Christianity is not for those without a sense of adventure.
There are people who would like to believe that Christianity offers blueprints to predictable lives. If we behave in specific ways and keep our heads down, we can know, with certainty, precisely what our rewards will be. We can know, for sure, where it is we’ll end up. Streets of gold and choirs of angels fill our heads; we fall into believing that it all is imminent.
Christianity isn’t the first religion to prompt such hopes. To some degree, believers have always sought a soft place to fall. They’ve craved the exchange of deeds done for rewards reaped.
We name what’s around the bend heaven; we call it the kingdom on earth. We think that the eschaton, the end times, the so called “judgment day,” will bring it about.
Jesus warned that we’d know neither the time nor the place; his return would come like a “thief in the night.” This cautionary note is one that many have chosen to disregard, so his return has been predicted on particular dates: two in the eighteen forties; one in the seventeenth century; scores more dates proclaimed. May 21, 2011 now makes the list.
Yet those who have marked their calendars have wound up disappointed. They have discovered what our readings this week remind us: what Christ initiated was unique and remains uncharted. It is not for the faint of heart.
Acts relates the story of the martyrdom of Stephen. The early Christian was a paragon of the religion’s virtues. Had careful practice been a guarantee of lived reward, he may have expected greater fortunes than he experienced. Instead, he delivered word of God’s grandeur to a crowd, and found them so unready to hear the message that they stoned him (Acts 7:58).
The story is not meant to be read morbidly, or as a warning. We are not meant to reject Stephen’s deeds, or see them as misplaced. What Stephen’s story teaches us is that expectations are easily disappointed.
1 Peter also focuses on the precipitous nature of hasty expectations. In its case, Jesus is the figure who defies expectations—“the stone which the builders rejected became the cornerstone,” the letter says. The letter interprets the crucifixion as the world’s rejection of Jesus, but says that, despite them, he is most precious in God’s eyes (1 Peter 2:4).
Jesus’s story becomes one of reversals: messianic expectations are not met, yet he calls himself the messiah; those not popularly valued become, through him, most beloved in God’s eyes (1 Peter 2:10).
The gospel reading rounds out the mystery of these stories, when Christ informs the disciples that the path to the kingdom is not one he can chart for them. He can only tell them that he is the way; he cannot draw them a map. They seem to want one: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" they ask. (John 14:5)
His assurance is that we don’t need to anticipate the destination if we understand that he’s pointed us in the right direction. No maps or road signs; we don’t know when we’ll get there or what the destination is like. What we do know is that Jesus’ precepts are a step. Trusting in his word will prove more beneficial than an exhaustive account of the hows, and the wheres.
Assurances that Jesus will return on specific dates—May 21, 2011—should strike us as suspicious. They package the destination in a glossy, mystery-free manner; they suggest that the conclusion of the story, the end to which Christ is the way, is at hand. But they also forget the enigmatic nature of the scriptures.
They minimize the importance of Jesus as the way; they consider, primarily, end rewards.
Christians opt to begin down a path that presumes little about the destination, beyond that it will surprise. They throw maps out the window; they accept that they need only be guided by Jesus’ imperatives, which center around love. The journey, beyond that, is an adventure without burdens; it’s one that we can trust in and relish. We cannot anticipate the intricacies of the end; yet that’s the beauty, and not the burden, of God’s gifts.
photo credit here
No comments:
Post a Comment