Jesus just won't do what he's told.
He won't hate the people the crowds want him to hate. He won't condemn the people the pharisees want him to condemn. He won't heal people on the right days. And when all is said and done, when the authorities are fed up with him and decide to kill him, he won't stay dead.
There's only one word for this kind of behavior. Jesus is ornery.
My grandmother used to call me "ornery" and I always thought it was a peculiar word. She said it with a wink that said to me, "You really frustrate me sometimes, but you're okay." She also called me a "stick in the mud" and I'm still trying to figure out what that means.
Some people are under the mistaken impression that the goal of Christianity is to make people submissive and compliant to the powers-that-be. Well, they are in good company. Great thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche thought the same. But they couldn't be more mistaken. If following Christ means to be imitators of Christ then we submit to God's will and that alone. As such we will often find ourselves on the ornery side of the government, society, the marketplace, and, yes, religious institutions.
Wendell Berry, a good Presbyterian farmer poet from Kentucky, challenges his readers in his poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" to "practice resurrection." Not just celebrate resurrection or consider the implications of resurrection or debate the veracity of resurrection, but to practice it. What does that mean? Well, I leave the interpretation up to each reader. That's what poetry is for, to challenge and provoke. But for this reader it means to remember that death is not the final word, that we answer to a power even greater than death.
This Easter, as we celebrate Christ's victory over death, may Jesus' ornery spirit be with us.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Comments (1)
Relates very well to what my world is, and Paris did not work out as planned most likley because I am still working to find Gods path for me. Keep up the good work Pastor Lawrence.
Jay Cole
Posted by Jay Cole | March 29, 2007 9:43 AM
Posted on March 29, 2007 09:43