Ethereal Mundaneness
And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” - Luke 4: 21-22, ESV
“Having first created a false self in the image of our own making, we then set out to create the sort of a god who might in fact create us. Such is the perversity of the false self.” – David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself
“…Jesus’ mission is directed to the poor…in the holistic sense of those who are for any of a number of socio-religious reasons relegated to positions outside the boundaries of God’s people. By directing his good news to these people, Jesus indicates his refusal to recognize those socially determined boundaries, asserting instead that even those “outsiders” are the objects of divine grace. Others may regard such people as beyond the pale of salvation, but God has opened a way for them to belong to God’s family.” – Joel B. Green
“Ironically, he who has been anointed to proclaim the year of the Lord’s “favor” (4:19) himself does not receive the “favor” of his own townspeople.” - Joel B. Green
“If God has come in the flesh, and if God keeps coming to us in our fleshly existence, then all of life is shot through with meaning. Earth is crammed with heaven, and heaven (when we finally get there) will be crammed with earth. Nothing wasted. Nothing lost. Nothing secular. Nothing absurd…All are grist for the mill of a down-to-earth spirituality.” - R. Paul Stevens
One of the challenges of following Jesus for a long time is that His presence and work can become mundane to us. It isn’t mundane of course, it is ethereal. And that’s the rub. When God invades our world and lives, we can get caught looking for spectacle. The parting of the Red Sea sort of thing is after-all our God at work. But, our God is also at work in everyday life and maybe especially in the mundane corners of life where we are least likely to see Him. Jesus’ hometown crowd had a comfortability with Jesus that led them to assume on their relationship with Him. We know you Jesus. Surely you will do here at least what you’ve done elsewhere. You are after all one of us. Jesus’ response to their familiarity with Him and their sense of connection by familiarity is wrong-headed. Jesus confronts it head on with two illustratrations that highlighted God’s work outside of the normal boundaries of “God’s people”. The import being, “You may think you know me, you may even think you have a claim on me to do something for you; but I am not sent to make people who are comfortable with God feel comfortable. I am going to the sick, the lost, the blind, the oppressed, the prisoner and for them, I will do the work of God. But for you, who assume you are righteous and well, I have nothing to offer but rebuke. How dare you impose on your relationship to God?”
The hard work before us then (esp. the longer we’ve been following Jesus) is ensuring first and foremost that we are not assuming on our relationship with God. The invasion of God into our world should always produce awe and humility in us, not comfortable assumption. We must refuse to embrace a sense of false humility (which is pride dressed up nicely) that feigns awe. We have to experience awe. We must also recognize Jesus and His work in the mundane stuff of life. He came in the flesh so that we might not miss how God meets us in everyday life. Every part of creation is His. So, we must cultivate wonder at the God who cherishes the blind, the prisoner, the oppressed, and the poor. We must remember that this is the portrait of us when we first encountered Jesus. And we must marvel that He still meets us there. It is not that He is absent from the whole and full parts of life but, He is still very much in the foot washing business. Stooping to serve, that’s where we find Jesus. And because He is God, I dare not dictate the terms of His service. His ministry is His own and for it He owes me no explanation or defense. In the end, I can come up with no defense for His saving work for me but this: grace. And grace ought to stir wonder in us. If it instead stirs assumption or familiarity, we are on a dangerous road. Ahead are destinations like legalism and Pharisee-ism. Around the bend lies pride and hard heartedness. Get off that path! Find ways instead to cultivate your wonderment at the good news Jesus came to bring and to be, for you and for those around you.
Questions for Life Application/Further Discussion:
Do I let Jesus define His own ministry in my life?
Am I like the crowd of Nazareth trying to dictate to Jesus what He will do?
Have I grown too familiar with who I think Jesus is to see Him as I ought?
Has my understanding of Jesus and His ministry shifted to the point that I think I get to pick who and when and how Jesus will minister?
Why do I feel it necessary to defend Jesus, to guard His reputation?
Am I accepting of the kind of reputation I will have if I follow Jesus to the people He came to save?
Reflect on your story. How did you meet Jesus the first time? In experiencing new birth in Jesus, what did you feel? What helps you to cultivate wonder at the Gospel?