breathing room

Sunday, October 26, 2014

New Humanity // Wineskins

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 10/26/2014

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
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or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

New Humanity whiteboard recap…

¹⁸Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

¹⁹Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. ²⁰But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

This maybe sounds strange at first – there’s not an actual wedding going on, is there? Is Jesus getting married? – so we’ll talk about it more later. To help us stay with the flow of the conversation though, it helps to know that wedding feasts were seven days long, and fasting or any other act of mourning wasn’t permitted for you if you were a guest or participant in the wedding feast. Jesus, in other words, is claiming that he and his disciples aren’t fasting because there is a hidden wedding feast in progress.

²¹“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If they do, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. ²²And people do not pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”

On the surface this is pretty self-explanatory – we understand how fabrics can shrink with time and water and heat. And although it’s not something we are intimately familiar with today, we can imagine how wineskins (which were made from a goat’s hide) would stretch by the fermenting process of wine kept in them, making them unable to withstand the fermentation of new wine put in them after they’d already been stretched; they would only burst, ruining the container and the contents. As to why Jesus is saying this, we’ll talk more about it later. For the moment, perhaps it might help to just consider that Jesus is saying something brand new is happening through him, and we’ve got to let go of the old and embrace the new to understand and benefit from it.

²³One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. ²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

The Sabbath was an important day in Israel; observing it is one of the ten commandments, in fact. It happened every week, from sunset on Friday evening to sunset on Saturday. On the Sabbath, everyone in Israel was legally obligated to rest from work, and by the time of Jesus, there were very detailed stipulations about what kinds of activities were allowed and what were not. Picking grain was not allowed.

²⁵He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? ²⁶In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

This story Jesus references about David is an important one, and we’ll explain it and talk about it more a little later. But basically Jesus is saying that there is precedence for his actions in something that happened in the life of one of Israel’s most beloved heroes, David.

²⁷Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. ²⁸So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

This last verse is incredibly profound; we’ll probably save it for next week, when some more drama involving the Sabbath happens at the beginning of Mark chapter 3.

Let’s talk about fasting, since that’s what sets this section in motion.

Fasting in Israel happened on feast days remembering the past; in particular, remembering times of tragedy or disaster. There were fast days, for example, connected to the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. They were used to reflect, to mourn, to repent, to petition God to forgive sins and restore relationship with Israel. John the Baptist and the Pharisees and their disciples all were observing these fasts, but Jesus’ disciples were not. They were going about their normal lives.

Jesus’ response about the bridegroom gives us the key to understand why Jesus and his disciples aren’t fasting. In Israel, not only were weddings a big deal – 7 days of feasting – they were the basis for one of the primary metaphors about God rescuing Israel. Israel saw herself as a wayward or unfaithful bride that one day God was going to forgive and win back to himself, and that he would come and marry her, and there would be a feast for the ages in celebration.

When Jesus responds to the question about fasting, he references himself as the bridegroom and his disciples as the guests at the party. In other words, Jesus is saying that he himself represents YHWH and his disciples represent Israel and the party has gotten started. Right now, through me, Jesus is saying, God is doing the thing everyone has been fasting and praying for. The disciples are so caught up in the good new thing that is happening that they are simply unable to fast. This is a time for looking forward, not backward. Fasting doesn’t make any sense right now.

(There is that note about the bridegroom being taken away, which seems to be the first reference to Jesus being crucified; that isn’t going to be like a wedding feast; fasting will be appropriate then. It will be too dark to look forward. All the disciples will be looking backwards, filled with sober reflection, petitioning God to do something, to show them where they went wrong.)

Ok. So what does this have to do with New Humanity?

Thanks for asking. That’s a really great question.

But it’s not time to answer it yet, not until we’ve talked about the next thing Jesus says.

Now we are getting somewhere. What God is doing in and through Jesus, the way in which he is rescuing Israel by sending Jesus with forgiveness and healing for sinners, inviting them to follow him into child-like faith in the kingdom of God, is profoundly new.

Something so new that trying to stitch it together with the old will only make the old less useful, tearing its holes even more wide open. Something so new that to try to hold it with the containers of what came before will cause those containers to burst, making a mess.

What’s happing in and through Jesus, what Jesus is teaching his disciples and inviting them into, is so new that it’s painful and overwhelming for the old humanity. It’s so new that the only way to receive it, to enter into it, to enjoy it is by throwing off your old clothes and ditching your old wine supply, receiving new clothes and wine bottles Jesus has to give you.

Sounds great…

but what in the world are we actually talking about?

Well, what do clothes do for us? They keep us warm and dry, and they keep people from seeing us naked. In other words, they protect us in our weakness and cover the source of our shame. They protect us from our vulnerability.

And what do wineskins do for us? They keep our wine from going bad too quickly, and from evaporating. In this case, in the ancient world, wine was a symbol for life-giving nourishment. And for the Israelites, wine (along with grain and oil) had become a technical term for the covenant blessings promised by God to Israel.

Just for fun:

¹³“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord…

New wine will drip from the mountains

and flow from all the hills

¹⁴and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.

They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them;

They will plant vineyards and drink their wine,

Amos 9

So in other words, wineskins hold the source of the life that we are constantly longing and thirsty for. They protect us from neediness.

In the old humanity, what are our clothes and wineskins? What protects us from the pain, discomfort, and shame of our vulnerability? What makes us feel secure in light of our never-ending needs?

Everything has to do with strength. Physical strength. Intelligence. Knowledge. Political power. Personal reputation. Physical Beauty. Wealth. Talents and skills. Relationship networks. Family, tribal, and national loyalties. Stuff. Actual clothes. Houses. Cars. Weapons. And on and on.

In the new humanity, what are our clothes and wineskins?

Child-like Faith that the God who loves us will address our needs. Which actually requires us to face and embrace the pain, discomfort, and shame of our vulnerability and the depth of our neediness as we discover with Jesus that none of those things have any power to keep us from resurrection life.

This doesn’t mix with the old humanity’s perspective, does it? It will just tear it open more if we try. Burst it. And try we do, all the time, don’t we? We try to depend on God to give us physical strength. Wealth. Power. A good reputation. A nice car. And on and on. And when it doesn’t give us the life we’re really longing for, or when God doesn’t give us what we’re asking for, we have a crisis of faith.

After which we might say forget it! – which is deeply painful and in the end non-productive.

Or we press into following Jesus in true child-like faith, which for Jesus, means coming to the end of his strength, being condemned as a traitor, executed with criminals, betrayed by his best friends, penniless, powerless, naked. But so full of real, true life all along the way, and resurrection life in the end.

Take fasting, for example.

The old humanity fasts because we are desperate for a way out of our need and vulnerability, as a way of demonstrating to God that we are truly sorry, that we are earnest in our good intentions now, trying to prove to him that it’s worth his time to give us another a chance, that we have learned our lesson and now are worth a shot.

The new humanity fasts as a way of reminding ourselves that our current condition of feeling full from food only masks the reality that we are in fact desperately needy and that that need is a blessing to move us towards God, our only true hope in our need. And to remind us that the fullness we enjoy when we are not fasting is a gift of grace, a sign of God’s love for us as his children, not a sign of his approval of our strength or earnestness.

The old humanity prays to impress others with our holiness, or to coerce God into doing what we desire.

Not the new humanity. The new humanity prays because he’s our only hope, knowing that we may feel extra vulnerable as we wait for God to address our needs, knowing that he may ask us to move or act in ways that require courageous vulnerability or make us look like fools.

New wine for new wineskins. The only way to have it is to abandon our old wineskins, with the old wine still in them. We can’t eat from both the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.

Which brings us to the Sabbath section. We’re just going to touch on it, and then close with practical suggestions, saving most of it for next Sunday.

When Jesus’ disciples are found to be in violation of the Sabbath rules, and Jesus is questioned about it, he doesn’t deny what they are doing or say that it’s not a violation. Instead, he talks about David doing something similar centuries earlier. David was traveling with his men, who were hungry, and the only food available was bread consecrated for the Lord, normally available only to priests. He asked Abiathar, the high priest at the time, for the bread and gave it to his men to eat.

David is likely a somewhat familiar Biblical character to you, even if you haven’t read the Bible. No doubt you’ve probably heard the story of David and Goliath. David was also an accomplished songwriter who wrote many of the Psalms, and eventually David became a powerful King in Israel. But this story Jesus references happened before David had taken the throne. That’s significant.

David had been chosen by God and anointed the King of Israel by the prophet Samuel, but Saul, the current King, a king demanded by the people in their fear, selected because of his strength and good looks, hadn’t given up his power. David was going through the countryside, avoiding Saul’s forces, gathering support, waiting for his time. He and his disciples were hungry, needy, vulnerable. And the only thing available to them was God’s provision.

Sound familiar? Jesus has been anointed King at his baptism, where the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. But the prince of this world, the accuser, Satan, the one we put on the throne in our fear, is still on the throne, and trying to destroy his rivals. Jesus is going through the countryside, gathering support, waiting for his time. Jesus and his disciples are hungry, needy, vulnerable. And the only thing available to them is God’s provision.

His disciples eating this grain, in other words, is no accident. It’s a sign. A sign that the true King of the world is on the move, and the illegitimate king will be dethroned.

To whom do you desire to give your allegiance? The one who calls you to strength and condemns you for your flaws? Or the one who calls you to faith, and loves you in your weakness?

Practical Suggestions:

1. Slip Into Something Less Comfortable. Take off your strength suit and put on a humility jacket. Some conflict with a spouse, or relative or friend. Some situation at work. Maybe in anger you’re accusing, or standing secure in your rightness, or being defensive to protect your reputation. Instead, in vulnerability reveal the hurt you’re experiencing, or fear, or own the part you play in the current difficulty. It may not successfully move things forward the way you desire. But it may open the door to God’s life for you.

2. No More Sorrow, No More Shame. Or, Stop Saying I’m Sorry and Toss Your Shame in the Trash. Perhaps there is something you beat yourself up about, especially in relationship to God. Something you feel sorrow and shame about. Something that seems to get between you and God. He’s not looking for more “I’m sorrys” from you; he’s not worried you’ll hurt him if he embraces you – there’s no need to prove yourself to him. Your sorrow is for you, to move you in a new direction, but once it’s served its purpose, it goes rotten. And the shame you feel is disconnected from the reality of God’s love for you. Yes, you may be deeply flawed. But that doesn’t affect your belonging. You belong because you are God’s child, and he loves you. So try imagining yourself naked before God, not wearing sorrow or shame, but just you as you are, and ask him to show you what his response to you is.

New Humanity // Forgiveness

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 10/19/2014

³Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

So he said to the man, ¹¹“I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹²He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

¹³Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. ¹⁴As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

¹⁵While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. ¹⁶When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹⁷On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In Mark 2, for the first time, the powers that be start getting upset with Jesus. Why?

Because he treats sinners differently than they do. He heals them, forgives them, invites them to be in his inner circle. Thirteen chapters later, this is what gets Jesus killed. Relating to sinners not in the way of the old humanity, but in the way of the new humanity.

Why is this such a big deal? Why is it so threatening to the people in power? And what does it mean to us, either as people who can identify with Jesus’ enemies, or as people who can identify with the people Jesus ends up blessing?

We’ll start with the concept of moral judgment. The idea that we can get a sense of what is right and what is wrong about another person’s actions. This passage is full of moral judgment, isn’t it?

The paralytic is judged to be somehow in the wrong because of his paralysis. A very common judgment at the time, even though it might seem bizarre to us modern people. Although when we look at how the legal system judges beautiful people vs. those who are less so, we see that the same basic dynamic happens even today (even if it only happen subconsciously).

The tax collectors are judged to be in the wrong because of their disloyalty to Israel, and presumably because of the way they have accumulated wealth through dishonest means, at the expense of their fellow Israelites, to boot.

Jesus is judged to be in the wrong because (1) he doesn’t seem to share in the moral judgments of the teachers of the law, and (2) he has the audacity to go so far as to forgive the sins of the paralytic and to share meals with tax collectors, not to mention inviting one of them to be his disciple.

To see what’s going on here between Jesus and the teachers of the law, we need to get to the bottom of a basic question.

What’s moral judgment all about, anyway?

We all do it, don’t we? How does it work? How do we think it serves us?

All moral judgment is rooted in fear.

All moral judgment is a response to the perception of a threat.

Listen to this clip from Edward Scissorhands. Edward (a gentle, compassionate, lonely character with scissors for hands, played by Johnny Depp; don’t ask – it’s a Tim Burton film) has been taken in by a local Avon representative and her family. They begin to engage Edward in a conversation about morality.

[Play clip…]

BILL

Okay, a little ethics. You are walking down the street. You find a suitcase full of money.

There's nobody around. No human person is in evidence. What do you do?

A. You keep the money.

B. You use it to buy gifts for your friends and your loved ones.

C. You give it to the poor.

D. You turn it into the police.

KIM

That is really stupid.

PEG

Kim!

KEVIN

I keep the money.

PEG

Simmer down.

BILL

Edward…? Edward, we are waiting.

EDWARD

Give it to my loved ones?

PEG

Oh, Edward, it does seem that that's what you should do, but it's not.

KEVIN

You dope, everybody knows he's supposed to give it to the police.

BILL

Good thinking, Kevin.

KIM

Well, think about it, you guys, I mean, that's the nicer thing to do. That's what I would do.

BILL

We're trying to make things easier for him, so let's cut the comedy for a little while.

KIM

I am being serious. It's a nicer thing to do.

BILL

We're not talking nice. We're talking right and wrong.

KIM

Shut up.

PEG

Oh, goodness sake, no wonder poor Edward can't learn right from wrong living in this family.

Think about it yourself. How many of you would answer A – keep the money for yourself? How about B – use it to buy gifts for your loved ones? C – give it to the poor? D – turn it in to the police?

Now, think about how you felt when you heard someone else give a different answer than you.

Perhaps you felt something along the lines of: I’m not so sure I’d like to live in a world where that’s how people behaved. Perhaps you thought, well that seems like a reasonable person who just raised their hand, so I’d like to hear why they say that and then judge for myself if that kind of choice would help create the kind of world I’d feel safe in.

Generally speaking, although we may all have different rationales in our heads for the answer we give, most of us are actually answering the way we answer because we feel like a world where our answer is the right answer is a world we feel safest in. And when we judge a different response to be “wrong,” we do so because it feels threatening somehow to us. We may even feel like we don’t trust the person who suggested that “wrong” answer as much as we did before. Like we’re just a little bit afraid of them now.

Of course this is a low-key, hypothetical exercise. So maybe think about these questions...

How easy is it for a parent to enter into moral judgment about another person’s son’s behavior – when that boy is dating their daughter?

How easy is it to enter into moral judgment about the way your boss handle’s the company’s money – when it threatens to put your job in jeopardy?

How easy is it to enter into moral judgment about a neighbor who you find out is fudging on their taxes – when they are running for office in the state legislature?

All moral judgment is rooted in fear. For some of us, it’s distressing to even think that might be the case, because it’s our moral judgments that we count on to keep us safe! This, of course, is what the Biblical story is getting at when it says that the old humanity chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil over the tree of life. We chose, and we keep on choosing, to address our neediness and vulnerability ourselves, out of our own strength (this is why we feel so strong! when we are exercising our moral judgment), instead of letting our needs and vulnerability drive us to God for him to address our needs out of his love (this is why we feel so weak and vulnerable when we think about withholding judgment and asking God for help).

One last thing about moral judgment and fear, and then we’ll get back to the text. The fear that all moral judgment is rooted in has two faces. A “good” face and a shadow face. “Good” fears are the fears that are concerned with the good of the world around us, for the sake of the many. “Good” fear is wearing an altruistic disguise, and we feel more objective when we think about it (examples…boy, boss, neighbor). The shadow fear is the one we try to hide, but is the one that has the strongest grip on us, and about which we are least able to be objective and reasonable until we can acknowledge it’s presence (examples…boy, boss, neighbor).

All that to say, when the teachers of the law condemn jesus for forgiving sins and eating with sinners, it’s a pretty sure bet that they perceived Jesus forgiving sins and eating with sinners as a threat. All of their moral judgments are rooted in fear, in the same way that ours are.

What’s their fear?

“Good” fear – Israel will remain in exile as long as it remains out of God’s favor because of the presence (and tolerance by Israel’s leaders) of sinners. Jesus welcoming these sinners, and forgiving their sins, would only encourage them to more sin, since sin is fundamentally attractive and exile is the only thing to motivate them to stop sinning.

Shadow fear – Teachers of the law’s power and privilege comes from being the arbiters of right and wrong, who’s in and who’s out. Jesus welcoming these sinners, and forgiving their sins undercuts their power and could lead to the loss of their privilege, rendering them obsolete.

The irony is that their shadow fear is “true” so far as it goes (which isn’t far enough, of course, as is the case with all fear) but their “good” fear is false. Jesus is a threat to their power and privilege; but that’s not a bad thing, since God’s life doesn’t come from power and privilege. Jesus’ forgiving sin and eating with sinners is not a threat to God’s favor delivering Israel; on the contrary, it’s a sign that it’s already happening.

Here’s the thing about fear. We experience it either as actual, naked fear (which can be very helpful to us, actually) or as fear in the disguise of anger / disgust. One makes us feel weak and small, the other lets us feel big and strong.

And when it masquerades as anger and/or disgust, we feel bothered. Something is not as it should be, we think. We either need to marshal our energy and resources to stop the threat (that’s what anger is for), or we need to at least keep the source of that threat as far away from us as possible (that’s how disgust functions).

And remember the role of moral judgment in the sinful world of the old humanity: it’s what we do when we become so uncomfortable with our vulnerability that we decide we need to address our fears ourselves.

We either say to the source of the perceived threat, out of our fear,

you shouldn’t do that!

Or we say,

you disgust me!

Or we turn to God in a twisted way, saying,

you should stop this, because it’s wrong! Or disgusting!

Or we try to use God to stop the thing, saying to the wrongdoer,

you should stop this because God will punish you for doing evil!

or you should stop this because God is disgusted with you!

And of course what we almost never do is simply feel afraid,

recognize our discomfort with our vulnerability,

and in child-like faith bring our fears to God.

So it sure seems that’s what’s happening in this passage. The Teachers of the law – just like us, whenever we enter into moral judgment – are afraid but probably unaware of their fears. They feel bothered.

What’s Jesus’ response?

⁸Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

First, Jesus is trying to expose their shadow fears. The fears that lurk in the dark and enslave them to their moral judgments, keeping them from bringing their fears to God like children bring their needs to parents. The fear that Jesus is a threat to their power. Because only if that fear is brought into the light will they have the opportunity to recognize it and bring it to Jesus for him to address.

So Jesus says the bit about which thing is easier, forgiving sins or healing this man’s paralysis. And then, as we see, instructs the man to get up, pick up his mat and walk, and for heaven’s sake, he actually does.

If the teachers of the law were imagining that their moral judgment was all about the good of others and wanting to make sure God was honored, then they are going to have to applaud what Jesus has just done, aren’t they? It would take a special brand of insanity to stand in moral judgment against this man being healed. Which is why the text talks about everyone being amazed and praising God; what Jesus has done can no longer be perceived as a threat to the general good. It’s only a threat to the power of the teachers of the law – and an even bigger threat than they might have previously imagined. Seriously, paralyzed people are walking now? Oh snap. They should feel afraid for their power. Very afraid.

What a beautiful way to bring the teachers of the law face to face with their shadow fears.

But Jesus also addresses their “good” fear in a profound way, when he says the son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

Remember, their “good” fear is that Jesus forgiving sins will keep God from acting powerfully to deliver Israel. Which is why Jesus talks about himself as “The Son of Man.”

Jesus is referencing a prophecy the teacher of the law would have been very familiar with from their Holy Scriptures. It’s from Daniel, chapter 7 (Daniel was the guy in the lion’s den, made famous by Sunday School stories). Daniel, living in exile under Babylonian rule, prophecies about God giving someone called “the Son of Man” power and authority to defeat all of Israel’s enemies, set Israel free from oppression, and establish God’s kingdom on earth. When Jesus calls himself the Son of Man and proves it by exercising God’s power to deliver this paralyzed man – representing Israel under oppression – he’s demonstrating that God is right now, through him, through Jesus, doing exactly what the Teachers of the Law are afraid God might not do because of Jesus forgiving sins. In other words, Jesus forgiving sins and hanging out with sinners is exactly the way to accomplish everything the teachers of the law claim that they want to see happen in the world.

A small but important note before we conclude. When Jesus says he forgives sins, the word the writer of Mark chooses to describe it, the Greek word that is translated “forgive” is aphiemi. Aphiemi means, literally, to send away. It doesn’t mean Jesus says your sins don’t matter, or aren’t a big deal, or anything like that. It means Jesus sends sins away. Kicks them out. Throws them in the trash.

We imagine our sins are sticky, that they’ve made us dirty, that we’ve been corrupted and made irreparably impure by them. But Jesus sends them away. Like he separates them out from us like a world-class surgeon removing a tumor and disposes of them. As far as the east is from the west, the psalmist prophecies, so far has he separated our sins from us.

Remember earlier, how Jesus dealt with the demonized man? He kicked the demon out, sent it away, leaving the man whole and free. Remember Simon’s mother-in-law with the fever? The bible says that the fever “left her” when Jesus healed her. Remember the leper whom Jesus cleansed of leprosy. It says his leprosy “left him.”

Jesus treats our sin like he treats every other aspect of our broken humanity. It doesn’t keep him from coming close to us. He doesn’t stand in judgment over us. He draws near, a friend of sinners (that’s what they called him; they meant it as an insult, but for Jesus it was a title of honor), and with his exousia (remember that word translated “authority” that really means the liberty to do what really pleases him?) it pleases Jesus, it gives him joy, it delights him to send away everything that’s keeping us from a full share in God’s life. And now all we’ve got to do is come to him in child-like faith with our needs and fears for him to address.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Put some notches on your judgment belt. We tend to wear our judgments with pride, don’t we? Keep track of each moral judgment you notice yourself making in a single day. Towards others. And yourself. Just a hash mark on a score-card would do the trick, but if you really want it to sink in, use a leather belt that doesn’t fit any more and put a mark on it. At the end of the day, notice how much pride went into that belt. And think about what you use that belt for. Is it to beat others? To beat yourself? Or is it to keep your pants from falling down and leaving you naked before God and the world, so that you don’t feel vulnerable? Let Jesus talk to you about that belt and do with it whatever he suggests to you.

2. Look under the bed (on which your judgments rest). There is always a fear there, hiding out like a monster in the shadows. Somewhere down there, lurking. Even if your judgments are “right.” That’s irrelevant. Find that fear. Ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to see it. When you find it, let go of your judgment and bring it to Jesus to address. Maybe he’s downstairs watching TV, or reading a good book. No matter, bring that fear to him; he’ll come up to your room and turn on the lights and deal with that fear personally so you can have peace and the rest for your soul that judgment has never truly brought you.

New Humanity // Sinners

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 10/12/2014

New Humanity theme…(recap via whiteboard)

2 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ²They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

¹⁷On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

First things first: Mark 2 starts with a profound picture of child-like faith in action. A group of friends helping a paralyzed man bring his needs to Jesus for Jesus to address, none of them particularly concerned with propriety.

This is what the New Humanity is all about. Vulnerable, needy people bringing their needs to God in child-like faith and trusting God for whatever happens next. Not wrapped up in concerns about strength and appearances and right and wrong and justifying themselves. Trusting God will address their needs however he sees fit. Ready to follow his instructions, whatever they might be.

How easy would it be to critique their actions from tree of knowledge of good and evil perspective? They’re cutting in line – everyone else had to get up early to get good spots, and these guys just push right through. And what’s the rush, anyway? The guy’s been paralyzed his whole life for all we know, and it’s not like everyone else doesn’t have important, pressing needs, too. They destroy property; roofs aren’t cheap to replace, you know? They interrupt Jesus’ teaching, which is rude and inconsiderate, disrespectful to everyone around, not least of all Jesus himself.

They seem single-minded, though, in getting their friend to Jesus. He needs Jesus, and they are going to do whatever they can to bring him to them, seemingly confident that they’ll be received with favor by Jesus despite the potential reactions of everyone else around. It’s worth a shot – what have they got to lose? Which is so child-like, isn’t it? The tree of knowledge of good and evil be damned; all they can see is that the tree of life is so close!

What’s Jesus response? Jesus receives them like a loving parent would receive a beloved child – even calls the man “Son.” Jesus just seems delighted to see their child-like faith.

He starts by forgiving the man’s sins, whatever that means. No doubt it’s a big deal, given the controversy it sparks. And then Jesus heals him, which is universally acknowledged as cool and amazes everyone.

Since “sin” plays such a prominent role in the drama of this part of the story, and later on, with Levi and all the sinners Jesus is eating and drinking with, let’s begin there. What does sin mean? How is sin understood by us, usually, and the characters in this story? How is it understood by Jesus? How does the New Humanity approach questions of sin and its counterpart, righteousness?

Then we can dive into the more significant application for us: what do these stories tell us about Jesus and the New Humanity he’s inviting us to be part of? What do they tell us about the old humanity he’s inviting us to leave behind? What do they tell us about ourselves?

When we think of sin, we usually think of it in terms of some kind of moral transgression, some kind of objectively wrong behavior or action. Sort of like breaking the law, except that the law we’re breaking has deeper roots than a code of ethics or governmental legislation. We think of sin as violating some kind of fundamental morality.

Research in the field of moral psychology suggest we have a variety of warrants we appeal to when we make moral judgments. Warrants such as harm/care, or justice/fairness, or authority, loyalty, or purity, for example. When a behavior or action violates one of these warrants, we say that it’s a wrong behavior or action.

We tend to think of sin the same way, with the slight tweak that it’s not our moral warrants we are talking about, but God’s. Which adds some intensity, some punch to it, doesn’t it? (7 deadly sins, Sin City, sin/guilt/punishment web of associations)

The Greek word from which we get the translation “sin” here, and the root of the word translated “sinner” later, is hamartia. It’s a word that is used for something like what we usually mean when we say sin – i.e., some kind of moral transgression, some kind of wrong action. But its primary meaning is a little different.

The first meaning of the Greek word hamartia is to be without share in. And its secondary meaning is related, to miss the mark. It’s not until you dive into the 4^th and 5^th layers of meaning down that you find concepts of morality and wrongdoing.

Which makes powerful sense in these stories here, doesn’t it? The paralytic man is without a share in much of life, isn’t he? He can’t participate in so many things because of his paralysis. And when Jesus forgives and heals him, he’s got a full share again.

Same with Levi. As a tax collector for Rome and Herod, the corrupt king in Israel, he’s considered a traitor to his own people. He’s got no share in their life together. He’s not allowed in the temple or the company of any Israelites in good standing in their community. But when Jesus calls him to be his follower, he’s got a full share in God’s kingdom again.

Why, then, is hamartia translated “sin” in our Bibles? It’s not that the translation is poor; it’s that our understanding of sin is poor. Like with so many things in the old humanity, we look at everything through the lens of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that’s rarely helpful to us.

In the Biblical story, sin is all about losing our share of God’s life, our missing the mark. It starts with a form of distorted seeing that eventually becomes a blindness that enslaves us to darkness. We look at our vulnerability and needs and see them not as blessing that connects us to God, our source of life, but as curse, problems that need a solution. And so we try to become what we imagine gods are – without needs or vulnerability – so that in our strength we can meet our own needs and protect ourselves from all that might harm us. We abandon the tree of life and eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

All sin, in all its various forms, comes down to the same thing. Abandoning child-like faith in God in favor of ______________. Fill in the blank. All of that is sin. We’re bathed in sin. We live in sin. (Whether we’re “shacking up” or not.)

Heck, we might even do “good” things in our sinfulness. “Good” things that aren’t rooted in the peace and humility that comes from having child-like faith in God, “good” things that give us no share in God’s life. And heaven knows, we do more than our fair share of “bad” things, too.

Anything that comes from abandoning child-like faith in God is sin. It separates us from our share in God’s life. That’s all sin is, when you get right down to it. Here’s what I’m providing for you, God tells Adam and Eve. Enjoy! Just don’t go try to provide for yourself instead – that will just lead to death.

(That’s what the prodigal son story is all about, if you’re familiar with that. The son takes his share, leaves his dad, goes off on his own, the inheritance runs out, and he’s got nothing.)

So to be a sinner, in actuality, is to be in the posture of dependence on one’s self (and others who are not God, for that matter). And to be righteous, in all actuality, is just to be in a posture of child-like faith in God.

To be righteous, to be in a posture of child-like faith in God, is to have a share in life. To be a sinner, to be in a posture of dependence on one’s self and others who are not God, is to be without a share. To eat from the tree of life is hit the mark. To eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is to miss the mark.

When Jesus says the healthy don’t need a doctor, but the sick, he’s saying that the people in desperate need of a doctor are those who are dying because they’ve gotten sick from not having a share in God’s life. When he says he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, he’s saying he didn’t come to call people who already had a full share in God’s life, but rather he came to call those enslaved in the darkness of sin to follow him and learn child-like faith in God again.

Which brings us to the teachers of the Law, the religious leaders in Israel. These teachers of the Law saw themselves as righteous. Not righteous in the sense of having a child-like faith in God. But righteous as they defined it, based on their understanding of good and evil. Which in this darkened world tends to be something you’ve got to be very grown up, indeed, to be. It’s something that takes a lot of work and expertise and effort and strength.

Righteousness, as understood by those who’ve eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, means that one does only good, and doesn’t do what is bad. To be the most righteous, in that system, in fact, is to be the ones who are in charge of determining what qualifies as righteous. The grown-ups, in other words.

The challenge for the teachers of the law, of course, is that they think they have a full share in God’s life. They think because of the “goodness” of their life, they are righteous. Meanwhile, their lives are as empty as any other sinner, maybe even moreso. They are judgmental, bitter, fearful, anxious. And worst of all, they ARE completely unaware that they might be missing out on the real life God has for them, if they’d just bring their needs to Jesus like children.

In contrast, the “sinners” in this story, the paralytic and his friends, Levi the tax collector and his friends, were demonstrating in their response to Jesus a trust in him. Which is of course how child-like faith in God begins. It wasn’t like all of their actions were “good” now, at least not in terms of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But their actions were leading them to bring their needs to Jesus, and that’s faith according to Jesus, and that’s what restores their share in God’s life. That’s where true goodness begins – a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees.

[you may remember the Bible describing God telling Abram that he was going to have all kinds of descendants, even though he was old, impotent, and childless. And Abram believed him, which, the Bible says, “God credited to him as righteousness.”]

Which helps us begin to understand why the teachers of the law get upset when Jesus forgives the sins of the paralyzed man and eats with Levi and his friends. They are just deeply confused. The old humanity doesn’t see issues of sin and righteousness through the same clear eyes that the new humanity does. The old humanity’s eyes are full of cataracts from eating so much fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

There’s more to the blindness of the Teachers of the Law have than that. There’s a reason Jesus is so enthusiastic to forgive sins and hang out with the sinners, and there’s a reason the teachers of the law are so opposed to him doing that. And the reason has to do with the fact that all human moral judgments of others are rooted in fear, and all exercises of exousia are rooted in love (Exousia is the word translated “authority” here, when Jesus says “the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins”). But we’re going to save that part of the story for next week, because it is, to use an old fashioned word, a doozy.

For now, simply consider this. What are the implications of Jesus’ perspective on sin and righteousness for your life?

For example, has the thought of your own mistakes and errors and bad decisions and addictions and hurtful actions towards others and shameful secrets – your sin – kept you from coming to God with help for your life like a beloved child comes to a gracious and generous parent? Does all of that just seem like an insurmountable barrier between you and God? Do you imagine that when God looks at you, all he sees is the garbage that’s accumulated because of that?

What if that’s just all a distorted perspective? What if when God looks at you, what he sees is a child who’s tried to play grown-up for too long, and it’s destroying you and everyone around you, and all he’s longing for is for you to trust him that you can repent – you can stop playing grown-up, see that you are needy and vulnerable like a child. Maybe even moreso now because of all your mistakes. A snotty, puffed-eyed from the tears, dirty-fingered, muddy-booted child. A child whom he loves and will forgive and heal, even if the only way you can get to him is to interrupt him by having your friends dig through his roof.

Jesus is the light of the world. He wants you to see you as you really are. Not as you see yourself through the distorted lenses of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And he wants you to see him – God himself inhabiting needy and vulnerable human flesh – as he is. Ready to welcome you in his home. Ready to forgive you. Heal you. Be your doctor. Eat with you in your home, with your friends. Invite you to join him on his saving the world adventure. Be your rescuer and teacher.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Start with Your Sin, Finish with Your Need. Identify a place where you’ve missed the mark most in your life, or a “sin” you struggle with most often. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see in what way you are trying to address a need you have on your own or by winning the favor or fear or respect of others. Take that need to Jesus in prayer every day this week. Very simply, like this: Jesus, I feel the need for ______________. I’m going to keep asking you to address it and waiting for your answer until you do. In the meantime, is there anything you want me to do? Then see what happens.

2. Stop Being Satisfied (with your level of righteousness). Perhaps your faith journey has stagnated because you’ve understood righteousness like the teachers of the law. You’ve gotten decent enough at doing the right things and avoiding the wrong things and most of your faith energy is spent advocating for others to do the right things and avoid the wrong things. That’s what you think about when you think about being a Jesus follower. Forget that! Think about your needs. All of them, practical ones, relational ones, deep ones having to do with significance and purpose and identity. Are you trying to take care of them yourself or by staying in the good graces of others (or even God!), or are you bringing them, day after day, to Jesus for him to address? That’s where true righteousness lies. That’s where the tree of life is!