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Book of the Month - May The Good News According to Jesus by Chuck Queen Dear Friend, As a subscriber to the Book of the Month e-newsletter, we are providing you an extended look at one of our newest titles by Chuck Queen. In The Good News According to Jesus, Queen contends that the time has come for evangelical Christians to rethink their faith. Many of us grew up with a Christianity centered mostly on the teachings of Paul at the expense of exploring the life and teachings of Jesus. When we broaden our study of Jesus, says Queen, the result is a richer, deeper, healthier, and more relevant and holistic gospel - a Christianity that can transform this world into God’s new world. For the next three days, we will be sending you portions of the fourth chapter,"Stories of Grace and Hope." By Thursday, you will have the entire chapter in hand. We hope you find Chuck's approach to the Gospels refreshing and stimulating. Please feel free to share this with others you think might enjoy it. And don't forget to check back tomorrow for the next installment. Blessings, Matthew Michael
Day 1
Jesus, as a teacher of wisdom, drew lessons from nature and everyday life: “Do not worry about your life. . . . Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt 7:25-26). He was the master of the short, one-liner that evoked the imagination in a variety of ways and elicited thoughtful reflection. Some of these sayings are like riddles that thrive on paradox: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”; “The one who seeks to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life will find it.” Others are even more enigmatic and cryptic: “Leave the dead to bury the dead.” Still others are intended to shock, making vivid use of personification and hyperbole: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out . . . if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” These sayings “tease the imagination into activity, suggest more than they say, and invite a transformation in perception.”1 Jesus also taught in parables. Some parables are rather simple comparisons and analogies: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:14-16). Jesus’ most famous parables are his stories that are true, but not factual. In a preface to one of his books, storyteller Philip Gulley says, “I am a storyteller, not a historian. History is about facts; stories are about truth. It’s important to know the difference. If I were a historian, every memory in this book would be precisely factual. Since I’m a storyteller I don’t have to labor under that burden.”2 Jesus’ stories are not historical accounts, but they are true; they illustrate and reveal truth about life in God’s new world, as we have already demonstrated by means of the Luke 15 parables in chapter 2. Jesus’ stories are like sacred myths; stories “about the way things never were, but always are.”3 Paradoxically, they also conceal truth. In Jesus’ life setting, his opponents were continually looking for ways to discredit and entrap him. Rome would quickly squelch any message that might arouse militaristic or political aspirations among the Jews. Jesus’ opponents would have been quick to twist his words to cause him trouble with the Roman authorities.4 While his stories evoke thought about God’s new world, they do so in a somewhat veiled way. Most of Jesus’ stories have a down-to-earth, real-life character to them and are drawn from common, everyday observations and experiences of life. Yet the truth Jesus sought to reveal by these stories is not necessarily self-evident. In other words, the stories often mean something different than what we might think at first, and they may have a jarring effect on the mind and heart. Episcopal priest Robert Capon observes that with Jesus, “the device of parabolic utterance is used not to explain things to people’s satisfaction but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of all their previous explanations and understandings.”5 Jesus’ stories have a way of disarming the listener so that truth can slip in through the back door. Eugene Peterson writes,
My purpose here is to highlight a few of Jesus’ parables that have the potential to open our eyes to see God’s grace anew and to inspire hope in God’s new world. Surprised by Grace In Matthew 20:1-16 Jesus says,
What is your initial reaction to this story? Suppose the story came from someone other than Jesus; would you like it? The workers who put in the most time and effort and who bore the heat of the day are paid the same wage as those who worked only one hour. If we could transport this scenario into a modern setting, we might imagine lawsuits and picket lines with signs reading, “Management Unfair to Labor.” They have a good case, don’t they? We learn to protest at an early age. One Sunday a pastor decided to use the children’s sermon to teach the children about inequality. He first invited only the children with blond hair to come forward. He told them how special they were and gave them each several M&Ms. Then he asked the rest of the children to come forward and stand to the other side. They expected positive words and certainly candy, but they received neither. In fact, the pastor announced that he had nothing for them. An awkward period of silence followed. Then the pastor asked the children if they noticed anything unfair. A feisty blond-haired girl, pointing her finger at a little blond-haired boy, blurted out, “It’s not fair. You gave him three M&Ms and only gave me two.” In our culture, protest is almost a way of life. Of course, if you were among the workers who worked only one hour and got an entire day’s wage, you might see the situation from a different perspective. One’s perspective has a lot to do with where one stands. It is illuminating to situate this parable in its context in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has just informed the twelve that they will have a special role in judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life” (Matt 19:29). This promise is a response to Peter’s reaction after the rich young official walks away when Jesus asks him to give his wealth to the poor and become a disciple. Peter says, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (Matt 19:27). Obviously, Peter is thinking, What reward will we receive for making this kind of sacrifice? The parable of the workers follows this interchange. After sharing the story, Jesus predicts his death, and a power struggle ensues between the disciples as they jostle for seats at the head table. James and John seek positions of sitting on Jesus’ right and left in his kingdom. In their thinking, Jesus’ kingship means exercising power, wielding authority, and occupying places of prestige and honor. Perhaps, at the time when Matthew’s Gospel was written, long-term members in the church were grumbling over the special care and consideration given to “newcomers” who hadn’t paid their dues. Or perhaps some Jewish Christians resented the leadership being exercised by former pagans who converted to Christ. We all understand such tensions. In the context of Jesus’ ministry, I suspect some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, who were upset with his acceptance and inclusion of “sinners,” realized that Jesus had them in mind when he talked about the envious grumblers. Jesus was attracting a sizable following among the very people they excluded. Day 2 Jennifer Jones won an academy award for the title role in the movie The Song of Bernadette. Bernadette receives a vision of the Immaculate Conception and becomes a celebrity. An older nun, consumed by envy, prays, “Why her? No one has prayed harder, worked longer, and suffered greater than I. Why her and not me?” Later in the story Bernadette collapses while scrubbing the floor. After examining her, the doctor talks to the older nun. He asks, “Has she never complained?” “No,” says the envious nun, “she just quietly does her work.” The doctor responds, “That’s amazing. The affliction she has, she has had a very long time and the pain is unbearable.” Later, the older nun repents of her envy and prays, “God, forgive me. Thank you for the opportunity to serve the one you have chosen.”7 Why do we struggle with envy and resentment toward those who are favored? Why must we engage in petty comparisons? Why can’t we simply rejoice in the fact that we have been chosen at all? Robert Capon writes,
The parable contrasts two ways of thinking about life and our relationship to God. One way is rooted in the system of meritocracy, based upon rewards and punishments. Worth is determined by performance. Time invested and actual work accomplished are key factors in assessing value. Worth is earned. The workers hired at the beginning of the day operate under this system. The owner agrees to pay them the usual daily wage. They enter a contract that stipulates a specific amount—a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. The other workers do not enter into a contract with the owner. The owner recruits them, saying, “Go work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” No stipulation regarding the amount, no guaranteed wage, just “I will do you right.” So they go to work in the vineyard, trusting that the owner of the vineyard will give them what is right. At the end of the day, “what is right” is turned upside down. Let me offer a positive word about the concept of reward. As New Testament scholar Eduard Schweizer observes, there is “no polemic against this concept” in the story.9 Just prior to the telling of this story, Jesus promises the disciples that they will participate in the future administration of the people of God (“the twelve tribes of Israel”) and that they will be more than compensated for their sacrifices. But any reward we receive must be regarded as an expression of God’s goodness, not something we deserve or earn. The moment when we begin to think we deserve a reward is the moment we start comparing our reward to that of others, which is what happens in the story. Those who were hired first for a set wage are the last to receive payment. As they stand around waiting for their wage, they see what the others are paid and start comparing. “Here is a group that worked only one hour, and here is another group that worked only three hours, and these groups are receiving the same wage as us, who have born the burden of the work and the heat of the day.” They cry, “Unfair!” But the owner says, “How is it not fair? I gave you a fair wage for your work. Now, if I want to be generous with the rest of the workers that I asked to work in my vineyard, do I not have that right? Are you envious because I am generous?” The workers hired first received what they agreed to—a just wage. The other workers received what they didn’t expect—more than what they deserved. Both groups were surprised by the generosity of the owner, but the first group wasn’t happy about it at all. Envy is the result of comparing ourselves to others, an attitude that plagues the one who lives by a system of merit and reward. Those who live by the system of meritocracy constantly look over their shoulder to see what others are getting. It’s fertile breeding ground for envy, jealousy, and covetousness. Parables do not speak to all situations. Obviously, this story says nothing about how people suffering severe oppression should respond in their unique context. This parable addresses Christ’s disciples and church members who are comparing and competing for rewards and honors. It confronts us with the question, How do I want to live? Do I want to relate to God on the basis of reward and punishment, earning my way and getting what I deserve? Or do I want to entrust my life and future to God’s grace? The parable concludes, “but many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” This is one of those short, memorable one-liners that shows up in various contexts in the Gospels. It normally points to the inversion of the world’s pecking order that takes place within the kingdom of God. In this context, however, it could mean that when we all stand before God and one another, we stand on the same ground. If the first become last and the last become first, then life is equalized. The workers who were upset with the owner presumed that they would be rewarded according to the system of meritocracy. But presumption is not limited to those trying to earn their way. Christians known for a theology of grace can be presumptuous too. One might be presumptuous about getting what he thinks he deserves, and one might be presumptuous about getting better than what one deserves. Fred Craddock tells about teaching a class on the parables some years ago. His students gravitated heavily toward these reversal parables where the offer of grace is extended to the wayward son, the publican, the servant who took big risks, and the eleventh-hour workers. The students frowned on punishing lazy stewards or slamming the door in the faces of the poor girls who forgot to fill their lamps with oil. These seminarians, says Craddock, had come to expect grace, and hence it was no longer grace, or if it was, it was cheap grace. Craddock told them a story. There was a certain seminary professor who was strict about due dates for papers. Due dates were announced at the beginning of the semester, and failure to meet them resulted in an F for the class. In one class, three students did not meet the deadline. The first one explained, “Professor, unexpected guests from out of state came the evening before the paper was due, and I was unable to finish it.” “Then you receive an F,” said the professor. The second student explained, “On the day before the paper was due, I became ill with influenza and was unable to complete it.” “Then you receive an F,” said the professor. The third student, visibly shaken by the news about the fate of the other two students, cautiously approached the professor’s desk. Slowly he began, “Professor, our first baby was due the same day the paper was due. The evening before, my wife began having pains, and so I rushed her to the hospital and shortly after midnight she gave birth to a boy. So I couldn’t complete the paper.” The professor listened with interest and after a long pause said, “Then you receive an F for the course.” The news spread rapidly throughout the seminary. A large delegation of students came to the professor to protest. “Why have you been so cruel and harsh?” they asked. The professor replied, “At the beginning of the semester I gave my word concerning papers. If the word of a teacher in a Christian seminary cannot be trusted, whose word can you trust?” The students were then dismissed. After telling the story, Craddock asked his students if they thought it was a parable. He says most of them were angry not only with the professor in the story but with Craddock for telling it. They insisted it was not a parable.10 What do you think? Maybe when grace is expected or presumed or taken for granted, it ceases to be grace. In one of the stories in Wendell Berry’s The Wild Birds, Wheeler Catlett is an attorney for an old farmer named Jack Beechum. Jack dies, leaving Wheeler in charge of his affairs. The only family Jack leaves behind is his daughter, Clara Pettit, and son-in-law, Gladston Pettit, who are interested in money rather than farming. Jack and his daughter Clara never agreed on anything, but of course he still loved her. Jack wished that his farm go to a young couple named Elton and Mary Penn, who had lived on Jack’s farm for eight years, caring for the land and for Jack. Jack loved them as if they were his own children. Wheeler knows Jack’s wish. The will stipulates that Jack’s daughter Clara will get the land, but he has left the Penns enough money to buy the land from Clara. However, Jack forgot to consider was his daughter’s greed. Though he suggested that Clara sell the land for $200 an acre, he failed to establish the price in his will. Clara chooses to sell the land at public auction, anticipating a larger profit. Bidding begins at $200 an acre, and the Penns are nervous. Wheeler, however, inspired by old Jack’s spirit and the desire to help, urges the Penns to keep bidding. When the auction ends, the Penns win the land. The price, though, is $300 an acre, considerably more than the Penns can afford. Wheeler covers $65 an acre, almost $10,000 out of his own pocket. Elton Penn, a proud man, says to Wheeler, “You’re saying there’s not any way to get out of this friendship.” “No,” says Wheeler, “you can get out of it. By not accepting it. I’m the one, so far, who can’t escape it. You have it because I’ve given it to you, and you don’t have to accept it. I gave it to you because it was given to me, and I accepted it.”11 To be surprised by grace is a beautiful thing, and yet many of us have trouble with it. Parker Palmer writes,
When the illusion of our self-sufficiency is shattered and our once secure world starts to crumble, we experience the pain of loss, the confusion of being displaced, and the anxiety of an uncertain future. We may feel that life is completely out of control. The spiritual life is not about control, though; it’s about relinquishment. It’s about letting go of our need to determine and order life, and then trusting grace. Living by grace is God’s true design. In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes,
What is the source of this impulse? Surely it comes from God, who delights in surprising us with grace. The more we reflect this impulse in our reactions and interactions with all of creation, the more clearly we reflect our true selves and the more fully we live as the daughters and sons of God in the world. Forgiving from the Heart In a college chapel service, Sam Moffat, a former professor at Princeton Seminary and missionary to China, shared a gripping story of his flight from Communist pursuers. He told how they seized his house and his possessions, burned the missionary compound, and killed some of his closest friends. His own family barely escaped. As he left China, he took with him a deep resentment against the followers of Chairman Mao. It led to a crisis in his faith. “I realized,” he told the students, “that if I have no forgiveness for the Communists, then I have no message at all.”14 Forgiveness was an important theme in Jesus’ teaching. Consider the following parable set in the context of Peter’s question about forgiveness:
Peter had discovered in the school of Jesus that forgiveness must take the place of vengeance, but here he is still concerned about limits. It was a popular Jewish saying that a person may be forgiven up to three times but not four. Peter thinks he is being generous when he proposes to forgive seven times. Likely, he expects a commendation. Instead, he receives a response from Jesus that prompts him to marvel about life in God’s new world. God’s kind of forgiveness doesn’t keep a running tally. Writer Philip Yancey tells how Leo Tolstoy thought he was making the right start in his marriage when he asked his teenage fiancée to read his diaries, which spelled out the details of his past sexual dalliances. He wanted to keep no secrets from Sonya. Tolstoy’s confession, however, sowed seeds of resentment and jealousy. Years later, Sonya wrote in her diary, “When he kisses me I’m always thinking, ‘I’m not the first woman he has loved.’” For half a century, jealousy, resentment, and the lack of forgiveness ate away at her like a cancer, destroying any love she had for her husband. Yancey remarks, “Behind every act of forgiveness lies a wound of betrayal, and the pain of being betrayed does not easily fade away.”15 We nurse wounds, dish out punishment, perpetuate family conflicts, nurture bitterness and resentment, and then rationalize our responses in order to avoid the unnatural act of forgiving. I read that C. S. Lewis once remarked, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” Forgiveness is an unnatural act because it seems unjust. If a person or persons have truly harmed us, then we reason it is only right and just for them to pay for their crime. We can offer numerous excuses and think of a myriad of reasons not to forgive: “He needs to learn a lesson”; “I don’t want to encourage irresponsible behavior”; “She needs to learn that actions have consequences”; “I was the one wronged—it’s not up to me to make the first move”; or “How can I forgive if he’s not even sorry?” Yancey admits,
In Jesus’ parable from Matthew 18, the man owes the king “billions of dollars.” The figure represented ten times the total annual revenue of King Herod’s kingdom—an astronomical amount. Schweizer comments, “The sum is made up of the highest number used in arithmetic and the largest monetary unit employed in the ancient Near East.”17 Amazingly, the king has pity on the servant and forgives the debt. It’s hard to imagine that anyone, after receiving such mercy, would be so unforgiving, demanding payment in full from a man who owed him a few hundred dollars. When the king discovers the servant’s hardheartedness, he reverses his decision and throws him into prison.18 Then this point is made: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your heart.” We might draw the mistaken notion that forgiveness is something to be earned by our own willingness to forgive. Forgiveness, however, cannot be merited, for then it would not be forgiveness. Jesus is teaching something basic about the intrinsic nature of forgiveness. The experience of forgiveness—emotionally, psychologically, spiritually—necessitates a forgiving spirit. The man in the parable, though offered forgiveness, never really receives or experiences it for himself (perhaps he even lived with the illusion that somehow he would pay it all back). It is simply not possible to claim forgiveness for myself and not extend it to others. We must share forgiveness in order to experience it authentically. It’s not that God will not permit me to experience forgiveness; I simply cannot experience it if I do not know how to give it. For example, if I don’t know how to work with equations and fractions, I can’t do algebra. It’s not a matter of someone not allowing me to do algebra; I simply cannot solve the problems without a working knowledge of equations and fractions, which are intrinsic to the nature of algebra. It is the same with forgiveness. We cannot experience/receive forgiveness unless we have a forgiving spirit. Such is the way forgiveness works in relationships. It is important to understand Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness in the context of a relational framework. We have already seen how Jesus imagines and relates to God as a compassionate Parent. Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness must be understood within this familial setting. A popular view sees divine forgiveness as a binding, judicial pronouncement that applies only when certain conditions are met. God is portrayed as the divine judge who must condemn humanity under the penalty of the broken law. We are forgiven (saved, justified, etc.) if we believe the right doctrine (usually understood as believing that Jesus died in our place for our sin-guilt) and if we respond in the right way (accept Jesus into our hearts, say the sinner’s prayer, believe, and be baptized, etc.). Jesus, of course, has something else in mind. A commonly asked question is, “What about the person who is not sorry for his offense or does not seek forgiveness?” I may say to someone who has hurt me, “I forgive you,” only to have them say, “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.” I can forgive, but the person I forgive cannot authentically receive or experience forgiveness until he or she owns his or her part in the breach. This is the meaning of Jesus’ words of forgiveness from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Those involved in the crucifixion of Jesus obviously were not open to receive Jesus’ forgiveness, but Jesus could still forgive them. We can forgive even if the recipients are not able to receive the forgiveness we offer. Forgiveness does not automatically result in reconciliation. These are two different issues. Consider the parable of the waiting father. The father forgives the son even before he confesses; full reconciliation, however, depends on the son’s humble, sincere repentance. The experience of forgiveness does not mean the relationship will be what it was before. It can never be what it was before. In some cases, forgiveness might lead to a restored relationship that is healthier and more truthful. In other situations, the relationship may suffer greatly, and full reconciliation or renewal of trust may be impossible. Either way, the relationship has changed. The parable of the king settling accounts prompts us to think of forgiveness as a release from a debt and the surrender of our right for repayment. Forgiveness says, “I am not going to punish you for your offense. I am not going to make you pay for what you did (though there may be consequences that involve suffering). I refuse to be enslaved by resentment, and I let go of my right for revenge.” Richard Rohr tells about his conversation with a group of black men in the Virgin Islands. They said, “We want to be Christians, but when we go back to our friends, all they say is that it was the Catholic Church that justified slavery. Jesuit priests kept slaves.” Rohr replied, “I don’t know my history well enough. Maybe that was true. But can’t you let it go? We only have one life. Right now. We can always find a justification for our anger.” One responded, “Father, we’re willing to let go of it, but our culture keeps reminding us of it. Everybody says, ‘Why are you going to be a Catholic? Why a Christian? Those religions don’t free us. They oppress us.’” Rohr later reflected on this experience, writing, “I just want to sigh with pain for God’s people. How can anyone move us forward? How can anyone free us when we constantly hold on to our hurts? And especially when most of the hurts really happened? History has become a giant glacial freeze of remembered hurts and justified retaliation.”19 The act of forgiveness is an act of letting go. Forgiveness, however, is not forgetting. When the Scripture says God remembers our sin no more, that does not mean God eradicates our sin from his memory. It means God decides not to make us pay for it. We must not let anyone convince us that “if we haven’t forgotten, then we haven’t forgiven”; this idea can be psychologically and spiritually hurtful. On the other hand, we may want to ask God to help us forget, because remembering brings us pain. Even so, just because we still have pain does not mean we haven’t forgiven. Much of the need for forgiveness arises in families, who interact daily. Those who hurt us want us to stop hurting because our hurting reminds them of their offense. They may even insinuate that if we are still hurting, then we haven’t forgiven. We must refuse to take on that burden. We live in a culture where we have made it sinful to hurt, and much inner pain and anxiety comes from not being able to hurt. It’s okay to hurt. In fact, our acceptance of suffering and pain will cut the quantity of it immensely. Surely, part of what it means to suffer with Christ is the suffering we absorb when we decide to forgive. Forgiveness is the fresh breeze that blows through God’s new creation. James Bryan Smith says,
Forgiveness is always an act or process of faith that is enabled by the grace of God. When we decide to forgive, we are stepping out into the flow of God’s Spirit, and God will certainly meet us there and bear us up. When we decide to forgive, we decide to breathe the air of God’s new world and live as the daughters and sons of God. In Due Time The Gospel of Matthew (also Luke) connects two short parables of Jesus together that relate to the same theme,
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Matt 13:31-33)” Both stories contrast an insignificant beginning with a glorious ending. The new world ushered in by Jesus begins small, but one day it will extend into all of life. The mustard seed is the smallest of seeds and yet is “the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree.” The reference to birds nesting in the branches, drawing from an Old Testament image, probably refers to the incorporation of the Gentiles into the people of God, a mission that was well underway when these Gospels were written.21 The images of God’s new world depicted in these brief parables are somewhat anti-apocalyptic. Whereas other parables of Jesus suggest that God’s new world breaks in through a decisive, cataclysmic event, here it emerges from obscure beginnings. New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias puts it this way: “How differently the beginnings of the Messianic Age announced by Jesus appeared than was commonly expected! Could this wretched band, comprising so many disreputable characters, be the wedding guests of God’s redeemed community? ‘Yes,’ says Jesus, ‘it is.’”22 These stories are stories of hope. Jerome Groopman, a professor at Harvard Medical School, has written a book titled The Anatomy of Hope. In an interview, he said, “I think hope has been, is, and always will be the heart of medicine and healing. We could not live without hope.” He observed that even with all the medical technology available to us now, “we still come back to this profound human need to believe that there is a possibility to reach a future that is better than the one in the present.” When pressed to define hope, he said, “Basically, I think hope is the ability to see a path to the future.” He contended that it is the capacity to see a path ahead in spite of all that’s blocking or threatening.23 Jesus holds out the prospect of a glorious future. These parables do not tell us how God’s new world will come to fulfillment; they simply assure us that in God’s time the kingdom will come. The workings of God’s new world are not evident to all. This seems to be the point of the leaven mixed into the dough (“hid in the dough” is the literal Greek). The kind of kingdom Jesus inaugurated is not the kind most expected. What kind of king rides into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a warhorse? What kind of king comes in humility and meekness instead of pomp and pageantry? What kind of king willingly submits to his captors without a fight? The power of God’s new world—the power of love and justice for all—is at work in the world, and it will, in God’s time, transform the world. We don’t know how or when. The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels do not resolve the tensions between our part and God’s part in the fulfillment of the promise. Will it come suddenly? Will it take place gradually? Will God intervene? Will it be mainly through human instrumentality? We don’t know. We do, however, see the power of this new world demonstrated through Jesus’ words and deeds. Jesus’ healings of the diseased and demonized bear witness to God’s power at work to repair the world’s alienation in all its forms. God has acted, is acting, and will act to bring in the new world. New Testament scholar Russell Pregeant offers a perceptive, cautionary word on the pitfalls we must avoid as we struggle to understand Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God.
Faith lays hold of the promise of future fulfillment while engaging the present in the pursuit of justice, peace, and the good of creation in cooperation with the Spirit of God at work in our world. The movie A Beautiful Mind tells the story of John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, who is a brilliant mathematician struggling with mental instability. His marriage is a testimony to true commitment through years of illness and trial. On the evening he proposes, the following conversation ensues.
It’s the same for faith. The first disciples witnessed the presence and love of God in a special way through their association with Jesus of Nazareth, and as a consequence of his resurrection they became convinced that the love they experienced through his life and ministry would one day transform the world. A little girl approached her father, who was in his study preparing his sermon for Sunday. She asked rather timidly, “Daddy, can we play?” Her father told her that he couldn’t play because he was in the middle of preparing his sermon, but he would play when he finished. She said, “Okay, when you’re finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a big hug.” She turned to leave, but when she got to the door she did a big U-turn, came running back to her father, and as he reached down for her she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as hard as she could. He said, “Honey, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished.” She answered, “Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to.” In the little expressions of love and compassion now, people of faith see signs of things to come. They give us hope and inspire us to engage our world through works of mercy and justice in anticipation of God’s redemption of all creation. These parables of Jesus hold out hope for all who see little fruit for their effort and grapple with disappointments and setbacks. There are times when it seems as if nothing will ever change; the world with its powerful economic, political, social, and religious structures negates and diminishes the pursuit of peace and justice to apparent insignificance. Disciples of Jesus must cling to the promise of these parables—that the insignificant, obscure beginnings will one day transform the planet; that the way of Christ, the way of justice and compassion, the way of grace and forgiveness, will one day be realized on earth, and it will come to pass not through independent human achievement, but through the power and work of God. Pastor Bruce Thielemann tells about a flight to Europe where he sat next to a nervous elderly lady. When he asked if it was her first flight, she said, “No. I’m always nervous when I fly.” Then she countered, “But it won’t be bad this trip.” He asked why, and she explained, “We’re flying into the morning. We’re flying toward the dawn.” As followers of Christ, this is a good thing to remember when the darkness seems overwhelming and we can’t see our way through. We are flying toward the morning, toward the dawn of a new world that God will cause to rise. It is good to be reminded that the Gospel writer who passed on these Jesus stories also gave us a word of assurance that God will never abandon us. After God raised Jesus from the dead, the living Christ met with his disciples on a hill in Galilee. He entrusted them with a mission and ministry of instructing others in his way, and then he said, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). We are not alone or on our own. In due time, God’s new world, which has already broken through, will shine over all the earth with the brightness of the noonday sun. Questions for Reflection and Discussion 1. Do you think a parable can work in our culture the same way it worked in Jesus’ culture—disarming the listener so the truth of God’s new world can sneak in? 2. In the parable of the day laborers, do you think the workers who bore the heat of the day and received the same wage as the others had a right to be angry? What do you think is the central message/teaching of this parable? 3. Is it possible to be presumptuous regarding God’s grace? Can you think of an example? 4. Do you agree with the perspective that forgiveness cannot be received without a forgiving spirit (see Matt 6:14-15)? 5. Is there such a thing as unconditional forgiveness? How does it relate to reconciliation? What is the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation? 6. How do you define forgiveness? What are the essential components of forgiveness? Is it an act or a process? 7. How do you deal with the obvious tension in the parables and teachings of Jesus that suggests on the one hand that the fullness of God’s new world will come suddenly, and on the other hand that it will come gradually? How do you envision it coming? 8. In your own words, describe the key elements of a vital hope. Notes 1. Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 71. 2. Philip Gulley, Hometown Tales: Recollections of Kindness, Peace, and Joy (New York: Harper SanFrancisco, 2001), 9. 3. Attributed to German novelist Thomas Mann, quoted by Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 50. 4. Robert H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teaching, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 39-40. 5. Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 5. 6. Eugene Peterson, Living the Message: Daily Help for Living the God-Centered Life, ed. Janice Stubbs Peterson ( New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 13–14. 7. The Song of Bernadette, dir. Henry King, written by Franz Werfel, 20th Century Fox, 1943. 8. Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, 395–96. 9. Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 393. 10. Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, ed. Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 18–19. 11. Wendell Berry, The Wild Birds (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1986), 45–73. 12. Parker Palmer, The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990), 50–51. 13. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 14–15. 14. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 90. 15. Ibid., 85. 16. Ibid., 93. 17. Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew, 377. 18. “And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (18:34). The wording here is characteristic of Matthew, who tends to embellish pronouncements of judgment, giving them a harsher and more vindictive tone. 19. Richard Rohr, The Good News According to Luke: Spiritual Reflections (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997), 115–16. 20. James Bryan Smith, Embracing the Love of God: The Path and Promise of Christian Life (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 107. 21. Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, second rev. ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972), 149. 22. Ibid., 149. 23. Reported by Rachel K. Sobel, “The Mysteries of Hope and Healing,” U.S. News and World Report, 26 January 2004. 24. Russell Pregeant, Matthew, Chalice Commentaries for Today (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 42. 25. A Beautiful Mind, dir. Ron Howard, written by Akiva Goldsman, Universal, 2001. |
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