Resurrection and Taco Sauce

Resurrection and Taco Sauce--May 29, 2017

"John, to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who was and who is and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.  To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen." [Revelation 1:4-6]

Jesus is risen from the dead: therefore, my life is complete even without buying more salsa.

Forgive the non-sequitur, the seeming lack of connection between thoughts of Easter and tomato-based condiments.  Allow me to explain, if you will.

We live in a world that is bent on trying to sell us stuff. It is a system, comprehensive, and nearly all-encompassing, dedicated to getting us, all of us, to be dissatisfied with our current situation, and to want to buy whatever they sell us in the hopes of making us happy.  And just about every voice you hear, every image you see on a screen, every ad you consume or click, is in on the hustle.  It is all a grand scheme to get us to be permanently unhappy and to be permanently fooled into thinking that the next big thing they offer is, at last, the thing that will make us finally content.

"Your food isn't gourmet enough--buy this new brand of 'artisan' rolls!" they say, even though they are made in the same factory as the regular hot dog buns and white bread, but with rustic-looking packaging designed to make me think that some flour-covered baker somewhere in Tuscany rolled out the dough just for me, while allowing me to ignore the fact that thousands of kids in Aleppo don't have any bread of any kind because their grocery stores, markets, and bakeries have all been blown up by bombs, or that there are hungry kids in school district where I live who go to bed with rumbling bellies.

"Your kids deserve trendy-looking jackets that make them look like grown-ups--you need to spend more on these children's clothes made by adult-label brands to keep them looking like they stepped out of a photo shoot!" they say, knowing that the clothes are all made in the same assembly line half a world away by people who will never be able to afford the same clothes for their children.

"You deserve convenience," they say, "and you should be able to have any product brought to your house in two days or less, flown in by robot drone if necessary!" And the more they say it, and the more we listen, the more likely we are to come to believe that, in fact, yes, we do have a right to have our "stuff" shipped to us by robot drones, and we should be impatient if things take longer.  It's our right, isn't it! It's our right, they say, as Americans, to get what we want when we want it!

Do you see--the system isn't just selling us one product or one brand.  The powers of our day are complicit in selling us a worldview, specifically a worldview tailored to keep us from ever being content, and always wanting more... more that they will be glad to sell us for just the right price.  It's less about getting you and me to buy this item or that service, but more about slowly getting us to accept that our happiness can be acquired by having the right stuff.  Once we accept that premise, they've got us already--we'll buy whatever else they tell us will give us a burst of endorphins to possess.

Or, as the character Mr. World puts it (hauntingly played by Crispin Glover on the show American Gods), "Spicy, medium, or chunky--they get a choice, of course.  Of course!  But they are buying salsa."  That's the clever game--we all get fooled by the powers of the day into thinking we are freest and happiest in all the world because we can buy more stuff in more varieties (and more shipping options!) than anyone else on the planet, and than any other time in human history.  But really, we have let ourselves be duped into accepting the premise of the powers of the day that we need... more in order to feel finally like we are living the good life.  So whether it's artisan sandwich rolls, children's clothing, or five kinds of salsa, we have already fallen for their bait.  We have already accepted the idea that because we got to choose which brand, or which kind, we must be happier... rather than considering that maybe the meaning of life doesn't reside in the ability to buy more.

But like I say, part of the New Testament's witness is that in the risen Jesus, there is someone who is willing to tell us the truth about reality, and who pulls the masks off the powers of the day to reveal that they are hucksters and pretenders, not the true source of our contentment, our joy, and our lives. 

When the first Christians thought about what it means that Jesus rose from the dead, it didn't just mean to them that it proved there was life after death.  Jesus' resurrection meant that Jesus really knew, and knows what he is talking about--that he has the key to reality, and that the other competing voices of authority (we know them still blasting ads at us on screens and speaking to us from radios, TVs, and digital billboards) are liars.  The  New Testament writers took the resurrection to mean that Jesus can tell us the truth because he has seen behind the curtain the Wizard of Oz keeps hiding behind.  Jesus can tell us the truth about things because he is the one who, in all creation, is not selling anything. He is simply giving away life... abundant... overflowing... and free.

When the writer of the book we call Revelation, a guy named John, thought about who Jesus really is, it's interesting that he puts three titles, three roles, if you like, side by side.  Jesus is both "the faithful witness," and "the firstborn of the dead," and also "the ruler of the kings of the earth."  That might seem like just heaping up impressive-sounding titles for one's God-figure, but they are all related.  Jesus is the one "witness" in the universe who tells us how things really are--he is no paid spokesperson, and he is no ad exec angling for a sale, but simply can tell us that the powers of the day don't really have a way to make us happy.  Jesus tells us that the sales pitches of the world are just a shell game.  And Jesus tells us we don't have to play it anymore--he is the one faithful (that is, truthful) witness to how things really are in a world full of pretenders and snake-oil salesmen. 

At the same time, Jesus is "the firstborn from the dead," the one who guarantees that there is resurrection in store for more than just himself, and the one shows us that the point of life is not just to get more "stuff" now.  The powers of the day want us to believe the old line of Schlitz Beer is the gospel that "You only go around once in this life, so grab all the gusto you can."  Do you see? It's just one more variation on the salsa-scheme!  The powers of the day want us to spend our lives acquiring, more and more, because we are convinced that all that really matters is how good we can make ourselves feel based on how much stuff we can acquire in this life.  And here comes Jesus, risen from the dead, to say, "Nope.  There's more to life than how much you can acquire in a lifetime.  There is more than what will be parceled out to others after you draw your last breath."  Jesus is the "faithful witness" about how things really are because he is the one who has been through death and revealed the truth that the Gospel-according-to-Schlitz is a lie.

And last, John calls Jesus "the ruler of the kings of the earth." That is to say, that Jesus really is the Lord that all the powers of the day are pretending to be.  Whether you imagine the rulers of the world today are presidents, prime ministers, and kings, or CEOs and businessmen, the New Testament's claim is that none of them are really in charge--Jesus really is the one who reigns.  And his reign is not something you buy or order or click on to sign up for--it is given as a free gift from the one "who loves us and freed us."  It turns out that freedom is NOT having more choices of brands to buy (as long as you buy SOMETHING), but in fact, the freedom of knowing that contentment and meaning and purpose come as free gifts from the real Lord of creation, the crucified and risen Jesus.

If we are going to take the resurrection of Jesus seriously, it will mean we also take seriously Jesus' way of undermining the voices and sales pitches of the powers of the day.  We will no longer fall for the false premise that we cannot be content unless we buy... or unless we have... or unless we acquire...  We will no longer fall for the lie that happiness or greatness is about having more brands to choose from.  We will no longer believe the lie that we have to grab as much as we can because we only go 'round once in life.  And we will no longer believe that our comfortable lifestyle (and the luxury of free shipping on cheap merchandise)  is more important than the lives of other people.

If we believe the resurrection, we will no longer feel obligated to buy salsa in order to feel like we are living the good life.  In fact, we will find that the good life comes, not from getting or possessing at all, but from giving ourselves away, as we will have learned from Jesus, the firstborn of the dead.

What else will you and I be free to re-think and re-consider because we belong to the Lord of all the powers, the risen Jesus?

Lord Jesus, free us from the ways we have fallen for the world's game-playing and sales-pitches, and let us find the freedom of giving ourselves away.