Faith Venture

I am writing this at the beginning of what we call Holy Week. Approximately 2,000 years ago, a man named Jesus of Nazareth began his well documented last week. This week was so important in the lives of his friends and followers that his close friend John devotes a substantial part of his writing (we call the Gospel according to John) to just this last week.

Jesus spent four or five days teaching, being with friends, being alone with God. Then what we call Good Friday (from the time I was a child, I wondered what was “good” about Good Friday, I’ve always played with words) came with his execution. Of course, the most important remembrance of this week concerns Sunday that we call Easter when his closest friends discovered that he had returned to life. Some sort of weirdly physical life (he told one friend not to touch him, and he walked through walls). But, still, life.

In contemplation this morning, I was stuck on the thought of what 2,000 years of his followers have done to his church. My thoughts rapidly scanned through just people I’ve known or read about in the past decade. Many have advertised themselves as followers, yet the actual advertising I see by their actions betray that self-promotion. Many lives definitely do not reflect the commands Jesus gave about loving God and loving others.

In contemplation, I can reflect on my own actions. What do they advertise? Have I always acted in the right way even through my weaknesses of personality?

Perhaps if you claim to follow Jesus, this is a good week to contemplate what your life has revealed. Perhaps that is motivation for us, you and me, to change. There is still time.

I remember the rise of Vaclav Havel—poet, playwright, anti-communist dissident, president of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. His observation was true then and still true today.

An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his “worldly” interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests.…

Vaclav Havel

Many people claim to follow Jesus in most places of the world today. Each of us must reflect on what ideals we are really serving—with our money, feet, beliefs, soul.

And what to do?

So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself.

Vaclav Havel

Just as “free speech” does not imply irresponsible speech, merely saying you are a Christian does not cut it. Jesus himself said so, “Many people will call Lord, Lord, but I will not know them.

Just like parents preach to their youth responsibility yet live irresponsible lives as a role model, so we cannot either preach or learn from preaching. We must seize responsibility and act as true disciples.

And, yes, I’m aware of the irony that I’m writing these words—a form of preaching. But I’d rather hope that I’m encouraging self-reflection and then right action.