The Park Road Pulpit

You must make a choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Could it be that Christians have done precisely what Jews feared might be done, idolized Jesus of Nazareth? Have Christians supplanted God by deifying Jesus, which is actually the opposite of incarnation? Have Christians taken the way to God and made him a dead end, leading nowhere beyond himself? Has this been done because Christians refuse to live with the holy mystery that is God? Finding it so much easier to get our minds around this Jesus, have we settled for a sentimentalized version of God? Remember, Jesus did not come to found a religion; he came to awaken faith in God.

The preacher asked, “What animal is small, brown, and has a large, furry tail?” All of the children, gathered around for the Sunday morning children’s time, stared back with blank faces. “You know,” he continued, “It’s a small animal with a large furry tail that likes to eat nuts…” Again, blank looks. After a third description one boy in the back of the group sheepishly raised his hand and said, “Well, preacher, I know the answer is ‘Jesus,’ but it sounds a lot like a squirrel to me!”

Perhaps we don’t talk as much about him as some Baptist churches, but I never thought that as a Baptist preacher I would ever be confused or conflicted or concerned about preaching a sermon about Jesus. But, then, until a few years ago, I never knew there was a Baptist church in the world like Park Road Baptist Church! The truth is, I must confess, Amy and I have been a little confused and conflicted and concerned on this score since before we even became your pastors. Of our immediate predecessor, someone told us as we did our homework about you, “I think he talked about Jesus a little too much for them.” (What did that mean?) Then we met Charlie Milford, the founding pastor of this church, who for 32 years led this congregation in a relentless if unorthodox pursuit of Truth.[1] We had learned that Charlie was, by reputation, an iconoclast, a renegade Baptist in the liberal tradition of the late Carlyle Marney.[2] In our first conversations Charlie spoke (as he still does) often, freely, devotedly of Jesus. His prayers ending, always, in the way that only Charlie can say it, “In Jesus name…”

Not long after arriving on the scene here, to add to our conflict, we were at lunch with one of you whom we have come to trust and respect greatly, and I heard the very unlikeliest of all Baptist declarations of faith, “Well… I don’t believe in Jesus. I believe in God.” In those simple but profound words all that I had learned about Jesus to that point in my life went flying through my head in one of those dizzying my-life-just-flashed-before-my-eyes kind of blurs. In that affirmation of sincere and deeply held faith, “I don’t believe in Jesus. I believe in God,” twenty centuries of official ecclesiastical wrestling over the person of Jesus of Nazareth flashed before us, and again, Jesus spoke. This time to me:

The story of Peter’s confession of Christ has been central for the followers of Jesus since it began to circulate, first by word of mouth among his extended band of disciples, [3] then, after his death, among the growing house-churches which sprang up around the ancient world. “You are the Christ,” said Peter, and the confession of one brash and bold believer, as for countless other disciples-become-martyrs, became his last breath.

Some scholars believe that the earliest known, formal “confession of faith,” (statement of belief) was used in early baptismal liturgies.[4] At baptism, a candidate would be charged: “Confess your faith.” The candidate would respond in a compact, three-word liturgical formulation of Christian belief: “Jesus is Lord.” (Amy and I adopted from a colleague and friend his method of carrying on this tradition. In baptism here, we ask our candidates to write a brief statement of their faith, which can be spoken for them. Many of you will recall Molly Caldwell’s moving poem, which I read before she was immersed. It is our way of invoking a personal “confession of faith” from those who go through these waters.)

The statement of the early church was simple, but profound. “What do you believe?”

But moving through the gospels, in John’s narrative, the resurrected Jesus appears to Thomas (the doubter) and extends an offer for Thomas to examine his wounds, and by doing so, to believe. And Thomas’ affirmation, as John tells it, now moves well beyond Peter’s declaration. Thomas’ affirmation is filled with theological premises as well, for his cry names Jesus, “My Lord, and my God.”[5]

For many thinking, discerning believers around the world it is quite a leap, an unacceptable leap in fact, to move from a confirmed commitment to Jesus as Lord, to this affirmation. (To be fair, I must say that certainly not all “thinking, discerning believers” have such difficulty. Hardly is this the case.) But when we last sang “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” I heard from some of you, for whom the second stanza would not go down too easily:

Here is the crux of the issue. We have just come from a study of the commandments, which begin with the affirmation of One God and a strong prohibition against worshiping anything or anyone but this God. Last week we considered Jesus’ own understanding, that the greatest command is to Love God alone. So, we must ask: Is Jesus “Lord,” – one to whom we can devote our thinking our understanding, our priorities, our commitment, our lives in the service of God? Or, was Jesus actually God? Was Jesus the “image of the invisible God,”[7] who, as we follow him, becomes our “Way our Truth our Life”[8] in God? Or is Jesus himself to be praised, sung to, prayed to, worshiped, as God?

For most of my life, I would have answered the latter, without reservation -- without even knowing that there was any other option. Jesus was “God in a bod,” as someone has put it, rather crassly.[9] The creeds pronounce this faith, “fully human and fully divine,” “begotten, not made,” “true God of true God.” There is plenty of scripture to call as a proof-text, for sure, and more than ample orthodox teaching to bolster the claim. There are thousands of books, and millions of believers, worldwide, who’ve never given it another thought.

Hear me carefully, please. I’m not asking you to forsake your faith. I’m not asking you to reject your past. I’m not even asking you, necessarily, to change what you believe.[10] I am asking you to think with us, together this fall, as we examine some of Jesus’ words and deeds from Matthew’s Gospel. I am asking you to think critically and without fear, to examine openly, with twenty-first century minds, the mind of a first-century Jewish peasant who comes to us by way of first-century, mostly-Jewish documents,[11] and almost twenty centuries of religious devotion. I am asking you to sit among his disciples, to look into his eyes, to hear again his world-changing question:

There is a feud going on in the world of academia about this question that Jesus asked. This feud has been dubbed the “Jesus Wars.” In 1985 an academic named Robert Funk called together a band of New Testament scholars to study the words of Jesus of Nazareth as found in the Gospels. The “Jesus Seminar” began evaluating all of the sayings of Jesus, using critical literary tools, and by so doing sought to get back to the supposed “real” or “historical Jesus,” whom they believed was distinct from the Jesus of a simple, literal reading. Their so-called “Quest for the Historical Jesus” actually began in the mid 1800’s. Scholars had begun to notice various “layers” within the scripture, which they believed could be determined by a complex study of word usage and grammatical constructions (among other things). In peeling back these layers, most scholars have come to agree that the Gospel of Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke both knew and used Mark (as well as another common source[12]) in writing their narratives. According to this theory, the Gospel of John was the last book written, and John’s glorious language reflects the theological development within the church between the death of Jesus and approximately 100 A.D.

Due to the use of this method[13], some scholars believe that much of what we know of Jesus in the Gospels is not true to who he actually was as a person. In this view, in the years after Jesus’ death, the Church, reflecting on his life, and developing a theology distinct from its Jewish roots, increasingly edited the oral stories, and read onto Jesus’ lips their growing understanding of a God who could be physically present among them with life-giving, life-changing force. In this view many of the “red-letter words” of Jesus cannot be known decisively to have come from his own mouth. In this view also, many of the deeds of Jesus, especially his miracles, are questionable as “historical” events, and are read, instead, as metaphorical or mythological stories, pointing to a truth deeper than the actual “factuality” of the event.[14]

The two quotations given as our opening meditation indicate perhaps the two extremes in this war over Jesus. Either he was, literally who the scripture says he was, or the image revealed in scripture is a “Christ of faith,” who may have been quite different from the “Jesus of history.”

The work of the historical-critical method, which I have briefly summarized for you, has influenced nearly all who study the Bible today, from the far left to the far right. Its importance can hardly be overestimated. And, this most current “Quest for the Historical Jesus” is fascinating to study. We have much to learn about Jesus from this approach.

But as revealing and important as this approach is to our biblical understanding, ultimately, the questions of the Jesus Seminar are useless. For Jesus did not ask Peter, and he does not ask us, “Who do you say that I was?” The God of Jesus was not a God of the dead, but of the living[15] – not a God of the past but of the ever-renewing present, and according to Marcus Borg, himself one of the participants in the Jesus Seminar, Jesus is, ultimately, “not simply a figure of the past, but a figure of the present. Meeting that Jesus – the living Jesus who comes to us even now – will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time.”[16]

I see the series of pictures as some kind of out-of-body experience. I am about ten years old. -- Sitting at the foot of my parents’ bed. Talking with my father. Asking how to “let Jesus come into my heart.” -- I am there, now, clutching the rail of the pew in front of me, waiting for stanza one to begin. I am stepping out. Seeing my father’s face. Holding his hand. Feeling his arms around my shoulders. Hearing his voice in my ear. – Finally, I am in the water. Deep. Warm. Clear. And again, my father’s voice:

“Because of the divine command of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and because of your profession of faith in him, I baptize you my son…”

Marcus Borg, a boy who gave his heart to Jesus and who became a liberal interpreter of the faith says, “[I‘ve] been ‘looking for Jesus all [my] life.’”[17] His story is my story. And the quest for Jesus is a journey for a lifetime. In my own search for the “real Jesus,” I have learned, I think, some appropriate distinctions.

I no longer simply equate Jesus and God, but I do regard the relationship between God and Jesus, and Jesus’ own life in God, as unique.

I believe that the Gospels evidence some progression or development in their portrayal of Jesus. I think we should listen carefully to what this progression might tell us about Jesus, about the church, about ourselves. But I do not despair over the unsolvable quest for who he was in history, and I do not abandon the faith of my childhood, nor disdain the belief of the majority of Christian believers who do not share my views.

I consider the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be essential in my understanding and appropriation of faith.

“In both Greek and Latin [to believe] means to ‘give one’s heart to.’ The ‘heart’ is the self at its deepest level.”[18] Believing is not just claiming something in our head, then, it is seeking to practice it in all that we do. I do Believe in Jesus. I believe not because I proclaim what the Gospels say happened outside of Jerusalem some 2000 years ago as salvation. I believe in Jesus because I believe that in practicing his compassion, in practicing his commitment, in practicing his kind of Godly love, in knowing his mind and sharing his heart, like him, I can come to know what it means to be fully human.

“I Believe in God because I believe in Jesus. Or more probably, [without Jesus] God simply would not matter. The story of Jesus enables me to envision God as One who genuinely cares for each and all of us. In Jesus, God confronts the Darkness face to face, Incarnate, for our sake. Jesus is Light to the gentle face of God. The story of Jesus says that God laughs with us in our joys and weeps with us in our sorrow. God strengthens us in the helplessness of our hoping, God stands with us in the uncertainty of our believing, and God waits for us in our yearning to be loved. Ultimately the lonely companionship of Jesus in the suffering of his passion [makes] my painful journey a sometime story of faith.”[19]

O God, in this world of confusion and propaganda, it is difficult to know what to believe. Much less what to believe in. Forgive our disbelief. Even more, O God, forgive us for carrying our beliefs on our shoulders, placards of our own dogma, and yet not practicing what we have preached. Forgive this, our unbelief. Convince us this day, O God, that your will for us is not to be found in following a belief, but in a discipleship, a commitment of living, a following of the one whose way leads to death and life, to life and love, to love and freedom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

[1] Charlie’s phrase, “Truth is more a becoming than a having” might well characterize his ministry as a whole. Through sermons and Bible study opportunities, Charlie’s ministry was defined by an open, spirited, ongoing debate with his congregation. No questions or theological issues were off-limits in this conversation. He saw this as essential in leading his congregation to a proper understanding of Christianity..

[2] Carlyle Marney served Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, for many years, and was a close personal friend of Charlie Milford.

[3] I believe that there were many disciples, not just the twelve whom the New Testament names as “apostles.”

[4] There is a specific New Testament reference, in the writing of Paul, to which scholars point as an indication of this formulation, but I have been unable this week to locate the reference.

[5] John 20.28. We should recognize that from a more conservative perspective there is no “distance” at all between the confessions of Peter and Thomas. “Jesus is Lord,” in a more traditional understanding implies the same route to divinity as does Thomas’ more explicit claim. I do believe, however, that some theological development is discernible within scripture (from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and within each Testament itself).

[6] Isaac Watts, 1707.

[7] Colossians 1.15

[8] John 14.6

[9] The statement was made by Dr. Molly T. Marshall at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “It is not enough,” she said, “just to say the Jesus is ‘God in a Bod.’”

[10] I walk a fine line here. It is my hope that in preaching and teaching people will change what they believe. It has been because of my changed beliefs, due to careful teaching and nudging that my faith has become what it is. I do seek this kind of change for other people, but I recognize the “careful” nature in which this must be done, and I believe that our theological positions are not as important as our convictions in faith-in-action. So, I am content for people to believe very differently, if we can agree to live and work together in peace.

[11] The New Testament culture was Jewish, so even the later Epistles, written from a fully Christian” perspective, must be understood from this culture.

[12] This source can be “seen” by observing the material common to Matthew and Luke which shares common vocabulary, syntax, etc… Scholars call this hypothetical source “Q,” for the German, “quelle,” meaning “source.”

[13] The “Historical-Critical Method” was developed in the mid-1800’s.

[14] Luke Timothy Johnson’s critically acclaimed work, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and Truth of the Traditional Gospels (Harper San Francisco), discounts much of the work of the Jesus Seminar and its proponents as theologically biased and unfaithful to well-established methods of scholarly research. See, especially chapter two, “History Challenging Faith.”

[15] Matthew 22.32.

[16] Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p.137.

[17] Borg, p. 6.

[18] Borg, p. 137.

[19] Frank Tupper, A Scandalous Providence, Mercer Press, p. 19.