Meet Rhea.

I visit Rhea about once a week with a church member who has been Rhea’s long time friend. Rhea is 84 years old and lost her husband about eight years ago.

We were sitting in Rhea’s rooms at a local assisted living complex. My friend, Ray, was inviting Rhea to his upcoming birthday party. Ray is turning 86 years old.

I am not sure how or when the conversation turned, but I discovered that Rhea was recounting her husband’s death. I was stunned to silence as I watched her relive his death moment by moment in her mind. Rhea would speak a few sentences and stop. I could tell that in her mind’s eye she was “seeing”  the next scene. Her husband had experienced a heart attack and stroke. She painted the shocking and chaotic scene at home and the arrival of the ambulance, the hectic trip to the hospital, the crucial flurry in the trauma area of the E.R., the moving of her husband to a room. She is in the room with her husband. “He did not speak to me,” she quietly said. She sat next to him for two days. She spoke to him over and over, assured by the doctors that he could hear her. “He did not speak to me.” The words had the same impact on me as if she’d said, “My child died.”

Rhea became silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. She was seeing something she did not want to see. There in her rooms her eyes teared up and she whispered, “Then he was gone and he never talked to me.”

The way Rhea repeated this refrain made me rethink conversation. I so easily lose the pricelessness, dare I say holiness of speech between a husband and wife, between friend and friend. I will never hear her husband’s voice, but she heard it and then lost it by his death. I have no idea what they talked about, how they talked, if they ever fiercely argued, how they made up; I’ll never know. But I could not escape the profound heartbeat and loneliness in her words, “He did not speak to me.”

When Rhea stopped remembering I felt like I had walked a sacred path with her. That she had invited me (and Ray) to some “private rooms” of her soul. Ray was so sweet as he held Rhea’s hand as she relived the starkly pivotal event in her life.

Visiting older people has been like walking into a palace filled with treasures. I’ve chatted with a 93 year old man who met General George Patton in North Africa and Patton was wearing his pearl-handled pistols. Six degrees of separation and all that.

I saw Rhea today…at Ray’s birthday party. She was happy and engaged in the festivities. Yet, for a brief few minutes, Rhea had opened a door for me into the hall of all that is valuable.

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Remember Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story? Ralphie’s dream gift was a Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle. I loved the scene where Ralphie imagines that he saves his family from the bad guys who try to storm the house from the back yard. The family cringes under the table in the kitchen as Ralphie with his sharp-shooter eyes takes out the desperadoes.

As I ponder that little pardner, I think Ralphie is onto something deeply profound about cowboy stuff and boys…and men. I suggest something on the scale of Jungian archetypal, if you catch my drift. Because what happened to Ralphie’s imagination happened to mine after I bought myself a pair of  Justin genuine leather, pointy-toed cowboy boots. I bought them in, get this, Justin, TX, where they were made.

Something strangely dusty and smelling of the open range came over me as I slipped them on. I squinted my eyes and felt the urge to spit and talk with a deep Western drawl. “Yee haaa! These y’here are some mighty fine boots, y’all. Somebody rustle up some grub for this old cowhand while I go unsaddle and bed down Lightning, my horse. Then I’m gonna mosey on over to the Shady Gulch and quench my thirst. I hope none of them boys in thar is hankering for a fight ’cause I got myself an itchy trigger finger tonight. I’ll be back shortly for the grub, y’hear, Darlin’ ?”I walked away suddenly wanting to  whistle the haunting theme music to “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…wha wha whaaaaaaa; doodle, doodle, dooooo…”.

I reached down and took the boots off and instantly I was myself wanting to parse the Greek verb apostello. I thought of brie and white wine and Starbuck’s lattes. I wanted to ride in my Pontiac and wear comfortable things like my PJ’s. Being dusty with a dry throat seemed revolting. And grub? What the heck is grub? I was stunned witless. What sort of massive electro-magnetic field exists in those boots?

Looking around to see if anyone was watching I shakily slipped the boots back on. A harmonica began to play and I heard a horse whinny. I had the urge to blurt out, “Now you git! I’m the law in this town, and this town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” And spit while I stared, all squinty-eyed, the vermin down.

Carl Jung would probably say that there is a Ralphie in all of us. Ralphie never goes away no matter how old we get.  What brings our inner Ralphie out is anything cowboy. That is the fun of a bb gun or a pair of boots. Y’all.

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Seven of us crowded into a van and headed west to Holland, Michigan from Hudsonville. We were scheduled to serve lunch to the Holland Mission residents. One of the residents is from our church and is completing the program and learning to be a certified builder by trade.  This was the first time a band of us did this.

When we got there, Jake, our insider, gave us a brief tour of the Mission. I felt like I was in a nice hotel; it had the feel of a well-organized, friendly, resident-centered Christian ministry. We shot a little pool and played a little foosball. After a tour of the recycling building, we reported for duty.

We had to wear special attire–baseball-style caps and/or hair nets, aprons and rubber gloves.  You can imagine the masculine humor as we snapped on our rubber gloves. Ray looked like a doctor: “Paging Dr. Minnema; paging Dr. Minnema.”

We served “left-overs” since it was Saturday.  After the residents were served, we were free to make our own plates of food. I enjoyed chicken cacciatore over rice, a pork chop, lasagna and a pizza bread stick. The best “left overs” I’ve had in a while. I also took a chocolate-covered doughnut the size of Montana and ended up giving it away I was so stuffed.

Ray, Dan and I sat with a resident named Chris. He’d been in the Army and recently got cross ways with the law. He was a temporary resident waiting to get into the Veterans Facility in Grand Rapids.  Eager to befriend Chris, we asked questions about his life and he told us some of his story. What I thought was memorable was Chris’ time as a restaurant cook at a honky tonk in Miami, FL called “The Out House.” One time a show was booked called “A Taste of Key West.” Chris laughed as he told us, “We had ‘a taste of Key West’ at ‘the out house’.” Chris came from what sounded like a dysfunctional family, but still had a sense of hope about him. His court hearing is next Tuesday.

With our duties accomplished, we piled in the van and headed East. We might go back to the Mission on a week night (a non-left overs meal). We might go on a Sunday for the dinner meal when the eating is mighty fine we’re told. I kept thinking about Chris and what his future holds. Bless him, God, and guide him.

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Emergent theology seems to have reached a muddling place.  All kinds of ideas are being creatively combined to produce a “new kind of Christianity.” Others more competent than I am have pointed out that what is touted as new is really actually old.  Brian McLaren offers old line Christian Liberalism dressed up in postmodern clothes, but it is still old Liberalism.

A sticking point in today’s emergent conversations is the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as both the only authentic revelation of the true God and the only access point to that God. Brian McLaren rightly questions the haranguing snootyness of some factions in Christianity who harp on “who’s in” and “who’s out” of authentic faith. What I think Brian misses, however, is that it is one thing to question the way Christ’s exclusivity is presented to a wrecked world, but it is a whole other thing to make Jesus just one of the many nice (and religious) ways to get to God. Christ’s exclusivity seems to bother McLaren and others a lot; it seems too intolerant; it seems religiously bigoted; it can be infuriating.

Here’s the skinny. Jesus Christ is an infuriating person. He was in his own day and he is in our day as well. Many are aware of the lexical slight of hand that McLaren uses in his interpretation of John 14:6. He seems to not like that verse, and he certainly doesn’t like the way that verse is used by some. On the second concern–the way the verse is used by some, McLaren has a valid point. To use the verse obnoxiously and intolerantly is way out of line. I don’t think Jesus spoke it as a blunt weapon to be put into our “witnessing kit.” Context is vital.

Yet, the statement is there: “…no one comes to the Father except through me.” That is exclusive on the face of it. Jesus spoke it to the Eleven in the Upper Room conversation. Yet, we must go deeper into this idea of exclusivity. Thankfully, again, Jesus helps us…this time in his prayer recorded in John 17.

Take off your shoes because we are on holy ground. The Son is addressing the Father in his last extended session of prayer with his friends. After this prayer, the dominoes tip quickly, tumbling toward the cross.  In this prayer Jesus says this, “I revealed you those you gave me…” (v. 6). There seems to be an echo to John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Exactly who did Jesus make known and/or reveal? In John 17:3 we hear Jesus praying this: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (emphasis added).

We know that Jesus’ exclusive claim to make Israel’s exclusive God known infuriated the Pharisees and entertained the Sadducees. We know that Rome winked at this strange Jewish religion and gave Israel special permission to maintain their exclusive religious beliefs. Yet, when the early church began, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to spread into the religiously pluralistic world of the Roman Empire, the exclusive declaration “Jesus is Lord” (and Caesar is not) became dangerous to your Christ-following health. “Jesus is Lord” infuriated Rome.  As N. T. Wright has pointed out: the most advanced religion in the world and the most advanced political system in the world conspired together to stamp out the exclusivity of Jesus the Christ.

There is only one authentic God. Only Jesus has revealed that one authentic God. Only in relationship with Jesus Christ is that one true God known (experienced).  In fact, Jesus even explains that “eternal life” is only in that relationship. It is in no other relationship or religion.

There is no grand cosmic unity beneath the surface of all world religions including Christianity-viewed-as-a-religion. Both Old Testament and New Testament concur that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God of the Lord Jesus Christ sits in judgment upon the religions of the world. I know this is hard to acknowledge. It’s more palatable to muddle. Muddling defuses the exclusivity and we can all be very nice, imagining the great vast unity just below this world’s volatile religious surface. But that fantasy just won’t work in the real world of the Jesus Way.

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Jesus said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ‘

Jesus is here contrasting his kingdom of God method to his cousin’s John the Baptist’s way.

“The Son of Man came exegeting Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and correcting the doctrinal errors of the Pharisees, and all the other factions in Israel.”

Oh, I’m sorry. That’s the USAmerican evangelical approach to social change. “Preach the Word!” It’s too bad our Supreme Example didn’t use that approach.

Daily meals became Jesus’ “dangerous” method. He welcomed marginalized people to eat with him. They gladly did so at the cafe table called The Kingdom of God. They laughed and swapped stories and had a rousing good time. Jesus’ disciples had numerous side conversations with the cultural-culinary-religious police about “Why does your master welcome and eat with these kind of people?” Talk about meal-time excitement!

Whoever thought that bread could be a weapon for change? Can’t you just imagine Jesus with squinted eyes staring down an upstart Pharisee and in a Clint Eastwood-like, raspy voice saying, “This here is a Zebulun 6″ diameter loaf of fresh-baked, butter-topped, .45 caliber wheat grain bread…and I don’t know how many bites are left. Feeling lucky, punk?”

Whoever thought an ordinary table of people could be the place where heaven and earth meet?

Whoever thought that eating together with the most unsavory of friends would reshape a nation’s vision of holiness?

I marvel at the Jesus Way: creating a national storm with bread, fish and wine, not with swords, F-16’s and bunker-busters.

“As oft’ as you quote this verse and preach this Bible text and argue stringently for justification by faith alone, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” How does that verse go again?

We have changed from the Jesus Way.

People at the margins might not be able to follow our fine, finessed, exegetically precise, “inner logic” trails to getting right with God, but they sure do know how to eat. And they’ll eat with Jesus when he invites them. It was the spiffy, religious know-it-alls who were “too good” to mix with the dusty riff-raff. “Why do you eat food with unclean hands? Why do you eat food with homosexuals, terrorists, racy women and social rejects? God just wouldn’t eat with people like that.”

Jesus of Nazareth, gritty as he was, was and is and will forever be God.

Here’s the clincher. Some of you will have to bite your tongue. There’s no record that they had “to repent” to eat at Jesus’ table. The fact that they came–tax-collectors, prostitutes, lame, blind, diseased–and ate and enjoyed Jesus’ welcome was repentance enough.

Now, I didn’t say that they didn’t ever change, did I? I said there’s no evidence that they had to change before they came to the table. There’s a word that is really loved and lived by those in the margins. It’s the word grace. Grace. Embracing Grace.

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When Jesus broke bread, he broke Israel.

With his meal-time habits, Jesus was speaking a new language and introducing a new world.

USAmerican culture has gutted the social significance of daily meals. With the TV dinner and the fast food chains, we eat like we live…with a sound and fury signifying nothing. Once in a while we arrive at a table with 3 forks, 3 glasses, two spoons and two knives and we freeze up. This is no ordinary meal. Which fork do we use first? A china plate with 3 long green beans with a “glaze” on them and a piece of meat the size of a postage stamp with a purple flower next to it shows up. “Who needs 3 forks for this?” We begin to fantasize about a “Big Mac.”

In Jesus’ day a meal was a controlling cultural map. Who was eating with whom? Where? and What? And who was in charge? –all said something significant about social relationships. Powerful social code was telegraphed. It was what anthropologists call “the language of meals.”

Are you one of us or one of them? Every meal in Jesus’ day was an answer to that question. Meals portrayed legitimate and illegitimate social relationships. “This man (read “scum bag”) welcomes ’sinners’ and eats with them” (Luke 15:1-2). Who was clean and unclean? Who was pure and who was polluted? Meals answered these questions.

Add to this Israel’s history with God around meals—complaining about water and quails—eating and drinking at the golden calf—picking manna up daily—the periodic holy feast days—staying pure in Babylon (Daniel and his friends)—you get the picture. In Israel your meal-time habits showed whether you were close to or far from God. The “Lord’s Table” was every meal you ate…or it was not His table.

Meals kept tribes together, clans united, families close, a nation identified. Meals were an expression of law-keeping or law-breaking. Eatingness was close to godliness.

Enter radical pastor Jesus and his new code. His meal-time good news message. He was subversively, non-violently redrawing Israel’s cultural-spiritual map. He offered new, happy redefinitions of who’s pure and who’s polluted. He didn’t have to say a lot. All he had to do was host a meal and break the bread and pour the wine. By these actions Jesus literally broke Jewish society apart, even family members had to chose (or not) to be in the new social structure Jesus was creating (see Matthew 10:34-39).

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

Jesus said, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west [despised Gentiles], and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ‘

Jesus, then, by his meal-time associations reconfigured the kingdom of God for all to see. He was amazingly courageous and intensely controversial. I wonder if most of his followers developed ulcers. “Can you believe what he is doing?” I hear Peter saying to John. “We are all going to die.”

Every meal Jesus ate in his ministry was a transformative expression, a here and now enactment of the presence of the kingdom of God.

Grace…amazing, gutsy, pass-the-potatoes grace.

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