Sacrilege: Read an Excerpt

Now Featured in the Patheos Book Club Sacrilege Finding Life in the Unorthodox Ways of Jesus By Hugh Halter Sacrilegious Jesus Breaking Images for the First and Last Time On Christmas Eve I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral.... It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story. The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty... I just thought: "Wow!" Just the poetry. Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and... tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. Because that's exactly what we were talking about earlier: love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It's actually logical. It's pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It's inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh. Bono I have to give you a warning before I share the following story. Some will yell "Sacrilege!" and close the book, too offended to read on. But I implore you to suspend judgment. This story took place in my own backyard. It was the starting place for this book. It motivated me to write about the difference between the real Jesus and the sanitized Jesus of religious tradition. About eight years ago we were in our first year of starting a church. A gal next door was very close to our family and offered to help in any way she could. She wasn't a Christ follower, but she had a huge heart for people and for us personally as friends. She became very involved in our children's ministry, but her husband, "Big Billy," was not fond of me, God, or anything that resembled the traditional church world in which he grew up in inner-city St. Louis. What I knew of Billy was that he beat up my neighbor in a fight, got shot through the eye by his friend while out hunting and walked out of the woods to live another day, and left St. Louis because of his mafia/gang connections. I wasn't sure whether that last one was fact or legend, but suffice it to say, Billy was one tough hombre. One day while mowing my backyard, I looked up and saw Billy standing on his deck waving to me. As my eyes focused, I realized he was actually flipping me off. You know, giving me the bird. I didn't quite know what to do, so I just gave him one of those head nods, hoping to communicate, I see you, buddy, but I am ignoring your finger. I made one more pass with the mower and looked up again, hoping he'd be gone, but there he stood, like a statue, his finger saluting in my direction. Was he kidding? Was he serious? What did he think I would do? I've been in many interesting situations, so this didn't seem as strange as you might suppose. But I do remember thinking, Now, hmm, what would Jesus do? (This was before the WWJD craze.) I have always been intrigued by how people find faith in God, and I try to be playful in situations like this. I could have been more textbook, I suppose, but in all my seminary studies I don't remember a chapter on how a Christian leader should handle the bird. Nevertheless, I figured I'd best make a decision fast since one more pass by him without a response would communicate I was (a) afraid of him or (b) offended. Neither response was what I thought Jesus would do. A quick prayer and some deep theological analysis brought me to the conclusion that I needed to alter the playing field a bit—you know, do something this guy wouldn't expect from a pastor, or a "vicar," as he called me once. (I initially thought vicar was a derogatory swear word, but come to find out, it means "priest in training.") So on my next pass, I parked the mower right next to the fence where Captain Hook was standing and let go of the handle, which shut down the motor, creating an awkward silence. As the robins peacefully chirped in the background, I reached back into the archives of my adolescence and lifted both hands high into the air, responding to tough Billy with the "double bird." That's right, the pastor one-upped him. Two birds for one stoner! I didn't just give him the double bird; I held my hands up and stared at him with a kind of Clint Eastwood glare. But even while glaring, I couldn't help picturing Big Billy jumping over the fence and beating me over the head with my own mower, St. Louis mafia style. To my great surprise, Big Billy slowly cracked a smile and started laughing. "F—, you wanna drink?" he asked. From that moment on Billy became my neighbor. Fast-forward. It may sound like a fairy tale ending to Godfather IV , but I swear it's true. Billy's family became a part of our faith community, and they are dear friends to this day. Defining Sacrilege Now is a good time to define sacrilege or sacrilegious as I'll be using the terms in this book. To commit sacrilege is to de-sacredize what is deemed to be sacred. Sacred is defined as "consecrated to or belonging to a god or deity, holy." In the Christian sense, to commit sacrilege means to disregard, disrespect, or be irreverent toward those things that have traditionally been considered holy, venerated, or dedicated as sacred. It's tipping holy cows. At face value this may sound bad, wrong, disrespectful, and insensitive, like Roseanne Barr butchering "The Star-Spangled Banner." In actuality, as I'll show, de-sacredizing what should be de-sacredized is not only good, it begins to move us toward the undercurrent of the real person and Good News of Jesus. Sacrilege is about removing religion from our faith. It's about securing the integrity of what is most important. It's about chipping away at people's false assumptions about who Jesus is and what following him is all about. In truth, when done correctly, sacrilege will allow you to relax spiritually, exhale, and begin to come alive, becoming more real in your faith and in your way of being with others. I'm not interested in controversy for its own sake. I have never enjoyed theological debate, but I can't help but speak passionately about the kind of truth that really sets ordinary men free, like it did me. I will not ask you to be profane, to desecrate, or to defile. These three words refer to a deliberate attempt to belittle, hurt, or dehumanize someone or their beliefs. Such sentiments are often steeped in angry rebellion or adolescent arrogance. They are tantamount to trashing, abusing, polluting, or destroying those things that are genuinely holy and important to God and to people. Jesus did none of this. He was, however, without question, the most appropriately sacrilegious revolutionary of all time, and his call for anyone who follows is to be like him. The world needs a tidal wave of sacrilegious apprentices. Jesus the Iconoclast Jesus was the true iconoclast. Icon means image or idol. Clast means to break. Every word Jesus said and act he did smashed the spiritual, religious, traditional, and pop idols of his day. False kingdoms were exposed, false motives were laid open, false teachings were confronted, and every person he touched came away confused, intrigued, perplexed, or changed. He was not liked by everyone, but he was loved by the right people—the people with eyes to see and ears to hear fresh truth. Whether he was challenging people's view of Scripture, hanging with prostitutes and half-breeds, letting his disciples eat without ceremonially washing their hands, providing wine to guests of a wedding bash who had already partied too much, or touching lepers, Jesus went against almost every religious norm and won the hearts of the heathen. His ability to de-sacredize the sacred (when doing so was important to the purposes of God) magnetized people to him, and his followers were expected and empowered to do the same. The real Jesus was the ultimate sacrilegious leader. Therefore, adopting a sacrilegious approach to faith may be just what the doctor ordered, particularly in a world that is ailing to see a real Jesus again. Just as Jesus turned over the junk in the temple (see Matt. 21:12-13), so we have to begin turning over the junk of our religious training. We need to get to the purity of the gospel again. This book is about recovering, or maybe discovering for the first time, the Jesus you'd naturally and sincerely want to follow and invite others to follow as well. When we picture people converting to Christianity, we probably envision a doctrine-heavy preacher imploring people to respond to the spoken word, walk the aisle to the altar, and receive Christ into their hearts. Although this is an experience many of us hold dear in our own conversion story, we must realize that the first people that followed Jesus weren't following doctrine, theology, or the spoken word. They were following the incarnate Word, the man, Jesus the person. They didn't know anything about the cross, sin, the need for a substitutionary payment, or all the doctrine we've added on since he lived among us. They started with him alone and learned the rest along the way. Jesus the Likable Remember this key piece of historical truth: common people loved Jesus! What's more, they liked him. One day while I was driving with my daughter McKenna, she said, "Dad, I love you." I reached over and clutched her leg, as I always do. Then I heard even better words: "I also like you a lot." Most parents would give their left thumbnail to have their kids respect, revere, and honor them. Nothing's wrong with that, but there's something even better: their desire to be with you and possibly to be a little like you. If you let it, that's where sacrilege is going to take you. People revered Jesus back then, and many still do today. No, not everyone, but some pretty significant masses still think he's the most inspiring man to have walked the earth. We have to remember that back in Jesus's time, before they really knew who he was and what he was doing in the world, the average Jacob and Martha liked Jesus. Similar to when you meet a person you click with at a party, they were amazed at his accessibility and his acceptance of everyone. Notice that the people who did not like Jesus—the Pharisees, for example—were people in power. Common folk couldn't get enough of him, though. They were surprised by his candor, honesty, riddles, and wit. They marveled and were sometimes even intimidated by his blatant disregard for the rules and regulations of the day, although they must have secretly loved it. I often imagine the children sticking their tongues out at the disciples, who had tried to shoo them away, as they sprinted toward the open arms of Christ. His ways would have flown in the face of many who tried to control and oppress the people through religious legalism. Yet, at the same time, they must have felt a gentle prick in their conscience when he seemed to disregard or even condemn their traditions and spiritual viewpoints. As Jesus continued to teach, he not only tipped their sacred cows—he slaughtered some. If you could have been a contemporary embedded reporter getting on-the-ground quotes from those who were following Jesus, you might have heard (Americanized) statements like these: "Did you see the look on those punk Pharisees who were getting ready to chuck a rock at that whore when Jesus stepped in and made them back down?" "Wasn't it awesome that he was willing to heal Claudio and Melpis on the Sabbath?" "Can you believe he picked Peter, Andrew, and John to be his students? Heck, they're just fishermen. You don't have to have many credentials to get in good with this guy, eh?" "Don't you think it's kind of weird that Jesus spends so much time with women, especially that Mary chick? I wonder if his motives are as pure as he claims." "Have you recovered from the wedding feast this week? Sheesh, I was pretty done, but when Jesus made more wine, I just had to keep celebrating. That was quality vino!" "You know what's most amazing to me now that he's come back from the dead? I knew him when he was twenty-one, just working in his dad's shop. He never said a word about who he was. I remember a deal he gave me on the chair I bought for my mother. Great chair too!" This is why the early followers got to the point of no return with Jesus. They were drawn to him, followed him at great cost, and spoke endearingly about his legacy on their lives. They viewed him as if he were a god—and that's exactly what he was: the one true God. His first and earliest followers got to experience both his strange divinity and his impressive humanity. We don't. We have to read between the lines. From the time of Jesus and the apostles until now, the church has lost so much influence, especially among normal, everyday people. What happened? We have missed something—something huge. We have blandly imagined Jesus to be a little icon of a man we hang on chains around our necks and whose image we use in stained glass windows. We salute him when we score a touchdown or hail him when we win a Grammy Award for our raunchy rap song. We put him on T-shirts and bumper stickers. We write sappy teenage pop songs that make him sound more like a groping boyfriend than the Creator of the universe. We market him; we exploit and misuse his words to browbeat, judge, and injure the world. And in the name of "discipleship," we gather every week to reread his words, often, sadly, without giving much serious thought to becoming a smidgen more like him. It's no wonder people today have had to conclude he's just another man who happened to start a prolific religious sect. But it's time to say it: he wasn't trying to start a religion! He wasn't trying to put a church building on every corner. His highest hopes were not that millions of people would gather on Sundays to enjoy learning doctrine about his moral codes. He doesn't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat, but he does care that much of the world is turned off by millions of people who claim him as their leader. Here's a truth I want you to pause to consider for a moment: Jesus's ability to influence the hearts of man and woman, child and king, prostitute, peasant, and priest was greatly due to his sacrilegious ways of behaving, speaking, listening, loving, and living. Rich outcasts would climb trees to see him, similar to the way glassy-eyed teenagers stare at LeBron James as he enters the arena. The poor, the hungry, the broken, and those left behind found hope in him the way young African Americans found hope in Jackie Robinson, Cassius Clay, Martin Luther King Jr., and President Barack Obama. Great leaders were afraid of him, but commoners felt safe to approach. The smartest of the day were challenged by his superior wit and wisdom, while the uneducated were promoted to the highest posts and chosen to represent him and share his message and life of good news. Being Careful with Jesus Writing a book about Jesus is not something to do haphazardly. While not much risk is involved in writing a poorly thought-out love song, you really don't want to create some goofy image of Jesus to fit your own whims or preferences. That's called idolatry, and it doesn't sit well with the real Jesus. You also don't want to project or infer too much beyond the biblical record, for that can lead people astray or even manipulate them into all sorts of trouble. I think of Ricky Bobby and Cal in Talladega Nights , sitting around the table processing their preference for Baby Jesus. Christians tend to prefer their own version of Jesus. If I say something like, "I see Jesus kinda like Lynyrd Skynyrd..." the theological police are going to ask for a few back-up texts, and I don't blame them. Rest assured, I do not take this subject lightly. I know whatever I write about Jesus needs to match what the Bible says. Through the centuries others have written about Jesus as the payment for our sin, the sacrificial Lamb, Creator God, the judging King, holy man, prophet, heavenly Father—all good and right. My hope, though, is to present a biblical Jesus who models how to relate to normal, real people. How did he interact with men, women, and children? What can we learn from his example? And most importantly, how can we pattern our lives after his? Hitting the Reset Button Journey with me, then, back to the time of Christ. People were spiritual, just like today, and also confused, yes, just like today. The Jews had not heard from God through any prophets for more than three hundred years. In despair, they had settled back into systems of religion, the legalistic faith of the Old Testament law given to Moses. In a sense they had forgotten this huge, personal story that had unfolded between them and God, a story that was meant to bring blessing to the whole world, and now were just going through the motions of sin management and church (or synagogue, as they called it). The non-Jewish subcultures of the Greeks and Romans believed in an impersonal force that hung in the clouds and somewhat directed human affairs. They called this higher power the Word or Logos. In both cases, people held the view that God was distant. In the Jewish culture, they'd moved away from walking and talking in relationship with God into a system of rules and regulations. In Greek and Roman culture, they just saw God (or gods) as a distant power monger to be pleased and appeased. It was this spiritually disoriented world that Jesus entered with a radical message and even more radical life. John writes, "So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son" (John 1:14 NLT). The Message paraphrase says it this way: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish." And the NIV says it in the most literal way, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Frankly, our world is just as spiritually disoriented as it was in the time of the first incarnation of Jesus. Just substitute "American Westernized Christianity" for "Jews who'd turned a relationship into rules" and our spiritual-but-not-religious population for the Greek and Roman philosophies, and everything old is here again. Incarnation means to "take on flesh." It's the most profound idea of the Christian faith—that the impersonal Word became personal, that theology and doctrine came in the form of fleshy humanity—and it was God's only way to cut through the bull of religion and nebulous spirituality so that we could get a handle on a truer image of God. As I stated earlier, what you believe about who Jesus is will be the most important thing affecting who you become, what you do, and how much you experience the living God. As God incarnate becomes fleshy—"alive"—to you, you will likewise become more fleshy to the world. Sacrilegious Jesus... How about sacrilegious you ? To consider: What is your image of Jesus? Write down your honest thoughts about how you view him. Where did you pick up these images? To do: Begin drafting a letter to your children or friends about your heart for them to know the real Jesus. We will revisit this at the end of the book, so begin writing a short history of your faith journey to this point. "If I am not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there." Martin Luther Excerpt from Sacrilege by Hugh Halter, Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Copyright 2011. Used with permission. All rights to this material are reserved. Material is not to be reproduced, scanned, copied or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com