The Reckless Call

The Reckless Call--January 22, 2018

"Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' He asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The reply came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do'." [Acts 9:1-6]

I've got to hand it to them--Amazon has me pegged.

The online book, music, and just-about-everything-else distributor knows my tastes, and they know how to cater to them.  That's their business, in fact.  Literally--knowing what I like, based on what I have purchased before, what I have looked for, what I have searched for, and what other people have bought who also like the things I like--that is Amazon.com's business model.  And through whatever algorithms they use to figure me out, I must confess--those computer programs know my tastes pretty well.

If you have every bought anything through an Amazon, or a similar online store, you have probably had something like that experience too.  It becomes almost uncanny how the programmers figure out what kinds of things to recommend.  Sometimes they're a little off, but the more and more you give them information (like from purchases), they more and more they get a clear picture of who you are, what you like, what kinds of demographic groups you fit into, and what things you are likely to buy.

Now, on the positive side of that, that means that once I realize that I like something--say, the piano works of Claude Debussy, or 70s classic rock, or mystery novels by women authors, or sturdy, well-made pocket knives--the algorithms at Amazon are great at helping me flesh out my collection, or showing me new books, authors, music, and tools that are just close enough to what I already like that there is a high probability I will also like their new suggestions.  Like Debussy?  Then listen to Erik Satie, or Maurice Ravel, or a Gabriel Faure.  Like Agatha Christie?  Well, try Sue Grafton.  Like Cheap Trick?  Click on a sample of Electric Light Orchestra.  

But there is a hitch to that kind of marketing: it has a way of teaching me to only like--or for that matter, only to be exposed to!--things I already have a predisposition to liking.  That has a way of giving me narrow tastes, and missing out on a whole wide world of things I never would have guessed to try, because they aren't like anything with which I am already familiar. (Reminds me of that great line from the movie The Blues Brothers where the manager at the saloon tells Jake and Elwood that "They like BOTH kinds of music: Country AND Western!") If I had only ever listened to Amazon's suggestions about music, I would be awash in French piano composers, but would have missed out on the jazz of Miles Davis or Ramsey Lewis.  If I had only ever wanted to read 16th-century German church reformers or 19th century English novelists, I would have missed out on James Baldwin, Marilynne Robinson, Wendell Berry, or Alice Walker  The tragic flaw of this age of niche targeted marketing is that our individual worlds each become pathetically narrow and isolated... and as a result, so do we.

It's the same phenomenon that the world is living through right now on social media or cable news--we self-select what we are exposed to, in such a way that we are less and less even shown things we might not like, or that do not fit our preconceived pictures of the world.  And of course, the current state of division across our country is evidence of what happens when we treat reality itself as simply a matter of "tastes" from which you might choose.  We have this way, this sort of tribal impulse, to retreat to the echo chambers of like-mindedness, so that we will only ever have to deal with things we already like, already have an inclination toward, or already have shown a preference for.  That may be a feature of human nature--it's just that folks like Amazon, Facebook, and cable news have found a way to capitalize on our flaw.

Now... what on earth does any of that have to do with this story about the stunned Saul of Tarsus staring up at the ground after getting knocked off his high horse on the way to Damascus when the risen Jesus calls him? Well, just this: regardless of how lucrative (and comforting) it may be to pander only to our already-existing preferences, and regardless of how safe it may feel to retreat inside our own little echo chambers, that is simply NOT how the living Jesus actually operates.

In a word, Jesus calls recklessly.

I mean that rather literally--"reckless" comes from the Old English, meaning something like, "without heed," or "without consideration of others' warnings."  That is to say, Jesus calls people without the steering of a "Recommendations" algorithm telling Jesus which souls are already most likely to pick him.  Jesus recklessly seeks even--maybe we could say especially--the folks most decidedly turned against him.  Jesus calls enemies to himself--not those Jesus has declared as his enemies, but those who, like Saul, had declared themselves enemies of Jesus.

This really is a wonder.  In a culture like ours that is so conditioned to think in terms of probabilities of likely buyers, demographic research on prospective customers, and artificially intelligent algorithms designed to give us suggestions based on what we already like, we can come to assume that this is the way God operates, too.  We might get it in our heads that the divine is essentially a Celestial Customer at some kind of Amazon.com, and that Jesus only seeks out those who are deemed statistically likely to accept him. We might get it all backwards and think that in the great calling of God, God looks into the future and sees who will end up choosing God, and then retroactively "calls" them.  But honestly, that treats God like just one more cog in this great marketing machine in which we live.

The scandalous thing in the story of Saul's calling on the Damascus Road is that none other than Jesus calls out to someone who has declared himself Jesus' sworn enemy.  And Jesus doesn't seem to think that disqualifies Saul.  There is no divine scolding to say, "Saul, this is your last chance to get right with me--now pray a prayer and accept me into your heart or else I can't call you onto the Heaven Team."  There is no Amazon.com style suggestion from Christ to say, "If you liked Phariseeism, you might also like me--Jesus!"  And there is not even a whiff of a suggestion that there are angelic algorithms in the background telling Jesus not to waste his time on Saul because he's not likely to become a fan or a follower.

There is only the call--the wondrously reckless call--of Jesus, which doesn't wait to be asked, doesn't select only statistically or demographically likely candidates, and doesn't exclude enemies.  

This is a story, then, of God's enemy love--the same love the living Jesus taught, spoke, embodied, and practiced before the cross, at the cross, and after the cross.  The same Jesus who says, "Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you" has put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and done just that with Saul of Tarsus, without waiting for Saul to discover on his own that he should be listening to this Jesus.  Jesus just calls, taking the first step and offering the first hand onto the dance floor, as Jesus always does.  And that, in turn became the centerpiece of Saul's own new theology, once he re-introduced himself to the world by his Greek nickname Paul, and started bringing the gospel of the living Jesus to anybody and everybody--insiders and outsiders, Jews and Gentiles, friends and enemies, men and women, free and bound, rich and poor.  Paul was convinced that the reckless call of Jesus that had grabbed hold of him was by no means the exception to the way Jesus operated, but was in fact his calling card.

This is the movement we are called into, we followers of Jesus--the same reckless call of Jesus that summons not just "likely customers" but outsiders, strangers, and even enemies.  That means Jesus is not ONLY interested in reaching out to people for your church who are already like you, who have jobs like yours or who vote like you, who see the world the same way you do, or who like the same songs you do.  Jesus is always calling more recklessly than that--wider, further, and more recklessly than we are comfortable with. The living Jesus is not here to reinforce your or my little echo chambers, and he calls people who watch different cable news from what you watch, whether or not we like it.  That is possible, not because such things do not matter in the end (it DOES matter, because reality is NOT simply a matter of tastes, preferences, or likes that fit my preconceived safe picture of the world), but because Jesus recklessly calls people even who are his enemies and diametrically opposed to his vision of a life grounded in God's justice, mercy, and goodness.  If Jesus could call someone like Saul, who was both SO convinced he was on the side of "righteousness" and was also SO wrong about it, then I should expect that Jesus will just as recklessly call people I do not think worthy of him... because this was never about "worthiness" or even a "target demographic." 

It has always been about love... the reckless, indiscriminate, preemptive love of Jesus that calls us and draws us to him, regardless of what we thought we wanted.

May such love take hold of us in this day... and knock us off our high horses where need be, as well.

Lord Jesus, pull us out of our narrow preferences, established likes, and preconceived notions to allow you to use us far and wide, as your reckless love chooses.