Wednesday, 18 February 2009

• Hard Act to Follow

  I’m starting part two with the title, “Hard Act to Follow” for two reasons, first, as Homefire pointed out (it always takes me a full minute to submit to using your pen name sister, but that’s another story)… part one was pretty muddled.

   

  More significantly though, Yeshua is a hard act to follow.  Yesterday as I presented this topic to my Dad, I was compelled to ask, “What was the hardest teaching Yeshua ever taught?”

   

  Dad was like, “Well, it’s really hard to forsake everything and follow only him.”

   

  “Why specifically?”

   

  I hope you’ll take a moment and ponder the hard teachings of Yeshua and come up with your own private “hard act to follow.”  If it turns out that your answer is different than mine I’d like to know what it is.

   

  As a kid it was the hard black shoes I had to wear on Sundays.  Some of the other kids didn’t have to wear those shoes to church and I wanted to be like them.  Jesus seemed to be telling our parents that we were to take the high road, and that consisted in hard black shoes.  Did I mention the suspenders?  Mennonites wore suspenders, Mom picked them up at Mary Weber’s store with the shoes, but none of the other kids in our church wore them.  God bless Mom and Dad, we were going to be the holiest kids in the country, keeping the best traditions of both our church and those of our Mennonite neighbors.

   

  Jesus was a hard act to follow.

   

  As a young adult it was the hard black hat and the ill fitting pants.  Jesus seemed to be asking to much of us.  But there was always hell to think about, and that was heralded to be many times worse than the wardrobes we had to endure during our brief sojourn among the contemporary heathen.

   

  Jesus was merciful though, he gave us the option of Sugar Grove, Washington, or California.  Then came the committees.  After that the earnest pleas.

   

  Jesus was putting the smack down.

   

  “You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matthew 5:38-48)

   

  When Yeshua states that our Father Yahweh in heaven “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,” and that “he sends rain on the just and on the unjust” I’m going to put to rest all my Old Estimates concerning annihilated Amalekites, and try to imagine the Yahweh that Yeshua is teaching us of.

   

  I guess the sun had risen on them all that day, I guess the rain had fallen on Israel and on Amalek.  Although I wonder if it’s not a mistake to assume that Israel is without sin and Amalek devoid of virtue. 

   

  And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, Yahweh is my banner, saying, "A hand upon the throne of Yahweh! Yahweh will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."  

  (Exodus 17:13-16)

   

  Yahweh has done to you as he spoke by me, for Yahweh has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. Because you did not obey the voice of Yahweh and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore Yahweh has done this thing to you this day. Moreover, Yahweh will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. Yahweh will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines."

  (1 Samuel 28:17-19)

   

  It seems there’s always a bitter row between people groups.  War and killing, hate and bleeding, haughty prejudice, stubborn rebellion against insurmountable odds… You’d think there would be loyalty within each group respectively, but there’s very little.  No matter how thin you slice it there’s always a row.  Between blood brothers, between identical twins…

   

  You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  That’s just first nature, common sense, basic knowledge, we can’t tolerate evil and THEY ARE EVIL.

   

  Then Yeshua says the strangest thing in light of all that, “Love your enemies.”

   

  “Like Yahweh does.”

   

  Really?  What about hell?  What about the wars of Israel?  What about the Holocaust?  And I know this is beyond trivial in light of all that, but what about the hard black hats and shoes?

   

  I have no idea how you reconcile all that, and while I’d love to know, my perception of the issue doesn’t rely on yours.  Your perception of the issues don’t depend on mine.  It’s obvious that the scriptures were written from an Israeli bias.  Maybe that’s why Yeshua said: You’ve heard it taught this way, I’m teaching it completely different.  Love your enemies.

   

  I’ve become fairly confident that the wardrobe my dear parents thought was “Yahweh’s Holiness” was “wholly fabricated.”  Perhaps Moses’ bias was a little skewed.  Perhaps Yahweh allowed that.  Perhaps Yeshua’s teaching was more accurate than Moses’.

   

  Perhaps.

   

  I don’t know.  If you want to know beyond a shadow of doubt ask a reformed evangelical.  They insist on absolute knowledge.  Myself, I’m a liar.  Everything I say is in some sense a lie.  At the same time I hope that some things I say happen to be “true.”  “Let God be found true, but every man a liar.”        

   

  Presently the hardest act of Yeshua that I try to follow is in loving my enemies.

   

  I also believe it is the crux, crucial, essential, or deciding point of his teaching.

   

  The cross. 

   

  Then Yeshua told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?

  (Matthew 16:24-26)

   

  Each of us who have ever said or written anything about Christ wants to say or write something of our opinion about what the “cross” means in Yeshua’s call to follow his act.  Some say it’s the plain lifestyle, others say it’s various forms of abstinence, maybe a crusade or a prohibition, I suppose that every pet peeve at one point or another has been compared to Yeshua’s “cross.”

   

  So here we go again… I think it’s the act of loving one’s enemies.  I think that’s the toughest act to follow.  I think that’s the cross of Messiah Yeshua.

   

  The stories that touch me the deepest are those stories where someone overcame the overwhelming impulse to destroy their enemies; from the story of Yeshua to Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean in Les Misarables, or Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Or the story of Hassan in Khaled Hasseini’s “the Kite Runner.”

   

  The way a teacher responds to his enemies directly affects the amount of weight I apply to his teachings.  And that goes for John Calvin and Martin Luther as well.

   

  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

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