Being
anchored in God’s goodness
5 December, 2019
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What would Jesus do? For some Christians, that’s
the easy response to every question. In every situation all we need to ask is:
“What would Jesus do?”
At a deep level, that’s actually true. Jesus is the
ultimate criterion. He is the way, the truth and the life, and anything that
contradicts him is not a way to God. Yet, I suspect, many of us find ourselves
irritated by how that expression is often used in simplistic ways, as a
fundamentalism difficult to digest. Sometimes, in our irritation at this, we
spontaneously want to say: “Jesus has nothing to do with this!” But of course,
as soon as those words escape our mouths, we realise how bad that sounds.
Jesus has a lot to do with every theological,
ecclesial or liturgical question, no matter its complexity. Granted, there’s
the danger of fundamentalism here; but it’s equally dangerous to answer
theological, ecclesial and liturgical questions without considering what Jesus
might think or do. He’s still, and forever will be, a non-negotiable criterion.
But while Jesus is a non-negotiable criterion, he’s
not a simplistic one. What did Jesus do? Well, the answer isn’t simple. Looking
at his life we see that sometimes he did things one way, sometimes another way,
and sometimes he started out doing something one way and ended up seemingly
changing his mind and doing it in a different way, as we see in his interaction
with the Syro-Phoenician woman. That’s why, I suspect, within Christianity
there are so many different denominations, spiritualities, and ways of worship,
each with its own interpretation of Jesus. Jesus is complex.
Given Jesus’s complexity, it’s no accident then
that theologians, preachers, and spiritualities often find in his person and
his teachings ways that reflect more how they would handle a situation than how
he would. We see this in our churches and spiritualities everywhere, and I say
this with sympathy, not with judgment. None of us gets Jesus fully right.
So where does this leave us? Do we simply rely on
our private interpretation of Jesus?
Do we give ourselves over uncritically to some
ecclesial or academic authority and trust that it will tell us what Jesus would
do in every situation? Is there a third way?
Well, there is a third way, the way of most
Christian denominations, wherein we submit our private interpretation to the
canonical (“dogmatic”) tradition of our particular church and accept, though
not in blind uncritical obedience, the interpretation of that larger community,
with its longer history and its wider experience. We can humbly accept that it
can be naïve (and arrogant) to bracket 2,000 years of Christian experience so
as to believe that our own insight into Jesus is a necessary corrective to a
vision that has inspired so many millions of people through so many centuries.
Still, we’re not meant to park the dictates of our
private conscience, our critical questions, our unease with certain things and
the wounds we carry, at our church door either. In the end, we all must be true
to our own consciences, faithful to the particular insights that God graces us
with, and mindful of the wounds we carry. Both our graces and our wounds are
meant to be listened to and they, along with the deepest voices within our
conscience, need to be taken into account when we ask ourselves “What would
Jesus do?”
We need to answer that for ourselves, by faithfully
carrying within us the tension between being obedient to our churches and not
betraying the critical voices within our own conscience.
If we do that honestly, one thing will eventually
constellate inside us as an absolute: God is good. Everything Jesus taught and
incarnated was predicated on that truth. Anything that jeopardises or belies
that – be it a church, a theology, a liturgical practice or a spirituality – is
wrong. And any voice within dogma or private conscience that betrays that is
also wrong.
How we conceive of God colours for good or for ill
everything within our religious practice. The truth that God is good needs to
ground everything else, our churches, our theologies, our spiritualities, our
liturgies, and our understanding of everyone else. Sadly, often it doesn’t. The
fear that God is not good disguises itself in subtle ways but is always
manifest whenever our religious teachings or practices somehow make God in
heaven not as understanding, merciful, and indiscriminate and unconditional in
love as Jesus was on earth. It’s also manifest whenever we fear that we’re
dispensing grace too cheaply and making God too accessible.
Sadly, the God who is presented in our churches
today is often too narrow, too merciless, too tribal, too petty and too untrustworthy
to be worthy of Jesus … or the surrender of our soul.
What would Jesus do? Admittedly, the question is
complex. However, we know we have the wrong answer whenever we make God
anything less than fully good, whenever we set conditions for unconditional
love, and whenever, however subtly, we block access to God and God’s mercy.