So yesterday I noticed, and how could I not, that the Jesus in Sarah Young’ Jesus Calling sounds awfully like a modern day devotional writer. As I toiled through the book in the afternoon, I began to wish that the Jesus had read more and better older books. If only this Jesus could have dipped into some Shakespeare, I wished, or even something simpler but really lovely, like Mrs. Miniver. If not beauty, then maybe he could have been persuaded to read something funny, like Adrian Plass. How is it that this Jesus would express himself to Ms. Young in such a stilted, clunky way? Couldn’t he have put words together with some semblance of beauty or nuance or humor? Hasn’t he read even his own bible?
He must have done because at the bottom of the reading for each day, usually at least two verses were listed. The words and images in the paragraph often referred in some way to the biblical text, and were not, for the most part, contradictory to them. So let’s look at some of the things Jesus said to Sarah Young. And I know you must be asking yourself, how do you know it was Jesus? Couldn’t it have just been Sarah saying these things to herself, or even someone else saying them to her? But I say we take her at her word. She sat with her notebook open and her pen ready and says that she wrote what Jesus said, so let’s believe her for the space of at least this page, setting aside a momentary and anxious disbelief. I’m sure we can circle back to it in the end.
On January 8th Jesus says, “I softly announce my presence. Shimmering hues of radiance tap gently at your consciousness, seeking entrance. Though I have all Power in heaven and on earth, I am infinitely tender with you. The weaker you are, the more gently I approach you.” Well, I mean to say, of course, absolutely. It is true that Jesus is tender to the weak and that he has all power in heaven and on earth, but why would shimmering hues of radiance tap gently, seeking entrance? What exactly does that look like? And why would Jesus express himself this way? Maybe he tailors his words to each individual person. I hope. Because if Jesus softly announced his presence to me with shimmering hues of radiance tapping gently at my consciousness I would completely freak out.
On January 10th Jesus says, “Every time you affirm your trust in me, you put a coin into my treasury. Thus you build up equity in preparation for days of trouble.” Ok, I guess. Again, you can’t say this is untrue, but why would Jesus use these particular words in this particular order? “For days of trouble” isn’t nearly as nice as “In the day of trouble.” I really wish, if there wasn’t time for the whole bible, that at least Jesus could have just been saying the Daily Office, but not from the 79 Episcopal Book. It would have needed to be any other book before that. If Jesus were going to talk to me, I would hope he would say, “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him” rather than, as he says on January 20th, “Approach this day with awareness of who is boss.”
Let us look at one more from January and then we’ll move on to what I began to call The Commandments. On January 24th Jesus says, “My peace is the treasure of treasures: the pearl of great price. It is an exquisitely costly gift, both for the Giver and receiver. I purchased this gift with My blood.” [emphasis hers] Again, this isn’t exactly untrue. But as I went along through the book, I kept running into this word, Peace, and wondered what on earth Ms. Young, I mean Jesus, was meaning by it. It is true that on the cross Jesus purchased peace for us with his own blood. We do not any longer have to war against God. But I wouldn’t say it this way. When, in the bible, Jesus refers to the Pearl of Great Price, he is talking about himself, not the peace that he gained on the cross. The more I saw mention of Peace, and Presence, the more I felt queasy, like Jesus was trying to sell me something so I’d be interested in him. Which I totally get, why he’d offer me stuff, because he seems sort of creepy, as a person, and not able to express himself, and so why would I want Him. Maybe his sleaziness could be mitigated by peace and joy and junk.
So now let’s look at some of The Commandments. Many days start with imperatives like “Follow me one step at a time,” Seek my face,” “Come to me and rest,” “Trust me enough,” (how much is enough, I ask myself) and “Give yourself fully to the adventure of today.” That last one was on February 14 so I imagine Jesus must mean some kind of romantic adventure. Now, Of Course, of course, “seek my face” and “come to me and rest” are in the bible, so the command isn’t anything Jesus hasn’t said elsewhere. On the other hand, what does a command like this, outside of the context of scripture itself, do to a person? See, when Jesus says in the bible, ‘seek my face’ it is balanced against other places where he says, ‘no one seeks God.’ So the command to seek is given and then shown to be impossible. The reader is thereby driven to despair. He or she sees the peril of being unable to please a perfectly holy God. And then, from the pit, the creature, you, looks up and sees a great rescue. God himself rescues the lost, and this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God.
The bible is so beautiful and glorious because it’s not about you and what you can do. It’s not. It’s about Jesus and what he has already done and is continuing to do. Boy I’m so tempted to start slinging italics around because this is so so critical. When you pull a command out of scripture and isolate it unto itself, say in a paragraph for a single day in a devotional book, you place a burden onto the reader without the possibility of relief. There is the law, plain and clear, but, one whispers gently and nonconfronationally into the wind, Where On Earth Is The Gospel?
Oh Wait. It’s there, hang on, I found it, just a second…April 22d, “I died to set you free, and that includes freedom from compulsive planning.” Oop, sorry, that wasn’t it. Hang on…Let’s try September 23rd, picking up in the middle of the paragraph, “If you carry a burden of guilt on your back, you are more likely to stumble and fall. At your request, I will remove the heavy load from you and bury it at the foot of the cross. When I unburden you, you are undeniably free! Stand up straight and tall in My Presence so that no one can place any more burdens on your back.” Oh well, it was almost there. Funnily enough, way back on September 7th she, I mean He, ripped into pastors for trying to “whip their people into action through guilt-inducing sermons.” Poor Jesus. “I grieve,” he says, “when I see grace eroding, with weeds of anxious works creeping in. I want you to relax in the assurance of My perfect Love.” Well, heck, I’d absolutely like to do that. I totally would. But I can’t. I can’t stand up straight so that no one can put any more burdens on my back. I can’t relax. I can’t be saved. Wouldn’t it be great if someone, like Jesus maybe, did something about all the failure and piles of guilt?
But he can’t, see, until I seek and relax and learn to laugh at myself and accept each day and watch my words diligently. I mean, I’m assuming he can’t, or won’t, because every page brings a new command. Now, I didn’t go through and read the verses at the bottom of each page. Did you? They just sit there. What am I supposed to do with them? If I looked them up I would still need to carefully consider their context, their relationship to the whole rest of the bible. If I did that I could maybe gain a full understanding of the character and personality of the God who gave the book and made the world. But aren’t I reading this devotional book so I won’t have to do that? Isn’t that why this book exists?
Anyway, you’ll be shocked to learn, I don’t really think we can blame all these words in Jesus Calling on Jesus. Jesus wouldn’t say this stuff in this way. He has already said what he wants to say in his own book. You can buy it, still, in some bookstores, and there’s an app. You can even get children’s versions. I recommend The Jesus Story Book Bible, in fact, which gives a fuller more complete picture of Jesus than we have here with Sarah Young.
Its not that God doesn’t want you to experience him. It’s not that he doesn’t love you and is making things harder than they need to be. It’s that you need to be content with who he actually is and the revelation of himself that he gives in his own scriptures. That’s one of the things that “bible believing” means. Not that you are a rule bound, legalistic meany, but that you satisfy yourself with God on his terms, the Bible, and not your own.
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