Asking for too much too soon

Hi all

It’s been a bit hasn’t it? I look back and realize it was May since my last post, and needless to say it’s been a full summer. Good and hard things alike, and I just needed to take a break from writing. That being said, with weather cooler in the morning and more cuddling up in blankets with hot tea coming.. I’m hoping to get back to writing again!

I was talking with a friend recently, one who has found herself a bit at odds with how the gospel is being shared at her church. We talked for a while, trying to re-frame what Jesus really came to do.

To the Jewish world at the time, Jesus came to fulfill the promise that God would not forget his people, that he wanted and pursued good for them, that he longed for a world in which people and creation flourished and that somehow he played a part in making that happen, since once again people had succumbed to the gods of power and money and oppression and “if we do this we can get god on our side” thinking. And yes, Jesus came to fulfill the words of many prophets years before – a reckoning not of judgement but one of blessing and purification, one of calling back to original purpose, one of a new start where the sin of past was dealt with forever.

That worked well in a world where everyone feared ‘the gods’ and where people believed what happened to them, for good or bad, was because they had pleased or displeased the god they followed. Not so much today in the western world, right?

In a world that doesn’t think it needs God, or possibly doesn’t even think God exists, sometimes we have to step back a bit, because although we never know where someone is on their journey, we need to be willing to connect with them where they are right now.

The problem is, traditionally we ask too much too soon.

You might say we start by asking someone to marry Jesus, when they don’t even know who he is or what he’s inviting them into. Who would, in their right mind, marry someone under those conditions? I realize that’s a very western way to think, because I work with a lot of people from India where arranged marriages are still very much a thing. So I don’t mean any disrespect to that practice.

Just that when we’re talking spirituality here, the analogy works.

What I find in the gospels when Jesus first starts teaching is a completely different model. Let’s take the book of Matthew for example, starting in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).

Jesus starts by blessing them and telling them who they really are, that God sees their longing, their heartache, their yearning for justice, their showing mercy, their attempts to be peacemakers… and blesses it.

He tells them they have more influence than they realize when he says they are the salt of the earth, and light on a hill.

Jesus first starts by seeing people and pointing out what they couldn’t see before about their own lives: Their value, their worth, and their ability to bear the imago dei, the very image of the Creator.

He starts by reminding them that they matter to the God of the universe. Then he extends the invitation for people to live in the ways that create the kingdom shalom they longed for… one where people pay attention the waters of their heart, their motives, and who know that what they do and how they live come out of that — so work on the insides. Be generous, don’t make a big deal about doing good stuff, because it’s ok to not be noticed… God sees it, and it matters.

Jesus doesn’t start talking about dying to self until almost 3 years later. Matthew doesn’t talk about that; instead he includes the stories of Jesus’ teaching that there will always be choices of how you live your life: will you side with the ‘love God, show mercy, live and pursue justice, love neighbor and enemy, and forgive’ way he is teaching, or will you not?

My point is this: Yes, I think being known and loved by the God of the Universe, and by the real, alive person of Jesus is the best thing in the world. It’s real, it’s healing in all the right ways.

But what if we invited people into the journey of blessing their lives FIRST – and trusted that as we loved them like that, they will perhaps want to know this God of love that fuels this blessing? And then what if we invited them into the bigger life-changing way that Jesus talks about… and let Jesus do the transformational work as they seek him?