Godspell, Jesus, and XKCD

Saw Godspell the other day for the first time in my life. It was a fine production and this post is not a critique of the performance, rather it is what moved through my mind as I saw this show that piqued my interest.



Godspell is an interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew done with 'contemporary' setting and costumes but retains a 'Bible' sounding language (I bet it is New Revised Standard but I do not know). There is dancing and singing. Jesus has a Afro and looked like "Mork" from "Mork and Mindy". It is a weird show.



It got me thinking, "What if there was a disaster and the only remnant connection to the life of Jesus we had was Godspell? What would that Jesus look like? How would the future generations look at Jesus if they only saw an interpretation (Godspell) of an interpretation (Revised Standard Version of the Bible) of an interpretation (Gospel of Matthew) Jesus?"



Then my brother showed me this XKCD comic strip and I thought it was fitting to my Godspell experience.:

"Can't right now, I got a net full of carp!"

My wife is a wonderful person in so many ways. She has the drive and patience to rummage through a lot of different resources in order to find things for sermons or lessons she facilitates. She found this little nugget the other day. I am paraphrasing but the gist is:

If you are a fisherman in the days of Jesus you are busy. You have to wake early, move your boat out into the water, sail out, throw nets, bring nets in, repeat as often as you can or need. Sail back to shore to get to market in time, get fish prepared, sell the fish. collect money, wash nets and upkeep your boat. Go to sleep in order to wake and repeat. Fishermen are busy people. They do not need another thing to do, and yet, the call of Jesus comes. Jesus is invasive and intrusive. "Follow me." The call does not take into consideration what you are doing or what your schedule is. The call does not matter if you are busy or not, the call comes regardless if you have caught enough food for the day. Jesus' call in our lives it not easy, comfortable or convenient.

And yet, as I reflect on this, I would argue that the majority of Christianity is in the business of making like comfortable, easy and convenient. Just look at the title of some of the Christian books out these days.

I submit there is more to the call of Jesus than to just 'believe' and be saved. In fact in the words of Jesus and Paul, we have to die to ourselves.

Dying is not easy, comfortable or convenient.

Neither is the call of Jesus.

Humility + Questions - Absolute Certanity = Discipleship

I recently heard in a sermon that the fundamental posture of a disciple is humility. A disciple is one who knows that they do not have all the answers or has it all together.

This captivated me because I hear people who are Christian but speak as though they have all the answers. If we had all the answers then we would not be disciples.

We would be the master.

I wanted to remind myself, that I am a disciple of Jesus. I am not Jesus.

And neither is any Christian I have ever met.

If you are looking to have all the answers, I wonder, Christianity might not be the best religion for you. We are a religion built on questions. We are disciples of a teacher who asks some of the most blunt questions I have ever been asked:

"Who do you say I AM?"

"What should I compare the Kingdom of God to?"

"Do you love me?"

"Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?"

"How can Satan drive out Satan?"

"Who are my mother and my brothers?"

"Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?"

"Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"