Every Day's Endorsement--October 14, 2020

 Every Day's Endorsement--October 14, 2020

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." [Colossians 3:17]

I want to live in such a way that I don't need a yard sign or a belligerent social media post in order for other people to tell who or what matters to me.  I want people to be able to see from my actions and hear from my words what matters to me, and I want to be the kind of person whose words and actions point in the same direction.   And I want that direction to point as much as possible in the same trajectory as Jesus moves in.

In other words, I want to be able to live each day in such a way that when I get to the end of it, I am able to stamp "Approved by Jesus" over it all.  Or, maybe to put it more accurately, I want to live in such a way that Jesus can endorse what I have done, what I have said, and how I have loved.  I want, not just to tell myself that Jesus approves of how I act and speak (because, hey, we're all great at fooling ourselves), but to become the kind of person in whom Jesus can be seen clearly--and where I am getting in the way of that happening, for Jesus to smooth away my rough edges and turn me around to point in the right direction where I am off course.

And honestly, I think that's actually a lot closer to what the letter to the Colossians means when it says, "do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus."  I think it is less about using Jesus as a magic talisman to cover everything we do in the veneer of religiosity, and more about acting in such a way that Jesus can put his name on what we do and how we speak.  It is about every day's endorsement, every word's resonance, every choice being in line with the way and character of Jesus.  

I know I'm going to mess up at that, but that's the goal.  That's the mark we're aiming for.  

And that means I do NOT have permission to bracket certain parts of my life out and say, "Well, these parts of my life I can be a jerk in..." or "Look, this is just business, so I need to be as cutthroat and self-centered as possible, because that's how the world works."  I do NOT have permission to be ok with hatred or taking advantage of other people, and I am NOT allowed to support cruelty toward other people or harm to my neighbors, whether or not their situations directly impact mine or not.  I am NOT allowed to give a pass to others being crude or crooked or deceptive either, even if I think they can do me favors. I am NOT allowed to turn away from the rottenness around, either, and pretend it's not there because I would rather it not be there. And I am NOT free to put my own interests above the needs of the people God puts in my path.  At least, not if I am looking to live in a way that I can write Jesus' name on the way I have spent a day or the words I have spoken.

We Respectable Religious folks get into a heap o' trouble when we read this verse the other way around, and treat it like we just need to say, "I do this in Jesus' name" and then everything is fine.  And we've got a bad track record over the last two millennia of misusing Jesus' name and falsely claiming Jesus' endorsement on our own pet agendas.  

In the fourth century, Constantine claimed he had a vision where a voice from heaven showed him a symbol of Jesus' name and title (the "Chi-Rho", which kind of looks like an X and a P put together, but which is a shorthand for the name "Christ" in Greek) and then told him, "Conquer in this sign."  And he did just that--killing his enemies and taking the throne of the Roman Empire and claiming that he had Jesus' endorsement on the conquest.  It was the beginning of a terrifying marriage of the cross and the very empire that had put Jesus on one of those crosses, and it became the rationale for Crusades and countless armies draped in crosses for centuries, all convinced they had God's blessing to conquer.

A thousand years or so after that, it was the Inquisition torturing people to make them profess faith in Jesus, and burning them at the stake if they wouldn't believe what they told them to believe--all done with the claim that they were doing it "for the Lord" and "in Jesus' name," and that therefore it was right and good.

Not much longer after that, colonizers and conquistadors from all over Europe sailed to the Americas and to Africa, telling themselves that they were doing the Lord's work as they enslaved, brutalized, tortured, and plundered the peoples they encountered, all because they had put crosses on their sails and convinced themselves that the expansion of their power was in the service of "Christendom."

And in our own nation's history, a terrifying number of Respectable Religious People invoked Jesus' name and blessing over their enslavement of other people, and they were convinced that God endorsed the whole system, because it kept the economy humming.  And later generations of those Respectable Religious people then went out after their church services, all dressed in their Sunday best, to attend lynchings--all smiling as they posed for pictures because they were convinced that Jesus' name could be stamped over what they were doing for the sake of promoting "law and order."

What makes us think we are free from the dangers in our day, too, of taking our own agendas and assuming they are blessed because we have invoked Jesus' name over them?

There's just too much evidence of our repeated habit of fooling ourselves. And then, once we have convinced ourselves that our cause is righteous, we give ourselves permission to do terrible things (things which are terribly un-Jesus-like, as well) as long as we say, "This is for Jesus" as we do it.  And while I would hope that I wouldn't get duped into thinking that any of those terrible things done in Jesus' name in the past were actually honoring to Jesus, that's exactly what is so frightening to me:  the people throughout history who have sent invading armies or condoned slavery or tortured people all "in Jesus' name" were convinced they were doing right.  They were convinced you could do whatever made you look greater or stronger or tougher or wealthier, and as long as you said, "I'm doing this for the Lord," it was glorifying to God.  So what will keep me, or you, or any of us from making our own terrible mistakes invoking Jesus in our lives?

Well, let me suggest that this verse from Colossians points us in the right direction, if we are willing to hear it rightly.  Instead of saying, "Whatever I do is OK as long as I slap the words, 'In Jesus' name' at the end," or "This is for the glory of the Lord," without reflection, the question we should be asking is, "Would Jesus be willing to attach his name to this?"  The right question is, "Will Jesus actually endorse the words about to come out of my mouth?  Will Jesus support the hateful meme I'm about to share on social media?  Will Jesus endorse the action I am thinking about taking?"  And if the answer is no, then we don't do it.  None of it.  Ever.  If we're not sure, we talk with others--people who have shown us the face of Christ in their own lives, people who we respect as wise and decent--and talk with them about it.  If you're still not sure, there's no reason you can't just hit the pause button some more.  If something in your gut says, "This ain't Jesus," then hold off on saying or doing or sharing it!  It really is that simple.

I know these are days when everyone feels like "those people on the other side" (on whatever issue, at whatever level) are doing something shady or bad or immoral, and that therefore you have to return fire in kind.  They are mean and crude, so you have to be mean and crude back.  They say something that gets under your skin, so you fire back the same way.  But followers of Jesus aren't given that permission to sink to the level of the lowest common denominator.  We don't get to say, "They did it to me, or they did it to my side, so I get to do it to them!"  We are always held--always--to the standard of, "Will Jesus endorse what I am saying?"

So today, the question to ask as we navigate through all that this day will bring is simply, "What will Jesus be willing to put his name on?" when it comes to our words, our actions, and our choices.  You and I don't have to fall for the childish taunting of your social media "friends" whose posts start with drivel like, "I bet you don't have the guts to share this, because you're afraid of offending someone!" and we don't have to sink to the level of the worst impulses inside us.  We don't have to be duped by the voices that have just dressed up crude selfishness, greed, and meanness with a cross on the outside.  We don't have to be taken in by the huckster promises that talk about promoting "religion" or "faith" or "God" in generic terms but which look nothing like Jesus.  We just don't have to fall for those any more.

We don't start with our own agendas and then slap on Jesus' name as a backing for why it must be ok--we start the other way around, with asking what Jesus would be willing to have his name associated with, and we go from there.  That's the vision: being people who get Jesus' endorsement every day.  Let's go to it today.

Lord Jesus, direct us today so that our lives reflect your way of love and truth, so that we will wear your name with integrity today.