In this week’s gospel reading from Luke 4, Jesus is speaking some hard truths that his audience doesn’t like to hear and it nearly gets him thrown off a cliff. And what is this message that is so offends the tender ears of his listeners? Simply put: you. aren’t. special.

Mmm, they do not want to hear that Israel isn’t the primary (read: only) beneficiary of God’s love. They don’t want to hear that God healed a Syrian and fed a Sidonite while Israelites ailed and hungered. God is supposed to be their very own pet god, working solely on their behalf.

And Jesus, as ever, points out instead the boundlessness of God’s love and regard, for humans of all nationalities. Not just Israelite Jews. And not just American Christians, either.

Jesus is breathing fire here, and it is the fire of unconditional love. May we learn how to channel it too! Even though it might make the gatekeepers mad.

(I’ve included elements from the other readings in this week’s Lectionary selection in this litany as well.)

God, we are working on knowing that you’re within us.
We’re getting better at working with the power you share with us.
Your power and energy are unlimited,
But our humanity is a finite container;
So instead of being containers,
We’re learning to be like pipes - conduits of love.

In Jesus’ late-night conversation with Nicodemus we receive John’s famous (and much-romanticized (1) ) remembrance of Jesus’ words: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” They beg the question: what does it mean to “believe in him”?

Professor Samuel Cruz of UTS says this:

“ It is therefore necessary to ask some pertinent questions of him and/or this gospel lesson: What does believing in him (Jesus) mean? Why did Jesus need to come into the world? Was it because of sin? If indeed Jesus came to the world to save it from sin, what kind of sin? For John, sin seems to be concrete and structural (that is injustice, hate, lack of mercy, etc.) rather than individualistic….Therefore, for John, believing in Jesus has more to do with what people believe regarding evil, hate, exploitation, and injustice rather an esoteric “religious” conversion.”

I have left writing this installment of this year’s lent series until last, precisely because this verse, over-simplified and over-romanticized, gives such trouble to the modern reader, especially one who has begun any sort of deconstruction from dogmatic or superficial theological interpretation. But Professor Cruz’s words give me hope that we might be able to figure out what it means to truly believe in Christ, to align ourselves with his values, to take up his mission and purpose, to accept his invitation into a new way of being in the world that then becomes ours too. Hope that we might be able, in Western Christianity, to go beyond a flippant or surface-level reading of this passage and allow it to lead us to our true selves, re-creating the world as we go.

God, here in this Lenten season, we slough off all that distracts us,
All that doesn’t serve heaven’s cause,
All that is not aligned with the highest good,
All that keeps us from becoming our truest selves:
Inheritors of the riches of God’s grace,
Adopted and beloved siblings with Christ…

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