Great... AND Good

Great... AND Good--July 6, 2018

"When the days drew near for him to be taken up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village." [Luke 9:51-56]

When I was a kid, I don't think I appreciated the deep theology of our standard table grace. Most of the time in the Bond house growing up , the default dinner-time meal prayer was this well-known couplet:

"God is great; God is good.

 Let us thank him for our food.  Amen"

To be honest, as a kid, I pretty much dismissed this poem-prayer.  And not just because of the forced not-quite-rhyme of "good" and "food" which looks more like a rhyme on paper than it is when you actually speak the words.  It seemed like the word "good" was just there to be one half of a bad rhyme--I assumed it wasn't saying anything that wasn't already covered by the first phrase, "God is GREAT."  If anything, saying God is "good" after already saying God is "great" seemed to my childhood ears like a letdown.  Children have a way of hearing "great" as meaning just about the same as "good," but in all capital letters.  A mom might ask her children how their days were, and if one answers, "Good..." it's practically like saying, "Eh, so-so;" but if the kids answer, "Great!" well then, that's like the same as "good" but cranked up to eleven on the dial.  At least for me as a kid, I assumed that "great" and "good" were like "run" and "walk"--one was just the more intense version of the other.

I don't think that any more.  And I don't think the composer of that dinner time prayer meant it that way, either.

To say God is "great" is usually a statement about God's power, God's might, God's ability, or God's "big-ness."  The One who speaks to the chaos and calls out "Let there be light!" is, in a word, "great."  The One who parts seas, defeats Pharaoh, stretches out the sky like an artist's canvas, and commands lightning, fire, and whirlwind--these are the calling cards of a deity who is "great."  

But Christians are convinced that God is not just big, not just powerful, not just strong... but that God is also compassionate, also merciful, also just, also generous.  That is to say, from the perspective of the New Testament, one cannot say that God is "great" without also saying that God is "good."  We do not simply worship power for the sake of power, and we do not praise powerful things in God's universe simply because they are powerful. "Greatness" in the sense of divine power is never fully realized without "goodness" in this God's character--a character that uses power to raise up the lowly, to embrace the outcast, to welcome the lonely, to bind up the brokenhearted, and to fill the hungry with good things.  My childhood table prayer was trying to tell me all along that God is both--not just powerful enough to make a world that brings forth life that sustains other life, but that God is kind enough to continue to feed stinkers like me with daily bread as part of a vast creation of abundance for all.  God is not only great--God is also good.  We might even go as far as to say that without that goodness, great isn't great--it is terrible and terrifying.

Well, I've been ruminating on my old table prayer because of this scene with Jesus and his disciples in Luke's Gospel.  It's barely even a story--it's notable, really, for what doesn't happen, rather than for what does transpire between verses 51 and 56.  Jesus and his disciples are on the way toward the cross that awaits Jesus in Jerusalem, and on the way, they are going to look for a room for the night in a Samaritan village.  That by itself would have been the scandalous headline for anybody in first century Judea--right off the bat, Jesus is violating a whole mess of rules by entering the territory of "those people."  And making it even more shocking is that Jesus casts himself as the traveler, the stranger needing assistance, by entering into Samaritan territory.  He makes himself vulnerable to whatever sneers, mistreatment, and shunning the locals would show to a Judean like him.  Jesus puts himself at risk, making himself open their inevitable questions, "Who said you were allowed to cross into OUR territory?" "What official permission do you have to be in OUR land, you... foreigner?"  If we nowadays have a hard enough time hearing Jesus' teaching that we should welcome the stranger and the foreigner into our midst, how much harder is it for us to take it in that Jesus made himself the foreigner in this episode, asking for welcome and vulnerable enough to bear being turned away?  That by itself is enough to rile us up, I suspect.

But that's really just the beginning.  Because once Jesus is rejected by this village of Samaritans (who seem to be upset that Jesus doesn't want to just blend in to their Samaritan culture while he is staying with them, but insists on holding on to his Jewish heritage and its orientation toward Jerusalem), the scene unfolds as a question of "greatness" versus "goodness."

James and John are upset that Jesus has been treated so disrespectfully.  After all, if their rabbi is insulted and his reputation is besmirched, well, their social standing as his followers is lowered, too.  They can't let this insult stand!  They must get back! They must get revenge!  They must call down heavenly retribution--commanding fire to come down from heaven to smite and punish these unworthy, inhospitable no-good Samarians!  The moment feeds their world impulses--James and John get to indulge their prejudices against "those Samaritans," to nurse their bloodthirsty grudge-keeping, and to focus all on their own social standing, all at once.  So of course, asking Jesus permission to summon divine wrath on the village that will not welcome the foreigner (Jesus), James and John think they are doing Jesus a favor and also boosting their own credibility and reputations, too, at the same time.  

You and I know perfectly well what is going on in James and John's minds.  They are convinced that they must respond to this slight against their rabbi with a show of their--whoops, they meant to say, of Jesus'--greatness.  They think that this is a moment to intimidate and threaten and punish, because they think that's what "greatness" is.  They think that the way to make people respect you is to make them fear you first.  They think of power only in terms of firepower to destroy, and they can only assume that Jesus will not allow these stingy, unwelcoming Samaritans to go unpunished.  You and I can tell all of that is going on inside James and John's heads, because the same undercurrent is there in our heads, too.  

Ours is a time when James and John's attitude is upheld as an example--more than that, it is often seen as the only choice!  Someone has insulted or slighted you?  Well, you must not only do the same back to them, but with more firepower!  They said something you didn't like?  Or worse yet--they said something critical of what you think?  Well then--it's an all-out war!  We respond with both barrels blazing, and before long, we tell ourselves that for the sake of our honor, our reputation, and the name of our own "greatness", they must be stopped!  Before long, we are itching to call down fire from the sky, too, to zap everyone we think has insulted us, criticized us, or poked a hole in the little bubble we were living in.  Yeah, ours is a time and place where the default assumption seems to be that a reputation of "greatness" is all that matters, and God forbid anybody else ever laugh at you, belittle you, or not be impressed by you.  James and John and their wish to call down an impressive show of "great" and furious fire from heaven for the sake of their reputations would fit in right at home among us, wouldn't they?

But, as you can see from Jesus' response, Jesus himself is always wonderfully, blessedly, out of step with the prevailing attitudes of the day, whether James and John or their 21st century counterparts.  Jesus is not nearly so concerned with his reputation, or whether others have treated him respectfully or even kindly.  Jesus will not return their evil back at them.  And so as if it were not scandalous enough that Jesus has allowed himself to be placed in the role of needy foreigner asking--and being denied!--permission to stay, on top of that, Jesus refuses to retaliate with heavenly fire as punishment.  He lets himself be rejected, because Jesus is not simply "great" in terms of power--he is "good" as well.  And Jesus' goodness means the refusal to respond to unkindness with more unkindness. He will not give in to nursing a grudge or perpetuating hostility.  He doesn't answer a slight with even so much as crude name-calling, much less divine wrath.  That is because Jesus is good.  Even if James and John are right that the Samaritans have insulted Jesus with their rejection, even if they have the biblical precedent of Elijah calling down fire and Elisha unleashing violent powers on those who insulted him (see the story of the she-bears in 2 Kings 2:23-25), and even if James and John are right that Jesus will look like a laughingstock for not zapping "those Samaritans," Jesus will not give in to their needy impulse to be feared or intimidating.  

To me, this episode is one of those moments that reveals both Jesus' greatness and his goodness, and how they are woven together as one.  The way Luke tells it, it's not that Jesus couldn't call down fire from heaven to zap the people who refuse to welcome him when he is the foreigner who is turned away.  It's that Jesus could but will not use firepower to return evil for evil.  It's that Jesus is less concerned with "saving face" or "getting even" or "looking smart and tough" than he is with the well-being, even of the very people who wouldn't give him the time of day.  Jesus doesn't need to call down fire on those who have declared themselves his enemies to show his greatness. His greatness is intertwined with his goodness, and his goodness is poured out even on the people who refused to take him in when he crossed into their territory as a foreigner.  This is how Jesus' power works--in the world-turning strength of love that is more concerned for the other, even the hostile other, than for its own reputation.

Ultimately, what all of the writers of the New Testament are trying to say about Jesus is that he is worth our worship, devotion, and allegiance, not because he has made us afraid of getting zapped, but because he is willing to bear being rejected himself with grace rather than bitterness.  Jesus is great, and there is no doubt about that--the stories of Lazarus walking from the tomb, the hungry thousands fed, and the storm stilled, all speak to Jesus' powerful greatness.  But the biblical writers don't think greatness by itself is all that great in the end.  Being "great"--in the sense of having power--isn't worthy of giving your life to unless it also includes being "good" in the sense of love that sacrifices its own reputation for the well-being of the other.  

In this life, it is not the truly "great" who worry and fuss and mutter about being seen as a laughingstock or weak in anybody else's eyes.  True greatness and true power simply do not waste their energy or attention on impressing anybody.  In this life, the only real greatness and the only power worth pursuing are caught up inseparably with being genuinely good--with a love that pours itself out even for the stingy stinkers who won't open their doors for a travelling foreigner rabbi passing through their midst.

My family's childhood dinner prayer was trying to teach me that all along, and I just blew it off as a forced rhyme.  But no, no, no--the Gospel hangs on the truth that Jesus is not simply "great" in terms of raw power, but he is "good" in terms of love that refuses to return evil for evil, snub for snub, hate for hate.

All hail king Jesus, who is not merely great... but also good.

Dear Jesus, grant us the courage to love as you do, without regard for whether anybody else thinks we are great, but only for reflecting the goodness we have known in you.