Category Archives: Jesus

Recent Blog Posts at ThinkingPacifism.net

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Before posting the series of reflections on how my theology has evolved over the past fifteen years, I posted these other essays in the past couple of months.

Just prior to the celebration of Peace Sunday in early July, I posted these reflections on Pacifism: “Why Pacifism?”

As with many people in my generation, for me these are days of thinking about the future in more personal terms due to the (wonderful!) presence of grandchildren in my life. Some thoughts on that theme from June 18: “Grandchildren and Hope.”

John Howard Yoder’s peace theology has recently been critiqued from the theological right. I critique the critique in my May 29 blog entry at ThinkingPacifism.net—“Defending Yoder: Part One—Responding to Peter Leithart’s Critique.” In the June 5 entry, I continue the analysis with this post: “Defending Yoder: Part Two—Earl Zimmerman’s Account.”

On May 27, I dusted off an old essay I wrote back in the early 1990s reflecting on some of the insights of Martin Buber in his classic book, I and Thou: “Affirming Life: Learning from Martin Buber.”

My discouragement with recent political developments in the United States triggered this essay: “Are We Living Under Totalitarianism?”, posted May 23. Continue reading →

What does Jesus’ resurrection mean?

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When we think carefully about the New Testament story of Jesus’ resurrection and its role in Christian theology, we may well find ourselves considering a lot of questions. The one I focus on in my May 15, 2011, sermon (called “Resurrection Questions”) is quite simple: What does Jesus’ resurrection mean?

I suggest that questions of historicity are not the most important or useful. Rather, the bigger issues concern how Jesus’ resurrection relates to his life and teaching. And linked with that connection, we face the challenging question of what Jesus’ resurrection tells us about God’s power (and ours).

This sermon is the 14th in a series on Jesus’ life and teaching. The concluding sermon will return to the question that began the series—”Why do we pay attention to Jesus?”

“Romans 13 supports pacifism!” and other recent reflections

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For my blog writing on May 8 at ThinkingPacifism.net, I addressed the issue of how Romans 13 actually might be read as supporting pacifism—instead of serving as the main anti-pacifism prooftext.

I faced Easter this year with a questioning spirit, I’m afraid. So I wrote a blog post about it: “Resurrection ‘Faith’?” I posted that piece at ThinkingPacifism.net.

The previous week I wrote on some issues related to the role of the American military in “peacebuilding” activities—and whether “military peacebuilding” might not actually be an oxymoron. The post is called “Can the Military Do Peace?”

On April 10, I rekindled my long-standing interest in the Book of Revelation, an interest that does not seem to be diminishing. Like all great literature, Revelation yields new insights the more it is read and considered. I have just posted reflections on Revelation under the title, “The Book of Revelation and the End of Christianity.”

These are some other recent posts: April 3, 2011— “What’s really at stake in the debate about universalism?” I argue that the most important issue is not about whether everyone goes to heaven after they die (or not), but is actually something else.

Please note that it is very easy to start an email subscription to the blog posts—just use the email subscription link on the top right of any Thinking Pacifism page.

The two prior blog posts were: “Why did Jesus die?” (March 28) and “What do you do with those who ask what to do about a bully?” (March 20).

My March 13 blog was called “Pacifism and the Civil Rights Movement.” On March 6, I put up another post outlining an article I hope to write where I  critique the “just war theory” in light of World War II. My previous entry was an essay on Dietrich Bonhoeffer as interpreted by Mark Thiessen Nation.

My February 20 blog entry reflects on World War II’s moral legacy. In my post, “World War II and America’s Soul: Christian Reflections,” I respond to a pro-World War II editorial in The Christian Century. I argue ultimately that if we place our priority on the preciousness of life we will recognize why we can’t affirm that war. On January 21, I posted “How Should a Pacifist View World War II?”, where I reflect on the ways that just war reasoning can be helpful even for pacifists in thinking about the War.

Peace Theology continues to serve as a repository of my more formal writing.

Finding hope in the story of Jesus’ execution

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I reflect on Jesus’ crucifixion and how this death stands for life in my March 27, 2011 sermon—the thirteenth in my series on Luke’s Gospel.

One of the big and challenging questions for Christians is the simple question: why did Jesus die? One way to approach this question is to look at the big story the Bible tells. In the story, right away with Abel we learn that sometimes being faithful to God might actually be the reason a person dies. The Old Testament later on sets out two types of conflict as central in the struggle for faithfulness among God’s people—the external conflict between the faith community and the empires of the world and the internal conflict between oppressive leaders inside the community and the prophetic voices of dissent.

The gospels then place Jesus right in the middle of this big story—and recount how his life involves the same two types of conflict as he bumps up against both the religious institutions and the political institutions of his day. Jesus got into trouble because of his double commitment to challenge oppressors and to welcome the oppressed. And he does so nonviolently.

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “Life in Death.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.

The Last Supper and Discipleship

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I reflect on Jesus’ last supper and its meaning for discipleship in my February 13, 2011 sermon—the twelfth in my series on Luke’s Gospel.

The story of Jesus is not simply a case of bad things happening to a good person. It’s bad things happening to a good person because he’s a good person. Jesus’ life raises the issue of how it is that the “good news” leads directly to bad news. The other big question in relation to Jesus is whether the bad news he faces is something that he deals with so his followers won’t have to (kind of the substitutionary atonement motif), or if his facing bad news is a kind of model for Jesus’ disciples.

The account of the Jesus’ last supper with his friends makes a clear and strong point of emphasizing the modeling aspect. Luke, alone of the gospels, inserts the debate among the disciples about who would be “greatest” into the last supper conversation. Jesus’ exclaims: “Not so among you! The greatest must be servants.” Here he makes it clear he expects his followers to follow the same good news leading to bad news path that he follows—with the promise of God’s ultimate vindication.

Also, by placing the last supper in the context of the Passover celebration, Luke reiterates that the good news –> bad news –> vindication dynamic that was central in the exodus story links it with the story of Jesus.

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “When the ‘Good News’ is Bad News.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.

The rich man and Lazarus: Why did Jesus tell this story?

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I reflect on Jesus’ well known story of the fate, after death, of a rich man and the beggar, Lazarus, in my January 23, 2011 sermon—the eleventh in my series on Luke’s Gospel.

Why did Jesus tell this story? I suggest that his purpose has to do with exhorting his listeners to generosity. He heightens the tensions between himself and the religious leaders by likening them to the calloused rich man who finds himself after death across an unbridgeable chasm from “father Abraham.”

However, when we read this story together with the Prodigal Son story, located just one chapter earlier in Luke, we will see that Jesus seriously presents those who would identify with the rich man and his brothers with a way to healing. Simply return to the message of Moses and the prophets.

What is that message? Love God and neighbor. Jesus illustrates his words from the Sermon on the Plain in chapter six where he warns of coming woes to those who are rich now—in contrast to the blessings promised the poor. However, his overall intent is to exhort to generosity with the hope that healing is possible—not to assert people are locked into condemnation.

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “Listen to Moses.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.

Jesus’ “Story of Two Sons” and Our Metaphysics

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I reflect on Jesus’ famous parable, often called the “prodigal son” in my December 12, 2010 sermon—the tenth in my series on Luke’s Gospel.

Importantly, we should notice that Jesus’ story begins with “there was a man who had two sons” (Luke 15:11). The focus is on the father and both sons. The story doesn’t end with the younger son’s return. Rather, the story ends with the father’s unanswered plea to the older son to join in the party celebrating the return of his brother.

I approach the story in the light of big questions we have in today’s world about why so many people in our American society are so accepting of violence. I suggest one big issue is our metaphysics (our views of “what is” and “what it’s like”). I counter pose a metaphysics of redemptive violence with a metaphysics of mercy.

Jesus affirms a metaphysics of mercy—he tells his powerful story of the two sons in response to “grumbling” from religious leaders about his merciful ways (that reflect his understanding of reality as “mercy all the way down”).

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “Metaphysical Therapy.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.

Why we pay attention to Jesus

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Article published in The Mennonite [13.12 (December 2010), 12-15].

Jesus is pretty amazing.  He’s an ancient character in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire.  He barely made it to his 30s and then joined countless other expendable people who the Empire considered worth executing.

Yet, in his afterlife, he became surely the most famous human being in world history. Certainly, the story of Jesus has been twisted and turned, exploited for evil purposes, corrupted almost beyond recognition—but somehow sprouts keep shooting up through the rubble, bringing forth flowers, revealing something of the beauty of the original vision of this person who history can’t let go of.

We still must ask, though, why do we pay attention to Jesus?

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant young German scholar and musician who paid attention to Jesus.  The seriousness with which he paid attention to Jesus led Albert Schweitzer to abandon a career that combined being a professor of religion with being a world-renowned organist.  He returned to school, earned a medical doctorate and spent the rest of his long life as a medical missionary in Africa and gained enough renown to be named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.

Schweitzer’s most important scholarly work was about Jesus.  In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, he surveyed attempts by European scholars in the 19th century to produce a purely objective, historically accurate portrayal of Jesus and get behind the obvious biases of the gospel writers to the supposed bedrock of fact.

Schweitzer scorned these efforts. He concluded his book with the famous image of various scholars peering deep into the wells of history looking for the face of the historical Jesus.  They don’t realize that the face they see looking up at them is actually their own.  They are not really looking at Jesus but only at a reflecting pool of water.

This image makes an undeniable, and very important, point. We all look at Jesus through our own perspective.  We all look for stuff that matters to us and that speaks to our world.  None of us can be objective about Jesus.  We all run the risk of turning Jesus simply into a caricature of our own values and our own culture.

One impact of Schweitzer’s cutting insight, though, has been to serve as a kind of cynical debunking tool.  It’s a way to mock attempts to take Jesus seriously: Ah, you’re just projecting your own interests onto Jesus and calling them his.

When we look at what people say about Jesus we see such incredible diversity and  contradictions and self-justifications.  I have two recent books that focus on how Americans have presented Jesus—one’s called American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004) by Stephen Prothero, the other Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession (HarperOne, 2005) by Richard Wightman Fox.  These books make it clear how so many in our culture have confused a reflection of themselves for a picture of Jesus.

And yet….

There just may be something we could call revelatory in this cacophony of images of Jesus humans have generated these past 2,000 years.  Maybe we do see something truthful in the sum of what humans, Christian and non-Christian, rich and poor, religious and secular, young and old, westerner and easterner, say about Jesus.

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Salvation in the “Good Samaritan” Story

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I have posted another in my series of sermons on Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke. My November 14 sermon, the ninth in the series, focuses on Luke 10 and the famous story Jesus told about the Samaritan who offers help to a beaten traveler, showing what it means to be a neighbor, which—in the context of this story—is about what it means to inherit eternal life.

The sermon focuses on what this story tells us about Jesus’ presentation of salvation. One interesting angle for reflecting on salvation is to ask, what are we saved from? The Good Samaritan story tells us that one key aspect of life we need to be saved from is to limit our love only to certain types of people.

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “Salvation—From What.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.

Jesus as troublemaker

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I have started again on my series of sermons on Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke. My October 17 sermon, the eighth in the series, focuses on Luke 9, which is a focused discussion on Jesus’ identity—prophet or Messiah or Son of Man or Son of God? These are the options mentioned in the text.

The sermon suggests that the key motif in this chapter of Luke that clarifies Jesus’ identity is how Jesus was a troublemaker. And he serves as a model for his disciples to join him in “holy troublemaking.”

The sermon may be found here: it’s called “The Troublemaker.” The other sermons in the series may be found here.