Gospeling Your Life in Culture

 

Read Luke 12-13.  In chapter 12, verse 49-53, Jesus talks about divisions.  Here we are in a fractured, fragile, fragmented world where the one emotion we hear the most around us is anger.  Living in a world where families are divided is not new.  In Jesus’ day, there were family fights about whether following Jesus as the Messiah was a good decision or just plain hooey and hogwash.  In Jesus’ day, people were pushed out of the Temple, because remember that calling Jesus the “Lord” was political language that was an affront to Caesar and could get you killed.  In Jesus’ day there was pain of people in crisis and countless voices claiming, clamoring for your attention/allegiance/money.  The Essenes said, just go get off the grid and the world is too corrupt.  Yup, I heard that today.  Pharisees said, the world is too corrupt but if you follow the rules and regulations, all will be well.  Yup, I heard that today.  The Sadducees said, “God can work through Rome, so let’s work with them.”  Yup, I heard that too.  I hear a mixture of all three positions.  H. Richard Niebuhr wrote about Christ and Culture.  He said there are three major choices: Christ is opposed to Culture.  If culture says “it” (whatever “it” is) is good, then “it” must be bad.  Second, Christ in agreement with Culture.  God works through human actions, organizations, and creativity.  Third, Christ is above culture.  Niebuhr said this means that sometimes Christ is with human ideas and other times against.  Or put another way, Christ will show up as culture and sometimes convert culture.  It is messy, because life is messy.  I find the framework helpful because it can help us ask questions about our lives.  This helps provide a bigger framework about our unconscious beliefs concerning the world around us.  In its most simplistic form we could ask, “What kind of car would Jesus drive?”  But in our more complex and contradictory form we can ask, “What would Jesus say to that relative who just posted that offensive meme on Facebook?”  There are no clear answers.  Perhaps it is not a singular choice once and for all, maybe Niebuhr is inviting us into the divine dance between our core values that do not change and situational ethics that are responding constantly to a changing world.  Both work in our lives and there are moments of tension.  I hope you will hold this framework as you continue to work through the Gospels and especially as you seek to live your life on this day. Amen.