someday you will understand

February 9, 2010

Much happens in our lives that we don’t understand right away.

We have conversations, we watch things happen, we see things in the moment. We think we understand.

  • A person is cranky. We think they are mad at us. Or that they just have issues.
  • A person moves slowly. We think they are lazy. Or incompetent.
  • A person starts laughing. We think they are irrational.

Later, we get more information. We find out that the person just lost a family member to cancer. We find out that the person is living with multiple sclerosis. We find out that the person has is wearing a bluetooth and just heard a joke.

Because we don’t wait for all the pieces, we get the story wrong.

Jesus creates a disruption in the temple, and then tells the leaders that if they “destroy this temple, I will raise it again in three days.”

We have no idea what the disciples thought in the moment. We don’t know whether they were appalled or delighted or amused or confused. What we know is what they understood later.

John says,

But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

There are pieces of our lives that we do not understand. There is a disconnect between what we know that Jesus says of himself and what our experience says. It’s challenging to keep walking with him.

That’s what the disciples did. They understood pieces and they kept following, but they didn’t make sense of it until later. They lived with mystery.

They also lived with relationship. Because they knew Jesus, they didn’t have to understand him. Still a challenge. Still possible.

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a rant

February 8, 2010

“You know what ticks me off?

I don’t really upset when people who don’t know the rules break them. I can’t really condone the behaviour, but my heart goes out to them.

But when the people who know the rules take advantage of them for their own benefit, that is frustrating.

Take, for instance, when people know they have to offer a sacrifice. They travel long distances. They’d like to not have to lead an animal all that way. So they want to figure out a way to buy one closer to Jerusalem.

Not a problem.

Except some entrepreneurs say, “We could set up shop close to the temple. That will make it easy.” And then some officials say, “You know, you can bring them right onto the property. As long as you keep them in this area where the foreigners have to stay, that’s fine. They aren’t really part of us anyway.”

That’s what ticks me off.

When people do stuff that makes religion easier for themselves at the expense of people who are interested but aren’t on the inside.

Inside jokes. Insider language. Talking as if people who don’t know the words can’t even hear. Setting up retail in the space for stories. Setting up cashflow in the space for relationship. Spreading manure where people learning to follow me might step.”

I don’t want to speak for Jesus. I don’t want to put words in his mouth.  But one afternoon in Jerusalem, he got pretty ticked off. He tipped tables over. He drove animals out. He hollered.

He did it for the honor of the place that until then represented the presence of God on earth. He then equated the temple with himself. Paul later calls us the body of Christ.

What does Jesus have to cleanse today?

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What does it mean to trust?

February 5, 2010

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” Solomon, the man who many consider to be the wisest man ever, said that in Proverbs 3:5.

Jesus said trust is being like a child. Remember how it felt when you were learning to swim and you would flail about in the pool – and then when your parent swam over and lifted you up, you relaxed?

How can we trust in God when He is hard to see, feel? If we listen, the closer we will get to Him.

“All your heart…” We can’t hold anything back. If we have done something we know is wrong, we need to ask His forgiveness. And if that wrong involves someone else, we need to seek them out too. We can’t come before God with an unresolved conflict. True, there are exceptions to this. If that person is gone, we can’t find resolution with them. But God can heal that wound, if we ask Him to. It may take a long time for that healing to come – or it may come very quickly. In this day of instant results, we all get impatient waiting. (And the wound may not be healed in the way we expect.)

“Don’t depend on your own understanding.” I come back to swimming. Remember fighting the water? When you learned to let the water hold you up, you were able to glide across the pool. Depending on our own power can be like fighting God. We all go through life feeling like we know the answers. But the more we learn to trust, the better we can live and breathe.

Try relaxing in God’s arms, if you haven’t before. If you have, try actively trusting more today than you did yesterday. You’ll sleep better too.

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the unaware beneficiary

February 4, 2010

The end of the story is that because of the story, the disciples of Jesus put their faith in him.

The beginning of the story is that the disciples followed Jesus to a wedding.

The middle of the story is that some servants filled some water jars about half the size of a whiskey barrel with, of all things, water. They filled them to the top. They did so because Mary told them to do what Jesus told them to do, and Jesus told them to fill the jars.

Then Jesus told them to take a taste to the banquet host.

A taste of water, a peculiar request of people who had just filled the jars with water. But they complied. And gave the host outstanding wine, of a vintage measured not in years, but in milliseconds.

The subtlety of this miraculous sign, as John describes it, is breathtaking. Jesus never touches the jars, the water, the cup, the wine. Servants get the water, fill the glass, carry it to the host. There was no way that Jesus could have switched the jars, added instant wine powder,  used mirrors or smoke.

It was the perfect party trick.

And the disciples watched every element of it. They knew that water went in and wine came out. And they knew that the servants weren’t up to that kind of trick. They had no need. They had no incentive. They had no resources.

The beneficiary of this had no clue what was going on. The groom is a hero, a genius, an over-the-top guy. The groom is clutching his chair, wondering how he is going to pay for what was clearly amazing wine.

The groom gets attention, Jesus’ mom gets satisfaction, the disciples get belief.

And Jesus? He gets devoted disciples.

For now.

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maybe I understand Mary better tonight

February 3, 2010

I usually end up writing sometime between 10 and 11 at night. I sit on the sofa with Nancy and watch TV or talk (or both) and then I come in and turn on a fan and start to write.

Or start to try to write. Usually I look around the Internet a bit, getting focused. Tonight I discovered a post by Hope, our daughter. She wrote about her table at the coffee shop at college, about getting to know people, about being at home.

I started to cry.

She’s making her way. She’s creating her space. She’s doing great. I know that. But tonight, I miss her. I want to make up a project for her to work on, something for her to do for me, just because she is so cool.

And I started to think about writing this post, which I planned to be about Mary and Jesus. As we pick up from yesterday, Mary has just told Jesus that the wedding is out of wine. And he says “it’s not my time yet.” And she doesn’t respond to him. She just tells the servants, “do whatever he tells you.”

I could be wrong about this. I probably am. I’m doing emotional theology, parental exegesis. But if Mary was feeling like I am tonight, she was aware that her son had new friends, was on his life mission, was an adult. After three decades of being obedient to her, it was time for him to be about his Father’s business. But he was in her circle, just for a bit. And she wanted to be proud up close.

This Jesus that John talked about at the beginning of the book, with God, being God, that is true.

But Mary loved this boy.

And, of course, he loved her, too.

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Ordinary celebrations

February 2, 2010

I have been paid to perform weddings. I’ve been in weddings. I’ve cleaned up after weddings.  I once even stood right next to the bride at a wedding and kissed her.

I say all that to say, I know something about the preparation and stress and drama that surrounds weddings. Weddings are places where reality shifts, where words are uttered and life changes.They are places of promise and potential and resignation.

John says there is a wedding in Cana in Galilee. Mary’s at the wedding. Jesus and his followers are, too.

Scholars  suggest that it was family and Mary was helping out in the kitchen, that Jesus was invited because it was family, and the disciples came along.

What we know from the text is that a guy and his friends and his mom are at a wedding and she says “They ran out of wine.”

Wouldn’t it be cool to know if she looked around at the five guys with Jesus when she said it, pointing out that they could have taken it easy instead of acting like a bunch of fishing buddies after a long trip home? Because that’s what they were.

Wouldn’t it be cool to know if she had come to depend on the creativity and thoughtfulness of her first-born? He could figure out how to solve this problem, to find more wine from somewhere.

Wouldn’t it be cool to know how many guests were there, whether this was a huge crowd of notables from out of town, or simply a small-town wedding of earnest, hopeful, ordinary friends and family?

Because what if this was a minor crisis in a little place?

It would mean that Jesus was willing to show up at the most normalist event we can imagine.

I mean, apart from our lives.

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you all are gonna really see something

February 1, 2010

You gotta wonder what was going through Jesus’ brain sometimes.

I mean, he knew everything, but I wonder if the living in real-time and the living outside of time ever allowed him to laugh.

(I know. I gotta let  you into what I’m thinking.)

Nathanael was impressed that Jesus could see what he (Nathanael) had been doing a few minutes before.

Jesus says, “You think that’s something? That’s nothing. Wait til you see this!” And then Jesus reached back into their story, into the beginnings of Jewish history.

He reminded them of the night generations ago when Jacob was running from home. His brother wanted to kill him.  He ran.

One night he stopped to sleep. He leaned against a rock. He fell asleep. He dreamed.

In his dream, Jacob saw steps. He saw angels going up and down. And at the top of the steps was God, talking to him.

When Jesus tells his disciples that they are going to see heaven open and angels moving up and down. that’s the story he’s reminding them of. And this time, he’s saying, God’s not just at the top of the steps.

He’s at the bottom, too.

So go back to the beginning of the post. What was the tone of voice Jesus was using when he says, “Nathanael. you are impressed by a little ‘I saw you when’? Guys, all of you. Listen. You are gonna get your own version of Jacob’s ladder. And this time, it’s going to be even better.”

I don’t think Jesus was scolding. I’m not sure he was mocking. When I read it, I hear a hint of delight. I hear a tone of “You will so amazed. This will be so cool.”

And I think I still hear that tone of voice some days.

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how do you know me

January 29, 2010

You know me, some of you, because we see each other every day. You know me, some of you, because someone introduced us. You know me, some of you, because you discovered me on your way to somewhere else.

When Nathanael asked Jesus, “How do you know me?” he wasn’t talking about simple introductions. That’s because Jesus, when he saw Nathanael approaching said to those standing around, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”

This would have been the last thing Nathanael would have expected. After all, his comment to his friend Philip about Jesus had been “can anything good come from Nazareth?”

With this kind of public greeting, Nathanael is stuck. Either Jesus is a sham, in which case you can’t trust what he says  (and Nathanael would desperately like these words to be true of him) or Jesus is completely accurate, in which case Philip was right and Nathanael completely wrong.

So Nathanael says, “how do you know me?”

Nathanael had a lot riding on this question. A true son of Israel, one who actually cared about Messiah, about following well.

And now, he’s risking everything with one question for this potential Messiah: how do you know me?

And Jesus tells him where he was sitting.

What a waste of insight! Think of  all the things Jesus could have said about Nathanael’s thoughts or sins or doubts or struggles or stupidity or mistreatment of people as a child. Jesus could have made him miserable.

That’s what we expect of God at times. Shaming us.

Instead, Jesus told him a simple concrete detail from the past 15 minutes.

And Nathanael knew he’d found the rabbi he wanted to follow.

A rabbi who knew everything and didn’t use it for guilt. Who more than dominance wanted relationship.

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come and see

January 28, 2010

Philip had a bunch of information about Jesus.

He was the one that Moses wrote about. He’s one that the prophets wrote about. He’s from Nazareth. He’s the son of Joseph.

From one little conversation with Jesus, it seems, Philip knew a lot.

We guess this because right after Jesus invited Philip to follow him, Philip went to find his friend, Nathanael. And Philip told Nathanael everything he knew about Jesus. And Nathanael, responding to this sweeping review of Old Testament history, responded with “Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Immense significance and Nathanael focuses on the competition between Purdue and IU, the tension between Michigan and Michigan State, the rivalry between Webster and Siren.

Nathanael was from somewhere other than Nazareth, some other little town in the region. He heard one little detail that he could pick up on, that he could pick on. And pick he did.

Nathanael was exactly like us. People try to show us things, offer hope, provide information about someone who can make a difference. And we point out where they came from, what school they didn’t graduate from, what their parents didn’t do, couldn’t accomplish.

Rather than dealing with the possibility that we could be wrong, we zero in one little thing that we think we know.

And Philip provides the only possible response. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t debate football team statistics. He doesn’t question Nathanael’s intelligence or discernment or lack of sophisticated travel.

Philip tells Nathanael, “Come and see.”

Of course, Philip could say that with confidence. Because he knew Jesus.

We work hard to convince people about facts about Jesus. We work hard to convince ourselves. Philip was convinced enough that he didn’t have to argue with his friend. Instead, he simply said, “Come and see.”

And Nathanael did.

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a teacher who recruits

January 27, 2010

College admissions offices spend enormous energy recruiting students. Most faculty members don’t. The faculty are part of the product that recruiters sell.

“If you come here, you will get to study with Dr. X. He’s the one who wrote that famous commentary on John. In fact, he was on the translation team.”

It’s possible that if you were to visit the campus, you would see Dr. X. He may even look at you, as part of a group, and say, “Come to our great school.” But he’s doing that primarily because the school has convinced him that he needs to help recruit.

In general, teachers teach. They don’t recruit.

That was true of rabbis, too. A student would ask to follow, would hope to be taken on.

And then there’s Jesus. He’s collected three followers: Andrew, Simon, and some player to be named later (probably John). He’s heading out of town. He goes looking for Philip, find him and says, “Follow me.” (John 1:43-44)

Philip was from the same town as Andrew and Simon. They may have known each other. But they don’t bring him to Jesus, Jesus goes to him.

Relationships with people matter. It’s one of the ways that Jesus uses to connect with people. But I’m pretty sure that sometimes Jesus walks up to someone and says quietly and directly, “The rest of your friends are in my school, learning to follow me. Why don’t you come along?”

We’re going to hear more from Philip as we read through John. In fact, if you want to hear Philip stories, this is the only book to read. It’s almost as if it was written by someone who knew him well, who noticed what he said, the way only a friend notices quiet people.

But Jesus recruited him. He matters.

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