The Cross is Not Enough: Why the Christian Story Needs Easter

Five years ago yesterday, the reality of human mortality pierced my soul like a dark, cursed knife that causes no physical harm, but mortally wounds, nonetheless. Before dad died, death was an abstraction, a thing to be vaguely aware of, a philosophical problem to be discussed. Death was a rabid dog, sure, but one who lacked fangs.

Some of us are graced with a life that avoids the pain of death for decades. Some of us face it much earlier. But if there is one thing true about death, it is that none of us can escape it. Before our own deaths, we will all experience that deep puncture of the soul, that knife twisting and doubling us over in pain.

All of us.

We cannot hide.

And great art calls us out of our hiding…even if, at times, it has no solution.

For authors in particular, and therefore for we who enter their stories, death is the great narrative driver. Always the ultimate Dark One, death creates and destroys characters, manipulating plots, and at times leaving us in awe of its power. And so, in any great narrative, it is the one thing that must be defeated if the story is to progress. The grave cannot be the end of our stories.

In the narrative of contemporary Christianity, we are too quick to jump on Christ’s cross as that which secures the afterlife for us. We are waiting for eternity, waiting for the halos and the angels. We are waiting for, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

But what good is the afterlife if death is not defeated? What good is a Messiah who stays in the grave? What difference does forgiven sins make if death still reigns? If we merely go to heaven when we die, then this world is not set right…it’s just forgotten. And if this world is not set right, then God loses! 

This is why the cross is not enough. This is why the Christian story needs resurrection. Because the resurrection says the Dark One cannot win. The cursed knife will be blunted…no, destroyed. The rabid dog with the deadly fangs will be put down. Evil and injustice will not merely cease to exist, they will be put to rights. Justice will prevail in the end, not merely because there will be an absence of evil, but because evil will be defeated.

We are waiting, not for an afterlife where we get to forget about this life. We are waiting for resurrection. A defeat of death, itself. An elimination of it’s power. A memory renewed so that all the death that ever was will be swallowed up in life…not forgotten, but set in a better context. In the context of a God who took on human skin, lived a life of justice in confrontation with evil, died at the hands of that evil, then resurrected from the grave in defeat of the powers of evil. He defeats death. He defeats evil, something we could never do on our own. And then enables us to turn around, and in the power of his Spirit, work for the defeat of death and the defeat of evil in our world.

Death is no abstraction. It is no philosophical concept. It drives our narrative as the great antagonist. But the resurrection of Jesus, soon to be seen, means that the grave is not the end of our stories. Because resurrection is also no abstraction or philosophical concept. It is the great protagonist. Or rather, the One who resurrected is the great Protagonist.

Your days are waiting…to end. But the end is now. Five years ago death became real to me. But in the five years since, resurrection life has become even more real.  Easter Sunday means there is more to the Christian story than the cross. In a sense, the cross is not enough. Without resurrection, our story goes nowhere…it’s a permanent tragedy.

Five Guys in the Next Life

I’ve been intrigued the last week or so with The Rich Man and Lazarus parable in Luke 16:19-31.

The parable mostly makes sense. It falls in line with Luke’s larger themes of great eschatological reversals whereby the people who experience good things in this life will not in the next (unless they leverage their privileges for the sake of the poor and outcast), and those who do not experience good things in this life will receive good things in the next. This is an incredibly countercultural message, both in Jesus day and in ours. But I can make sense out of it.

What I’m having difficulty making sense out of is the conversation between the Rich Man and Abraham at the conclusion of the story. In what follows, I’ll posit some possible interpretations, but mostly this blog piece is a call for help.

After Abraham denies the Rich Man’s request for water, the Rich Man understands that his own fate is sealed. The chasm is too wide for him to cross. The eschatological reversal is permanent.

But this realization reminds him that he has five brothers, still alive, who need to be warned about coming to this place of torment. So the Rich Man implores Abraham to send Lazarus back, to raise him up from the grave, so that his brothers, seeing a person risen from the grave, will turn from their ways and avoid eternal torment.

Abraham denies this request, too, saying that these five brothers have access to Moses and the prophets and that access should be sufficient. The Rich Man, however, argues that a person rising from the grave is a greater revelation (and therefore will be more likely to elicit faith from his brothers.) But Abraham denies this logic, too, arguing, instead, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.”

At this point, my skepticism comes into play a bit. Is this really true or am I misunderstanding Jesus? Are Moses and the prophets at the same revelatory level as a man rising from the dead…and in particular, since later Jesus will rise from the dead, are they on the same revelatory level as the resurrected Jesus?

And another question comes about at this point. To what, specifically, does the phrase, “Moses and the prophets” refer? Unless these five brothers were exceptionally rich and also priests or religious leaders, they would not have had access to the scriptures, right? The printing press didn’t’ come around for centuries after this parable. So I think Jesus must be referring to either, the oral recitation of Moses and the prophets in synagogue on Saturdays or Jesus is simply referring, generally, to the witness of persons who live faithfully (and therefore proclaim by their actions and words) the message of Moses and the prophets.

I’m not sure what to make of this. However, here are some thoughts as to how these questions serve the larger purpose of the parable.

First, the issue here is, again, one of hospitality. The context demands that we keep this in mind. For several chapters now, Jesus has been discussing hospitality to the poor, the sinner, and the outcast – Lazarus. The Rich Man is in Hades because he does not take this seriously.

With this in mind, two things can be said. A. The ultimate question for these five brothers is not “belief” or “faith” in general, but specifically, it is whether or not they will welcome the Lazarus at their own gates. This is not a parable about justification by faith apart from works of the law. No, the whole point here is that works of the law (Moses (!) and the prophets) are part of the justification of these men.

And this leads me to point B. Moses and the prophets unambiguously direct those who are privileged in Israel to care and welcome for those who are not. To ignore the Old Testament’s ethic of hospitality is to intellectually and practically ignore the revelation of Moses and the prophets. One cannot sell the poor for a pair of shoes, as one prophet says it, and still claim to be a follower of Moses and the prophets.

So, second, no matter if Moses and the Prophets (whatever medium they are presented in) are on an equal revelatory level as a resurrected persons, the fact remains that the same message is conveyed in both: To listen to Moses, the prophets, and a man raised from the dead is to do what these mediums of revelation say. And in this instance, they are all three saying, leverage your status, your privilege, your wealth, and your very self for those traditionally viewed as “outsiders” to your society, your economic class, your family, your religion, and your church. If you do that, the eschatological reversal will work in your favor.

Isn’t it Ironic? Don’t You Think?

As I reflect on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, I’m reminded that the larger theme of the section within which Luke places this parable is that of great reversals that occur between this life and the next. In particular, the great reversal of, in this life, the rich “receiving good things” and the poor “receiving bad things,” while in the next life the rich “are in agony” and the poor “are comforted.” (Luke 16:25)

The theme, so glaring in this parable, was actually subtly hinted at in the parable of the Shrewd Manager, where the message was, if you, in welcome to the poor, leverage your social status in this life, in the eschatological future, when your social status/wealth mean nothing, the poor will welcome you into eternal bliss.

This is what makes the Shrewd Manager so shrewd.

And this is exactly what makes the Rich Man in this parable foolish.

The two parables/characters are sort of foils or contrasts to one another. I love how my friend Caleb said it in yesterday’s comment section, “This rich man had a great chance during his time on earth to “make friends” with Lazarus by means of his wealth, resulting in the rich man’s being “welcomed into the eternal homes” by Lazarus. Instead, it appears he merely squandered his wealth on himself, leaving Lazarus only the crumbs.”

In the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Rich Man fails to act shrewdly (gain the friendship of Lazarus) with his worldly wealth by leaving the sick, poor, and crippled Lazarus at his very gates. He watches this man day after day get eaten alive by dogs. He watches this man’s life slip away.

And he does nothing about it.

Therefore, when the day comes that they both find themselves in the afterlife, Lazarus is unable to help the Rich Man.

Isn’t it ironic that in life, the Rich Man was able to help Lazarus if he was only willing to show hospitality, but in the next life, Lazarus is unable to help the Rich Man, even if he wanted, because of the Rich Man’s refusal of hospitality while he was living? 

Isn’t it ironic that the gate protecting the Rich Man from outsiders was the very gate that held the possibility of opening to welcome Lazarus to life, but now, the chasm that separates the two men has no possibility of being closed to welcome the Rich Man to life?

Friends, in this life, we have gate, after gate, after gate that creates potential relationships of welcome and humanization. In this life, that gate can remain closed or it can remain open. It’s really our choice now, but it will not be our choice in the next life. Welcome now equates to being welcomed then. That’s the irony of it all. 

Idolatry: Both Horizontal and Vertical

I don’t know if I’m right in the following thoughts. These are just some connections I’ve been making in my own mind and blogging seemed to be a good place to lay them out there. As I’ve been reading in Romans 1, the thought occurred to me, the problem with idolatry isn’t just giving allegiance to another deity (bad as that is). The problem of idolatry in Paul’s perspective is that the idols imprison the truth in injustice.

That is, idolatry is the manifestation and cause of a world where both individuals and communities practice injustice against one another and thereby deny the truth of one another’s humanity. It is the manifestation and cause of a world where neither individuals nor communities can challenge or change (or even desire to change) these unjust practices and structures that dehumanize people created in God’s image.

The truth, both on an individual and collective level, becomes imprisoned within the unjust practices and agendas of various human cultural systems. And therefore the truth is not readily obvious – for we have traded what could be known about God for gods made in our own image, gods that will support rather than challenge our unjust hearts and communities.

Wrath then becomes God’s response to human injustice. Wrath is not the unbridled passion of a heartless God. It is the inevitable outcome of a God who values just relationships both on vertical (human to God) and horizontal (human to human) planes. Wrath exists because human injustice is so grave and terrible, and our hearts so apt to imprison the truth in injustice such that we can never see the truth about ourselves or God, that creation itself becomes perverted and inverted.

And this inversion of creation takes us back to idolatry, specifically the collective idolatry of the entire human race. It is an idolatry which perpetuates and is perpetuated by injustice.

Even in the OT, idolatry wasn’t just about the differences between Yahweh and the pagan deities. Rather, in scripture, idolatry always carries with it the practical implications of unethical behavior, specifically blood shed unjustly. In other words, idolatry is both a violation of a person’s vertical relationship with God and also a violation of their horizontal relationship with other persons. When we imprison truth in injustice, this is not just a violation of our relationship with God, but is a violation of our relationships with those created in his image.

Idolatry is thus dehumanization of my neighbor (among other things).

I therefore maintain, that even if one calls on Jesus and then uses the name Jesus to dehumanize another person, or somehow uses Jesus to promote injustice, then that person is participating in idolatry even if they are using the right language. The God of scripture cannot be reduced to my ideological agenda, he will not be shackled to anyone’s unjust causes, and he will not be associated with the dehumanization even of my enemy. Idolatry is, therefore, both a horizontal and a vertical injustice.

 

So, what do you think? Do you have anything to add to this random collection of thoughts? Where have you seen idolatry and injustice combined in obvious ways? How does this change the way we talk about the gospel?

Your Money is Worthless Here: Winning Friends and Losing Social Status Pt. 2

The other day I came across Luke 16:9: “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

I’d never noticed that text before and it kind of threw me for a loop. I wrote a blog piece on how the larger structure of Luke’s last few chapters inform how this verse is to be read. Namely, I said, that the point Jesus is making here is about how one uses their wealth – namely to invite persons to the table who are excluded from “proper” society.

As I’ve been reflecting more on the passage and doing some reading on it, it’s come to my attention (props to Joel Green) that vs. 9 actually has a structural parallel with vs. 4: “I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.”

The parallelism helps establish the foundation of Jesus’ point. Jesus is not primarily concerned with just inviting excluding persons to the table (important as that is to the larger context), but he goes a step further. The larger problem here is one of long term hospitality. The Shrewd Manager will have no where to live, so he reduces the debt these others persons owe so that when the time comes they will view him in a positive light and offer him a place to live.

When Jesus interprets the parable in vs. 9, then, he isn’t jus saying “invite outsiders to your table.” He is saying, “Use your money now to help people who can’t reciprocate, so that when the day comes that your money is worthless (the next age) you will have long term (i.e. eternal!) hospitality extended to you by those who cannot reciprocate now.

Notice who will be doing the welcoming, offering the long term hospitality in eternity. It is those very people who were excluded, marginalized, oppressed, and forgotten by “proper” society.

In eternity, it will not just be God who hosts. Tax collectors, sinners, the forgotten, and the broken will be saying, “Your money is worthless here. You befriended us before. Our tables are always open to you.”

*Thank you to Bryne for making the observation that called me deeper into the passage.

Winning Friends and Losing Social Status

This morning I came across a verse in Luke that I’ve never noticed before. Jesus has just finished his parable of the Shrewd Manager (16:1-8) and he makes a statement that seems to go against Luke’s otherwise extreme teachings on wealth.

He says, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will  be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (16:9)

I was confused at first. I mean, Jesus has previously, in Luke’s gospel, been incredibly critical of the wealthy. And he will continue to be critical of the wealthy in chapters to come. So why would Jesus say this?

Fortunately, I can’t read my Bible without having my Inductive Bible Study lenses on. And while I’m not sure this is the answer, what I came up with is as follows:

Back at the beginning of chapter 15, Luke sets the context of Jesus confrontation with the wealthy Pharisees regarding the issue of who they refuse to eat with. That theme carries through Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son (the father throws a banquet for the returned son, but the oldest son refuses to participate), and I think right into the parable of the Shrewd Manager.

While the Shrewd Manager doesn’t have any overt discussion of who we are supposed to eat with, the point Jesus makes in that parable still has to do with one’s wealth and how it is to be used. He interprets the parable for his listeners by talking to them about the importance of being faithful and trustworthy with what they have. And warns them that they cannot serve God and money – they will hate one or the other.

So my thought is, Jesus is essentially saying, the “friends” one is supposed to be winning are not others like you, who share your social status. The “friends” are the very people no one else would sit with at the dinner table.

The implications of this go right along with Luke’s larger themes. Wealth is not a tool to sustain or acquire a certain social status. Winning friends with one’s wealth, as traditionally done, for the purpose of securing one’s popularity or high esteem misses the point of why God trusts you with wealth to begin with.

Wealth is to be used to gain friends who can’t pay you back. It is to be used to gain friends who can’t give you social status. Wealth is to be used on people no one else would eat with. So that when it’s gone, what stands in the end is not your position in life, but the fact that you have no position in life and therefore have a position in the Kingdom of God.

 

Eating High Schoolers and Other Sinners

When I was in high school who you ate with at lunch was one of the biggest markers of your identity. It was a demonstration of who your friends are, what your social status is, and therefore who you are.

We even had a “Christian table” where all the Christians sat at lunch. I didn’t know about this table until I was a Christian, of course. And no one intentionally created this table to be a Christians-only table, but that’s what it effectively was – a gathering of people who were just like each other serving as an identity marker of who you are.

When I read about Jesus eating with “sinners” in Luke 15, I’m struck by the fact that Jesus, knowing full well that who you eat with defines the type of person you are, intentionally chooses to eat with people nobody else would have sat with in my high school.

It looks to me like Jesus wouldn’t have eaten at the Christian table. He would’ve self-identified with the people nobody else wanted to eat with.

The thing is, to be a person nobody else wants to eat with is to be a person without an identity. Don’t’ miss this. Think about that kid in high school (if you knew he existed) who didn’t have anywhere to sit at lunch. He didn’t have any friends. He was a nobody. He had no social identity.

Jesus would’ve sat with him.

It might have angered the Christian table that Jesus didn’t sit with them. But Jesus’ concern wasn’t in self-identifying with the Christian table. Jesus’ concern was self-identifying with people who have no identity, and thereby giving that person an identity through friendship.

Sharing a meal with someone is one of the most spiritual things we can do. As someone reminded me in yesterday’s blog, pizza is spiritual. Because sharing a meal communicates friendship, equality, solidarity, identity.

The Phrarisees didn’t like Jesus because they thought a believer shouldn’t hang out with such rabble. So they stayed at their own table with people who think, act, and believe like them. But Jesus wanted to give life and love to sinners through authentic friendship. And he calls us to do the same.

So what does who you eat with say about who you are? What does who you eat with communicate about the God you serve? Would other people be able to see, just from who you eat with at school and work, that you are a person who sees sharing a meal as a spiritual practice?

Like Us, Like Him: Christmas Eve Sermon

Here’s my Christmas Eve sermon from Matthew 1:18-25. http://www.mylhumc.net/502652.ihtml

The sermon should be on top of the player’s list, but if not, click on the tab that says, ‘speakers,’ click on my name (Tom Fuerst) and it’s the sermon titled, Like Us, Like Him.

“30 for 30″ #10: Jesus Used to Be My Homeboy. Then I Realized That’s Stupid

In American culture Jesus has become another private commodity: He’s “my boyfriend,” “my CEO,” “my co-pilot,” or “my homeboy.”

But in all reality, he is not “my” anything. He is “ours.” Or more specifically, “We are his.”

When we only see Jesus in light of our private relationship with him, we miss the point. This is not to deny that we have a relationship with him, but this relationship is anything but private.

Jesus’ salvation transcends me. It transcends us. He desires to redeem all of creation. His plans are bigger than just saving me and having a relationship with me. I am included in those plans, but I am not the sole goal of those plans.

When we privatize Jesus, we not only miss the point about his redemption all creation, but the whole idea also suggests that, ‘Me and Jesus got our own thing going.’

But this is bad theology. I most certainly have a relationship with Jesus, but there’s nothing in that relationship that’s just between us. I am not beyond rebuke. I am not beyond correction. It is a modern, American notion that Jesus and me and Jesus have got our own thing going.

In scriptural Christianity there’s nothing completely private or individualistic about our relationships with Jesus. Our relationships with him always happen in the context of community, of creation, seeing his face in the poor, finding his grace as we seek for justice in the world – none of this is private. None of it is individualistic.

In other words, all Jesus’ intentions are bigger than just me.

He does love us individually, just as he did Lazarus. He does desire to be in a relationship with us, just as he did Peter. But his plans are bigger than that.

We can’t keep him to ourselves. He won’t let us. He shouldn’t.

Jesus and Women