Pastor Bob

To my way of thinking, the most unsettling feature of Rob Bell’s recent book Love Wins has been the response to it in the Christian community.

Theological problems certainly can be the result of poor thinking or because even good intentions, like evangelism or protectionism, have succumbed to an evasive dishonesty that wants to make things more palatable or clear than they are.  At the same time, some theological difficulties arise from a healthy sense of Christian humility which can tolerate well a certain degree of ambiguity.  Those concerned with guarding against the first certainly share the mind of Christ; Jesus made everything known to his disciples, even when it was hard.  Those concerned with preserving the second, however, share the heart of Christ.  Jesus was honest with his disciples, for example, when telling them that no one knew the day or hour of the end, except the Father alone.  Faithful communication of the Gospel requires both the mind and the heart of Christ: clarity about and fidelity to what we do know; humility and honesty about things yet mysterious.

I think the heart of Christ is conveyed best by a humble tone and openness to free dialogue, even when discussing what we do know.  But this is all the more true in a post-modern world where confession of the edges of mystery is more intelligible and honest than the hammered out propositional and prepackaged truths of the modern (and not necessarily scriptural) world.  Indeed the reasoned systematic arrangement of propositions is not a scriptural principle.  It’s worth saying then that all the ordered ‘right facts’ with the wrong tone is a clanging gong and risks giving as erroneous a picture of the heart and truth of God as the right tone with poor thinking or exegesis gives of His mind.  If Bell’s book is the latter, his critics often seem the former.  Some critics are aware of this risk, but then justify a tone that could be misconstrued as mean spirited, nasty, or even cruel by making notions of “strong language” a kind of synonym for “forceful arguments”.  I’m unconvinced, and suspect rather an excuse for plain bad behaviour among some evangelicals for which folks like Bell are trying to compensate.  Piper’s tweet “Farewell Rob Bell” reveals a very serious problem among evangelicals today when it comes to understanding the heart of Christ, and even if Bell’s suggestions about what happens after death fail exegetical tests, (and I think they do), at least the heart is right.  That’s a better place to start the discussion that Bell does indeed want to have.  Bell intentionally names his speculations about a quasi-universalistic almost purgatorial Hell, as a “question that gives us much to discuss”, but then goes on to say that they are nevertheless subsidiary matters to the better and less speculative question that matters more, and about which there is no real controversy.  Bell is willing to take the ideas he’s clearly most passionately interested in exploring, and that he feels will help in his ministry, and call them secondary to what we all as evangelicals hold as true.

I do think there is a better exegetical and theological path than Rob Bell’s.  One that is more faithful to the mind of Christ and the scriptural truth we’ve received, and yet that can also reflect the heart of Christ so necessary in our post-Christian context.

I’d begin by saying that Hell and final justice are simply not contrary to God’s love.  There’s no shortage, for example, of wounded people in this world who’ve rightly been crying out for justice.  And so the expressions of God’s definitive, permanent and final justice are actually expressions of His love to the victims and wounded of this world.  Victims matter to God.  Their feelings and sufferings matter.  Their loss and grief matter.  And so God’s wrath against the injustice, oppression and sin of this world is not that of a temperamental parent upset that the kids got in after 10pm.  His wrath is that of the one who sees everything perfectly, and who is filled with a love that forgives, is merciful, and that protects and sets right.

If we should be worried about who goes where ‘in the end,’ I’d paraphrase Augustine with “There are some God has, whom we [in the church] do not have; and there are some we have, whom God does not have.”  I often offer that passage with the reassurance that when God’s judgments are made, no one is going to stand back and slap their foreheads thinking God blew it.  We can trust Him.  No one is going where they don’t belong.  We can leave the matter there as a healthy and humbly expressed mystery where the scriptural truths of justice and mercy can meet, and be affirmed together.

One thing could have changed everything for Judas.

That one thing was not his betrayal of Jesus.

The night Jesus was betrayed, the disciples scattered.  The crowd armed with clubs and swords scared them away.  Judas escorted that crowd.  He knew where Jesus would be praying.  He was familiar with Jesus’ practices.  And so comes the moment when Jesus is arrested.  Soldiers chase disciples into the dark while Jesus is taken in hand and walked by shoulder and twisted arm towards the late night trial.  Peter, in the shadows, follows at a distance.  He is cautious.  Stepping over his fear he slips through the gate into the city, and then into the courtyard just outside the place where Jesus is questioned.  In that courtyard Peter sits behind his denials, his tongue submitting to the power of self preservation.  Peter would always remember the night he denied Christ.  While everyone else vented their anger against Judas, Peter vented against himself.  To the dirge of Jesus’ predictions, Peter sang the solitary lyrics of remorse and doubt.  He knew that his own weakness had left him as impotent as Judas was corrupted.

Over the centuries, the church has often characterized Judas in sharp contrast to Peter.  While we’ve celebrated Peter, the fact of Judas’ corruption has meant we in the church have often carried a practical kind of unforgiveness about Judas in our thoughts.  He’s our metaphor for betrayal from within one’s own cadre of the close and loved.  And yet, if we’re truthful, after Jesus’ arrest and Peter sheathing his sword, Judas was the only disciple who actually tried to do something to help Jesus.

Matthew’s Gospel tells us about the moment that Jesus was condemned to death.  When the judgment was pronounced, and Jesus was bound and led out to be taken to Pilate the governor, Judas saw what was happening and was immediately seized with remorse for his sin.  He knew he needed to do something.  While Peter was still denying Jesus, we can imagine he looks over to see Judas already trying to make things right, pleading with the chief priests and the elders, trying to give back the money, protesting aloud that Jesus was innocent.  How much more than Peter sitting silently just metres away!  To the elders and chief priests, and within earshot of Peter and perhaps Jesus, Judas openly confessed his sin:  “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”  Though his was the initial act of betrayal, Judas nevertheless did more practically to intervene and help Jesus on that awful night than any of the other disciples in hiding.

So what is the difference between Judas and Peter?  The specifics or the consequences of their sin?  Like Peter, Judas felt genuine remorse for what he’d done.  Moreover, in repentance he not only openly confessed his sin, but tried to make things right.  So, what else do we expect from Judas?  Isn’t that the standard we set for ourselves?  Just admit what we’ve done wrong, and then do what we can to repair the wrong we’ve done – isn’t that enough?

If we as Christians can celebrate Peter after his threefold denial of Jesus because he was remorseful, why not afford the same for Judas?  And how much more since Judas actually tries to intervene!  Are we actually saying that being sorry and doing what we can to straighten things out isn’t enough?

Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying.

Indeed, what sets Peter apart from Judas is not the content of the sins.  Neither is it the quality of their remorse or the sincerity of their confessions.  And the matter is not one of failed or successful attempts to make things right either.

The difference is something else entirely beyond the question of repentance and reparation.  Certainly the Christian call to those of us who have failed includes these, and yet there is something more, something key, that is essential when it comes to the question of our own sin.

Faith.

The kingdom of Christ is not only a realm of guilt and grief for our sin.  We preach repentance and faith.

When Jesus spoke with Peter after his resurrection, Peter’s future in God’s plan was a part of the discussion.  And as Peter spoke with Jesus he trusted that he was forgiven and free to serve.  Not so with Judas.  For Judas, after repentance there was no faith – no trust that forgiveness was possible for him.  That’s of course why he killed himself.

This is not a question of the severity of Judas’ sin.  While Judas himself may have argued that his betrayal was so serious that there was no hope for him, we who have come to know God in Christ Jesus know otherwise.  There is no limit to God’s grace and forgiveness, and that applies to Judas too.  The critical failing of Judas was not the betrayal, but the fact that after years of ministry alongside Christ he could not trust that grace could still be apportioned for him.  It was not out of remorse that Judas killed himself, it was out of a lack of faith in God’s mercy and grace: a lack of faith in God Himself.

For Judas, it is that one thing – faith in God’s promise of forgiveness – which could have changed everything.

It can change everything for you too.

The screenplay for the Oscar nominated film, Up in the Air, written by Jason Reitman, begins by juxtaposing two quotations.  “There is no ‘I’ in ‘Team’” is a ‘common business axiom’.   “Secure your own mask before assisting others” is a ‘common pre-flight instruction’.  The film follows that tension.  On the one hand we have a need for relationships, and on the other, so often, it can seem as if our own survival is challenged by them.

Relationships always call for us to give something.  They call something forth from us.  Effort and energy.  Time and patience.  Attention and listening.  Emptying of self.  Forgiveness.  Grace.  We experience the demand of relationships most fiercely when faced with a person with need we obviously cannot meet ourselves.  A person without normalized social boundaries exhausts us over the phone.  A sibling with a long history of irresponsibility is again in a serious crisis, and our line of credit has run its course.  A person we love is making a decision we doubt, or fear, and we’ll share in the consequences nonetheless.  The film is right: on the one hand we have a need for relationships, and yet features of our own life are threatened by their demands.

In fact, being in relationships can kill you.

That was Jesus’ experience.  His relationship with the world meant His death; He literally ‘gave himself’ to death.  Even beyond His death we experience His resurrection as an opportunity for him to continue giving to us.  At the Father’s right hand, after the Father has given His Son, and the Son has given His life, Father and Son send us their very Spirit.  All for the demands of love?  All for relationships with us?   If it weren’t for His divine immortality, meeting the needs of relationships with us would kill Him over and over.  And yet He enters them willingly, and asks us, even commands us, to do the same.

Being in relationships Jesus’ way well – loving in relationships in imitation of Jesus – does mean we lay our own survival on the line.  In an ongoing Lenten fit, we empty ourselves in order to follow His example.  And yet we know the great secret of love disclosed to the world in Christ.  As God’s loving expression of Himself, it is always Jesus’ self sacrificial love that actually meets the needs of those we know.  As Jesus expressed the Father’s love, so also, in ourselves, we express His.  And so as we empty ourselves and remain vulnerable in relationships that are difficult, we do so trusting that we are merely expressions of Christ’s love and that the great need of every human heart we touch can be met, not by something we give of ourselves, but by that which we pass on as from Him.

Each disciple of Christ is like a Valentine’s card from the Father: someone else’s name is written on us, our packaging will be torn and cast aside, we’ll be pried open and read aloud, and maybe even dropped from memory.  But the signature of our sender will be seen, and the message of love that matters and meets needs will be spoken.