The Courage To Be Human
“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil.”
February 20, 1983
"Turn these rocks into bread, these stones into Twinkies. People will really go for you, Jesus, if you fill their stomachs and soothe them," said the devil. "Hey, Jesus, be king of the world, roll some heads, show them who's boss, let them know Caesar has nothing on you. And it went on. "Hey, Jesus, so-called Son of God, jump off that high ledge of the temple in Jerusalem. Prove that God really will save your neck. That will really amaze the people."
Strange story. Matthew and Mark also tell it. There were no "action-cams " around in that day. Whether Jesus' temptation, as it has been called, was with a red-attired, horned, pitchfork toting critter or with a much more evil, internal tantalizing adversary, we do not know. Yet, in a way, Luke relates a sort of identity struggle, maybe even an identity crisis, on the part of Jesus.
Remember, the Gospels were put together for struggling early Christians in the toddler stage of the church. They probably wondered why Jesus was not a magic messiah who oohed and awed people. Not far from that question was possibly their own struggle with "why hasn't being a Christian made me immune from pain and able to sidestep trouble the way Superman jumps over buildings?"
Resisting the tugs from without or within, Luke told them and tells us, Jesus answered, "I'm not here just for bread only, as important as that is. There are hungers for joy, meaning, and peace which only God can satisfy. The power question. "The world does not need another bloody sword. God's power is not the clenched fist but outstretched arms. The immune to pain stunt dare? "I am not here to razzle-dazzle people with my immunity to gain, I am here to be with people in their hurt." I might say that stunts can amaze me, but it takes something like a cross to break my heart and transform me.
Jesus, the Gospels proclaim, chose to be a servant messiah. He risked involvement in pain and uncertainty, he lived in the mix and mess of the everyday. Jesus found his identity in being a most human son of God. You see, a careful examination of human in the Bible reveals
that really being human is not in opposition to divinity but a reflection of it. The creation stories affirm that humans were made in the image of God to be like God in their capacity to create, to love, and be free. What we usually call being human is anything but. What we usually call human is our perversion of our freedom to love and build up into the sordid freedom to hate and destroy whether it be with the weapons of words spoken hatefully or bombs dropped. Jesus was really human like God meant for all of us to be, a pure reflection of the creator. Because he was really human, he was divine. In short, Jesus was human in a divine way, divine in a human way. He reconciled what was meant to be together but what inhuman sin and evil had torn apart.
What Luke, I think, says is that it took courage for Jesus to be a truly human messiah. And he gives us the courage now to really be who God means for us to be: human.
IT TAKES COURAGE FOR YOU AND ME TO BE HUMAN, ESPECIALLY THE PARTICULAR HUMAN YOU AND I ARE.
In his novel The Sound of the Mountain, Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata mentions a man who lost his mind because his hair began to turn gray. As each gray hair appeared, he would quickly pluck it. Soon, he just stood in front of the mirror with his tweezers ready to extract as soon as the hair turned gray. Finally, emotionally broken he was taken to a mental hospital with a red, raw, self-inflicted bald head. He could not accept his identity as a gray haired, aging person.
Personally, I do not have much sympathy for that character. I would be glad to have hair even if it were green. The point, however, remains. It is difficult for us to accept and be who we are in life. Most always we want to be something or someone we are not.
Quite honestly, we would like those powers in question in the temptation story. The power to magically manufacture bread and all the other stuff we want. We would like the power to be totally in control of the world, or at least the world at our house or job or family. We would not even want the power to jump off a building, just a written guarantee that no disease or accident will find our bodies until we are at least a 100.
We would like to have a pain-free wonderful marriage, effortless parenting, financial success. As the years roll by, we would like to look like we used to look. Or if you are like me, I'd like to look like I have never looked.
But being human is not like that. We are not given magic wands and bulletproof vests with our birthday suits. We are given hands that can reach out, hearts that can love, heads that can think, and voices which can laugh and cry. That's the equipment. Sure, Jesus said our faith can move mountains, and it can. It is just that mountains are moved most often by the handful. Day in and day out.
Some of us try to be more than human. We try to live life at a safe distance. We try to be in control and force people to do things our way. Or we discard them, because we want what we want fast. Some of us try to be less than human. Since I can't have everything the way I want it with my spouse, my children, my finances, my health or whatever, I'll check out, suck my thumb, and bitter out the rest of my earthly days.
Into this weird and wonderful world came and comes Jesus. He came with no magic wands but with courage to live and love under difficult circumstances. Even he could not force people to do exactly what he wanted them to do. Boy, is that apparent. Even he could not live without pain. But what he did prove is that no one can take away your capacity to love. No one can take God's love from you when you live in God's feeding, forgiving, peacemaking way. Not death, not crosses, not anything. Jesus brought and brings us the courage to be human, the strength to live and love under difficult circumstances.
There is an old rabbinic story about a man named Zuysa. Zuysa spent much of his life feeling sorry for himself. Asked by a rabbi one day about his unhappiness, he answered: "I am not a leader like Moses, I am not wise like Solomon, I am not a prophet like Jeremiah. I am nobody." The rabbi answered: Zuysa, when you must face your maker and give account for your life, he will not ask you why you were not Moses, Solomon, or Jeremiah. He will ask you whether or not you were Zuysa.
God, give us the courage to be human. God, give us the courage to be the particular human each one of us is.
GOD THROUGH JESUS BROUGHT AND BRINGS US THE COURAGE TO TREAT OTHERS AS HUMANS.
Tied with the courage to be human is the challenge to treat others as human. Jesus enraged the Pharisees by treating half-breed Samaritans, streetwalkers, welfare recipients, enemy Romans like, of all things, humans!
When we deal with others as more than human or less than human, trouble arises. Sometimes in our family relationships we expect each other to be more than human. Or maybe a better way to say it is that we want one another to be a different human than the one each of us is. Sometimes husbands and wives are so busy being disappointed that their spouse is not the way they want them to be, there is little love and appreciation communicated for the good ways they in fact are.
I have met people who have been scarred throughout their lives because they felt they were not loved as much as a brother or sister, or because they did not turn out like their parents wanted them to. Some have felt their parents were disappointed because they were born male instead of female or female instead of male.
We search for that right book which will show us the magic way to change our spouse or to deal effortlessly with our children's learning or behavior problems. Somehow we forget that what works for us works for them. Only as I am loved as I am, am I empowered to change and improve myself. If I experience only criticism from those I love most, I have no strength to do much more than be resentful. Thus, we need the strength to permit others to be human, especially the particular human they are.
The matter of treating certain people as less than human takes us to our enemies. And while we deal with our enemies, why don't we confront the biggies: the Russians. What are the comments that always end conversations about the need to stop and back off our nuclear weapon buildup? What is always used as the "we-got-to-keep-on-arming" argument even in the face of overwhelming evidence about the non-winnability of war for anyone anymore? We can almost say it in unison: "YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE RUSSIANS?...AFTER ALL, THEY ARE NOT LIKE US."
Hear me, please. I have no compliments for the Russian system of government. I think we need to keep open communication going with their leaders. Never stop talking to your enemy. But part of our problem with them and their problem with us is that each side thinks their own side has the corner on the human market. For Americans, Russians are atheistic nonhumans. For Russians, Americans are capitalist warmongers.
Without Jesus I would not have the guts to love my enemies or even have faith in their humanity. The Christ who found humanity in people others wrote off forces us to consider the humanity of even the Russians. Russians are human. They love their children. They do not want to die. They lost over twenty million of their people in World War II. They have been invaded numerous times throughout history. They are afraid of us like we are afraid of them. Whatever political differences we have with them, we are one in the common human preference for life over death.
Yeah, we know, Jesus said to love our enemies. But in this case it might get us killed. Yet, that has always been the case with enemies. We live in a world today where there is an ever subtle difference at stake. If we as Christ's people risk loving our enemies and look for ways to stop planning our mutual deaths, it MIGHT get us killed. Yet, and I don't think it takes a Jeremiah prophet to see this, if we continue to hate our enemies and continue in the ways we are proceeding because of that hate, it WILL get us all killed. It will be a tragedy beyond imagination if the reminder our enemies are human does not come from someone. It will be a shame if the word does not come from Christ's people.
Another story from the ancient Israelite rabbis. A messenger arrives in the heavenly throne room to announce to the Lord of the Universe: "Good news, your children the Israelites have safely crossed the Red Sea and are now safe from the Egyptians. The messenger notices that the Lord is crying and asks why he is crying when his children, the Israelites, have been rescued. He answered: "Because my children the Egyptians have drowned."
God, give us the courage to be human. Give us the courage to be the particular human you made us and mean for us to be. God, help us to permit our loved ones to be the particular humans they are and not necessarily the ones we demand for them to be. God, with fear and trembling we ask for help to love our enemies in this dangerous world today, before it is too late for them and us. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
God, in the quietness of this prayer time, settle us down and help us take a good look at what is going on inside us and around us.
Inside there are more things going on than we sometimes understand. There is love, joy, hope. Inside there is fear, hurt, grief. Inside are fragments of answers and chunks of questions. Inside in ways we cannot quite pin down is you keeping us going when we want to give up, keeping us on our toes when we want to be left alone.
Outside us is a jumble of worlds: the world of our family, job, school, community. Beyond is the world of people and countries teetering-tottering with the struggle to live on an earth that has the potential to exist well fed in peace but tiptoes near the edge of annihilation. Outside in the maelstrom we believe you are making your moves. Some see all the pain and problems as indication of your absence. We your people sense in the fact that the world has made it thus far as well as it has is evidence of your presence.
God, give us the courage and strength to love, to forgive, to feed, to show your way to a world that needs help. Amen