BLOG 2/3/2016. “NOT EVERYONE WHO SAYS TO ME, ‘LORD, LORD …’”
Mercy! There has been such a proliferation of ‘god talk’ in this presidential campaign, along with unconvincing candidates hanging out in churches, … then there is the press corps irresponsibly using the term evangelical as an adjective to describe politically conservative religious folk, alas!
Jesus also had to deal with those in his day who were so proud of their orthodoxy, and so judgmental of the lesser folk, … and he was not too veiled in his warnings. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount he gives one of the most sobering (and a bit enigmatic) words: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-23).
I, personally, think of this passage frequently because in my own spiritual sojourn I had an unforgettable converting moment reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s take on this in The Cost of Discipleship. I was at that time something of a ‘fair-haired boy’ among the ‘evangelical’ set in our Presbyterian denomination. I had all of the credentials: orthodox profession, education at one of the paradigm orthodox ‘evangelical’ seminaries, and a good track record in lots of ways. Bonhoeffer’s words, however, made me realize that I could have all of those credentials and yet not have them flowing out of an existential relationship with Christ dwelling in me, … and could hear him saying: “Depart from me. I never knew you.” At that point after a long period of fasting and self-searching I got real in my relationship so that my human life would be an expression of Jesus Christ living in me by his Word and Spirit, and conforming me to his image. Incarnating that calling to discipleship can get one into trouble, be warned!
Put that in the context of Jesus’ encounters with the religious leaders: priests, Levites, Pharisees, and Sadducees who prided themselves on being the paradigms of Jewishness. So when a proud lawyer sought to put Jesus to the test on what it took to inherit eternal life, Jesus responded with the acceptable summary of the law, i.e., to love God with all of one’s heart, and one’s neighbor as oneself. The guy proudly affirmed that he had always fulfilled these. His credentials were impeccable. Here’s the rub: the lawyer chose to do his lawyer thing and so responded: “OK, but who is my neighbor?” Here’s where his orthodoxy was empty. So in one of Jesus’ most demanding parables he lays that superficiality naked with the story of the Good Samaritan. It is almost cruel in its exposing of the hypocrisy. So here is a fellow human being who was the victim of violence lying by the side of the road, and who comes by first but a priest, then a Levite, but they are too busy with their religious lives, and not willing to dirty their hands with the poor bleeding guy in the ditch. So who, then, becomes the hero? Answer: a despised Samaritan, an ethnic outsider (let me add mischievously, he could even have been gay!). This person, whom the orthodox priest and Levite would have held in contempt, becomes the hero. This despised half-breed Jewish person was filled with compassion for this ‘neighbor’ and at considerable inconvenience and cost to himself, does what the law requires.
When Jesus truly is embraced in our own human lives, all that motivated him, all of the love of God for the broken of this world becomes ours. So political ‘god-talk’ is cheap. What we should be looking for are those who are motivated by God’s love of justice and caring, especially for the poor, the naked, the victims of injustice, the strangers, and the helpless of our society (the common good), and who are engaged in the realistic ministries (political or otherwise) to meet those needs. “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”
