Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
The Mel Gibson movie about Jesus is on DVD and video now and many
people are seeing what the last 24 hours of Jesus life might have been
like – except, as we let you know several months ago, Gibson has mixed
up some parts of the Bible with some visions of a 19th
century nun who was fixated on the gory details of suffering and
dying, so what you will see in the movie is not entirely biblical and
true to scripture.
But the most important weakness of the Gibson film is that it only
tells about the last day of Jesus earthly life, and if you do not know
about the rest of his ministry – as most people do not, even church
people – you will wonder, as Catholic scholar Dominick Crossan says,
why this good man is being treated this way, especially by religious
leaders!
It is so important to know more about what Jesus did and taught and
what he stands for than just about how he died – unless, you believe
what one radio preacher said right after the Gibson movie came out –
that the only important thing about Jesus of Nazareth is that he died.
That is a horrible distortion of the Bible story and will cheat people
of identifying with Jesus and following Jesus, which is our goal here
at St Andrew Church.
We have been looking together at change the past month and how we
deal with change and when we need to change and where our real
security is when the painful changes of life are thrust upon us. Today
we are talking about how it is when you are the one who is causing
some change, when you are the initiator of change in your workplace or
family or friendship circles or church life. Sometimes you are the one
who is called to begin some changes and to move persons from the way
we have always done things. Here is what I want us to remember.
First, that Jesus of Nazareth was a radical instigator of change.
He was calling people to a new way of relating to God and neighbor and
a new way of being spiritual people. He was disturbing and upsetting
the status quo. And what he did was dangerous and threatening to the
people who wanted to keep things the same.
In this passage from Mark we have just heard, the spiritual leaders
are surprised by the healing he has done and they say something
interesting: what is this – some kind of new teaching? He is healing
people right and left, he is attracting people because of his
authentic faith and leadership and his authority that comes from
spending time with God in prayer – that confidence is available to us
as well. And the bureaucrats are surprised and upset.
In fact, they become more and more upset so that just a few verses
later, when Jesus breaks another of their petty rules, they begin to
plot to kill him.
Jesus was asking people to change and to return to the center of
their faith – to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and
strength and to love others in the same way they loved themselves.
This was not new actually. Where did those words come from? They came
from his Bible, the Old Testament, from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But
they had become lost in all the rules and regulations that had been
piled on top of them about what you could eat and how to wash your
hands and how far you could walk on the Sabbath and who was clean and
unclean. Jesus is actually trying to get them back to the basics of
faith and in that sense he was a conservative – trying to conserve and
return to the core practices of Judaism.
But because they had lost those basic practices they were
threatened and disturbed by his leadership. So how was his teaching
and his example received during his ministry? This is why there is
concern over the Gibson movie. He began to be very popular and attract
crowds and the legalists saw that and saw that his movement was
gaining strength and that they were beginning to lose influence. And
then he had all these critical things to say about how they had lost
their call and their mission and they were hurting people and they
were phonies and hypocrites.
Jesus was out to change their lives and their practices and their
hearts – he is doing that with us also. How did they respond? Some
of them signed up and began to learn from him and be changed by him –
that word again.
But others were turned off. Others were scared off. One man came
to Jesus because he had heard about him and was curious. He was very
affluent but did not seem to be happy because he was still searching
for something. He asked Jesus how to live a really full and meaningful
and satisfying life. Jesus looked at him with love and also saw that
he wasn’t really serious because what he really worshiped in life was
his stuff, his affluence.
So Jesus asks something that he never asks of anyone else: Go and
sell what you have and give it to people who really need it and then
you will be free to come and follow me. The man could not do that
because his wealth was his god and so he went away.
Jesus asked him for a change in his loyalty and Jesus was willing
to let him go if the man could not make that change. He didn’t run
after him and offer a watered down compromise. He knew that some
people could not adopt the change of heart he was asking them.
There are lessons for us when we are the instigators of change.
Jesus kept his mission and goal in mind – to bring people into a
closer relationship with God and neighbor, to move people beyond the
false gods we think will give us hope and meaning. We need to keep our
mission and our call in mind and not be deterred from that.
When we began to talk about relocating to a new building and being
able to reach more people and do what Andrew did – invite other people
to come and take a look at Christ for themselves, we did not do that
because Bigger is Better. We did not do that because we don’t
like the beautiful setting of this building. We did that because we
believe our call and mission is to invite as many people as possible
into a life of faith and Christian discipleship and because this
facility has become inadequate to do that. We did it because of our
mission and purpose and with a clear sense of what business we are in.
There will be changes required in your life, in your family, in your
work because being faithful to your purpose means some new directions
and behaviors. This can be true in a marriage when a partner has
become dependent on alcohol or drugs or has become a workaholic and
the other spouse needs to be a catalyst for change and to remind them
both of their call and mission as a couple and as a family. You may be
the catalyst for change in your family. What can you expect when you
do that?
Here is the second lesson: Jesus knew he would encounter
resistance and hostility and he was not deterred by that. Any
instigator of change will know that resistance and hostility come with
the territory and will not be deterred by that. In the profound film
“Remember the Titans” Denzel Washington’s character takes over a
formerly all white high school football team in the 1960’s and not
only integrates it but takes over the position held formerly by a
white coach. He encounters much hate and resistance but he is ready to
be a change agent and keeps his eye on his call and mission and most
people come along.
That’s the third thing we can learn from Jesus. Most people will
come along if we as leaders are able to articulate the call and the
vision and the mission God is putting before us – but not everybody
will be able to make the change. And the mistake we sometimes make is
that we think we are not successful unless everyone gets on board.
Jesus knew that everybody would not understand him or be able to
follow him and he was willing, as in the case we mentioned, to let
some people walk away. This can sound harsh and insensitive but it is
just acknowledging a reality.
One theory of change says that leaders make a mistake if they
forget the vision and direction and mission and focus on the small
group of people who will never be able to change. Dave Ellison of our
congregation told years ago as we were considering how to answer God’s
call that in any large organization when a major change is happening
and the leaders articulate the need and reason for that new direction,
one third of the people will see that need and vision and begin to
change, one third will be neutral, one third will be very opposed. If
the leaders listen to all the feedback and keep pointing in the
direction they feel called toward, the middle third will come along,
and most of the last third will come along finally. But some people
will never be able to make the change and the leaders just need to
bless those folks and let them go the way they feel called and say
that the door and the group are always open if they later change their
minds.
That is what Jesus does.
And Jesus keeps asking us to change, and keeps on being an agent of
change today. On the last night of his earthly life Jesus was in the
Upper Room with his friends and they were celebrating the Passover and
Jesus completely changed the meaning of the Passover meal
into a remembrance meal of him: when you eat together and drink
together remember ME and the new relationship with God that I am
giving you.
Five months ago, we had in Colorado, a very important discussion in
the newspapers about communion and what it means to come to this table
and if we all have to have the same political opinions to come here
and all vote the same way. One church leader was saying that, that if
you don’t fully agree with all the teachings of that church and vote
for the proper candidates that you cannot come to communion. Our
church spent money to say that all Christians are welcome at Christ’s
table and that we will bring different opinions here but that we are
one in Christ – that is where our unity is.
But there was a very important statement from the assistant to the
Colorado Springs bishop that was very correct and one we all need to
learn from. He said that when people come to the table, we have to be
willing to order our lives after Christ’s example – we can’t just do
whatever we want during each week and then think God will not expect
us to change or repent or start a new direction. The invitation we
use for communion says that: all who intend to lead a new life
following the example of Christ are welcome here. You are invited.
You are welcome. And…if you come here to be fed and nourished and
strengthened and forgiven, you will also be changed. That is the
invitation to you today and every day.
