Gecko Tales

A friend recently sent me Jim Elliot’s famous quote which I read years ago, and which I often stumble across.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

It reminded me of another pithy statement I read a few weeks ago but I can’t remember where but it went like this, “

“Many Christians today invest most of their time and money into making sure they have a comfortable death and in the process, they miss most of life.”

Here in Cambodia, the hot season has arrived in full force and we are all wilting. River levels are really low and hydro-electric power is at its lowest. Because of this, the city cuts off electricity in certain districts on a rotation basis. In hindsight, it would have best to have rented a house near a high ranking general or politician-they rarely lose power. Last night we lost power for 6 hours from 6-11 p.m. and it was hot. Lying there in the heat, I had some time to think about the life of Jesus, and how he became human in an era where there was no electricity, no air-conditioners, speedy transportation, paved roads, friendly skies, fans, screen doors, indoor plumbing, heating, sanitation, modern health services, vaccinations, and skilled doctors who can heal us, etc. Lying there I could imagine Jesus and his band of rag tag followers on bitter cold nights and during the hot dusty days along the roads of Ancient Palestine-being anything but comfortable. I imagined the blistered and dirty feet of Jesus, insect bites on his arms and legs, and his sweat mixing with the windblown dust. Jesus, as a carpenter most likely worked with construction gangs on Herod’s grandiose building projects with no port-a-pots, and a bunch of surly characters coming in hung-over and boasting about their exploits with local prostitutes. Jesus was no stranger to dangerous work and the ways of hard living men. I imagined it would not be comfortable for anyone of humble means to live in such an era.

Jesus and his disciples walked over all Ancient Palestine so they must have had plenty of time to discuss and reflect deeply on Jesus’ life and teachings. They had little to distract them other than wondering where their next meal was coming from, where they could relieve themselves, or when they could rest from their daily journey and wash their dusty and calloused feet. I wonder how often they counted the cost, and wondered what they had gotten themselves into, especially during the time of Jesus’ arrest, beating, and crucifixion.

I have been teaching teen Sunday school at the International Christian Fellowship and we have been finding metaphors for the unique person God created us to be, the Church, for Christians, and Jesus. Metaphors or words to describe who the earthly Jesus was that don’t readily come to mind were; exile, refugee, expatriate, homeless, radical, revolutionary, political, servant, suffering, sacrificing, risking, existential, irresponsible (staying at the temple, turning over the tables), out of the box, nomadic, counter-cultural, outcast, ostracized, confrontational, broke/poor, rural, peasant, heretic, change agent, and a boat rocker.

It came to me that Jesus didn’t just come and take on the nature of us humans to simply experience human existence, but freely agreed to become all of the earthy Jesus metaphors above in order to fully experience the breadth of the human existence, the depths of the worst of the human experience, and the demonstration of new paradigm of living for God’s new multi-racial family.

Metaphors or words describing the earthy and earthly Jesus show me that Jesus intentionally placed himself on the margins of society in order to identify with outcasts of society, and from that status and position the bulk of his public ministry took place, even as he dialogued with Joseph, Nicodemus, Zaccheus, the Rich Young Ruler, Pilate and the Sanhedrin. One of his last conversations on this earth was with a thief.

And in his last few days on this earth, he not only expressed it verbally, but he modeled to his disciples through the washing of their feet, and the breaking bread together with them, that the way he lived, his teaching and his death were examples for us all to follow. As I considered this, I began to see how God had shaped my life from the beginning, never allowing me to become an expert in any one field. I was always being thrust into new learning experiences (student, forester, surveyor, Christian educator, student, arborist, missionary and student) where I would have to start at the bottom of the ladder as learner again. On the bottom rung of the ladder there are always outcasts, those who had born into dysfunctional families or into adverse situations, those who had no encouragement, no advantages economically, socially or educationally. They are the grunts of society, of whom I have shared a deeper sense of community because of the risks we took together in the type of work we did. As I meditate on the life of Jesus, I see how far down the ladder he climbed, and this is the example he left us. I find myself gravitating toward climbing up the ladder but as I follow him, I always end up on the bottom rungs, again and again. What does this mean?

Early this Saturday morning I was off to team-teach with Seila at our Diamond Project 2 class. We enjoyed 4 straight hours of power. When I got home at 12:30 pm, the power in our house immediately went off. More time to meditate on how uncomfortable the heat, sweat and noisy building projects (building huge house only meters away from ours) made me. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable God was in our skin. Hot, dusty, sweaty, itchy, ragged, tired, sore and irritable at times. There was no doubt Jesus was physically uncomfortable in many instances during his earthly life, but he was also uncomfortable with sin; especially the effects of sin on powerless people such as widows, orphans, aliens, slaves, and the working poor. The majority of Jews living in Jesus’ time were working poor with no clout or power to protect them from being fleeced by the powerful elite. Jesus looked on these sinners with compassion and the sinners using the religious, economic, and state apparatus to oppress others, with contempt.

It is ironic how Jesus was comfortable eating with sinners and tax collectors whose personal mores were a mess, but rather confrontational with those who maintained high outward morality while bilking the powerless through the economic, religious and state systems. It is ironic because we would rather have Jesus be uncomfortable hanging out with ‘bad people’ because too many Christians live comfortably earning livelihoods from institutions that profit off the poor and powerless (Now Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth).[1]

I have no trouble believing in the Resurrection, but the bottom line is that Jesus makes me uncomfortable. His teachings make me uncomfortable. His call on my life makes me uncomfortable and the metaphors or words that we found above that describe him make me even more uncomfortable. Why? Because they describe the type of follower or disciple he is recruiting. Jim Elliot lived out the truth of his famous quote. He gave up what he could not have kept to gain something he couldn’t lose. The issue isn’t whether we believe the resurrection is true or not, the issue is how we believe it is true. Do we believe in it in such a way that it makes us uncomfortable with the sacrifices Jesus calls us to make in our way of living and being, or have we become adept at building a theological house of cards that can temporarily support a rationale for a life void of the gritty Jesus Metaphors while claiming that the Resurrection makes a difference in our lives?

What claim does the Resurrection make on our lives