Still Lookin’ Into Jesus
January 20, 2008
Tim Schmucker
Text:
Luke 10:25-37
Mark 2:13-17; 10:17-22; 8:27-30
Sipping whiskey from a paper cup,
You drown your sorrows till you can’t get up,
You think rock and roll will set you free,
You’ll be deaf before you’re thirty-three,
Shooting junk till you’re half insane,
Broken needle in your purple vein,
Why don’t you look into Jesus, He’s got the answer.
Why don’t you look into Jesus, He’s got the answer. Larry Norman, this song’s singer-songwriter, was an influential mentor of mine during my early to mid teens, albeit at a distance. A leader in the “Jesus People” movement around 1970, and the founder of “Jesus Rock” music, Larry had abundant blond hair half way down to his waist; said he grew it out to make room for his brain. His trademark gesture was “One Way”, and he put it to lyrics in his song with the same title.
one way, one way to Heaven
hold up high your hand
one way, free and forgiven
children of the Lamb
Why don’t you look into Jesus, He’s got the answer. While the song was written for Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and other contemporary rockers whose lives were in shambles, not for teenagers growing up in the church, it assured those of us growing up at Toledo Mennonite, that we indeed had the answer with Jesus, that we were indeed on the “one way” to heaven. We knew that Jesus was the answer even if we didn’t know exactly what our questions were. Still, intuitively we understood that the questions were: because we were all sinful, how were we to be saved from hell? Or to state it positively how were we to gain eternal life?
Larry Norman’s music confirmed what we had learned at home and at church, that the answer to these questions was that through believing in Jesus – believing in his virgin birth, his death and resurrection – we are saved from sin for he took our place on the cross, and we therefore have eternal life. Jesus was God or God’s son, or both. And he was coming again soon to rapture us home to heaven. In short, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (Those aren’t my words, but I got them from a respectable source!) And there was more: we could take our problems to God or to Jesus (or both) in prayer, and things would work out, prayers would be answered ‘cause God and Jesus love us. So, why don’t you look into Jesus, He’s got the answer.
However, we then graduated from Sunday school and went off to university (me to a Mennonite one at that). And those answers that faith in Jesus gave, the answers we thought were eternal, began to shake and eventually crumble as we threw ourselves into studies in science, in theology and the Bible. We began to have different questions too. We learned that much of the Bible was based on the world-view of those times. We discovered that the Bible assumed a three-tiered universe; that is: a solid dome of Heaven above the Earth that rested on the Earth’s horizon, then a flat Earth, and below, the waters of the deep and Sheol or hell. We realized that simply wasn’t our universe. And we began to see that the supernatural stories we had taken to heart in Sunday school were either mythology whose meaning and truth was meant to be found beyond the historicity of the event or they were explanations of natural world occurrences that people feared or did not understand. I refer to the creation stories, the Flood (in spite of Evan Almighty!), the conquest of the Promised Land, Joshua and the sun standing still, Elijah, Baal and fire from heaven, … Jesus’ walking on water, calming the storms, and his ascension to heaven, to name a few.
So, we were experiencing a massive collision between our modern worldview and our childhood beliefs. And we wondered why our mentors hadn’t told us any of this. The modern worldview, with its image of reality as that of matter and energy, and its vision of the universe as a closed system of cause and effect, made traditional belief in God increasingly problematic. Moreover, we heard that many learned people, both in and outside the church, believed that the eternal God, the Grandfather figure with the long white beard, was in many ways a creation of humans to explain what they didn’t understand and to cope with the fragility of life.
And then there was Jesus, who had had the answer. For those of us who continued in Biblical studies, we discovered that:
• First, the gospels are not primarily history, but “proclamation” (kerygma). The gospel of John in particular is highly symbolic and essentially not historical. The synoptic gospels are the products of a long process of development, shaped by Christian communities during the time of oral transmission, and fur
ther interpreted and shaped by the Gospel writers.
• Second, the oldest parts of the gospel tradition are Q (a collection of sayings) and Mark (the oldest Gospel narrative). In addition, some scholars believe that Mark was written for Jews who were followers of Jesus as a liturgy for the “synagogue year”, and the events recounted were symbolic and had their meaning primarily within 1st century Jewish faith understandings.
I now realize that none of this made the Bible any less true, rather it was true in a different way. At the time, however, we wondered whether we could still “believe” in the Bible.
Well, this isn’t a sermon about my generation’s faith pilgrimage. Suffice it to say that many, including some of us here at TUMC, simply no longer believe in or accept the traditional theistic view of the Christian God from our childhood. We can’t embrace a god who can be influenced at times by prayer to intervene in the details of human life, a god who blesses and cares for some people while leaving others without divine support; in short, a god who behaves like a tribal deity.
Yet, we are still a people of faith. We are indeed a people of faith. With Levi the tax collector, we have chosen to follow Jesus even while we continue to ask in amazement “who is this man”? We seek to see Jesus more clearly. While our modern and post-modern questions and answers are significantly different and nuanced, most of us do believe in a creator and creating spirit that we call God. We also believe that in the early followers’ witness and proclamation of Jesus, we can know God, and we come to know what true, authentic human life is. We believe that the essence of God is love, peace, and justice, that Jesus embodied this essence, and that we are called to embody it in our daily lives as his followers. Plus, we believe that the best way to live this out is in community, the church. When we decide to follow Jesus, we commit to a group of like-minded followers, to discern together how to daily live out God’s essence which we see in Jesus, that essence of love, peace, and justice. So ultimately, we believe that Jesus,… Jesus, well, he’s got the answer, even if that is too cliché for us. Jesus does have the answer!
So how do we mentor our children? How do we share our faith with them that is both authentic and meaningful in our world? How do we lead them toward making the genuine commitments we hope they’ll make? First, I suggest that integrity requires that we be honest with what we teach our kids. We must show them, in words and actions, a faith that is active and alive and dynamic, a faith that doesn’t stumble in light of science or theological questions. In this way, we prepare our children for faith in a modern and post-modern world that has not flinched at deconstructing the most beloved ole time beliefs. And they’re prepared for living in a multi-faith world, country and city where “one way” exclusivism can’t be the answer. So, we guide our children toward a faith that gives answers to their questions.
And we start by doing it “in community” as we are indeed a people of faith. The diversity we have at TUMC adds richness and balance. I am thrilled that my dear friend Geoff is my son Derek’s mentor, even though Geoff and I don’t agree on numerous aspects of theology and Biblical interpretation. Yet I trust him. Together we are a people.
Secondly, I firmly believe that faith can’t contradict what we know about the world and how it operates. So, can we teach our children about God, Jesus, and the Bible in a way that doesn’t require that our and their intellect be suspended? For example, one evening at home a while ago, I was reading stories from “My First Bible” to Christopher; the story was Jonah and the Whale. Christopher listened intently and at the end, responded: “wow Papí, did that really happen?” Now, if I had asked my Dad that question 40 years ago, his response would have been: “Absolutely. The Bible is the Word of God, and so we believe it.” While there’s some comfort (or escape?) in relying on the traditional answer, ultimately it’s unsatisfying and not authentic. How have you answered these types of questions? …. For my part, I hesitated, took a deep breath (thankful my mom wasn’t in the room), took another deep breath as we were charting new territory here and it was risky! – and responded with a question: “what do you think Christopher? Can someone be swallowed by a huge fish and live in its stomach for days?” He thought for a second and answered carefully “no”, and I added “I don’t think so either. So what does the story mean?” We then proceeded to brainstorm about the meaning of the Jonah story.
Let me hasten to add that telling the stories just for the stories’ sake is at times also valid. Sometimes we simply tell the story. We don’t have to “go deep” all the time. And we certainly don’t want to wait until children have manage the concepts and language of symbol and metaphor before we tell the stories. Neither do we force a complicated explanation on a child who is not ready to understand a story at that level.
Yet, what I’m trying to plead for is that we mentor our children and teach them about faith, and demonstrate our faith to them in such a way that they don’t have to discard their Sunday school faith when they become young adults, when they get to university. Now, some of you may think that we should raise our kids with the traditional belief framework, expecting and hoping that later as adults they’ll make sense of it for themselves. I’d like to dialogue with you on that because I think it’s dishonest to teach our kids faith beliefs and language we ourselves struggle with or no longer accept. It’s not fair to do this, knowing that as they begin to develop and learn about the natural world and how it is ordered, that what we’ve taught them will need so many adjustments that it will be easier for them to simply dismiss it all, and not try to figure it out. With this form of mentoring, God, Jesus, the Bible are simply another Santa Claus – something fun and fanciful from childhood that is put aside as we mature, not to be totally forgotten, but certainly to be smiled at and not taken seriously.
Third, I want us to model for them from an early age how to approach the Bible with the respect and nuance it deserves. For example, many supernatural Gospel stories have even deeper meaning when seen as a metaphor or a symbol rather than literal history. And by understanding them this way, we are, I think, much closer to the intent of the Gospel writer. The way the author of Mark’s gospel tells the stories of two blind men to whom Jesus gave sight is a good example. The two stories are immediately before and after the great central section of Mark that describes Jesus final journey to Jerusalem, and recounts sayings regarding his impending death and resurrection. The section also speaks much of discipleship as following Jesus on this journey. By placing these stories where he does, Mark gives them a metaphorical meaning: gaining one’s sight is seeing the way of Jesus and deciding to follow him. Let’s look at them.
Mark 8:22-26: Jesus Cures a Blind Man at Bethsaida
They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”
Notice that the man didn’t receive his full sight immediately. He received it in two stages. Yet he gains his sight by seeing the way of Jesus and deciding to follow him. Then comes the great central section from the rest of Chapter 8 through Chapter 10: Jesus on the road to Jerusalem with many teachings about following him, along with solemn sayings of his impending death and resurrection. The section ends and then we have 10:46-52, the second blind healing story.
The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart, get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
This time, after walking with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, a blind man sees Jesus immediately, and follows him. We see Jesus more clearly after we’ve walked with him in life. This is what we have to share with our children. This is why we mentor.
Seeing Jesus. Seeing and Following Jesus. Our scripture passages for today do point to our questions, the questions of our time – what is the meaning of life? how then shall we live? and they do offer answers that satisfy.
Deb and Madeleine read Mark 2.13-17: As Jesus was walking along the lake, he saw Levi, a despised tax collector, a collaborator with the hated Roman empire that had militarily enslaved Palestine. Levi was sitting at the tax booth where he extracted and extorted money from his struggling sisters and brothers. And Jesus said to him, ‘Come, follow me.’ Incredible! And just as incredibly Levi got up and followed him. They went to dinner at Levi’s house with many of Levi’s colleagues along with a bunch of other sinful Jews. When the religious leaders saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with this scum?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
Jesus meets all where they are at, and invites them to follow him. The first invitation Jesus gives to all is “follow me”. As we mentor our children our lives will show that we are following Jesus, and the clear invitation is that they choose to do the same. We also see who Jesus spend his time with. Who do our children see us spending our time with?
Our next two passages are found in the great central section of Mark, sandwiched between the two stories of Jesus giving sight to the blind, the two stories we’ve just looked at.
The first, Mark 8.27-30 is the very first story in this central section of Mark, it comes immediately after the 1st healing the blind story. It grapples with one of the primary questions of the synoptic gospels: Who is this man, Jesus? And it repeats the two step process toward seeing Jesus that the blind man experienced immediately before. The disciples also need help, need two stages to see Jesus. Jesus asks his disciples “who do people say that I am?” and they respond with various reports. Then Jesus asks them “who do you say that I am?” and Peter responds with “you are the Messiah.” Just like the blind man of Bethsaida, their seeing ‘who Jesus is’ involves two stages.
This is mentoring also. We adults didn’t see who Jesus was all at once. We needed several stages. So too will our children.
Our next passage, Mark 10.17-22, also in the sandwich between the two stories of Jesus giving sight to the blind, has a sad ending. Someone chooses possessions over following Jesus: A man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. Jesus then remin
ds him of the commandments, and the man responds: “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Seeing and following Jesus involves changed values. It means metanoia! Conversion! The Grade 3-5 SS class learned this Greek word in the fall. Metanoia! A complete turn around. To follow Jesus our values need more than a simple adjustment, rather metanoia! Anything that hinders full commitment to Jesus needs to be given up. What do we need to give up in order to follow Jesus? What values are we passing on to our children? Are they metanoia values? Following Jesus values?
And finally, in Luke chapter 10, in responding to a trick question, Jesus says that the whole Law is summarised in “Love God with your whole being, and your neighbour as yourself.” This is seeing and following. This is eternal life. Jesus explains who is our neighbour with the beloved story of the Good Samaritan. So loving neighbour means offering one’s whole self to others, even the enemy. Meeting them where they are and treating all people with God’s love and compassion. This is true seeing and following.
Seeing and following Jesus. Questions and answers. As we mentor our children and youth, we walk with them in their journey of faith, and we invite them to walk with us in ours. We see and follow Jesus together. In awe we say with the Jews of 1st century Palestine: Who is this man, Jesus? And with Larry Norman we proclaim: Why don’t you look into Jesus? He’s got the answer.
I’m still looking into Jesus. And that’s what mentoring is all about ‘cause Jesus, he’s got the answer. Amen!