The Divine Universe

Life is a journey; some would say an uphill journey, and everyone, including atheists, looks for guides or leaders along the way. Most people choose several mentors at different stages of their journey.

In his gospel, Luke tells us about Christian discipleship led by Jesus. Describing his final journey to Jerusalem he tells of several encounters that illustrate this theme. It was a dangerous mission, fatal as it turned out, and Christians are encouraged to see their discipleship as an adventure. There can be dangers but, in this country at least, church membership is a fairly safe adventure.

Luke’s first story is about dealing with conflict. The people of a Samaritan village were hostile because Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem for Passover. There was an ancient religious dispute between Jews and Samaritans going back to the time of Solomon.

Jesus’ disciples were more offended and angry than Jesus was himself. James and John wanted divine retribution – fire from heaven. Today we don’t call for divine intervention from on high; we rain fire and destruction from high-altitude bombers and helicopter gunships. President Bush and his band of right-wing, born-again Christians even invoke God’s support for their war in Iraq, making it a sort of Christian jihad.

We all know what extremist Moslem jihad looks like: beheading women who don’t wear headscarves, shooting little girls who dare to go to school, cutting off thieves’ hands and, of course, suicide bombers, but we are less willing to recognise extremist Christianity. Extremist Christianity or ‘power Christianity’ led to the Crusades and the Inquisition, but there are still power Christians around today, spreading fear, hatred, prejudice and violence. The total sum of innocent deaths, orphaned children and wrecked lives they have caused in Iraq may never be known.

Traditionally we refer to the Church militant. Jesus was militant. He fought against hypocrisy, bigotry and prejudice; against political and religious corruption; against all the perverted thinking and the politics of power that use religion and God’s good gifts for self-serving ends.

But Jesus was a radical pacifist. In his final confrontation with his enemies he wouldn’t allow his disciples even to use what we might see as reasonable force in his defence. He told Peter to put away his sword. On this occasion he rebuked James and John for their misguided zeal. But trying to find a non-violent way to deal with people who hate us, make impossible demands or attack us is sometimes just too difficult, so we resort to violence.

In Luke’s next episode, Jesus said to a would-be disciple, “Birds build nests and foxes dig holes, but the Son of Man (the Messiah) has nowhere to lay his head.” Humans have, in fact, built nests for themselves ever since they left the caves, and we’ve created a wealth of art and technology in the process. Jesus left home to become a vagrant. Vagrants have always been and still are an unwanted embarrassment in society. Jesus chose this, the lowest way of life possible. It was another example of his militant challenge to mainstream social values.

We might also detect a subtler message in Jesus’ words. Suppose he was using “son of man” as a general term for humankind rather than as a messianic title. In sensitive people there is always a deep, underlying feeling of homelessness: a feeling of being exiles in an alien land. It is not only that we crave a more luxurious lifestyle or greater wealth and fame. They are blind alleys anyway. Our feeling of alienation is really a yearning for the Kingdom, a longing to be at home with God.

To be honest, I don’t always find God easy to live with, and I know God cannot find me easy either, yet I also know I can’t live without him and I want to know and understand him better. Then, I believe, life will be more complete and happy. I will be more fully at home with God. But it takes patience and perseverance.

In the next encounter, Jesus invited someone to follow him, but the man wanted to stay home till his father died. Jesus was very blunt: “Let the dead bury their dead.” He was not asking this man to do anything he hadn’t done himself. I don’t know how his mother and his brothers and sisters (if he had them) felt about him leaving the home and family business. His father was dead and he was the eldest. Conservative tradition holds he was the only son. Abdicating such a responsibility was a breach of custom, of family values. But Jesus was saying that if we’re seriously looking for fullness of life, not even family must be allowed to stand in our way. We need to check for unnecessary inhibitions and things that tie us down, social, material or even domestic.

Luke’s third story is about another would-be disciple, but he too has family to think of. Jesus told him that a ploughman must keep his eye on the ground ahead, not look back. In talking with his family, the man might lose his direction. Conflicting desires and responsibilities, and family pressure especially, can be confusing. If you decide to follow Christ in a new way, let go of the past.

In these short anecdotes, Luke makes me think about the decision my parents made for me in infancy and my subsequent Christian discipleship. Luke’s stories are not primarily about specific actions; they’re primarily about what kind of person I will become if I follow Jesus. James said that faith without works is dead, but actions depend on one’s basic attitude to life, one’s beliefs and values.

The stories reveal Jesus’ personal character. He was courageous, adventurous, militant, but a radically non-violent person. We all prefer non-violent ways; we are horrified by war and terrorism, but we resort to force and even war in emergencies.

Jesus was also a totally liberated person. He broke free of convention, even family obligations, and he completely contradicted popular expectations of Messiah. He lived life completely. He was more alive than we are. We are often tied down by convention, by the expectations of others, by social or religious duties. We are still partly in the womb. Our lives are still enclosed by structures of security and the mores of respectability and convention. If we checked our beliefs and attitudes and maybe took some risks to follow Jesus more closely, we might become more alive and free. This is what Luke’s stories all seem to be saying