When God Weeps

Her questions were not unlike any of ours when tragedy strikes. Running to meet him as he arrived 4 days too late she exclaimed, "If you were here, Lazarus would not have died." As a pastor I have sat with many families as they grieve after a tragedy, and this kind of 'what-if' syndrome is common. As we try to wrap our minds around a new reality we never imagined, there is an inner longing to contextualize it; a desire for it to all make sense. Tied up in all of that, is the need to ease some of our  doubts and fears about our own involvement in the tragedy; we ask ourselves over and over again, "What could have been done differently? What could I have done?"

One of the first tragedies I ever dealt with in my life, was the tragic car accident that claimed the life of one of the young girls in the church I pastored several years ago. She was a beautiful, vibrant, lover of God. I will never forget that phone ringing at 4 A.M. As I stumbled half asleep to take the call, my answering machine beat me to it and the peaceful silence of the night was no longer being violated by the rings of the phone, but by the cries of a grandmother shouting without explanation, "She's gone! Daniel, she's gone!" For the next twelve hours or so we sat in that grandmothers house, stupefied. Like a collective body of soulless individuals whose lives had not only been tragically interrupted, but whose very consciousness did not even seem real. The only thing that broke the silence were those moments when we simply had to put it together. What had happened in those final minutes of her trip home? It must have been the rain, right? She might have fallen asleep? We shouldn't have let her stay out so late. She was supposed to be home earlier. That car was just too small for anyone to survive a car crash in. If only I had went with her that night. And behind of all those thoughts was the question we all were asking but dare not utter: "Where was God?"

In his haunting book Night, Elie Wiesel writes about the trials and daily life he lived as a Jew in the German concentration camps. Surrounded by death, the very religious Jewish people struggled with God's role in all of it. In one of the most poignant and vivid scenes in the book, Weisel recounts the time when a young boy was hung for being too close to a plot to steal weapons from one of the storehouses on site. Hung between two full grown men, the little pipel, as he was called, hung struggling for his life far after the men that flanked him had died; for his weight was too light to strangle him properly.

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I hear the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where-- hanging here from this gallows..."

If only Jesus had been there, Martha thought, this tragedy could have been averted. But now, her dead brother lie rotting in the tombs as her family was surrounded by wailing and great grief. But Jesus came. And Jesus wept.

This is not a passage in which the Beloved Disciple is trying to shape for us an image of Christ's humanity. Why would he? The entire aim of his gospel is to shows us that Jesus is God. And God wept. As He stood staring at the portrait of death in front of Him, the drama of wailing down the way from Him, and the crowd of those filled with fear and confusion behind Him: God wept. Facing death for the last time before He would face it for Himself: God wept. Seeing the tomb where his friend, the one he had loved with all of his heart, laid; having passed through death and now in a state of decay on a cold dark slab of earth: God wept. When Jesus wept He was not being human, he was being God. We weep because God weeps. And to be perfectly human is to be divine.

This is more than story about death and resurrection. This is a story of a God who was absent when He was needed the most. This is a story of tragedy, where those that loved God the most were left out in the cold in utter disbelief that in just a few days their once strong healthy brother had fallen victim to Adam's fate. And God did not show up in time to stop it.

I don't know why God stops some cars from hitting that tree they should have hit, but doesn't show up to save others from the same fate. I still am baffled by tragedies like those at Sandy Hook Elementary. I still don't know why God didn't save that sixteen year old girl that was full of life and a happy future from wrapping her little car around a large oak that night. But I do know that it makes me weep. And I know that God weeps. And somewhere in all the death and tragedy, while the world cries "Where is God?" He is here with us, suffering among us, hanging from our gallows, weeping in front of our coldest graves.

Being Free From the Power of Fear

"A bird in the hand is better than two in a bush." I know we have all heard that before. I was driving down the road the other day thinking about the church I pastor, and the business I own, when I came to the conclusion that I don't buy this saying. Dare I say, I think it is a destructive philosophy that promotes playing it safe rather than going big! When I look at Jesus, I don't see a man who played it safe. I don't see a man who went out of his way to keep followers he did have, at the expense of not gaining followers he could have. And that kind of living is the kind of living I have to learn how to embrace.

Jesus never played it safe around others. Jesus was so in tune with his identity, and with what God was doing through him, that he seemed virtually unaffected by what others thought of him. He didn't shy away from eating with thieves like Zaccheus, or from being intimately handled by whores. Even when the Pharisees and their ilk watched smugly from the sidelines, Jesus walked headstrong into places of ill repute and lived a life completely consumed with the Missio Dei. And it wasn't just so he could get the most followers. In John 9, after amassing a huge following of people who wanted to make him king, Jesus sent them packing with his commands to "eat his flesh and drink his blood." Clearly Jesus didn't get the bird in the hand principle.

Jesus never played it safe with his actions. While his parables were cryptic stories reflective of a hidden transcript among his oppressed Jewish followers, this was not indicative of fear of the powers but of empowerment of the poor. His actions spoke louder than his words. What blue-collar Nazarene walks into the market of the Jerusalem Temple and starts turning over tables? Who goes headstrong into a festival attended by a violent group of people who wants to take his life and starts teaching at their Temple? Better yet, who touches lepers and cleanses bleeding women while claiming to be sent from God?

When he went after the birds in the bush, and the Jewish aristocracy condemned him for it- he gave them the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15). Because the Missio Dei was greater than the scorns of men. And he knew the resurrection would be sweeter than the sting of death.


Fear is a powerful force. It paralyzes and immobilizes. I know about this all too well. Lately I have felt like a kid in line at the BIG roller coaster. You know, the one you were never tall enough to ride, but now you are. Every time the line moves closer, you feel that knot in your stomach move up. You so desperately want to ride, but hundreds of questions race through your mind. What will it feel like? What if I throw up? What if I have to go pee? What if the ride breaks? What if my strap doesn't buckle right? What if things fall out of my pockets? What if I just go ahead and get out of line now?

Knowing at this point in my life that God's plans for me are much bigger than I ever anticipated, seeing the paths that God is making before me, and the insatiable desire I have to run down them, I can see the roller coaster on the horizon- and my mind begins to ask "WHAT IF?" All the while everything in me says "DO IT!" I know what it's like to leave the park after getting out of line. That won't happen again.

A Holy Mess

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5, NIV)

Basilica of St. Lawrence. Asheville, NC.

Growing up in church I often heard preachers shout the cliché, "God won't bless a mess!" Sadly, throughout my life I have found myself being in a lot of messes- or just plain being a mess myself. You know the moments where your entire life, it seems, is poured out in front of you and you wonder, "Where do I go from here?" I am to blame for a lot of the messes in my life. Other messes I inherited, or just had to walk into for various reasons; some spiritual, and some not. What makes matters worse when I find myself in these huge messes is that I am naturally wired as a “fixer.” You know, I want to solve the problem, I want to fix me, and I want to fix everyone else at the same time.

This is one reason why I identify with the figure of Moses so much. Moses was a fixer. He thinks that by killing one Egyptian slave master he can help the plight of his people. This mistake creates a huge mess that forces him to flee Egypt and ends up hanging out near a well in the wilderness. Of course, like me, Moses finds another problem that maybe he can solve. Seeing some young ladies hassled by a group of brutish shepherds, Moses steps again and plays hero. This, indeed, lands him a wife. But, it also lands him a permanent spot as a nomadic shepherd in the wilderness of Midian.

In the biblical narrative, the next time we see Moses, he is hanging out around Mt. Horeb—a.k.a. “The Mountain of God.” Moses’ life is a mess. He has no people, no country, and most importantly: no one to fix! At this point, the once passionately angry Moses has become a family man, a working man, day in and day out, with no overarching purpose in life. Sound familiar? But then, out of the corner of his eye, Moses catches glimpse of a bush burning that is not consumed. At this point of Moses’ life, everything is about to change!

While the dialogue between Moses and the voice of the Lord is full of noteworthy statements. It is this first one that strikes a chord in my heart: “Moses, take off your shoes, for the ground where you stand is holy.” It doesn’t seem holy though, does it? As the sun-scorched sand blew roughly in his face, burning the eyes, he stood in the midst of a vast wilderness. Surrounded by livestock, with their gamely smell and incessant bleating, he stood gazing into a sentient flaming shrub. Weeks on this journey had left the smell of sweat and manure woven deep into the fibers of his unkempt beard. His mind at a loss: no where to go, no way to help his people in Egypt, no purpose to serve other than to love his family and work with his father in law’s livestock. Holy. Sacred. Ground.

I often equate sacred ground as being beautiful, peaceful, and even glorious. When I have time I often go sit quietly in the Basilica of St. Lawrence centered in the bustling city of Asheville that has grown up all around. The beautiful art, statues, tapestry, and quiet awe of the place is sacred and glorious. My Pentecostal heritage has afforded me the opportunity to be part of fiery passionate worship settings where everything is magnificent and holy- the very air of the church service often felt tangibly alive with the Spirit of the Almighty Creator. Yet here, in the sandy mess of the Midian wilderness, it was holy. God trespassed on Moses’ mess and the very dirt of the earth became holy.

We never think of our messes as being a sacred space. We don’t expect our barren, hopeless, directionless lives to become a glorious cathedral that even our shoes are not worthy of. But God has a way of interfering with our messes with his holiness. God doesn’t stand back for fear of our messes, he walks headstrong into our messes and turns the very trials we are in into sacred spaces where he alone is God and we stand in awe and hang on every word he speaks. And in an instant Midian becomes Immanuel.

The very incarnation of Jesus echoes this refrain as he turned the house of greedy tax collector into an altar of repentance and social holiness. He took the provocative and sensuous actions of a whore who massaged his feet and wept, and created a holy sanctuary where she was accepted and he was worshiped. He took the cross of criminal and the curse of its shame and formed a holy altar where God again could meet with humankind. He turned a grave into an eternal sunrise that all now squint and try to see but cannot for the sheer brightness of its mystery.  God makes messes holy; or God makes a holy mess.

Book Review: The Politics of Jesus by Hendricks

In his book The Politics of Jesus, Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. argues that Jesus was a liberal political figure that responded to the conditions of oppressed people groups in first century Israel by empowering them to upset the status quo. He seeks to convince the reader that Jesus’ preaching and miracles were intentionally employed to empower oppressed people to reclaim their identity and dignity as children of God; and, therefore, that should be the same intention of the contemporary church. His goal is to paint a Jesus that was not a right wing conservative moralist; but a liberal political radical whose main agenda was to restore God’s justice to the Jewish people who were under severe Roman subjection. There is no doubt that Hendricks himself embraces a more liberal and social agenda for American politics, and his book is not merely theological discourse. In the end this book ends up being more akin to political philosophy or liberal social theory. Being heavily influenced by his social context as an African-American Biblical scholar, a certain reading of the scriptures is employed by Dr. Hendricks. This is an ideological reading of the gospel texts that concludes the purpose of Jesus’ ministry was to empower oppressed peoples, rather than proclaim a spiritual message of what we might call the “Christ of Faith.”

Hendricks’ builds his argument first by presenting an in depth, although very dense, description of the Roman Empire and its oppression of Jewish people. Next, Hendricks will construct the overall mission of Jesus in the context of several strategies that Jesus employed. Finally, he will argue that the politics of Jesus are not the politics of conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Hendricks’ record of the political climate in first century Palestine is lucid and well documented. Even though the length of this section is short, it is very dense. In the first part of the book he covers the core of the history it’s ramifications in great detail. His main point is that Rome exploited the Jews for their own financial and political gain. To extend complete domination over the people of Jerusalem and surrounding areas, the empire employed the use of the temple and its order of High Priests. Thus, Rome converted Jerusalem into a temple state, and turned the priests into governors of the people. The Herodian royal lines, as well as an on site Roman procurator, were also used in an effort to keep Jerusalem, Galilee, and surrounding areas subdued.

It is clear that Hendricks’ purpose here is to paint a very bleak picture of how violent and exploitative the Roman Empire was. Again, the research is impeccable; and the reader is left with little doubt of how devastating the taxes, violence, and Temple State were on ordinary Jews of the first century.

He crafts a realistic and haunting description of the possible effects that oppression would have had on the Jews. He makes note of the work of the French physician Fanon who came to the conclusion, during his time working among the Algerian people during French occupation, that occupied people display certain physical and psychosomatic illnesses in increasing frequency directly related to the intensity of the dominance by their oppressors. Hendricks will then draw a parallel between these symptoms and such sicknesses as we see in the gospels: a woman with an issue of blood, a demoniac who is masochistic, and multiple accounts of lameness among small villages.[1]

Hendricks also does a great job of initially linking the socio-political factors of the Jewish people to the gospel texts themselves. In a very confident and concise manner, he ties this history to the very things Jesus said and did in the gospels. It is clear to the reader that there is a direct link between the political climate of the day and things that Jesus said and did.

If Jesus was a radical liberal political figure, how has the contemporary church turned Jesus into a meek and mild figure? Hendricks credits the transformation of Jesus to what he calls “political docetism.” Not unlike the heresy of docetism, which proposes that Jesus only seemed to be human but was not, political docetism concludes that Jesus only seemed to be political but in actuality was not. Hendricks makes a compelling case in this regard. While the theological world has been consumed for decades with a search for the historical Jesus, in the background there is still this motivation to reconcile that Jesus with the “Christ of faith.” Hendricks claim, then, is that we have altogether abandoned the notion of a political Jesus, which has skewed not only our reading of the biblical texts, but has confused the very search for the historic Jesus.

It does appear, however, that Hendricks goes out of his way at times to apply a political lens to a text that might have a significantly stronger spiritual meaning than he is willing to concede. For instance, in his reading of Jesus’ healing of the demoniac of the Gerasenes, it is confusing at times to discern whether he views the event as a parable or as an actual event. He centers in on the name of the demon, “Legion.”  He supposes that this demon is symbolic of the Roman army of the same name, and that the pigs drowning themselves was reminiscent of Pharaoh’s army drowning in the red sea.[2] At this point he seems to be grasping at straws. Perhaps his earlier admission that the retelling of the gospel narratives were not biblical exegesis should have been reiterated at some points of his argument, as clearly it appears that his desire for the text to be something political drives him to draw conclusions no other reading of the text would.

His reading of other gospel texts through this lens provides a compelling case though. This is a Jesus that the church at large is unfamiliar with, but Hendricks reading of the gospel texts is fresh and fiery at times. One will find his or herself gasping at the revelation of what these complex portions of the gospel probably meant. His reading of Jesus’ teaching to “turn the other cheek” is spot on, and completely different than most read it. Instead of insisting this is a passage on pacifism, or a call for peaceful resistance, Jesus is instead empowering the poor and oppressed of Israel to take control or the oppressive state they find themselves in. By going the extra mile, the Jews were making their own rules, reestablishing their identity as humans, and leveraging power over their oppressors.

His closing arguments lose steam as he moves his focus from Jesus and the gospels to, oddly enough, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.[3] The connection is vague, and it is here where Hendricks loses credibility by taking very solid historical research, compelling and inspirational new readings of ancient biblical texts, and sacrificing them on his own altar of political rhetoric. His own agenda is clearly at work here as he takes the closing pages of his book to convince the reader that the last two popular conservative presidents were the propitiators of the very evil and injustice Jesus railed against. Mentioning Bill Clinton only in a brief passing in the text, without a doubt Hendricks’ own biases muddy the very waters he spent the first two-thirds of the book going to extreme lengths to make crystal clear.

In conclusion, Hendricks’ book The Politics of Jesus presents the case that Jesus was a liberal political figure who fought to upset the status quo of Roman oppression over the Jewish people. While he presents both solid historical research and intriguing readings of several of Jesus’ acts in the gospels, the reader will also see and feel the moments where Hendricks is reaching to draw certain conclusions. Fiery and passionate, though, his case is well formed for the most part. Hendricks never tries to conceal the point he is working up to, and he unabashedly presents the arguments from his own political biases. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but is something one must be aware of when reading the material and considering his conclusions. This book would make a great read for pastors, seminarians, as well as anyone interested in a socio-political reading of the gospels. The perspectives in this book are fresh, even if imaginative, and the conclusions are bold and troubling.

Bibliography

Hendricks, Jr., Obery M. The Politics of Jesus. New York: Doubleday, 2006.

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[1] Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., The Politics of Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 2006),  53-54.

[2] Hendricks, The Politics of Jesus, 144-158.

[3] Hendricks, The Politics of Jesus, 191-247,

The Bad News Gospel

I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. (Deut. 32:39)

I once heard Dr. Will Willimon say: “Whether or not the gospel is good news or bad news, depends heavily on where you are when you hear it.”  We know the definition of the gospel is indeed “good news.” As believers in the gospel, we are partakers of the same essential goodness of that news. But what about the times God causes us to suffer? How do we respond when the choices God urges to make bring pain, heartache, and loss to us, or even those we love? Too often, we dismiss such times or decisions as not being from God; for, how can a loving and good God be responsible for such suffering?  It is easy for us to imagine and have faith in God the giver of life and healing. It is difficult for us to embrace the God who kills and wounds.

Jesus never veiled the apocalyptic nature of the gospel.  Whether on a personal level to one rich young ruler, or on a national level to Israel and Jerusalem’s impending doom, Jesus was clear that the Kingdom of God fell as much as a stone of destruction as it ever did reign of peace and prosperity.

Take James and John for instance. They come to Jesus and ask if they can be seated on his right and on his left, respectively, when he comes into his glory (Mark 10). Jesus reminds his disciples that they may not know what they are asking for. “Can you be baptized into my baptism? Can you drink my cup?” While both men eagerly accept both fates, it is clear they still don’t know what they are signing up for. Their request is a noble one. They see a new world order is coming, and when it comes they want to be appointed to Jesus’ cabinet.  To be dignitaries in God’s new Kingdom is a noble request indeed. When Jesus is lifted up, and coronated with a sign above his head with the title “King of the Jews,” it is not dignitaries on his right and his left; it is dying men. Perhaps James and John knew at that moment what fate awaited them both; and what it really meant to be part of Jesus' new world order.

Recently a young man came to me brokenhearted. To say the least, the past couple of years have been tumultuous for him. Now, after a season of running from God’s Spirit, he had made a tough decision. He walked out of relationship he knew he had to. He knew because that gentle, yet pressing voice of the Spirit was calling him deeper; calling him back to where he belonged. He left. Walked out. Broke another’s heart, and his own. I listened as he spilled his heart out, emotions spewing from the gut like sickness that knows no reserve. He was in pain. This was his cross to bear. To get to him, God was tearing down everything that he held dear at this point in his life. It hurt, but it was God.

In the same sermon noted earlier, Dr. Willmon summed the gospel with this sentence: “God is going to get back what is his; even if he has to ruin your life to do it.” This gospel, the gospel of both reconciliation and reclamation, means that we are part of a grander story; a story that is often bad news before it is good news, and where good news often comes as bad news.

Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions, beneath our religion or lack of it, we are all vulnerable both to the storm without and to the storm within, and if ever we are to find true shelter, it is with the recognition of our tragic nakedness and need for true shelter that we have to start.  Thus it seems to me that this is also where anyone who preaches the Gospel has to start too—after the silence that is truth comes the news that is bad before it is good, the word that is tragedy before it is comedy because it strips us bare in order to ultimately to clothes us” (Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth, 33).