RUNNING AWAY FROM ADVENTURE
Many people just as the sociologist Dr K. Busia complained that the church has an inward orientation, it is awfully dull and of an upper class; as Busia notes in his book ‘Urban churches in Britain’. Because the church in Britain is established by law, it isn’t endearing to a young man full of reforming zeal, radical ideas, and a disposition to react against all that is old, conventional and dull. The church going is occasional by the older generation showing the Englishman’s unwillingness to be extreme in any respect, as in the years up to the Second World War it was deemed socially improper not to go to church at all; but equally surprising and quaint if one went too often. They go to church but it makes no difference in their lives. It is therefore not surprising for the younger generation to see their churchgoing hypocritical. Since many who go to church do it because ‘it’s good for you’ and others to stock up capital in the bank of heaven and the old to be on the good side of God before they die’.This terrible indictment of the church has tamed Jesus, fossilised him, and imprisoned him inside conventional churches and institutional religion. This is not the spirit Jesus intended to instil in his followers; not to give the impression of a gentle orthodox figure with bourgeois values, less defensive and somewhat conservative. Some of the hymns we sing in churches are not challenging to attract teenagers too. The presentation of the church with emphasis on duty, conformity, accepted patterns of behaviour and speech, being silent while the clergyman preaches and prays, etc is on the death urge while the younger generation looks forth to life urge. This is what makes them think Christianity is dull, boring and useless.Jesus was adventurous as any radical in his teaching and in his attitudes to life though he too was gentle, meek and mild. Jesus assaulted priests who kept the people ‘a little civilized by religion’; a religion which was the opiate of the people. In his day the official religion was on the side of politics and economic conservatism. Not to let go traditions, and not to annoy the Roman forces. Jesus was penniless and was content to be so. He had revolutionary attitude towards wealth; warned men not to lay up ephemeral treasure on earth, but rich towards God, rich in love, in faith, in mercy and prayer. He told men it was happier to give than to take. The rabbi were convinced the Jews were superior to all others, and Pharisees to all Jews, then the Jewish men to all women. This was Judaism, just like Hinduism. Jesus had no time for formalism and hypocrisy, for washing ceremoniously before dinner or wearing special clothes to eat it; he was a radical to his fingertips.The first century Judaism had domesticated God to being merely the God of Israel. He was God of the whole earth in theory. Jesus showed that the devil has had a grip of Israel the chosen people just as the Gentile world. That God was gracious, so loving and merciful and longing to accept all as adopted children. Jesus asserted the value of man and acted on it by helping the poor, the underprivileged, the diseased, etc showing that mankind was made by God, loved by God and sustained by God. Jesus was strongly against the tendency of glorifying man to almost deifying man; something which entered Judaism from the Greek world. The achievements of mankind in the technical sphere has blinded us to the truth taught by Jesus, that evil deeds have their root in the human heart, that the troubles in the world proceed from human nature.Just like Mohammed, Confucius or Buddha has only made claims that they are prophets but Jesus Christ is different. He says ‘No one knows the son but the father, and no one knows the father but the son and those to whom the son may choose to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). The claim is similar to that in John 10:1,9. He was son of God in a different sense from other men who were God’s creation. He called God Abba which in Aramaic is Daddy as used by a child. He never referred to God as ‘Our Father’ as he aligned himself with the disciples but referred to ‘My God and your God, My Father and your Father’. Abba was the heart of the good news he had come to bring. Jesus laid claims to nothing less than sharing God’s essential and eternal nature as we find in John 10:28-30;14:9;1:1;8:58; Heb1:2;Exodus 3:14. Jesus told the Jews that God had committed all judgement to the son (John 5:27). He called to the hearers not to return to God but to him who is the way (matt 11:28; John 14:6; Mark 1:17) not like the Buddha who says this is the way. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness here and now on his authority (mark 2:5). He is the centre of his message, and he alone can bring men to God; because he alone brings God to men.Jesus’ claims were made before the most hostile audience imaginable; where monotheistic were they. He claimed nothing less than deity and got lots of men to believe it. All the earliest converts to Christianity who acknowledge that ‘Jesus is Lord’ were Jews. Jesus was a humble, modest man, a peasant teacher who sought no honour for himself. He liked the underprivilege, the poor and sick, friend of tax collectors and unsuspected of pride. Jesus’ claim played a two camp impact on the people. Either they responded to him with the love and devotion they would accord to God himself, or else they tried to kill him. No one said as many who’ve run away from evidence say ‘Jesus Christ was the best of men’. In trying to kill him they were escaping from the truth.On death Jesus made it clear that there were circumstances for which it was preferable to continue life on earth; but he said happy are those who were willing to be persecuted and killed for their testimony to him and the good news of the salvation he brought to men. Jesus made the difference in practically giving up his life at a youthful age in the prime of life. This is more adventurous and radical than his precept. Jesus knew in Jerusalem, he would be killed but he set his face towards it, embarking on a collision course with officialdom having only one outcome. Yet he continued teaching, healing and giving love being unconcerned about himself but for others. He said he would ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). So Jesus identifies himself with what they are, in order that they may share what he is. Jesus declared it was the destiny he had come to fulfil; gain our life through his death. He tasted God forsakenness proper to men who had deliberately forsaken God. He died that we might live; showing that what no man can do for us or for himself God has done for us.We think we live to wring the last drop of excitement out of life but Jesus Christ asserts that personal relationships must include God if they are to be lived to the full. Jesus lived a full, adventurous, supremely happy life which he surrendered on the cross, freely and vicariously for us. He forecasted that he would rise from the dead (mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34) and he did. This vindicates his claims to deity (Romans 1:4) and this shows that he was victorious in the battle for evil and having borne the worst that evil could do to him, had emerged alive to show that wickedness will not have a final word in God’s world. A Christian is therefore a man who has encountered the risen Christ and shares life with him. Jesus says he is with the Christians always, to the end of time; so they are not lonely. They are not disappointed because ‘we know that to those who love God,… everything that happens fits into a pattern for good’ (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 13:5). So the Christian is free to live life to the full, sharing his experiences with his maker, Redeemer and indweller.To follow Jesus is costly, demanding involvement, love, self-sacrifice, but it draws the best out of a man. Just like in the days of Jesus the most dynamic Christians these days are won from atheism or apathy; because Christianity is the faith for men who are prepared to swim against the stream. It requires the courage to give oneself to a costly, demanding Christian program. One has to live dangerously with Christ, instead of safe and sound with the rest. Many are convinced that Christianity is true but are not honest with themselves to act on what they believe. The opposition is tremendous and so the adventure is costly. But the faithful are encouraged daily through the number of conversions.
Many people just as the sociologist Dr K. Busia complained that the church has an inward orientation, it is awfully dull and of an upper class; as Busia notes in his book ‘Urban churches in Britain’. Because the church in Britain is established by law, it isn’t endearing to a young man full of reforming zeal, radical ideas, and a disposition to react against all that is old, conventional and dull. The church going is occasional by the older generation showing the Englishman’s unwillingness to be extreme in any respect, as in the years up to the Second World War it was deemed socially improper not to go to church at all; but equally surprising and quaint if one went too often. They go to church but it makes no difference in their lives. It is therefore not surprising for the younger generation to see their churchgoing hypocritical. Since many who go to church do it because ‘it’s good for you’ and others to stock up capital in the bank of heaven and the old to be on the good side of God before they die’.This terrible indictment of the church has tamed Jesus, fossilised him, and imprisoned him inside conventional churches and institutional religion. This is not the spirit Jesus intended to instil in his followers; not to give the impression of a gentle orthodox figure with bourgeois values, less defensive and somewhat conservative. Some of the hymns we sing in churches are not challenging to attract teenagers too. The presentation of the church with emphasis on duty, conformity, accepted patterns of behaviour and speech, being silent while the clergyman preaches and prays, etc is on the death urge while the younger generation looks forth to life urge. This is what makes them think Christianity is dull, boring and useless.Jesus was adventurous as any radical in his teaching and in his attitudes to life though he too was gentle, meek and mild. Jesus assaulted priests who kept the people ‘a little civilized by religion’; a religion which was the opiate of the people. In his day the official religion was on the side of politics and economic conservatism. Not to let go traditions, and not to annoy the Roman forces. Jesus was penniless and was content to be so. He had revolutionary attitude towards wealth; warned men not to lay up ephemeral treasure on earth, but rich towards God, rich in love, in faith, in mercy and prayer. He told men it was happier to give than to take. The rabbi were convinced the Jews were superior to all others, and Pharisees to all Jews, then the Jewish men to all women. This was Judaism, just like Hinduism. Jesus had no time for formalism and hypocrisy, for washing ceremoniously before dinner or wearing special clothes to eat it; he was a radical to his fingertips.The first century Judaism had domesticated God to being merely the God of Israel. He was God of the whole earth in theory. Jesus showed that the devil has had a grip of Israel the chosen people just as the Gentile world. That God was gracious, so loving and merciful and longing to accept all as adopted children. Jesus asserted the value of man and acted on it by helping the poor, the underprivileged, the diseased, etc showing that mankind was made by God, loved by God and sustained by God. Jesus was strongly against the tendency of glorifying man to almost deifying man; something which entered Judaism from the Greek world. The achievements of mankind in the technical sphere has blinded us to the truth taught by Jesus, that evil deeds have their root in the human heart, that the troubles in the world proceed from human nature.Just like Mohammed, Confucius or Buddha has only made claims that they are prophets but Jesus Christ is different. He says ‘No one knows the son but the father, and no one knows the father but the son and those to whom the son may choose to reveal him (Matthew 11:27). The claim is similar to that in John 10:1,9. He was son of God in a different sense from other men who were God’s creation. He called God Abba which in Aramaic is Daddy as used by a child. He never referred to God as ‘Our Father’ as he aligned himself with the disciples but referred to ‘My God and your God, My Father and your Father’. Abba was the heart of the good news he had come to bring. Jesus laid claims to nothing less than sharing God’s essential and eternal nature as we find in John 10:28-30;14:9;1:1;8:58; Heb1:2;Exodus 3:14. Jesus told the Jews that God had committed all judgement to the son (John 5:27). He called to the hearers not to return to God but to him who is the way (matt 11:28; John 14:6; Mark 1:17) not like the Buddha who says this is the way. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness here and now on his authority (mark 2:5). He is the centre of his message, and he alone can bring men to God; because he alone brings God to men.Jesus’ claims were made before the most hostile audience imaginable; where monotheistic were they. He claimed nothing less than deity and got lots of men to believe it. All the earliest converts to Christianity who acknowledge that ‘Jesus is Lord’ were Jews. Jesus was a humble, modest man, a peasant teacher who sought no honour for himself. He liked the underprivilege, the poor and sick, friend of tax collectors and unsuspected of pride. Jesus’ claim played a two camp impact on the people. Either they responded to him with the love and devotion they would accord to God himself, or else they tried to kill him. No one said as many who’ve run away from evidence say ‘Jesus Christ was the best of men’. In trying to kill him they were escaping from the truth.On death Jesus made it clear that there were circumstances for which it was preferable to continue life on earth; but he said happy are those who were willing to be persecuted and killed for their testimony to him and the good news of the salvation he brought to men. Jesus made the difference in practically giving up his life at a youthful age in the prime of life. This is more adventurous and radical than his precept. Jesus knew in Jerusalem, he would be killed but he set his face towards it, embarking on a collision course with officialdom having only one outcome. Yet he continued teaching, healing and giving love being unconcerned about himself but for others. He said he would ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45). So Jesus identifies himself with what they are, in order that they may share what he is. Jesus declared it was the destiny he had come to fulfil; gain our life through his death. He tasted God forsakenness proper to men who had deliberately forsaken God. He died that we might live; showing that what no man can do for us or for himself God has done for us.We think we live to wring the last drop of excitement out of life but Jesus Christ asserts that personal relationships must include God if they are to be lived to the full. Jesus lived a full, adventurous, supremely happy life which he surrendered on the cross, freely and vicariously for us. He forecasted that he would rise from the dead (mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34) and he did. This vindicates his claims to deity (Romans 1:4) and this shows that he was victorious in the battle for evil and having borne the worst that evil could do to him, had emerged alive to show that wickedness will not have a final word in God’s world. A Christian is therefore a man who has encountered the risen Christ and shares life with him. Jesus says he is with the Christians always, to the end of time; so they are not lonely. They are not disappointed because ‘we know that to those who love God,… everything that happens fits into a pattern for good’ (Romans 8:28; Hebrews 13:5). So the Christian is free to live life to the full, sharing his experiences with his maker, Redeemer and indweller.To follow Jesus is costly, demanding involvement, love, self-sacrifice, but it draws the best out of a man. Just like in the days of Jesus the most dynamic Christians these days are won from atheism or apathy; because Christianity is the faith for men who are prepared to swim against the stream. It requires the courage to give oneself to a costly, demanding Christian program. One has to live dangerously with Christ, instead of safe and sound with the rest. Many are convinced that Christianity is true but are not honest with themselves to act on what they believe. The opposition is tremendous and so the adventure is costly. But the faithful are encouraged daily through the number of conversions.
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