January 23, 2005
By Jack Price

What do you believe?  This seems to be the question for our time.  It’s not just a religious question, either.  We have political beliefs and philosophical beliefs as well as our religious ones.  And beliefs are not just a matter of what we think.  They involve our passions and shape our lives.

 Belief is far more than casual thought.  It is deeply held conviction.  Belief understood this way is faith.  We trust our lives to our beliefs.  They determine our worldview and keep us going against all odds.

            Faith shapes and is shaped by belief.  This sermon is looking at what we believe about Jesus.  Unfortunately, what we believe about Jesus often divides Christians.  Our beliefs tend to unites us against them.  So let’s try to have some fun with what we believe about Jesus.

            This is a theology quiz!  The category is what we believe about Jesus.  Section one consists of true-false questions.

Question 1 -- Jesus was a real person (true or false?). 

The answer is true.  Jesus lived in Galilee.  He was a Jewish mystic, a healer, a wisdom teacher, a social prophet, and the initiator of a movement that came to bear his name.  He was executed on a Roman cross around 30CE for his politics and for challenging the powers that be.

Question 2 -- Christ was his last name (true or false). 

The answer is false.  Christ is a title meaning messiah.  It is also a New Testament designation for the post-Easter Jesus.

Question 3 – “Son of God” is Jesus’ preferred title for himself (true or false).

The answer is false.  In the gospels, Jesus uses the title  “Son of Man”.  “Son of God” was not a unique ascription to Jesus.  Such a title was frequently claimed by ancient kings and emperors.

            Question 4 – “Son of God” means the “same as God” (true or false).

The answer is false.  It means oneness with God, but not “the same as God”.  This title describes a relationship with the divine -- how God relates to an individual and how an individual relates to God.

Question 5 -- Jesus did not think of himself as God (true or false).

This answer is true, according to the Bible.  Jesus always pointed beyond himself.  He always told people to worship God.

            The second section of our theology quiz is multiple choice.

          Question 1 -- When does Bible say Jesus became Son of God?              The possible answers are:  a.  at his resurrection, b.  at his baptism, c.  at his conception, d. from the beginning, or e.  all of the above.  The answer is “e” because different biblical writers understand this transition differently.

Question 2 --             Who made the decision that Jesus was actually God? (hint:  not son of God or messiah, but God).  The possible answers are:  a.  the author of the Gospel of John, b. the author of the Gospel of Thomas, c. the Apostle Paul, d. the Bishops at  the Council of Nicea (Nicene Creed), or e. none of the above.  The answer is “d” because it was not until this council. (313CE) that Jesus was officially declared to be God.

Let’s take a break from this quiz.  Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Princeton religion professor Elaine Pagels.  She is well known and respected for her work translating and popularizing the “so-called Gnostic Gospels”.  Pagels and others have brought to light some new information within the last generation that changes some assumptions about the early development of Christian theology. 

Evidently, the first and early second-century Christians faced the same conundrum as we 21^st-centuries Christians.  There were widely differing opinions and divergent understandings of the nature of Jesus then as now.  They questioned how God was in Jesus and the connection of divine and human in Jesus. 

            One of her most helpful insights regards the function of the Gospel of John in that conversation.  This gospel apparently reflects one of the two strongest voices being heard.  It is the only one of the biblical gospels that moves toward claiming divinity for Jesus.  It asserts that Jesus is the only way to repair the breach, the cutoff, between heaven and earth.

The other prominent voice, the Gospel of Thomas, reflected a variety of interpretations with the general theme that Jesus reveals God’s way, God’s love, and God’s presence in us.  Christ calls us to follow him to God.  This does not mean that people will become God, but are called to live according to the “God-presence” that is already within us.

I find myself encouraged that those in the first century struggled like we do.  To me, it strikes true that there was a wide spectrum of possibilities around when it came to interpreting Jesus’ nature.  It seems clear that the human and the divine exist in Christ.  Both are essential.  Without divinity, Jesus was only an inspiration teacher who failed to persuade the religious leadership of his time.  Without humanity, how can we follow his example?

The crucial task for us, as it was 1900 years ago involves trying to hold both aspects of Jesus in tension.  How they exist is still a mystery – far more mystical than concrete.  Author f.     Scott Peck (A Different Drum) speaks an appropriate word to us as we seek to hold divinity and humanity in tension in Jesus:

“When Jesus said all those things about being the way and that we are to take up our cross and follow him, and that we were to be like him and might even do greater things than he did, he couldn’t possibly have been serious, could he?  I mean, he was divine, and we’re just human.  So it is, through the large-scale ignoring of Jesus’ very real humanity, that we are allowed to worship him in name without the obligation of following in his footsteps.” 

However we interpret Jesus’ nature, the Spirit of the eternal God that was seen in the Jesus of history is a living reality for us.  Jesus is the centerpiece of faith history.  In the gospels, he was always pointing beyond himself to God.  We will do well to follow this example.

Let’s return now to our theology quiz.  This next section is “short answer”. 

            Question 1 -- What did Jesus do?  

            The number one answer is something like:   “Jesus reconciled heaven and humanity”.   Another way of stating this is that Jesus saves.  We will also accept following answers:  a.  Jesus revealed God’s “character and passion” in a person  (Marcus Borg), b. “Jesus is what can be seen of God embodied in a human life.  He shows us the heart of God.” (Borg) –the image of the invisible God  c.  Jesus as the metaphor of God, d. Jesus as a sacrament of God – “a means through whom the Spirit of God becomes present”, he lived a human life, died a shameful death, and the source of that shame has been transformed to become the primary Christian symbol.

            Question 2 --           What is a theology of atonement?  (at-one-ment)

Theologies of atonement generally interpret Jesus’ death as the ultimate sacrifice, enabling God’s forgiveness of humanity’s “fallen” state.  Such theologies developed well after Jesus’ death.  They originated with the biblical interpretation of Jesus in the image of “paschal lamb”.  Jesus’ death was seen to challenge the Jewish temple’s monopoly on forgiveness.  This “sacrifice” originally challenged the validity of a sacrificial system.  Jesus’ “sacrifice” marked the end of the sacrificial system and the need for such a sacrifice to earn God’s freedom.  Ironically, the Christian church has often reasserted this type of monopoly.

Question 3 -- What did Jesus death on the cross accomplish?

The generally held answer to this question is that it accomplished our salvation (see atonement above).  Other answers may include:  a. it exposed the evil of the powers that be for the murder of an innocent/remarkable person, b. it reveals God’s path of transformation, c. it reveals the depth of God’s love for us, d. it proclaims the radical nature of God’s grace, and e. it enables us to embrace the Christ presence within us.

Question 4 -- Why might theological exploration and questioning be important? There are undoubted many possible answers to this question.  They include the following:  a.  traditional theological interpretations are not always compelling for many and lots of people in our time have joined what Bishop John Spong calls the “church alumnae association”; b. we need to distinguish Jesus before from Jesus after Easter; c. modern scholarship has provided a accurate historical and literary understanding of the gospels, knowledge that affects how we read them; d. we can find a way of embracing the meaning of symbolic Christological language without necessarily accepting its literal meaning; and e. it emphasizes that we can be committed Christians without necessarily agreeing on all Christian doctrine.

Poet R. S. Thomas offers this response to the foundational question, “What did Jesus do?”: 

“A memory of [Fritz] Kreisler

[We sat] so near that I could see …

this player who so beautifully suffered

for each of us upon his instrument. 

So it must have been on Calvary

in the fiercer light of the thorns’ halo: 

the men standing by and that one figure,

the hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,

making such music as lives still. 

And no one daring to interrupt

because it was himself that he played

and closer than all of them

the God listened.”  (Collected Poems)

            The final section of today’s theology Quiz is a life essay section.  It should be completed after we leave here today, and every day.  The first question is “What will it mean for you to follow Christ?”.  There are some guidelines to remember.  As followers of Christ, we are not worshipers of Jesus.  The Christological language, our images for Jesus, serve to point us to God, not to Jesus.

            To facilitate your answering this question, I am providing samples of successful essays by two advanced writers:

Example 1:  “The great objection brought against Christianity in our time … is the

suspicion that our religion makes its followers inhuman. Instead of harnessing them to the common task [of humanity], it causes them to lose interest in it.” (Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin)

Example 2:    “What is really involved in being a Christian is far more difficult and

exciting and frightening [than imitating Jesus].  It is to let Jesus Christ actually be within us and resuscitate within us all those wild hopes the world has taught us to distrust.  It is the willingness to live without the security of the law, to live daringly without demanding answers, without having to know right and wrong.  It is a matter of knowing that no matter what mistakes I make as I seek to maintain my relationship with him, there will always be another chance.  …It is the let the very word of God in Jesus Christ call to life the dead within me.  It is to let him call me into being.”  (Gordon Cosby, Handbook for Mission Groups)

            The second life essay question is:  “What will it mean for Crossroads Church to follow Christ?”  Since we can work together on this one, I have some suggestions.  Our essay needs to include some key points.  To follow Christ, we will:  lay down our lives; not be an in-group or a social club, not settle for a status-quo even when that status-quo is a radical one.  We will love deeply and become radically inclusive.  We will be willing to trust our God-given identity and willing to test that God-given identity.  We will become hungry to reach others, share with them our journey, and embrace them in this community.

            What would a quiz be with Extra Credit?  These are all true-false questions.                            Question 1. -- Crossroads Church is like an ark that was boarded when people were seeking safety and familiar companionship during the storm of the split that formed this congregation.  The ark has already landed on firm ground.  The immediate danger for survival has passed (true or false?).

            Question 2. --  The decision lies before us:  set up camp and live out life as a congregation in relative comfort and security or board another kind of ship, oceangoing vessel with sails awaiting the staggering breath of the Spirit to push us toward unknown waters, a ship with a rudder (arks don’t have rudders) to guide our path to a place only the eternal knows.  This is what it will mean for us to follow Christ (true or false?).

            Question 2. -- What we believe about God’s action in Jesus is not nearly as important as that we believe God acted through  Jesus (true or false?).

            Question 3. -- That we believe is not worth very much unless we follow Christ (true or false?).

            Question 4. -- We may ask “What Jesus would have done?”  But we know that Jesus did all of the above.  He showed us that his path along the winding road, through the narrow gate, is the way to life abundant.  The ultimate question is not “what would Jesus do?”.  It is, “What will you do?”  “What will we do”?  (true or false?)

“Jesus our brother, you followed the necessary path and were broken on our behalf

May we neither cling to our pain

where it is futile

nor refuse to embrace the cost

when it is required of us

that in losing our selves

for your sake

we may be brought to new life.  Amen

(Janet Morley, All Desires Known)