{"id":531,"date":"2021-02-24T08:21:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T13:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=531"},"modified":"2021-02-24T08:21:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T13:21:42","slug":"choose-your-own-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/24\/choose-your-own-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose Your Own Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
(copyright Columbia Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throughout Lent, we\u2019re exploring the parables of Jesus \u2013 the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God\u2019s rule on earth. <\/strong>

Very few Hollywood films feature a family praying together before dinner.

After listening in on the table grace in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, <\/em>that might be just as well.

NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby, played by Will Farrell, folds his hands and prays:  \u201cDear Lord Baby Jesus, I want to thank you for this wonderful meal, my two beautiful sons, Walker and Texas Ranger, and my Red-Hot Smokin\u2019 wife, Carley.\u201d

Ricky goes on:  \u201cDear eight pound, six ounce baby infant Jesus\u2026lying there in your little manger, lookin\u2019 at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin\u2019 \u2018bout shapes and colors\u2026\u201d

Carley cuts in:  \u201cHey, um, Sweetie\u2026Jesus did <\/em>grow up.  You don\u2019t always have to call him a baby.\u201d  Ricky responds:  \u201cLook, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I\u2019m sayin\u2019 grace.  When you say grace, you can say it to the Grownup Jesus or Teenage Jesus or Bearded Jesus or whoever you want.\u201d

What follows is a bit of a theological free-for-all.  Everybody in the family votes for a favorite Jesus.

\u201cI like to think of Jesus like a Ninja, fightin\u2019 off evil samurai,\u201d says one of the boys.  \u201cI like to think of Jesus like a muscular trapeze artist,\u201d says the other.  Ricky\u2019s race partner adds:  \u201cI like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt.  \u2018Cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I\u2019m here to party, too.  I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.\u201d

As a general rule it\u2019s wise not to go to Ricky Bobby for theology.  But Ricky\u2019s family is willing to do openly what most Americans do more discretely:  We choose our own Jesus.

Someone will say, \u201cI love the forgiving Jesus \u2013 the one who rescued the woman caught in adultery.\u201d  Someone else will say, \u201cI love the Jesus who holds people accountable \u2013 the one who immediately told that same woman to go and sin no more.\u201d

Jesus is wonderfully, strangely, even maddeningly hard to pin down.  There\u2019s something in the Gospel stories about Jesus to please everybody.  And something to offend everybody.

Does Jesus stand for Maximum Grace or Maximum Justice?  Yes.

New York Times<\/em> columnist Ross Douthat, author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics,<\/em> captures the paradoxes:  \u201cHe\u2019s an apocalyptic prophet one moment, a wise ethicist the next\u2026  He consorts with prostitutes while denouncing even lustful thoughts.  He can be egalitarian and hierarchical, gentle and impatient, extraordinarily charitable and extraordinarily judgmental.  He sets impossible standards and then forgives the worst of sinners.  He blesses the peacemakers and then promises that he\u2019s brought not peace but the sword.  He\u2019s superhuman one moment; the next he\u2019s weeping.\u201d

Douthat concludes that this is a good thing.  It\u2019s hard to choose your own Jesus when that very choice automatically cuts you off from another entirely valid Jesus.

These paradoxes are thrown into sharp relief when we consider his parables.

How can we not be moved by the stories of the Lost Coin, Lost Sheep, and Lost Child in Luke 15?  That\u2019s who we want God to be \u2013 the Father who runs to meet us whenever we turn toward home, who forgives our sins on the spot and announces a celebratory feast.  That\u2019s who we need<\/em> God to be. 

But then we turn to the parable in Matthew 22:1-14, where we encounter another celebratory feast.  A king has prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  Everyone is invited.  The festivities are underway.

\u201cBut when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, \u2018How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?\u2019 The man was speechless.  Then the king told the attendants, \u2018Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gashing of teeth.\u2019\u201d (22:11-13)

What\u2019s going on here?

Having received grace \u2013 we\u2019re all invited to the banquet \u2013 we must not disrespect the Host.  We dare not act in a cavalier, who-really-gives-a-rip fashion.  Banquet guests in Bible times were expected to wear their \u201cSunday best.\u201d  In a culture that placed extraordinary emphasis on honor and respect, it would be unthinkable to saunter in wearing an old sweatshirt and orange flip-flops.

Jesus is warning us:  Yes, grace is served at God\u2019s banquet 24\/7.  But that doesn\u2019t mean we should ever live in such a way that we take grace for granted. 

The parables in the Gospels don\u2019t present unresolvable contradictions.  There\u2019s simply a lot more to the Son of God than at first meets the eye.

We will always be tempted to choose our own Jesus, the way certain video games encourage players to \u201cchoose their own adventure.”

But generations of disciples have come to appreciate a far deeper wisdom:

We need all of Jesus to be truly saved by Jesus.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout Lent, we\u2019re exploring the parables of Jesus \u2013 the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God\u2019s rule on earth.  Very few Hollywood films feature a family praying together before dinner. After listening in on the table grace in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, that might be just as… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,180,177],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grace","tag-justice","tag-parables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}