In between my freshman and sophomore year of college I scored an internship with legacy hospitals. I worked as an intern in the labs, where I learned that poppy seeds do show up in a toxicology test as someone who has been taking a low dose of methamphetamines. I almost botched an organ harvesting of a brain dead motorcycle victim by coming in without scrubbing after lunch. I got the internship because I was thinking that I wanted to be a doctor. I really didn’t know what I wanted, but it was a good guess and it was pretty cool to go to the hospital every day without a disease, and be passed around the different labs, to see what all happened there. The lab technicians were crass and clever, the nurses were too. But whenever I got in contact with an actual doctor it was like my mind was blown. I saw how these guys were always ON, they never slept, and there was an intensity about them. They knew so much about medicine, and when you asked them a question they gave you words that you had never really heard before. I saw these guys make super quick decisions that had so much information packed in them I didn’t know what to think. By the end of the internship I did know what to think. I didn’t want to be a doctor. There were many things that contributed to this decision, but the one that I kept saying was “I’m just not that smart.”
When I think of smart people I think of Einstein, I don’t know who else, I think there are different types of smart, but when I think of smart I think of a fluffy grey haired Einstein with physics calculations at a chalkboard. Someone asked me a question the other day “do you think that Jesus is smart?” Well its sort of a trick question because, of course I think Jesus is smart. What sort of person would I be if I followed a man that was a dumbass? But the question stuck with me because when I have pictures of smart people on the top of my brain, Jesus wasn’t one of them. Jesus is the top Religious figure in my brain, which I can argue is a type of holistic smart. But what am I really getting at when I place him there? It made me put a couple things in perspective. I haven’t resolved them to any degree but at least the question messed with me to create a little bit of change.
The first thought is how I can think that Jesus is the one who knows the truth about my life and the universe if I don’t believe that he’s smart. It’s not possible for me to trust Him, or anyone else, in matters where I don’t believe him to be competent. I can’t pray for his help and rely on his collaboration in dealing with real life matters if I suspect they might defeat his knowledge or abilities.
Can I seriously imagine that Jesus is my Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uniformed? When I stopped to think about it, how could he be what I take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived?…
At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine. That knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter right from the energy he knew how to access from “the heavens,” right where he was.
It can’t be surprising that the feeding of the thousands led the crowds to try to force him to be their king. Surely one who could play on the energy/matter equation like that could do most anything. Turn lead into gold and give some more financial bailouts! He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health and from death to life. He knew how to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax. He only needed words.
In the ethical domain he brought an understanding of life that has influenced world thought more than any other… And I guess one of the greatest testimonies to his intelligence is surely that he knew how to enter physical death, actually die, and then live on beyond death. He seized death by the throat and defeated it. Forget a facelift.
Death was not something others imposed on him. He explained to his followers in the moment of crisis that he could at any time call for 72,000 angels to do whatever he wanted. A mid-sized angel or two would surely have been enough to take care of those who thought they were capturing and killing him. He plainly said, “Nobody takes my life! I give it up by choice. I am in position to lay it down, and I am in a position to resume it. My father and I have worked all this out” (John 10:18).
So all these things show how Jesus’ cognitive and practical mastery of every phase of reality: physical, moral, and spiritual. He is Master only because he is Maestro. “Jesus is Lord” can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying, “Jesus is smart.”
He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life.”[Dallas Willard, the Divine Conspiracy]
So this question was helpful to me. Because in this quest to live, I have new eyesight with what Jesus has to say. It is no longer antiquated or out of touch but holds relevancy and accuracy that might have not been there before.
Now when I read Jesus saying “these are the people that have the good life, and this is what the good life is about” my ears are perking up because the smartest guy that ever lived is going to tell me something that might be relevant.
“These are the people that have the good life, and this is what the good life is about”
If you haven’t realized it, Deborah has faithfully tackled Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount most every time she has talked. This is because it is a systematic summation of what Jesus “arguably the smartest man ever” has asked us to listen and do. Because it shows us the things that keep us away from the good life.
As you have listened to Deborah you have been exposed to what Jesus warns us about false securities like reputation and wealth. You have heard the warnings against condemnation engineering as a plan for helping people. (For instance: taking out the log in your own eye first). Then finally the warnings on how we may fail to do what he says through by not believing that God is good, following wrong people, and just not hearing and doing what he has talked about.
So Deborah has been letting you in on what the good life looks like. How normal people like you and I are the salt and light of this world when we live the good life. How things that are all throughout our society like murder, sleeping around, lying and revenge are rooted and can be uprooted in our very hearts. These aren’t laws that Jesus has been speaking about: “Thou shalt not look at someone for the purpose of having sex with them.” These are warnings on what trip us up and make us get caught up in the awful life.
The awful life is probably what we know. We perhaps know murders that have happened out of rage malice and anger, or at least seen what those three have done to us personally. We have longed for the intimacy that sleeping around often tries to satisfy. We have lied before and seen it hurt others, or embarrass us. And we have wanted the ill will upon those that we are jealous of. Wow Jesus, could your words be relevant today for us?
Of course we HEAR what the good life looks like, but it doesn’t seem relevant. It paints a world without people that are above us in reputation and wealth. But because we live WITH the awful life, it’s all nice words. Jesus tells us about the people whose shadows are SO great that they think YOU are the problem, rather than understanding that THEY are reacting to the issues of their past. These are the people with logs in their eyes.
It could be any number of things that we’ve experienced in the awful life that have allowed us to get seduced into thinking that Jesus was an ill-informed idealist, rather than a very smart man that knew humanity well enough to create it. I THINK it’s because WE can’t fathom that it is US that can participate in this “good life.” I think when we hear these words at church they immediately go into our “One Day in Heaven” brains. A shattered wall in our thoughts that allows us to believe AND disbelieve everything that we say in church because it’s a great story, and we WANT to believe it, but really we have no real way of applying and testing and living out what we actually say. So then the call of the masses is correct when they say “hypocrite” at which you rebuttal with “nobody’s perfect that’s why Jesus died on the cross.” And you crawl into a fetal position closing your eyes hoping for the heaven that is one day promised…over there. You come to church saying the good life isn’t now it’s later. So the relevance of what I’m saying is also for later. You can say “this isn’t relevant to my life now, but if I hold onto it maybe it will help me later.”
This isn’t new; this is the kind of people Jesus is talking to. The people that show their confused face when He tells them the Kingdom of heaven is available… Right now… Through me. The good life is available, right now, through Jesus. They look at him confused. Like someone who doesn’t know what electricity is when PGE comes to their farm and says: Electricity is available today, and I can make it happen.
I think WE have our confused face on because when Jesus tells us that WE can have the good life… NOW…through Him we raise one eyebrow and say “really?” what does that mean…the good life? and “yeah right.”
In men’s group this last week we explored what we thought the good life was. One person thought it was housed in their knowledge of their relationship with God. Knowing that God was their dad, the good life therefore was relational. Another person saw it as the change in environment when you care-- that sincerity and connection--The knowledge and feeling “whoa God is here.” Another thought the good life was housed in actions that were an overflow of the condition of your heart. And then another saw it as the place that God is, where good, and blessing, and love occurs.
Jesus said this about the good life “44 the good life is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field. 45 "Again, the good life is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Apparently the good life is worth the cost of everything.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t believe Jesus. Maybe I think that he’s ill informed, or dogmatic in his thoughts. Which makes me continue raise my eyebrow and question him… “really?... worth everything Jesus?” but if I look a bit deeper, my questions are rooted in my experience of the awful life. My disbelief of the importance of the good life is because it’s hard, or not intuitive, or maybe I just don’t think it’s for me… I can’t hack it.
It might be right for the mother Teresa’s and Deborah Lloyds out there, but come on let’s be realistic… It would be awesome to be a saint. To be at peace, and one with God. Those fathers and nuns out there are awesome. Some of us idolize them. They got it together. They have a strong faith. They are living the good life, but at the same time… they are saints. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Perhaps we have written off our hold of the good life, because we can’t be like that. We can’t be saints. We are the spiritual zeros. We’re the ones that are bitter. Abused. The ones that nobody would call saints. We’re the ones who swear, get angry, sleep around, and lose their friend to a drug overdose. The ones without Jobs, status --definitely not saint Status. We are the ones that are trying to survive the awful life.
The strange thing is that it isn’t the saints that Jesus is speaking to when he’s giving his sermon on the mount. IT IS the spiritual zeros, the guy that isn’t the saint, the guy that just lost his friend in an accident, the woman who is shy and stepped on, the police officer that is caught in the middle of a dispute, the guy that is condemned by his parents because he decided to follow a man named Jesus whom they think is a religious nut. All of these people have a couple things in common with you and I. They haven’t arrived, they aren’t considered the spiritual elite, and in fact you may argue that these people are not even touched by God’s blessing. How can you say that a man with no boundaries will be given grace? Yet Jesus says: “blessed is the merciful for they will be given mercy.”
3Blessed (and enviably happy) are the spiritual zeros, for they too will find the good life!4 Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.10 Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the good life.11 Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
I have been perplexed by the beatitudes since forever. How can the spiritual zero be blessed? How can someone who mourns be blessed? I go two ways: the first way makes me hammer my soul into a self deprecating oblivion. Jesus is saying the only way I will find the good life is by being a spiritual zero. The only way I will be comforted is if I mourn. This shoves me into a place where the good life is contingent on how much the awful life has hammered me to a pulp. And there Jesus is saying, it’s ok that this awful life sucks. Because you’re blessed. What? That makes no sense. It is this dilemma that has changed translations to say “what Jesus really meant was when you realize that you poor in spirit that’s when you’re going to be able to find the good life because you’ll change your ways.” But that’s not what Jesus said. The second place I go is the “one day in Heaven” translation. The meek will inherit the earth … in heaven… once they’re dead… Jesus is right because he’s talking about later. Because the meek DO inherit the earth … later… Right? These two aren’t working for me. Sorry.
OK So what is Jesus doing here? Why is it this list: the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the ones who wish that they could live correctly, the ones that have no boundaries, the ones that are fragile, the ones who are in between two fighting parties, the ones who are made fun of because they did the right thing, and the ones who are ostracized because they have chosen the good life. Why is it this list that Jesus holds up and says these are the ones that are the candidates for the good life? Why? It isn’t because this list is holy. In fact it’s pretty awful. It is not this list that qualifies you for the good life. Jesus is saying that these people are candidates for the kingdom, the good life, the blessed life, IN SPITE OF THESE QUALIFICATIONS. Jesus is saying that these people are candidates for the good life, IN SPITE OF THESE QUALIFICATIONS. You might be a spiritual zero but by relying on Jesus you’ll find the good life. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Electricity is available if you partner with the right people. Jesus is saying to the people that are sat upon, spat upon, ratted on, that in direct opposition to their circumstance the good life is available for them. In direct opposition to their circumstance the good life is available for us.
Really?
Really!
What if Jesus is the smartest man that ever lived? What if we listened to him about what the good life consists of? And we did what he said because we wanted to experience that life? What if we saw it for the preciousness that it is? And what if all of our excuses that disqualify us for living the good life dropped off because we understood that it was for us too?
