Questions From Stu for other GoW Folks
1. Do you agree with this view of ‘heaven’/’earth? I am interested in your thoughts.
2. Does this version of Jesus’ discovery of his divinity make sense to you?
3. Do you think that the Kingdom of God will really arrive here on Earth?
WHO DO I SAY JESUS IS?
Stu Clark, 6 July 2008
Most of us are ‘recovering rationalists’ which is a major problem for our own understanding of Jesus’ good news. We have been soaked in the worldview that says that if we can’t come up with some sort of quasi-scientific explanation for things, they don’t exist. This becomes a huge problem when we try to understand one of most important aspects of our faith – the Kingdom of God. It is even more important when we try to grasp individually what it means to become a new creation, to be ‘born of The Spirit’. Without sorting out these issues, I have found it very difficult to share my faith with anyone else.
The first insight for me has been to grasp what is meant by ‘earth’ and ‘heaven’. For too long, I think I accepted the idea of ‘earth’ being here and ‘heaven’ being somewhere else (only a slight variation on the ‘down here’ and ‘up there’ school of theology). Now I believe that both earth and heaven are here and now – two realities that coexist but are mostly separate. Mostly, but not always, separate. Sometimes the separation falls away momentarily and the two are one – like in my experience of the opening moments of Steve Bell’s first concert with the Winnipeg Symphony. “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”. The Celtic Christians refer to these as ‘thin places’. It really happens – at other times too. And as for that old addiction to rationalism that I spoke about at the start – even scientists probing at the edge of their understanding sense that there is something beyond/outside our normal reality and their understanding.
But back to the connections between today’s scriptures and how we share our faith. I want to start by taking a look at Jesus the man as he sought to understand who he was – just as we sometimes seek to understand who we are – not collectively, but in the deepest essence of each of us individually. I owe my recent understanding of this to Marcus Borge and NT Wright, an American and a Brit who have written powerfully to contemporary people about Jesus.
I understand that Jesus knew from an early age that it was urgent that he ‘find himself’. He committed himself to doing so by listening to the teachers, reading and prayer from an early age. By late adolescence he was studying with John the Baptist. During this time, I imagine that he became increasingly certain that he was called to fulfill the Messianic prophecy, although not the version that most people expected. Clearly John the Baptist saw this too. But deep unwavering certainty of his particularity didn’t come until he had left John and started his own independent ministry. Then his growing certainty was enough that he did indeed heal the sick, bring sight to the blind, even raise the dead to life. And when John sent an enquiry to find out who Jesus was becoming, Jesus, in the passage just before the one we read today, replies by telling him what he has done, echoing the words of the then-much-loved prophet, Isaiah.
Which brings us to today’s passage from Matthew’s book. Here Jesus realizes that ‘all things have been committed to him – that for him the barrier separating ‘earth’ and ‘heaven’ has disappeared and he exists in both at the same time. He and God are now in intimate communion – they co-exist in all ways. It is only children, with their lack of defined categories of our world that can see such things. Everyone else ends up looking in the wrong places – they sought a military leader instead of a ‘prince of peace’
But immediately, instead of staying ‘on high’, Jesus/God calls to us saying “Come to me all who are weary ….and I will give you rest”. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me – my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is THE INVITATION, the insistent invitation to set out on our own journey of discovery. It is also an apparently ambiguous invitation – for he also calls us to pick up our cross and follow him – suggesting that if the yoke is easy it is far from inconsequential. Suffering can result from a light burden but that suffering now has meaning.
So if this was Jesus’ journey of discovery, what about your journey of discovery? What about mine? Who are your really? Who am I really? To answer that question is the heart of the Good News – and it may take all of our lives to figure it out. I believe that this is also the heart of what we have to say to others – for most of us, whether Christian or not, are trying to figure this out.
My own experience has been that to answer this question, I have had to be willing to take risks. To give up a comfortable life with a good job in beautiful place and follow an urging to go to Bangladesh. To leave a familiar setting on Ethelbert street and follow the same urging to live on a farm. To begin to leave a task that I am good at in order to undertake a task full of unknowns. I didn’t hear ‘a voice in the night’ but I did experience a strong urge at each time.
Paul speaks of living a life ‘controlled by the Spirit’. And it is clear that Jesus, by becoming united with God while still a man, made it possible to live our lives totally immersed in that Spirit. But me, all I can be sure of is that there are moments when I have been ‘controlled by the Spirit’ – just as I know clearly that I have also been ‘controlled by the other influences’ And that is the fate of all of us – moments of being inspired by the Spirit against a backdrop of rather ordinary and sometimes not very beautiful humanness. But the willingness and the commitment to pursue the journey is met with Jesus’ promise – the yoke will be easy and the burden light. I have started to reach beyond my normal reality to claim Jesus’ promise. To try to live aware that the Kingdom of God really exists and is always waiting to break through into our daily reality.
One of the heavy burdens that I carry (and haven’t given over to Jesus) is my own concern for the future – is that future to mean continuing riches for a few and grinding poverty for many more or 5 degrees temperature rise with the end of much of life as we know it. I think that these kinds of fears lurk in the subconscious of many of us these days. But how do we reconcile that with Jesus’ promise of the Kingdom of God here in Earth. Do we consign it to ‘Sunday talk’ ignoring the power of this promise? And if we don’t ignore it – what do we do with it? My answer – the answer that I want to share with you today is the Good News – God wills that the Kingdom WILL come to the world – no doubt. And that certainty suddenly makes the yoke easier and the burden lighter. And it give me the courage to talk about the future with confidence. That’s my good news.