Whom Are We Welcoming?

I have decided to observe Palm/Passion Sunday a bit differently this year. In years past, I have focused on the "passion" part of the observance, tying in the inherent paradox of the would-be-king with the common criminal who would be executed on the following Friday. While there is no way to separate the kingly-criminal element of Holy Week, nor should there be, it can be instructive to ask ourselves a question that needs to be asked over and over again: just who is it that we are welcoming? I ask this question in light of a report I heard on NPR today about a dust-up that is brewing in the Southern Baptist church over a new book by Brian McLaren: A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith. McLaren has done a good deal of work looking at the so-called emergent church movement, and he has ruffled a number of evangelical feathers with his new book. His understanding of the Jesus of faith has begun to diverge from the orthodox evangelical understanding of Jesus as the necessary blood sacrifice for our atonement. McLaren sees the crucifixion more as God willingly taking on the role of the victim and identifying with the suffering. Those who disagree with McLaren decry such an understanding and despair of such a God ever providing a solid reason for entrusting one's everlasting soul to said God. The fact that McLaren hints that those who do not follow Christ are not lost seems to be the final straw for those who hold onto the traditions of an orthodox faith.
So, back to the heading on this blog today: what kind of Jesus do we welcome? Understood one way, the Palm Sunday procession exemplifies the triumphalism of a ruling king who showers favor upon those who follow and casts out those who do not believe in him. However, if one reads the whole account of that day, one discovers that Jesus was not caught up in excessive celebration and, in fact, wept that day. Perhaps he wept for all of the misunderstanding that was headed into the lives of his followers and for the city that he loved. Does he still weep for all who do not understand what it is he came to bring to earth? Does he weep for the rigid fundamentalists, the atheists, the disaffected theological liberals? Yes, I think that he does. This king who was welcomed so graciously on Sunday was executed on Friday, and little has changed in human nature regarding how quickly we will turn on God when we do not get our own way, when we perceive that God is not living up to the kind of exclusive faith that we think we should be entitled to. So, what kind of king will you be welcoming this Palm Sunday? One thing for sure: he is never the king that we think we are welcoming. And thank God that he isn't.

What Christians Do Best, or Worst.

The reader can decide, but I have come to the conclusion that the one thing that Christians do best, or the worst thing that Christians do, is to fight one another over doctrine. The issue came to mind when I was reading an article about the early in-fighting in the Eastern Church.In 449, the leaders of the Christian church met in Ephesus for debate on theological issues. According to Philip Jenkins, who teaches at Penn State, "At a critical moment, a band of monks and soldiers took control f the meeting hall, forcing the bishops to sign a blank paper on which the winning side later filled in its own favored statement.The document targeted the patriarch of Constantinople,Flavian....Yelling 'slaughter him!' a mob of monks attacked Flavian, beating him so badly that he died a few days later." Those who eventually came out on top during that meeting invalidated the whole council, referring to it as Latrocinium, which translates loosely as a Gangster Synod!
It is difficult not to read this account with a mixture of horror, and maybe even a little amusement, as one imagines a group of monkish thugs.But that slight amusement is tempered quickly when one thinks about the current state of the Christian Church. The ill-will and in-fighting has never stopped. On more than one occasion, Catholic students have asked me why there are so many Protestant denominations. I reply quickly, "Because we love to fight." I am only half-joking when I say that. My own experience as a youth was tainted by a rancorous split in my own congregation after we were refused permission to rebuild the church after a fire totally destroyed it. I have served parishes whose members had deep distrust, and even hatred, for one another. On my own campus, students siphon off attendees from my Sunday morning service so that they might attend a "true" church off-campus. What are we to think of this, and is there any solution? I don't know, and can only imagine that nothing will change until the return of Christ himself. In the meantime, I continue to be touched by something that a man who was a member of the first church that I ever served said in a Sunday school class. He was talking about a man for whom he had much dislike and to whom he could not bring himself even to say hello if they met on the street. Yet, he marveled, that when he saw that very same man in church on Sunday, in that very church that I was serving, he admitted that his feelings towards the man softened and he could even extend his hand and say "Good morning." It's not the answer to the problem of nasty Christians, but it is a start.