The Radical Middle

In Mark 8.15 Jesus cautions his disciples to "beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod." This is one of those verses that's positively dense with meaning, but only if the reader understands the background.

On one hand you have the Pharisees, the radicalized religious elite, who advocated the violent overthrow of Rome (or any other foreign oppressor). They were zealots in the tradition of the Hasmonean rebels, who had driven the Selucids out of Israel a couple of centuries before. Much smaller in number than the Saducees, the Pharisees were in many ways the heroes of the Jewish people and so wielded political power disproportionate to their size. You can imagine their reaction to Jesus, who spoke against their policies of exclusion and zealous violence, who insisted that they were accomplishing precisely the opposite of the mission God had intended from the beginning for Israel: to be a light to the nations; to draw the Gentile (yes, even the oppressor) to worship of YHWH, the one true God. The Pharisees were shepherds who had lost their sheep.

On the other side we have Herod (or the Herodians, depending on your translation). Herod was a Jew (Hellenized to a fault, but still a Jew), supposedly descended from the discredited priesthood which had merged with the monarchy many generations before. That was bad enough, but he had also been installed by Rome as a harmless, controllable regent with a viable pedigree. Herod represented everything a good Jew (particularly a Pharisee) despised. He was a morally corrupt and religiously compromised political puppet of the Roman oppressors. Worse still, Herod seems to have considered himself something of a messianic figure, a fact which repelled the Pharisees still further. He even printed his own money, a coin emblazoned with the image of a reed (now does Matt 11.7 and its Lk 7.24 parallel make more sense?). So, we have radical zealotry on one hand and religio-political corruption on the other.

See how helpful the historical-cultural background is? If you understand what's going on, you'll understand that Jesus is teaching about something we talk about a lot in the Vineyard Church: the Radical Middle. He's telling them that neither of those options is acceptable, and that both movements, small as they may have been, would be rejected by God and come to a bad end. Instead, the true people of God were to reject those polarizing options and follow Jesus instead. They were to, "repent and believe the good news (gospel)" (Mk 1.15). So it is with us; we are called to reject both religious elitism and moral corruption. We are called to leave off with our agendas and take Jesus for his. We are to follow the way of love, compassion and inclusion. We are to share in his passion, walking the road of suffering, renewal and hope. We are called to walk a narrow road along the ridgeline, avoiding the chasms of radicalism falling off to either side.

The radical middle is the new counter-culture, an irony which should not be missed. Let anyone with ears to hear listen (Mk. 1.23).

One Obligation

Each of us has one obligation to God: to make the best of the life he gives as it is given. This assumes of course that we are pursuing his will and not simply indulging every whim. If self-centeredness is the rule, then our only obligation is to ourselves, to self-gratification and to making the best of what we find there. That, as C.S. Lewis puts it, is the best description of hell I can think of.

If we profess to live by God's will then we must trust that he has given us each what he intended that we should have today, and that is by definition his best for us. A monk has time, silence and brotherhoood. I have a marriage, a family and a church. There is no use turning aside those gifts and seeking what the monk has; I must find peace, joy and contentment where it lies: in my own circumstances and not another's.

The challenge? Can I find God in the workaday minutiae? Can I experience him in the utterly commonplace? In this my challenge is the same as the monastatic's: consecrate each activity as it comes, accept each gift with a thankful heart and live my vocation as a gift from his hand. It is to will one thing at a time.

Traitors and Porn Stars

In Mark 2.13 Jesus calls Levi to follow him. That wouldn't be particularly interesting but for the fact that Levi was a Jewish tax collector. Jesus was well-known for eating with sinners and tax collectors; it is well attested both biblically (found repeatedly in all three Synoptic Gospels) and in other, extra-biblical sources like Josephus. It's also fairly well-known that in so doing Jesus made the statement that they were his people, equal to him and accepted by him in every sense.

Likewise, it's fairly common knowledge that these were the worst people possible to a 1st century Jew. They were traitors in one case, porn stars on the other. In those two groups you have both a betrayal of the deepest nationalist and religious sensibilities (as if there were a difference at the time) and the lowest sort of moral degradation conceivable; and Jesus accepts them as equals. Certainly that's shocking enough, but in this case Jesus calls Levi to his inner circle, the disciples who would represent the new Israel, who would do by following Christ what Israel did not do under the Law. This is beyond shocking. This is Robert Hanssen, infamous FBI traitor, on the board of elders. This is Jenna Jameson (don't look that up) serving on staff as the Kids' Pastor.

Now with Levi, called to be one of the Twelve, we have someone who by necessity leaves behind his former vocation; he is not both disciple and tax collector at the same time. But then, Jesus called all of the Twelve to leave behind what they were and accept "disciple" as their primary identity. Tax collector or fisherman, traitor or porn star, all are accepted on an equal basis: they recognize Jesus for who he is and then re-organize their priorities around him. It doesn't matter who they are or what they've done.

Follow me. Leave your agenda and take me for mine. That's all Jesus ever asks of anyone.

Mustard Seed Messiah

Matthew 27 is the latter half of the passion narrative. Verses 39-44 tells the story of the way Jesus was derided by many who watched him die. They were Jews of course, who had very specific expectations for a person they would call "Messiah". Jesus didn't meet any of them, and his death by crucifixion verified all of their doubts (don't miss the irony: the crucifixion that they thought was their vindication turned out to be Jesus' vindication, his installment as Messiah).

For a messianic figure, crucifixion was always the end of the road. That's where they always ended up...Jesus wasn't the only one. He was one of many such figures who all ended the same way. In other words, Jesus' humiliating death and the hands of the Pagan oppressors was the indication that Israel would have to wait a little longer for their Messiah.

Of course, that's because their expectations were wrong. When you're looking for a mouse, you're going to ignore every elephant that walks by, no matter how interesting they may be. They expected all of Israel to endure ho peirasmos, "the time of trial", not just one man. They expected all of Israel to experience anastasis, "the resurrection", not just one man. Those were two of the the signs of the return of YHWH to liberate and exalt his faithful people. Israel had no framework for a crucified and resurrected Son of God who would inaugurate a Kingdom that is both now and not yet.

As Jesus warned by way of parable, the Kingdom came in a way that they didn't expect, like a mustard seed or a pinch of yeast. The Kingdom comes in small packages with tremendous potential...in us, to say it another way.

Or maybe in a little church with 60 people in it, in a small suburb in Coastal Georgia...