Well what do you know! While catching up on my reading for a Biblical & Historical Christology class, I ran across this, in NT Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is:
“Jesus… told stories whose many dimensions cracked open the worldview of his hearers and forced them to come to terms with God’s reality braking into their midst, doing what they had always longed for but doing it in ways that were so startling as to be hardly recognizable. The parables are Jesus’ own commentary on a crisis– the crisis faced by Israel, and more specifically, the crisis brought about by Jesus’ own presence and work.”
All well and good. Great stuff. I agree. But Wright continues…
“Jesus was not primarily a ‘teacher’ in the sense that we usually give that word. Jesus did things and then commented on them, explained them, challenged people to figure out what they meant.” (p. 38-39)
Hey, that’s what God has led me to do! To just do something Kingdom-driven: build a new house in an old inner-city neighborhood, a big out-of-place odd house that challenges people to figure out what the heck we mean by this. And then, to just move into the neighborhood, even if the house isn’t done yet– so now we are the family of five that’s living in a little two-bedroom apartment down the street from the “giant mansion” they are slowly building… what’s up with that?! Yes, we are creating a minor crisis on our block, just by being here and doing what we’re doing.
But that’s not enough, according to Wright (and according to Jesus, apparently). We must blog: comment on our bizarre actions in a way anyone can listen if they are curious. We must chat and hang out and give honest, creative answers to the questions we provoke in our neighbors.
I suppose I did more than “merely teach” when I was a missionary; any earnest pursuit of Christ will have this element of “do things that raise the right questions, then explain”. But the past few years have been very difficult, partly because I have felt set aside, unable to take on any “real ministry.” All the while I have been in an intensive practicum on teaching as Jesus taught.
If that’s the case, I’d better catch up on my coursework.
How about you?
