Jesus just isn’t a good Christian

by

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Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
(Matthew 16:24 – Watchword for the Week of Sunday 31 August 2014)

Nobody in their right mind likes following Jesus. For the first disciples that meant giving up everything: family, home, job, their very lives. Jesus was a radical prophet who thought kingdom come was right around the corner: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28). That is not a life I would want to live and every year there is one sect or the other proclaiming “the end is near”. Jesus told his disciples they will live to see kingdom come, really?

And this whole self-denial thing? What is that supposed to mean? The end of summer is such a wonderful season to affirm one’s own identity with all the labels we attach to ourselves: the schools we attend(ed), the sports teams we support, the party we support in the upcoming elections, you name it. Why would anyone want to give up the wonderfully crafted self-identity that took so much work to develop?

As a church we just can’t afford this kind of radicalism: Imagine Jesus were to rush into the sanctuary one Sunday, yelling at everybody to get out of their pews and follow him into the streets and proclaim kingdom come. Dear Lord Jesus, please check the bulletin: The service doesn’t conclude until the postlude, sit still and be a good Christian at least for this one hour on Sunday morning.

Maybe Jesus just isn’t a good Christian. And how could he be: He was a first century prophet expecting the world to end as soon as the Roman occupation of Israel was thrown off. He just didn’t have the experience of “doing church” for over two-thousand years. We had to learn to live with the fact that life as we know it, that our earth, that people with all their flaws, that institutions are just going to stick around for a while. We have created a home for ourselves, both physically and spiritually.

But then again: Maybe we just aren’t good followers of Christ. Thank God we have those ancient stories to keep us on our toes. A verse like today’s is a constant reminder, that we ought to be more than what we already know about ourselves: Don’t take yourself too seriously, allow your assumptions and your knowledge to be challenged by the still-speaking God.

gissucc


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