Just Give Me The Fluffy Pink Jesus

Every now and then, circumstances seem to push me to "hurry up and put that thought down in writing." Over the past week, a combination of David, TJ and Jesus triple-teamed me, so here we are.

Everyone knows Jesus, but who are David and TJ?

The American

David is a friend of mine from college who has been living in Turkey for nearly twenty years. Now, Turkey is not the most dangerous nation in the world, but in my generation there is an immortalized quote from that 70s movie Airplane: "Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?"

No, Joey has not been to a Turkish prison. And the humor, of course, involves the fact that that nobody else wants to, either.

But my friend David has been in Turkish prisons (note the plural). The Turkish government (Turkish and international laws be damned) doesn't like what David is doing in Turkey. Which is?

Oh, just faithfully living as a servant of Jesus Christ in Turkey.

That's a crime? Yes, Joey. Well, No. But the government wants it to be.

(Internet links go stale eventually: Here's a portion of the article...)

U.S. Evangelist in Turkey Detained, Ordered To Be Deported

Turkish authorities have detained a U.S. evangelist and ordered him held for 30 days without charge ahead of deportation, sources said.

Declaring David Byle “a danger to public order,” authorities in Turkey took him into custody on April 6 after asking him to report to the immigration office in Istanbul regarding his application for a residency permit.

The Turk

So David is a very unwelcome American living in Turkey. TJ the Turk? I met him through circumstances only God could arrange. That story for another day.

Suffice it to say that David, TJ and I got together several times while I was visiting David in Turkey in 2002. TJ "escaped" his homeland not too long after that, however, and he has no desire to ever live in Turkey again.

One other thing to know: TJ grew up in a Muslim home but abandoned that faith system a long time ago. He very much loves Jesus, but does not call himself a Christian. (And since so many Christians today are voting for Donald Trump, who can blame him? But we digress.)

So let's get to the point of our story.

Over the years, TJ has continually lamented the fact that David is still living in Turkey. TJ is of the firm opinion that a father of five has no business throwing himself under a Turkish bus.

And since TJ is not a Christian, that's an understandable opinion. What I keep trying to explain to TJ, however, is that David puts Jesus first in his life, and for that love he is willing to risk everything.

Sharing Jesus in Turkey is exactly what David loves to do. (Yes, people do sometimes get killed for that sort of thing in Turkey.)

TJ just can't get his mind around that idea.

...And let's face it. Many professed Christians share TJ's perspective.

It's one thing to profess affection for Jesus. Another to claim to follow him. But it's an act of lunacy to put oneself in physical danger for Jesus. That, my friends, is taking this religious thing a step too far.

With all that as backdrop, a brick hit me in the head a few days ago as I read a commentary on the gospel of Mark. For the first time I realized that this debate between TJ and David is an echo of another much older one that, come to find out, is pretty similar.

The Jew

Mark 3:20-21
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

So I've read that passage many times before, but here's the difference. I always figured his family really did think Jesus had lost his mind. On this pass, thanks to a commentary, I read those words differently.

The NIV Bible Background Commentary explains...

Because false teachers were sometimes thought to be inspired by demons and the official penalty for misleading God's people this way was death (Deut 13:5; 18:20), Jesus' family had reason to want to reach him before the legal experts did.

Is there any indication from Mark that this is what they were worried about? Let's read the next verse.

Mark 3:22
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

Does TJ really think David is insane? No! He just thinks that David is behaving irresponsibly, throwing his life away under a Turkish bus.

Did Jesus's family really think he was insane? No! But I bet they did think he was throwing his life away under a Jerusalem bus.

TJ is a wonderful person, and he really cares about David. He just doesn't want David to get hurt. Jesus' family had similar concerns.

So what's the right response? Read on.

Mark 3:31-35
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The right response is this: Radical faith requires radical actions. Even if people think you're behaving irresponsibly.

Fluffy faith likes a fluffy Jesus. But Jesus wasn't fluffy. Jesus was radical.

More from that commentary:

"Thinking of one's coreligionists as brothers and sisters was common; Respecting older persons as mothers or fathers was also widespread. But allowing ties in the religious community to take precedence over family ties was unheard-of in Judaism..."

Doesn't that sound exactly like Christianity in the West today? Brothers, sisters... lovey-dovey and a fluffy pink Jesus. But nobody should risk their lives or the lives of loved ones for any of this stuff! Family first!

But Jesus doesn't see it that way. He begs to differ. Will we hear his voice?

The commentary continues:

"Jesus is not rejecting his earthly family althogether but stating his priories, because they want to declare him mentally incompetent to rescue him from the dangers he is sure to face from religious authorities if he continues on his present path.

So the question is this: Which Jesus do we want? Fluffy Pink? Or Radical? The path we take will likely make it clear how we decided on that question.

I cracked open Facebook this morning and saw this post.

"Yeah," I thought to myself, "I should write that blog."

With that very thought rattling in my head, I then went upstairs, where I heard my wife praying a child out the door to school. "And thank you Jesus, for bringing David home to his family."

OK, maybe get it down today?

So here I am, wrapping up the story of Jesus' choice. Of David's choice.

What, my friends, will we choose?

Stuff I Should Have Learned In Middle School

Remember that popular book titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? I was reminded of that book yesterday.

It began with my little worrier who is now in Middle School. She wanted a ride to school early so that she could hurry and procure some study materials that she needed for an exam that would happen later that day.

Yeah. That ain't happening.

First of all, she's got straight A's. For seconders, she's in seventh grade. There's no class in seventh grade that puts us in a make-or-break situation, let alone a single test. (And the circumstances that led to this urgency were not due to her negligence, either, BTW...)

That having been said, it's admirable to want to do your best, and her attention to such things will yield dividends for decades. I wish one of the other siblings would acquire a bit more of this passion for excellence in schoolwork! But we digress.

One of my main jobs as this child's parent is not to push her to study harder but rather to encourage her to not worry. She worries. Way too much.

I've said to her the very things I am writing here.

"No, honey, I'm not going to take you to school early in the car. The bus will be fine, and I won't give you any grief at all if the exam goes poorly. Don't worry about it. The only thing I'm concerned about right now is that you do your best and develop good study habits."

A lot of good that does. She frets. Worries. And stews.

It does concern me a bit, that she's such a perfectionist. But by the same token, I admit I do find it a bit amusing. "The stuff she thinks is so important!" I'll think to myself. Then I'll shake my head, knowing that in three years she'll never remember any of these things that had her brain in fight-or-flight mode today.

And then it all came back to me after I went to bed.

Several minutes after I went to bed.

Like, thirty minutes after I went to bed. Or maybe it was forty.

Normally I fall asleep a lot faster. But lately I've had a thumb injury that has plagued my thoughts at night. The surgery to fix it is expensive. Recovery is expected to be limited.

Oh. And my oldest is heading off to college. An expensive one.

And work? For the first time in a long time, it has been a bit dicey.

So, No. I've not been sleeping very well, of late.

You can see it coming, can't you? Yeah. All of a sudden, lying there in bed last night, I had to smile. Here I am, stewing in my worries.

And you just know what God's thinking...

“Child, you are as silly as your daughter. Do you think I will give you grief over things beyond your control that don't go perfectly? Do you?"

"And did I hear you telling her that you're only interested in her doing her best? Developing good study habits? My son! What do you think I'm hoping to see you gain out of what you are experiencing right now??"

Yeah. I think, now that you mention it, God has been clear on that topic:

Matthew 6:25-34 excerpted
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ... Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“You of little faith... Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Yes, Lord, I hear your voice again. Thank you. I remember my job now.

Help me to sleep well tonight, will you please?

Easter Is For Losers

This past Easter was not that happy chocolate-strewn joyfest it usually is. For openers, our youngest was down with the flu for most of the week preceding Easter, and that same virus proceeded in our home from host to host, not satisfied merely to take out only one of us. Before it was over, almost all of us had received our share of the misery.

All part of the pallor of this glorious resurrection week.

But all of this was just backdrop to the greater shadow hanging over my Easter week. In a recent blog, I touched on a Christmas-gift injury: a ruptured thumb tendon. Well, that should have been healed by March, but as one doctor put it recently, "Congratulations! You won the lottery!"

Hardy-har-har. He was referring to the fact that I re-ruptured it in mid-March. Re-ruptures that many weeks after surgery place me among the unlucky 1% that the other 99% do not envy.

So on Easter Sunday, I was awaiting a doctor's appointment on Tuesday to get a second opinion on whether and how we might try to restore some functionality to my right thumb. But here's the strange thing....

All these bodily ailments made Easter all the more special.

Yes, strange to say, this miserable Easter Sunday stands above the rest. This Easter I celebrated what we're supposed to be celebrating all along:

A final victory that is yet to come. A victory for losers.

I've come to appreciate the practice of giving something up Lent. Doing so doesn't make me holy, but it does remind me of loss and helps me to await the arrival of Easter with greater vigilance. But these lenten denials are just 2D imitations of 3D suffering, because after Easter has passed we joyfully resume consumption of that which we had temporarily denied ourselves.

My thumb injury, however, didn't go away on Easter morning, and it served as a poignant reminder that Easter is for permanent losers. The significance of Easter will grow for us in an intimate way when we face death as a more present reality.

This is not to play down the blessings we experience here on Earth as disciples of Christ. They are real. But the great victory Christ has won for us is over death. And, for now, we're alive.

Yes, my thumb injury introduced me to permanent loss and to hints of my mortality. But in the grand scheme of things, it's a minor setback.

It's been a different story, however, for a dear friend of mine. I received news yesterday that his wife had drowned in a tragic accident. On an Easter vacation.

A husband bereaved. Three children, the youngest still just a toddler, now without a mother. Can anyone understand the darkness he faces? Not me.

But Jesus does. Jesus faced death. Met it. And overcame it. For us.

For my friend I pray in the midst of this all-consuming darkness that a glimmer of light will shine, giving him Easter's hope for a day yet to come.

He will see his wife again. His children will see their mother again.

1 Corinthians 15:54
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Now more than ever, I am keenly aware of that first word: When.