame and fortune is always filled just at the time when you thought you could make it. So many applicants for the best jobs. Prices so high for the best housing. There just isn't room. But there is a place where adequate room seems available. It's called a manger. It's small and dirty and inhabited by animals, but it is the place where the Son of God, the greatest in the kingdom, the servant, was born. And there seems to be enough room when it comes to servanthood. Not many people are fighting to get into the manger. If you really love people and want to serve them, there will always be room. Perhaps no human glory or prizes, but plenty of room. Mary, when she heard from the angel that she was to bear the Messiah, understood about the proud and the humble, and perhaps even then about mangers. And Mary said, My soul praises the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He 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. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. Luke 1, verses 46 through 55. So we find Jesus in humble places, in mangers among the poor, being a servant, being humble, being an example, being as a child, being as the younger, being as the last and as the least. And wherever he is, his servants will be. Now we read Philippians 2, verses 5 through 11. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Subtitle, Good-bye strong-arm tactics. Christ Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Paul delves deeply into the person and nature of Jesus in the letter to the church at Philippi. He uses some of the same descriptions Jesus gave himself in the greatest in the kingdom teachings, but he also adds some fresh insight. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, Philippians 2, 5, and 6. In the simplest interpretation of this passage, it states that though he deserved it, being equal with God, Jesus did not try to take over the kingdom by force. Major amounts of money are being spent in the world today for armaments, but Jesus valued people too highly to violate them through the use of force. Certainly he had the power to call legions of angels to rescue him from the cross and wreak vengeance on the crowd that had mistreated him, but he didn't. Certainly he could have roamed the countryside grabbing people by the neck and threatening them with cosmic annihilation if they did not follow him, but he didn't. He refuses to do anything that would destroy or inhibit our ability to choose. Love works that way. Matthew quotes Isaiah to show the gentleness of Jesus, and I quote scripture. Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out. No one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope. Matthew 12 18 through 21. We do not have a comparable idiom for the reference to a bruised reed and a smoldering wick. The closest meaning we can obtain from what he is saying is that he won't kick a man when he is down, and he looks for the brightest spark of hope in people and tries to fan it into flame. When I was in Boy Scouts, we made fire from flints or from rubbing sticks together. We would take a handful of very flammable material called tinder and place it where sparks from the flint could fall into it or heat from the sticks would make it begin to smolder. Quick action would soon have a spark in the tinder. I never saw anyone look at that single spark and in disgust stomp it out, complaining all the while that it was only one spark. To the contrary, they would pick up the tinder, cup it in their hands, and blow through it in an effort to provide additional oxygen and create a flame. That seems so descriptive of the way Jesus treats us and so unlike the way we treat each other. As a college teacher, I'm called upon to evaluate people through grades. It is my least favorite thing about teaching. According to the system, if people do not measure up to at least 65% of my standard, they're not worthy to be in my continued presence. They must go elsewhere. Unfortunately, conscious or unconscious grading occurs in our general evaluation of people. If they do not meet a majority of our criteria for quality people, then we do not bother to give them further opportunity to be our friend. In church, if someone does not succeed in living up to our tenets of minimum behavior at least 80% of the time, then we no longer have time for such a person. How different is Jesus' gentle invitation from the condemnatory harangues, voiced or silent, that I have heaped upon weary and burdened people. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. He does not stomp on us because there's only one spark of hope in us. No, he gently lifts us and blows the great wind of God on us until his fire baptizes us. Subhead. Does the end justify the means? The other meaning, additional, not alternate, of Philippians 2, 5, and 6, which speaks of not grasping the kingdom, is that Jesus was not driven by blind ambition. When goals are of the highest order and represent eternal values, keeping the method of achieving those goals in proper balance is difficult. We've all heard the question, does the end justify the means? Surely Jesus, who had the highest of goals, should have been free to use whatever means he needed to attain the goal. However, he refused to be blindly driven. Anyone who has worked within the ranks of industry or any human economic system is acquainted with the cutthroat methods used by the to rise in the ranks or to multiply income. Such increase usually comes at the expense of another. In the church, too, people become pawns and stepping stones to others' goals, even very acceptable goals, like evangelism. Subhead. Winning ways. Much evangelism is akin to the frenzied eating of a starved shark. We thrash around and produce a lot of blood, thereby fulfilling our hunger for statistics. There is a thought pattern which goes, the important thing is to get them to say the sinner's prayer. It doesn't matter how we get them to do it. The important thing is that they do it. It doesn't matter if they understand very well what they've done. The important thing is that they do it. Consequently, we've used every kind of approach to reach sinners, short of loving and relating to them. We're taught to approach them as a salesman would, not revealing our reason for the conversation until the right psychological time, and then moving in for the close, whether there's an invitation for it or not. Then, the ritual concluded, we leave appropriate literature and fade away from the person's life. We leave our new child and hope he finds his way to someone's doorstep or that someone else will remember to visit him. The only thing akin to a modern altar call in the New Testament occurred on the day of Pentecost, after Peter's sermon, when 3,000 accepted Christ. The significant difference is that Peter did not issue the call. The crowd did. How different from today. Whether the Holy Spirit moves people or not is immaterial. We try to do it on our own. Evangelists trade secrets of how best to move the greatest number of people to the altar. Having been in the church all my life, I think I've been subjected to all the manipulative forms, and it hurts to rethink them, but let's look at a few. How often I heard closings to sermons that were totally unrelated to the message that had just been given. Instead, a well-placed deathbed story designed only to elicit emotions immediately preceded the call to the front. The whole structure of heads bowed, eyes closed, the organ gently playing, creates an unreal atmosphere that can be destructive to a person's ability to make a genuine choice. In this mood-setting atmosphere, psychological forces unrelated to the choice at hand can come into play and confuse the issue. Once, when I was presenting the Good News to an individual and giving him the opportunity to make a decision about Christ, he asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks and made me wonder what kind of grinder he had been through before. He asked me, will you still be my friend if I say no? Evangelism in the Jesus style never violates or is disrespectful of the freedom of anyone. It increases their ability to make a choice rather than takes it away from them. Evangelism in the Jesus style never uses deceptive means or dishonesty in any form to make converts. God is truth and reality. Any means that requires that the person be tricked or fooled or any means that works only under a cloud of secrecy is a violation of the Jesus style. Evangelism in the Jesus style focuses on the person of Jesus himself rather than any fringe church doctrines or styles. Evangelism in the Jesus style grows out of the fruit of our lives and asks us to be willing to reveal ourselves even to sinners. Again, Jesus, who came to redeem people, not use them, refused to take advantage of others on his path to the cross. He easily could have taken advantage of a repentant Zacchaeus or of a seeking young man who was rich or of the crowd he fed who wanted to make him king. But Jesus, dedicated to the greatest goal, was equally dedicated to the greatest means. He was driven by love and obedience, not blind ambition. This is the end of side A. Please turn the tape over to listen to side B. Subtitle. Hello, I'm Reverend... Christ Jesus made himself nothing. He made himself nothing. Emptied himself. The great kenosis, it's called. He made himself of no reputation, no image. I can recall my father shaking his head and repeating over and over to himself, if only I knew what this meant. There's something powerful here, if only I understood it. Maybe that's why this scripture has glued itself to my mind and equally disturbs me. Reputation is so important to me. I want to be seen with the right people, remembered in the right light, advertised with my name spelled right, live in the right neighborhood, drive the right kind of car, wear the right kind of clothing. But Jesus made himself of no reputation. Image building is a significant industry in the United States. Presidential candidates and others who need a tangible expression of approval from the public spend millions of dollars on simply building their image. Advertising companies spend billions just to let you know that their clients are around. And to build an image that will cause you to trust them regardless of the quality of their product. For Americans, image is of supreme importance. Image or reputation is simply a means to gain control over others or manipulate them to our best advantage. Most people are guilty of it. Certainly we clergymen are. If I were to introduce myself to you by saying, Hello, I am the Reverend Mr. Gail Dean Irwin, immediately I would have you intimidated. You would clean up your act, quit cursing, hide certain reading material, become unreal. Or, if I don't get to introduce myself, I can wear a black suit and white shirt and immediately you know I'm either an umpire, undertaker, or a preacher. Same result. Or I can simply speak with my pulpit voice, the sanctuary tone with a tear in every word, and immediately you know only preachers talk that way. Once again, I have you cowed. In an airplane between Los Angeles and Dallas, I had occasion to share the good news with the owner of an electronics manufacturing company. As he neared the point at which he would accept the Lord, he stopped and asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a minister. The wheels began turning in his head as he wondered what he had been saying to this clergyman. A lady seated on the other side of me, overhearing that I was a clergyman, squealed with delight and asserted that she had wanted to meet one so she could ask him some questions. Whereupon she asked me something like, How many angels can actually sit on the head of a pen? The conversation with the executive then became proper. The weight of all the unreal image we have helped to build came crashing down on me. I still wonder at the books I have read, written by great men, that urge me to keep up a professional image as a minister. They exhort me not to let my people get close to me, or see me with my hair down, or call me by my first name. They must be taught to respect the office of a pastor and honor it as a profession, so these books tell me. Perhaps that is why I meet so many lonely, frustrated pastors in my travels. But God has not designed us to live that way, and according to Luke, Jesus didn't live that way either. The tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Luke 15, 1, 2. Jesus kept doing the things that were detrimental to his reputation. He didn't mind who he was seen with. A former prostitute kept constant company with his group. He would do whatever would serve the best interests of a person, regardless of the cost to himself. Quoting Scripture, Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him. So he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who's touching him, and what kind of woman she is, that she is a sinner. Luke 7, 36-39. A good Pharisee would never have let a woman, especially one like this, even touch him in public. But in this scene a woman of ill repute begins to caress the feet of Jesus in the only way her skills had taught her to do. Rather than rebuke her for it, Jesus rebukes the judgmental Pharisee and honors this repentant woman who had kissed his feet ceaselessly from the time Jesus arrived. I have a friend in a large foreign city where prostitution is legal and the women display themselves in rooms so customers can make a choice of who they want. He's a respected pastor whom God has burdened with the plight of these women. He realized that no one cared about them. Anyone who could have helped them avoided the place where they were so as not to tarnish their own reputation. He began to enter these houses and talk with the women there. At first they tried to be erotic but quickly they realized that he was not there to take advantage of their bodies and began to talk with him about Christ and reality. This pastor risked all of his reputation and image for such a burden of love. I suspect Jesus did the same. If I am but a pilgrim and stranger in this world, I do not need to hold on to anything that would guarantee my success in it, not my reputation and not my possessions either. Subhead. Possessions are nine-tenths. Paul gives us further insight in 2 Corinthians 8 verse 9 into what it meant for Jesus to make himself nothing. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. Whether we interpret this to be poor in spirit or poor in finances, the outcome is a major shaking of our own nature. After gaining new insight into the nature of Jesus, I can begin to understand why he said that it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Possessing wealth is probably the strongest deterrent to growing into the nature and lifestyle of Jesus. A wealthy man has so much to give up. When Jesus talked to the rich young ruler who had put honest effort into right living and thinking, and discerned that he was possessed by his riches, the final instructions were, go and sell what you have and give it to the poor. I have been fascinated by how many people, including me, rationalized their desire to be wealthy by stating that they wish to be rich so they can help people with their money. Meanwhile, they gave themselves to no ministry that even indicated a slightest desire to serve people. Ah yes, Jesus knew the hearts of men, and he knew how best to resist temptation for himself as well. His instructions were not, go and sell what you have and give it to God through my organization, nor were they, show your love and devotion by selling what you have and giving it to me, the Lord. The rich young ruler seemed to have everything else correct. Perhaps fulfilling Jesus' instructions was the only step he lacked in being able to become a lover of people. Yet apparently Jesus did not say to all of the wealthy friends he had that they must sell all and give to the poor as he did to the rich young ruler. He has a keen sense of where our treasure and heart is. Jesus did not pull back from the total impact of what he had to say about wealth, even though it was not always understood by the disciples and was especially not appreciated by the Pharisees. The Pharisees felt that possession of things was a sign that God was pleased with them and that people were poor because it was a sign of God's displeasure. Jesus consistently reversed the value systems of the world. And I quote from Scripture, the Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. Luke 16, 14, and 15. Men's value, God's abomination. What an indictment of our system. The nature of Jesus, however, is both opposite to the fallen nature of man and redemptive of it. Jesus gives us insight into the proper priority of values in the following conversation, quoting Scripture, Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? He saw through their duplicity and said to them, Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it? Caesar's, they replied. He said to them, Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Luke 20, 21-25. Money falls under the realm of Caesar's whether it says in God we trust on it or not. It is the stuff of this world, the symbol around which our greed gathers. In this age, the desire for more has led parents to take multiple jobs in order to provide their families with higher standards of living. In this drive to excel, they have deprived their children of the richest of gifts themselves. I pray for a generation that will accept a lesser standard of living in order to give themselves away to their families and others. People are the realm of God. His inscription is on us. He has created us in His image, and we are to be given to Him. His making Himself poor was not to create a dramatic show and thus impress the world, or simply prove to Himself that He could do it. No, He made Himself poor for our benefit, so that by His poverty we might be made rich. Subhead. Building Bigger Barns. It is easy to lose sight of proper priorities in the practical decisions of life. For example, take the choices that we must make regarding church buildings. Church facilities as we know them were not part of the early church and certainly were not commanded by Jesus. They are made compatible with the nature of Jesus only by diligent awareness and effort. When we decide on the location for a building, we have made a sociological decision as to which strata of people will feel comfortable coming to it. Then when we decide on the architectural style, we have made another sociological decision as to who will feel comfortable being present in it. Each choice reduces the number of people. When we choose the liturgy we will use, we have made another sociological decision as to who will worship with us. Our choice of clothing style, reading material, rules and regulations limits even further who will attend. The whole approach of Jesus seems to be to remove those limits. He opens his arms to the weary and heavy laden. Anything we do that in any way closes the door to that group is out of step with the nature of Jesus. One of the most powerful abominations that has crept into our decision process concerning church facilities is the statement, Jesus deserves the best. I agree that he does, but the problem is we haven't the foggiest idea what the best is until we thoroughly understand and pursue the nature of Jesus. Otherwise we will attempt to voice material opulence on him who exactly avoided such self-glorification. I think that what we are saying is we deserve the best. How have we so perverted the gospel that we concentrate the majority of our church income on the facilities instead of on the people? The world stands up and cries, selfish. If we are truly pilgrims passing through this world, what purpose is served in spending so much of our time, energy and resources on a physical building while the needs of the people go untouched? If we are locked into a building or building program, then we need to ask certain questions of it. Will it enable us to be better slaves? Will it cause us to lord it over others? What will we be examples of in this building? Can we be humble here? Can we be as a child in this building? Is this building a product of our ambition? If we had to pay for it individually, would we still do it? Would people think we had made ourselves of no reputation with this building? Would we die for this building or is it expendable? What will we do to keep people from damaging this building? Will we let them stain the carpet? Will we permit bare feet here? Would those bare feet be comfortable here anyway? Are there any furnishings that memorialize persons other than Christ? Are there any pews or areas that are understood to be reserved for certain people? In what ways can we tell the difference between the rich and the poor in this building? If we must have buildings, then let us break away from the theater designs of the last centuries in which the performance on the stage is the most important thing and all seats are fixed in that direction. Let us begin to design buildings that will enhance the interaction of the body and give us a chance to fulfill the call to love one another. Let it be known that the congregation is where the action is, and God, not our structure, is the center of worship. Let us drop the Saturday marquee page in the newspaper that tells what performance is going on where in our efforts to lure fish away from another fish bowl. Whatever buildings we have, let us utilize them fully seven days a week so as to be good stewards. And whatever we build, let us hold to it ever so lightly, knowing that those things that can be shaken will be shaken, causing only the permanent to remain. Subtitle Down to Earth Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man. A church administrator in a high position once expressed that he feared I was describing Jesus in terms too human. He felt that it was dangerously close to humanism. Hardly. Humanism recognizes no divine other than mankind, but Jesus was fully God, fully man. If he was fully man, then he was just like me, a man with the same passions and temptations that I have. The writer of Hebrews reveals to us that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Hebrews 4.15. Tempted in every way, just as I am. The Son of God. That's a little hard to believe, but it is so. Occasionally I believe I have original temptations, ones that Jesus could never possibly have faced. But he did. James writes that each one is tempted when by his own evil desire he is dragged away and enticed. James 1.14. Does this mean that the lust structure of Jesus was like mine? Apparently so, for that is the source of temptation, when we are drawn away of our own lusts. Yet he was without sin. It encourages me that though he was just like me, he was able to perfectly obey his Father, and now imparts that ability, as well as his sinlessness, to me. Fully human. Sweating, smelling, bathing, eliminating sin. Sweating. Fully human. Fully God. Now this frees me to be humble, to own my own humanity, to not try to hide it in the presence of friends, not try to put on a mask of spirituality if it is not there, to learn to be honest about myself, to be free to be forgiven and to forgive. Subhead. Living Without Weights. Nothing is quite as regular as paying the bills. Most of us never escape the burden of our debts, though we long to be free. In the same way, by the time we reach age 30, we can record a long list of things we wish we hadn't said or done, trespasses against others for which we carry the burden of guilt. And also, by age 30, we can list injustices we have suffered, whose memories awaken anger in us, adding bitterness to our burden. The burdens of debt, trespasses, and bitterness are all weights that destroy our peace and our right relationships with others, weights that can only be removed by forgiveness. Servanthood knows that bitterness cripples the slave and renders him useless, and servanthood wants for others the freedom that comes from forgiveness. Jesus chose forgiveness as a major trait of those who follow him. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times. Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Usually, I'm good for three times of forgiveness, although I am cautious after the first time. But Jesus wants me to identify with a struggling brother who desires to change but can't always get it together. Jesus wants me to teach him how to forgive by forgiving, just as he taught the disciples by saying, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. It is as if Jesus, in spite of the horrendous scars and deep wounds we had given him, conspired with the Father to get even with us and said, let's teach them a lesson. Let's forgive them. God helped me to love the sinner in his sin and let him know it. Sin is a distortion of our created nature. Forgiveness has an amazing power to correct that distortion. Forgiveness also has a way of eliminating the distance between people, bringing us close enough to touch and embrace, actions very much in keeping with servanthood. Subhead, Love Wrapped in Skin Few things communicate acceptance and warmth to us as much as touch. Even a child knows its value. One night a mother went into her little girl's bedroom to comfort her in the midst of a thunderstorm. The mother said, don't worry, Jesus is here and he will protect you. Her daughter responded, okay, you sleep here with Jesus and I'll go sleep with Daddy. That child wanted touch. It seemed so appropriate that the Incarnation would bring us to the Servant King who would touch us and let us touch him. Scriptures filled with references to Jesus touching. Since his love for mankind is so complete, even the lepers, the untouchables, felt the warmth of his hands. Children, animals, the ground he created, were all beneficiaries of his touch. Little wonder that so many of the one and others of the New Testament express an intimacy that would require touch. Little wonder that the touch of washing feet was a requirement for fellowship between Jesus and Peter. Little wonder that touch, even of a garment hem, provides such healing. Little wonder, then, that the ordaining of ministries requires the laying on of hands. Little wonder that gifts and birthrights were passed along by the laying on of hands. Little wonder that the writer of Hebrews considered the doctrine of the laying on of hands to be elementary. While on earth Jesus was love wrapped in skin, and even now, the saga of the Incarnation continues as Jesus serves us in advocacy before the Father. The book of Hebrews reminds us that he is still touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Hebrews 4.15 Subtitle Like father, like son. He humbled himself and became obedient. Obedience has always had a distorted meaning in my mind. For me, it represented an unwelcome task mask or demand that you do what you didn't want to do and maybe didn't think was right, and that you were made to do by someone larger and stronger than yourself. This does not seem to be the meaning of obedience in the life of Christ. What was the difference? Obedience was a joy for him because it was being true to the original nature, the made in the image of God nature that Adam and Eve had polluted by their choices. The special mark of Jesus' life was his total obedience to his Father. I tell you the truth. The son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his father doing, because whatever the father does, the son also does. But the father loves the son and shows him all he does. John 5.19-20 Since Jesus was revealing the nature of God, then we must assume that the traits discussed in these pages describe the God of all creation. God and his son are servants, examples, humble, as a child, as the younger, as the least, as the last, using no force, emptying themselves. These traits that totally speak love were guiding principles, even commands for the life of Jesus. He was completely faithful to them. Jesus was obedient to this servant love of man even in Gethsemane when the cost was going up astronomically. At the most crucial point, he chose to do the act that would most lovingly display the reality of the Father to us. In my own selfishness, I usually fail at that very point. My ability to make choices is always loving of others. But Jesus knew the secret of obedience which produces joy. In Matthew, he gives to his disciples what may be the most condensed secret of God, the atom out of which all else is built. And I quote Scripture. If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me will find it. Matthew 16, 24 and 25. If I could put this principle fully into effect in my life, all the others being discussed here would fall into place. This is the essence of how God operates, the essence of what holds the universe together, the essence of what keeps my body going, the essence of what keeps the body of Christ functioning. So to activate it in my life unlocks the power of God for me more than anything else. It isn't mysterious or mystical at all. But it doesn't have the drama behind it that other verses do, so it's easy for me to neglect. Working on the principle of giving myself away has provided greater results in counseling for me than any other principle. It has drastically altered my own life. All the selfish forces that create the abnormalities and sufferings of life fall by the wayside when I get in touch with the God-life, the atom that moves me to act in luck toward others. The charismatic gifts around which so much excitement revolves are also subject to this principle. None of them are to be used for self-seeking purposes, only for the edification of the body. The ministry gifts are to be used for the equipping of others. Any act not beneficial to others is disobedient and damaging to the body. Our piety has been polluted, with many of our holiness requirements becoming purely personal and having little to do with how we relate to others. At a Christian festival, I had a conversation with two couples, one of whom was Buddhist, in response to a session that I had taught in the afternoon. About halfway through the conversation, the Christian man lit a cigarette, then apologized, saying he wanted to give them up because they heard his witness. The Buddhist woman responded with a statement that continues to shake me. She said, We non-Christians, when one of our rank becomes a Christian, do not watch them to see how well they live up to some self-imposed standard of piety. We watch them to see how they start treating people. I felt as if I had heard the word of the Lord from her. The Pharisees could accuse Jesus of being a glutton and a wine-bibber, but they could not accuse him of not loving people. He had succeeded. He had been obedient to the Father. Subhead. A Strange Catchword Power for obedience to the Father came to Jesus by the anointing of the Spirit that comes from the Father. Anointing, however, is not always clearly understood. In the past, I have heard it used as a strange catchword. When a minister felt that he had the anointing, the physical results were immediate. The voice rose in volume. Pulpit pounding would increase. Similarly, when a congregation talked of a preacher who was anointed, it had nothing to do with what he was saying, but instead was a way of describing the style with which he preached. But let us see what the anointing does to Jesus. First, he is driven into the desert by the Spirit, where, while fasting, he is tempted heavily by the devil. There he sees the strength of the things that makes us fall. He perceives what we go through and discovers how much of dust we are. Then, with the battle won, he goes to the synagogue where a scroll from Isaiah is handed to him, and he reads, That is what the anointing did to Jesus. It caused him to fulfill his nature, to be obedient. Sacred anointing, as different from social or medicinal anointing, has a specific meaning. To dedicate to God, to set apart, to empower for a specific purpose. The word Messiah, or Christ, means the anointed one. In other words, Jesus was fully dedicated, fully set apart, fully empowered, not to some volume of voice or manner of eloquence, but to do something, to preach good news, to proclaim freedom, to give sight, and to release. That is what the anointing must produce in me if I follow in his steps. Along with what the anointing caused him to do, notice the clientele to which it sent him. Poor, prisoners, blind, oppressed, hardly the most attractive sort of companions. None of these people would be able to properly repay him for his services. They could only receive. Obedience thinks more about giving than receiving. Let us see the kind of people our anointing will send us to and what we are to say to them. Subhead. Whose side is God on? Good news to the poor. I think I would more likely want to preach good news to the rich. The returns are better. But poor people hardly know what to do with good news. They seldom get any. They tend to go overboard when something good comes along and take advantage of it. You can't help the poor until they understand better how to handle being helped, I tend to think. But the first result of the anointing of Jesus was to give the poor good news. Freedom for the prisoners. When is the last time you visited someone in jail? You may be a little ashamed if you even know someone who is in jail. If, like me, you are apt to say, why should I visit someone in jail? They are there because of the wheels of justice and part of their punishment and rehabilitation is to be deprived of interaction with people like me. Then this part of the anointing has meaning that is deeply disturbing. Not all people in jails received or are receiving justice. Many of them, because they have no wealth to keep the legal processes going, are swiftly forgotten and, long past the time they should have been released, had justice been dealt out equally, languish in a cell. Prisons are great places for individuals to be forgotten. That is certainly not healthy for a person's outlook on life. So Jesus finds the forgotten and remembers them. Though they have failed society and are paying debts, the fact remains that those in prisons are people. And Jesus came for people. After imprisonment for his role in Watergate, Chuck Colson, as a legal expert, saw the unjust situation of so many in prisons. This revelation so changed his attitudes that he has now gone from being a presidential advisor to a minister to prisoners in the name of Jesus. Prisons are not the best neighborhood for developing a strong personality and a high view of yourself. Yet that is our goal for others if we love them. Jesus did, so he came to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. If you are uncomfortable with my emphasis on literal prisons and prefer to see that in the context of spiritual prisons, the analogy is still appropriate. Much of the world is captive to some addiction, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, perversion, or locked into inappropriate emotional reactions. We often isolate such prisoners as surely as if they were behind bars. We yell at them through their bars or from a distance to tell them that they are free but show no indication that we really believe they are by giving the gift of our presence. Prisoners of sin and prisoners behind walls also suffer the stigma of being viewed with suspicion and seldom trusted once they are released. Once we begin to minister to them, we will find that they take immense amounts of our time and energy. I guess we will have to be lovers of people and anointed before we will ever proclaim freedom to prisoners. Recovery of Sight for the Blind One of my running arguments with God is that not enough people are healed to please me. His running argument with me is that I both fail to pray for them enough and fail to walk with them through their recovery. Healing is something I don't understand. I've seen enough of it to believe that it occurs and is not always psychologically explainable. But I've also seen enough to know that the pop theologies which clobber the sheep for not having enough faith are inadequate. When Jesus walked the earth, he healed the sick freely. In some places he healed all the sick. I doubt that the faith of those crowds exceeded that of today. Only occasionally did Jesus compliment outstanding faith, yet he continued to heal. The only places he didn't do much healing was where disbelief was the major attitude. When hurting people come to Jesus today and ask for people to pray for them, it is not out of disbelief that they have come. Some are healed, but not all. To send away the unhealed who came in belief with a condemning sermon on their lack of faith ringing in their ears does not sound like Jesus to me. I do not understand why some are healed and others are not. But I am under orders from the Master Servant, so I will pray for the sick and the blind and leave the healing up to the Lord. In the meantime, what is my ministry to the blind, physically or spiritually, as they recover? I can walk with them, keep them on the road and away from harm, talk to them to restore their personhood, and keep them constantly in touch with the Healer. And if you'll forgive my selfishness, I enjoy being the first one a physically or spiritually blind person actually sees. To release the oppressed, or to set at liberty them that are bruised, KJV, oppressed people are an enigma to us. We want to help them, but they keep doing things that frighten us, and often they throw our help right back into our face. So we end up believing they are oppressed because they deserve to be. Whether or not they deserve it, the heart of the Church should always beat in harmony with the heart of the oppressed. Often it doesn't. Even worse, the greatest of abominations occur when the Church is a source of oppression. To exclude anyone because of his color or station in life, or to support as a Church institutions that do, is totally out of step with the nature of Jesus. It is not listening to the Father. It is a sin that removes the action of the Holy Spirit from us. I only hope that it doesn't involve holding Jesus up to such shame that it falls within the category of the unpardonable. Many of us in the Church missed a golden opportunity during the 1960s as radicals took up the cause of the oppressed. I don't care whether the radicals had a hidden agenda or used the wrong methods or not. We should have been with them in our desire to free the oppressed. We should have been there first. Instead, because we didn't like the radicals, we used them as the reason we didn't release the oppressed. Then we decided that anyone who tried to release the oppressed was probably just like those radicals and was undoubtedly communist-inspired. Jesus didn't care who else was on the side of the oppressed. He only knew that he was. I think I try to protect my reputation too much. Maybe I should empty myself just as he did. The other side of the coin is the releasing of those personally bruised and oppressed persons. When someone hits us, it will likely leave a bruise. Because of the potential pain, we try to protect bruised spots on our body. Additional bruises cause us to take additional steps to protect ourselves until finally we are twisted hulks whose whole lives are wrapped up in attempting to shield our injuries. After a disappointment in love, I said to myself that I would never let anyone get that close to me again. I even threatened never to love again. Our bruises thus become the starting points at which we begin to cut ourselves off from the vulnerable, loving, person-oriented lifestyle and begin instead to center our lives around self-protection. That is walking death and oppression. Jesus calls us, through the same anointing, to gently find and heal the bruises so people can be free to live without self-protection. Jesus told us in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 3 through 5, not to cast out the splinter from someone else's eye until we have removed the log from our own. This provides a symbol of how we are to help the hurting. I must never approach others as the official splinter hunter. That will only cause them to recoil in fear. However, if I've had a log removed from my eye, you can be sure I will remember the pain associated with it and will deal very gently with others who have a splinter. And I would not go myself to an eye doctor who had two logs sticking out from his own eyes. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. What is it about me that wants to let the world know that it is in disfavor with God? Had I been one of the group that caught the woman in the act of adultery, I probably would have scolded her thoroughly and voted for her stoning. As a young evangelist, I went around telling the world just how evil it was. Of course it already knew. People's hearts condemned them already. I was saying it more eloquently and forcefully, I thought. Then I hear Jesus say that the anointing will cause me to proclaim to the world that God is on their side. We are in favor with him. How different it is from my message, and yet how much it is the message the world longs to know. So the work of the Holy Spirit in anointing Jesus was totally consistent with the nature of Jesus and his Father. It resulted in dedication and obedience, in thoroughly giving himself to others and serving them. Will the anointing do any less for me? Amen.