An Interesting Life

The guy in the Dos Equis commercials has nothing on Jesus. Jesus led a profoundly interesting life and helped others do the same. He broke the neck of traditional and conventional thinking at every turn, serving as a window into a reality that transcends the terribly obvious. I believe Jesus called this “the Kingdom of God”. We are invited to enter.


Most of us have been taught to picture this regal realm as a blissful afterlife, as if the life we’re living now is merely a second rate parody of the one to come. Unfortunately, this vision, one the one hand, has led to disengagement and escape from the complexities of life. On the other hand, it has led to rigidity, defensiveness, and boredom. It certainly wasn’t Jesus’ vision, as we see him over and over again in the gospel narratives fully participating in ordinary life while adding color and spice to it. One place this can be seen clearly is his encounter with a sinful woman in the house of a Pharisee. St. Luke gives us the details, which I won’t spell out here. Suffice to say that the encounter ends with a grateful woman and one blown away Pharisee. Why did Jesus have such an effect on people?

Well, it’s simple—but not easy! Jesus was visionary and led his life according to that vision. He accepted the sorrowful affections of a sinful woman and chided the rigid agendas of the highly religious. Outsiders loved him; the beltway wanted him gone. But the most fascinating thing about it all is that none of the attention, positive or negative, seemed to faze Jesus. And that’s because his life and message had nothing to do with him. Jesus did nothing for his own benefit. He came to reveal God and His Kingdom.

I sometimes wonder if we pay too much attention to the person of Jesus and not enough attention on what he revealed. We treat him more like a pet than a prophet; more like a mascot than a master. We make him head cheerleader for our private agendas. We wrap him in an American flag as a bastion of ardent nationalism. We give him praise for what he has done without consciously dwelling on what exactly he did. And honestly, what effect will it have if it isn’t somehow manifested in ordinary existence?

The Gospel of St. Matthew tells us that Jesus traveled from village to village proclaiming the good news, healing the diseased, and calming the troubled. He didn’t give them a to-do list or bog them down with platitudes and meaningless dogma. He didn’t tell them how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. He embodied a new reality, giving it birth out of the lives of the common people.

What is needed today is for us to take a long, deep examination of Jesus’ most wonderful, interesting life and be transformed and renewed by it. We need to spend time and effort cutting through layer upon layer of dense theologies in order to catch Jesus’ vision of the marriage of heaven and earth. We may well find ourselves living in a whole new world as if for the first time.

Violence, Drama, and the Passion

I'm struck by the Gospel accounts of the Passion of the Christ.  They are very matter of fact: "Pilate had him flogged";  "they spit upon him and mocked him"; "they crucified him".  There is no screaming, no cries of agony and pain, no descriptions of how badly Jesus bled, no gore.  Except for one account while Jesus was on the way to Golgatha, there is no weeping and wailing.

I'm not saying these things didn't happen.  I'm saying they aren't recorded in the Gospels.  There is simply no drama.  Read them for yourself.  It just isn't there.

WE are the ones who add the images of profuse bleeding, the flailing flesh, the screaming, the gore, the violence, and the drama of the whole thing. We film it, produce it, act it out on stage, AND... we'll pay money to watch it. 

I wonder what that says about us??

Biblically, the real drama begins at the Resurrection: fear and trembling, running, weeping, unalloyed joy, confusion, wonder, shouting...

And yet good, churchgoing folks still want to watch Jesus put on trial, flogged, spit upon, nailed to the cross... killed and buried... over and over again, especially on Good Friday.

I'm afraid that we are too accustomed to looking AT the Passion when we should be looking THROUGH the Passion to the joy that awaits on the other side of it.  That's where the real action begins!  Shouldn't we be more excited about life than about violent death??

Early Morning Television

I was up quite early this morning and decided to turn on the TV and channel surf for a bit.  I got to the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which was airing a show called "Creation in the 21st Century".  I caught the tail end of this show, and it made my brain hurt.  To me it demonstrated once again how the Theory of Evolution is mischaracterized by some outspoken Christians under the guise of "defending Scripture".

(An aside: If you didn't already know this, I don't see a need to "defend" Scripture.  In my way of thinking, the Bible is indefensible solely because of the sheer passage of time.  We are two millennia removed from its final letter, and we live in a much different world today.  It wasn't written to give us an inside pseudo-secret knowledge to start or engage in arguments with people.  This approach is what plagues the Western Church and is leading to its demise.  The Bible was written and compiled to engender trust in Jesus the Christ.  People either trust or they don't.  I preach and proclaim the Gospel and leave it at that, and I teach and encourage others to do the same.)

If we Christians want to join in the "Creation vs. Evolution" debacle, fine!  But if we're going to build a case against Evolution,  let's make sure it's really Evolution, and not a caricature, that we're building a case against.

So, here's what the dude on the program said, "You were either created in an explosion, and no explosion in a printshop ever produced a Webster's Dictionary..."

Right, TV guy!  And it never will!!  Evolutionists are not saying that we were "created in an explosion".  What they are saying is that the atoms of elements (except hydrogen), which we find in the earth and in all sentient life, were forged in the core of a star (from carbon up to iron).  The star exploded (called a "supernova") and heavier elements were forged (such as gold and silver).  None of them are saying that there was a Big Bang and then, poof, all of sudden there were people.

Mathematical Cosmologist Brian Swimme puts what evolutionary scientists are saying like this, "Take a big ball of hydrogen gas, leave it alone for a few billion years, and you get rose bushes, giraffes, and human beings."  The printshop analogy from the TV guy turns out to be a misrepresentational parody of what evolutionary theory actually says.

If we're ever going to get anywhere in these discussions, we are going to have to stop with the parodies and false analogies.

Furthermore, the picture that was placed on the screen when the guy was talking about the "explosion" was something similar to this:

That is not an explosion.  That is a galaxy.  Here's an explosion:

Let's at least get our pictures straight, shall we??

New Design

I've been toying with new designs for a blog template and finally found one that I really like.  So if you think you're on the wrong page because you're not used to seeing my blog looking like this, relax.  You've arrived just fine.

Thanks for reading!!
Doug

Jesus and the Now

One of the things I've noticed in my own preaching is I tend to talk about Jesus in past tense.  It's an easy trap to fall into, and I'm sure I'm not the only preacher who does this.  We talk about what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, which is a good thing to do.  But then we leave Jesus in the tomb, as if he came to do what he had to do, and that's the end of it.  But Jesus is alive, isn't he?  That's what the Scriptures claim!  So, on top of talking about what Jesus did, I'm making a conscious effort to talk about what Jesus is doing now.  Of course I talk about his sacramental presence, but are there other ways to talk about the presence of Jesus?  I think there are, which is what I'm going to explore a bit in this posting.

As I've said in a previous post, we don't always get our way.  There seems to be a dynamic at work in life that appears to be working against us, when all along it (or He) is working for us.  I think Jesus fully embodies this dynamic as it continues to work in all of reality.

When I read the Gospels, I see that Jesus is doing and saying everything he possibly can to save Israel.  Unfortunately, Israel thought their problems were coming at them from without.  In a way I can't blame them.  After centuries of conquering and being conquered, of hoping and having those hopes dashed, of endings and beginnings, they were a worn out people.  All through this time they begged God to save them, but in the way they themselves wanted.

Jesus came and acted as if to say, "You can't have it your way.  And this is a good thing."  What happens when people can't have their way?  They start "rolling out the tanks".  This pretty much describes the history of the world.  It can also be a description of our personal histories as well.  What happens when I don't get my way?  I begin to think that something is really wrong around here and I act accordingly.  I make mountains out of molehills.  I lash out, usually at myself for not seeing what is bearing down on me sooner.  "I could have prevented this," I say to myself.  That's a lie, mostly.  Much of what happens is out of  my control, but I try to fix it anyway.  And I attempt to do this my way.  I end up stopping a brick wall with my face.

For those who deny that there's no such thing as truth, there is one thing that cannot be denied: Reality rules.  Now here comes the tough part for all of us-- It's okay!  We have been conditioned to believe the opposite, but it really is true that things happen for us, not to us.  I think this is Jesus leading us, showing us the Way.  This is Jesus saying to us, "You can't have it your way.  And this is a good thing."

Jesus is master at presenting us with opportunities to transcend the everyday challenges we face.  Another way of saying this is, "Jesus shows us the Way of salvation."  This is being saved in real time-- an undeniable, unmistakable reality that confronts us every single day of our lives.  And this is true for everyone who has ever lived, is living, and will live-- whether it is believed or not.

This, I believe, is a way to talk about Jesus that is real and knowable.  Let's continue to proclaim what Jesus gives us in the Eucharist, but let's not forget to tell people that Jesus continually interacts with us through the many and various dynamic events in our lives.