Reading Luke Together #14 – How God Expects Us to Live

Just as the story of the birth of Jesus can’t be told by Luke without narrating the amazing conception and birth of John, so his account of Jesus’ life and ministry waits until we have listened to the explosion of John – now known as “the Baptist” – onto the scene. It’s as if Luke knew that if Jesus suddenly materialized out of thin air, the people would be overwhelmed, running for cover. John arrived a little earlier, to “prepare the way,” to get people into the mindset they would need to make sense of what Jesus was about.

He and Jesus were kin, but they’d grown up 100 miles apart. Perhaps John’s mother Elizabeth told him what she knew about Mary and the angel’s declaration of who Jesus would be. Or maybe the Spirit moved in John to understand his role. His calling from God, like that of so many, required immense courage, and wound up costing him his life.

Luke 3:1-20 locates John in real history, naming Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Annas and Caiaphas, the cruel ones. The national mood? Fear of stepping out of line, being overtaxed and overworked; even the religious leaders were in cahoots with the vicious power-brokers. The worst of times. Hope shriveled up.

John moved about in the wilderness near the Jordan River, preaching repetitively a clarion call to “Repent!” We do not know his tone of voice. I’ve imagined him bellowing, his voice raspy from overuse. But maybe his tone was gentler, more plaintive, pleading lovingly with people to repent, to turn, to change their minds, to open their hearts. Repentance isn’t groveling in guilt, but being curious and hopeful that a new and better way is close at hand – and a willingness to roll with it, to risk everything and be part of the movement.

John could be rude and offensive – but maybe his zeal for the coming of God, and the essential possibility of hope and change made him lurch into calling people a “brood of vipers,” threatening that God’s divine ax was about to chop down their unfruitful trees (meaning their lives). John threatened God’s wrath – but what is God’s wrath except the miserable place we wind up in when we refuse to follow God’s loving invitation?

Some pushed back: “We are the children of Abraham!” Probably like somebody today saying “We’re Methodists!” or “We’re Americans,” or “We’re nice people!” In every age, it’s the good people, the patriotic people, even the churchy people who miss what God’s asking of us.

Darrell Bock, our best theologian on Luke, is spot on: “One of the goals of Luke is to describe how God expects people to live, not only how to experience salvation.” I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As the Nazis swelled in power, popularity and arrogance, the vast majority of pastors and Christians saluted Hitler and fell for the lie that Hitler was not just restoring national pride and an economic recovery, but that he was the one God had sent and was using. Bonhoeffer dared to dissent – not on political grounds, but based on the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face disconnect between what Hitler was about and what Jesus had said and done.

Politicians and run of the mill Christians grew feverishly angry with Bonhoeffer and the few other pastors who stood with him. He was imprisoned and then executed. I wonder why church people get hysterical when a pastor warns them about the huge spiritual problem that a political leader actually poses, especially when so clearly out of sync with Jesus. Is it simply an inability to tolerate criticism? Or a sneaking suspicion that God’s word might actually be the undoing of what has seemed so alluring – and thus that we have been terribly duped and foolish?

Before the Gestapo arrested him, Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship. The German title was simply Nachfolge, an imperative meaning “Follow!” The Bible doesn’t say “Believe in Jesus” so much as it says “Follow Jesus.” Be near him, with him, like him. There’s a heavy cost to do so in a society out of sync with Jesus! But we aren’t supposed just to think nice things about Jesus or snuggle up to him when it’s easy. Concrete acts of courage and commitment and sacrifice are required. Give your second tunic away. Don’t make more profit than necessary. Expose the rulers who are at odds with God’s ways – which you can do only when you have bothered to learn God’s ways – which is why we’re reading Luke together. Stay tuned…