Homily 27: How Jesus Trumps Social Justice and Religious Legalism (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"When the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, 'Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.' But Jesus...said to them..., 'You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.'" Matt. 26:6-13

The woman of Bethany comes to adore Jesus as best she knows how, sacrificing what was most likely her most prized possession. The disciples, being socially conscious religious types, rebuke her "waste" and lack of concern for those underprivileged few who lack a voice in the community. Jesus, the supposed radical reformer, rebukes the disciples instead. Coming off like a cranky fundamentalist, He points out that their pious social activism was missing one thing: Himself. He took priority, even over social justice.

Compare this story to the incident with Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). Martha is busy fulfilling her duties and obligations as hostess, while Mary is lounging starry-eyed at the feet of Jesus. Martha asks that Jesus rebuke Mary for her inordinate abstractionism. Jesus, the supposed Rabbi and teacher of the Law, informs Martha that there is only one "needful thing," the thing that Mary has chosen: Himself. He took priority, even over duty-bound cultural obligations.

There is a certain balance, a certain sanity, to Jesus. We are so easily overcome by various extremities and ecstasies, falling from one miry pit of insanity to the next. We get caught up in global activism, striving by a great moral effort to end world suffering and satiate our white-guilt. And all the while we have forgotten Jesus. We get all tangled up in holiness living, taking great pains to make our attire and activities God-approved so that we won't "smoke or chew or run with girls who do." And all the while we have forgotten Jesus. On the one hand, we make Him into our great leader and radical example, but He ceases to be Lord and the only Salvation. On the other hand, He becomes our ever-disapproving taskmaster and all-seeing eye, but never our Friend and Savior. Jesus anticipates our insanities; He anticipates the heart of man (John 2:24-25). He offered only one corrective to our wild and weary exuberance: Himself. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). May we strive always and only for such rest.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 25: Unnecessary Divorces: The Errors of both Fundamentalism and the Emergent Church (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." Matt.22:29

"On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matt. 22:40

Christianity, in coming from and leading to God, is the holistic religion. Everything finds its place within its framework and context. Why, then, do we continually find the need to break it up and apart? Why do we always tear asunder what God has joined together? Many errors crop up in the Church, but what is worse than the errors themselves is the hysteria they create that drives people to opposite yet equal errors. Thinking we've found the center, we've merely found another extreme. Such a circus can be see even to this day.

In the second half of Matthew 22, Jesus is questioned first by the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the Jewish skeptics, the post-modernists of their day. Post-modernism, of course, is nothing new. It is merely the old skepticism rehashed, recycled, repackaged, and regurgitated. The Sadducees were ancient pomos. If you don't believe it, then just look at the question that they posed to Jesus (Matt. 22:24-28). It is philosophically tangled. It is ironic. It is subversive. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and thus their question is deconstructive: it is trying to expose tensions in the resurrection narrative that will reveal it to be artificial. Jesus responds by throwing down a radical notion of his own (Matt. 22:30) that effectively subverts their subversion, and then He quotes the Pentateuch at them (Matt. 22:31-32), the only part of the Old Testament that they liked (similar to how modern day pomos like the gospels but not the rest of the New Testament).

Before Jesus answered the Sadducees, however, his initial response laid down His primary position, His starting place for the whole issue. He exalted both the principles of God ("the Scriptures") and the practices of God ("power of God"). He starts his response by asserting that He holds these two things together. There are many people today (both skeptical and credulous) who will not abide such a union. Some want the principles only, becoming scrupulous scholars and dogmatic doctrinaires. They have systematized the whole with impeccable perfection. God, however, is merely an abstract concept to them, as remote as the furthest star. Despite their tremendous elucidation, one wonders if they truly believe all of their humbug. Meanwhile, others want only the practices, to see angels and demons behind every bush, and fire fall from heaven everyday. They dismiss doctrine as mere shackles, and thus confuse every odd occurrence as having massive spiritual import. Despite their fiery credulousness, one wonders if they even know what they're talking about. The resulting spirituality of the former is a stifling deadness and petrification. The resulting spirituality of the latter is religious insanity and chaos. Both have divorced what Jesus never divorced.

The Pharisees catch wind of the unholy smackdown that Jesus laid upon the Sadducees, and they decide to throw their own hat into the ring. Of course, the Pharisees were the stuffy fundamentalists of their day, again a very old and very common occurrence. The stagnant conservative and the anarchistic progressive are as old as the hills. The Pharisees, being good solid fundamentalists, asked Jesus a very straightforward, simple, yet profoundly doctrinal question (Matt. 22:36). Jesus, in return, provided a very straightforward, simple, yet profoundly doctrinal response (Matt. 22:37-40). Per His usual tactic when dealing with the Pharisees, He attacks their brand of religionism by stating what they already know (vs. 37-38) but then tacking on what they have missed (vs. 39). The Pharisees had "loving God" down pat (or so they thought), but as Jesus pointed out many times before and after this incident, their love towards people was non-existent. Like the Sadducees, in answering their question He also rebuked them.

Also like the Sadducees, Jesus lays down in His answer a twin set of ideas that He holds together in tandem that the Pharisees wanted to separate. He summarized the entirety of their precious "Law and the Prophets" under two commands: love God and then love people. Again, there are many (both credulous and skeptical) who will not abide such a union. For some, the only true command is to love God, to develop the private spirituality of the devotional and the closet. Other people are merely distractions, having no real value in and of themselves other than being teaching tools to learn more about God. They become means to an individual end, no more and no less. Meanwhile, for others, the only true command is to love people, to develop the public spirituality of missional friendship. "Quiet Time" and other devotional trappings are merely stumblingblocks to religious work and activity in the community. Even church becomes a distraction, having no real value in and of itself other than being a convention center to gather more people. The resulting spirituality of the former is an isolated occultism that grows weary of others. The resulting spirituality of the latter is an endless guilt-induced sense of doing that also grows weary of others. Again, they have divorced what Jesus never divorced.

All of these silly, unnecessary divorces that we see back then and still today are fundamentally anti-incarnational. In some way or another, they deny "the Word made flesh". For some, "the Word" in its uncreated exaltation is everything: doctrinal discovery followed by a spiritual introspection that never learns to work itself out "through the fingertips." For others, "the flesh" in its rugged reality is everything: continual immersion and outward activity that has no greater foundation than our own emotional sentimentalism. Both ways are incomplete, and thus are wrong. Both ways have partial truth, and thus are dangerous. Each can bash the others weakness from their own strong point. The former can bash the latter for their "worldliness" and scriptural compromise, while the latter can bash the former for their "insensitivity" and lack of concern for the Kingdom of God. Both positions are right in pointing out the others error. In other words, both positions are right, thus both positions are wrong.

Those who claim to be Christians and those who claim to be "Christ-followers" or "emerging" (or whatever) both need to reexamine what their Master taught. It is not a choice between God's principles or God's practices, not love God or love people, neither is it half and half. The true "Christ-like" life knows the principles of God and thus believes in the practices of God. The true "Christ-like" life passionately and unapologetically loves God and thus passionately and unapologetically loves people. There is no severance or neglect. Both sides of the coin are intimately connected and burning at full capacity. It is the true incarnational life, "the Word" made "flesh". May we from henceforth strive to cease from divorcing the two.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 23: Missing What Matters (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times." Matt.16:3b

A necessary consequence of Pharisaical idolatry is spiritual blindness. Look at this incident between the Pharisees and Jesus. Their conception of God (formed by their own traditions and considerations) had so blurred their spiritual vision that when God Himself came walking amongst them in the flesh they could see neither him nor the things that He had done. Jesus had performed many signs already; some individually (e.g., Matt. 8:1-17), some before thousands (e.g., Matt. 14:13-21), and none in secret. There was nothing hidden, and yet the Pharisee could not see. Their natural vision was fine, but their spiritual sight was blocked, perhaps even seared shut by their concept of what God ought to be. Likewise, our self-constructed conceptions of God are always blinders to our souls, and the only hope of knocking them off is by a visitation from the God who is.

"How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread?" (Matt. 16:11a). It is not necessarily the Pharisee that lets their self-made opinion of God blind them. Even the disciples did not understand what Jesus was after or about. The difference, however, is that when the God who is confronted the God of their own minds, they chose to follow the God who is despite the confusion of their minds. They did not understand Him just yet, but they did believe in Him (Matt. 16:16), and eventually they came to understand Him (Luke 24:45). That is always the way it is: we must go through the confusion and fog of our misconceptions, clinging for dear life to the God revealed in scripture and in Christ, even if there are whole areas that we do not understand yet. Our blinders are being taken off. It may take time (depending on our obstinacy), but if we stick to it and go through the dark with the God who is, we shall emerge closer to Him than we were before. For those lost in illusion, reality is always a confusion. Once we are brought through it all to the other side, however, then the illusion drops from our eyes like scales; and where once we were blind, now our eyes see Him.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

Homily 21: God > Temple (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"I tell you, something greater than the temple is here." Matt. 12:6

The Pharisees rebuked Jesus' disciples for supposedly breaking the Law. Jesus, in turn, rebuked the Pharisees for not seeing the One whom the Law points to. The problem with a Pharisee is not that they are religious. Their problem was that their religion was greater than God. For them, the shadow trumped the substance, and the Law (and its trappings) where higher even than God Himself. This was not a statement of logic that they ever spoke. It was a fact of experience that they continually lived. God walked in the flesh amongst them for three years, but they could not see the Lawgiver for the Law. That which was meant to lead to God had taken God's place, and now the very means by which they were to see became their blindness.

A Pharisee, then, is not a legalist; a Pharisee is an idolater. Antinomian types (and other "gutless-gracers") can be just as much a Pharisee as a legalist. That is because a Pharisee is not one who makes rules about how to get to God, but rather rules about who God is. They set up an image of God based on their own logic and/or experiences and then say that the matter is settled forever under heaven. Legalists certainly come from such stock, but so do antinomians.

We all create an image of God out of our logic and experiences. It is not wrong per se; it is the natural way that we comprehend things. What is wrong is when we say that our image is the end of the matter, and defend it to the death against all comers, even God Himself. That is the way of the Pharisee, the idolater. Our image has become graven--set in stone. We must not be surprised when God brings the hammer to them, breaking our self-made and misused icons until we finally reach reality.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011