“The Way of Jesus”
Luke 6:27-36
Mark 12:13-17
Matthew 6:24
Now that we’ve sung our Lenten hymn, now that we’ve given voice to all those lovely phrases that name different aspects of the way of Jesus, we have some sense of where we’ll be going together during this holy season of Lent, what we’ll be focusing on in worship and reflecting on during our Lenten Lunch gatherings after worship.
What may be less clear from the start is what all those different aspects of God’s love as expressed in Jesus boil down to and add up to, and why it matters.
So, before going any further, let me try to offer some big-picture context:
If you’re thinking that the way of Jesus boils down to love—love in the form of compassion, kindness, deliverance, empowerment, and seeing every person as a child of God—I would not disagree with you.
And . . . I want to suggest that the way of Jesus is based on faith. Not belief, per se, and certainly not doctrine or orthodox theology, but rather the rock-solid, bottom-line trust that the God who is love is alive and at work in the world—in more ways and through more people and living things than most of us can imagine.
And that what all that love and faith adds up to is a way of living in hope, trusting that the ways things are—and the way we are—is not the end of the story. This trust lives out the hope and faith that, by the grace and love of God, there is something more, there is something better, much better—not just for some people, but for every person and all creation. More than that, this way of seeing and understanding God and life as Jesus did tells us that this different and better and new world is not something for the afterlife, but is meant for everyone right here and right now.
“The realm of God is drawing near,” Jesus said again and again.
Yet throughout history, most people, most institutions, and maybe even most churches have lived as if the the way the world is now is the way it will always be. That things and people are the way they are, and that there’s not too much we can do about it.
The way of Jesus promises otherwise. This trust that things can and will change, that healing will happen and justice will reign, is so central to our faith and so necessary for anything to change that comedian and commentator Trevor Noah recently said this is something the political left desperately needs to learn from the church.
To usher in the realm of God and find hope and meaning, we have to get off the path of self-help that tells us that life is all about us and that, while we’re not enough, we’ll get better and happier if we just have more money and buy more things.
To usher in the realm of God and enjoy the blessings of relationship, community, and healing, we have to get off the path of boot-strap individualism, which tells us we needn’t care about other people or creation.
To usher in the realm of God and pave the way for justice and peace, we not only have to get off the highway to power and might, we also have to love our enemies, lift up the lowly and left out, and resist unjust powers.
This, too, is the way of Jesus.
And so before we explore, on subsequent Sundays, the wider love, simpler way, deeper well, braver dream, humbler power, sharper truth, and fuller joy of the way of Jesus, I want to invite us to consider that the way of Jesus is also a matter of allegiance.
By “allegiance” I don’t mean something formal or formulaic, something we hardly think about as we hold our hands over our hearts and recite a civic pledge. I’m speaking of a faithful allegiance that is a daily choosing and re-choosing to be more loyal to the ways of Love than to the ways of power, to be more committed to extravagant generosity than to wealth, to be more devoted to justice than to blind obedience, to be more willing to suffer for the sake of true justice and real peace than to resort to hatred and violence.
These choices are not abstract. This allegiance is practical and concrete, consequential and sometimes costly. It is one thing to say “Jesus Christ is Lord” and another to live as if that is so. It is concerning enough that many American Christians put “country” almost equal with God in the common triumvirate of “God, country, family.” But it is both blasphemous and dangerous when some Christians begin claiming that inhumane, racist, cruel, and deadly policies are the will of God, and that all good Christians should support them.
These are not the ways of Jesus.
And yet that is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany under Hitler and National Socialism, and now we are seeing disturbing parallels in our own country under Trump and white Christian nationalism. Whether increasing racial and cultural diversity and rising income inequality gave rise to the anti-democratic regimes of Hitler and Trump, or whether Hitler, Trump, and their enablers were the natural result of hundreds of years of Christian allegiance to wealth and military might seems almost beside the point; the end result is quite similar:
In each nation, the majority of Christians and their churches pledged allegiance to a tyrannical government while also claiming to follow Christ. But, as Jesus said, we cannot serve two masters, and so it should come as no surprise that the prophetic witness of the church has waned dramatically as rich and poor alike turned to the promises of money, power, and security for their salvation.
But God has not abandoned us. God’s love is still with us. Still, in every age and in every place, there are those who stay true to the servant ways of Jesus, people of all races, religions, classes, and nationalities who choose love of God and neighbor over tyranny.
In Nazi Germany, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and some other Christian leaders signed the Barmen Declaration in 1934 and founded the Confessing Church as both a movement of resistance and a clarification of faith.
In our own country, more than 400 Christian faith leaders signed the “Call to Christians” document last week. That document, which I have signed on to, is inspired by the Barmen Declaration but tailored to reflect our own national crisis.
This new document calls on “all Christians to join … in greater acts of courage to resist the injustices and anti-democratic danger sweeping across the nation. … We refuse to be silent while too many people who call themselves Christians aid, abet, or simply stand by and allow these atrocities.”
“As Christians,” it says, “we must never preach nationalism as discipleship, confuse American and Christian identity with whiteness, or mistake allegiance to modern-day Caesars for faithfulness to Christ. We must never surrender our prophetic voice by aligning with powers and principalities rather than with the One who calls us to be purveyors of justice and righteousness. … As followers of Jesus, we must take these principles seriously, as we seek to renew, deepen, and fortify our faith, resist false religion, build Beloved Community, and become a truly multi-racial, inclusive democracy.”
Friends, this, too, is the way of Jesus—a path of repentance, spiritual healing, and rebirth that puts love of God and neighbor into faithful, prophetic, and even political action. And here, too, we must be careful and clear about our choices and allegiances.
Jesus calls us not to political effectiveness, but to faithfulness to the gospel of love. The way of Jesus ushers in the realm of God not by hateful rhetoric or the demonization of our opponents but by standing with the oppressed and building communities that serve the poor and persecuted.
As we move into the season of Lent, through the wilderness of these times and our own wounds and woes and weaknesses, let us also live into the hope of love, change, community, and healing. Let us also walk in faith toward the promise of resurrection and new life.
Beloveds, let us walk the way of Jesus . . . together.
