If there is one thing Christians are good at it is ignoring Christ. No, I don’t mean we pretend that the Bible doesn’t exist or that Jesus didn’t say this or that thing. Rather, we do everything to explain away what Jesus said, to tell ourselves and others that despite what it sounds like, Jesus didn’t really mean what He said. That way, other than giving some faint lip service to some vaguely humanistic and definitively idolatrous concept of “being nice” we can still get away with doing whatever it is we want to do. But in doing so we lose not only the power of Christianity but the heart of it as well – we lose Jesus. I see it and experience it all the time. It is the very problem that I have dedicated my life to resisting and changing, the very purpose for which this site was created.
And I am not alone.
John F. Alexander held degrees in psychology, philosophy, and biblical theology. In addition to being a pastor he also wrote extensively on what it means to be a Christian and how to harness the power of Christianity to transform the world by living a radically Christian life. In this article, Why We Must Ignore Jesus, published in the Christian journal Mission, Alexander implores us to recognize the ways that we prevaricate in our Christianity, the ways that we try and shift the meaning of Christ’s to make them easier to digest and us more comfortable in continuing to live the ways that we always have. Recognizing this, Alexander challenges us to be and do better. Christ was an extremist, a radical, and a revolutionary. And if we are to follow Him then we must as well. Nothing less will ever be enough, not for our own relationship with God and not for the world Christ’s teachings are specifically designed to redeem and save.
Below I have attempted to reproduce Alexander’s article as faithfully as possible. The major difference is that I have added some pictures that fit with the article. Otherwise everything is as much like the original as possible, including punctuation and spelling.
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WHY WE MUST IGNORE JESUS
By JOHN F. ALEXANDER
Christians spend a lot of time and energy explaining why Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant what he said. This is understandable: Jesus is an extremist, and we are moderates. What is worse, he was an extremist in his whole life-not just in some narrowly “spiritual” areas and not just in politics, but in everything. So we have to find ways to dilute his teaching.
For example, Jesus’s command: “Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matt. 5:39). Jesus seems to be saying here that if someone tries to rob us, we should let it happen; if someone starts to beat us up, we shouldn’t hit back. But those are extreme suggestions-so extreme they make Barry Goldwater sound cautious.
To William Neil it sounds so extreme that he concludes it isn’t common sense: Putting up with a slap in the face is obviously not the same as risking a blow from a blackjack by a burglar. In that case self-defense would be common sense. … A slap in the face is merely a picturesque way of describing a personal insult, and, in this event, turning the other cheek means refusing to return the insult. (The Difficult Saying of Jesus, Eerdmans)
Or take the next few verses.
If anyone would sue you and take your coat, let them have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to all who beg from you, and do not refuse any who would borrow from you. (Matt. 5:40-42)
These are difficult sayings, and they violate all my instincts, Does Jesus mean that when I’m walking downtown I should give money to all the beggars who ask me? Wouldn’t they just go get drunk? Wouldn’t I be broke in no time flat? And am I obliged to lend out my record of Oistrakh playing Beethoven’s violin concerto when I’d probably get it back scratched? Or how about my paint brushes? I’m a fairly competent painter, and that means I have expensive brushes which must be cleaned carefully. But nearly every time I lend one out it comes back as hard as a brick, and I have to buy a new one.
Recently my car was totaled, and the insurance company that is liable won’t even respond to my claim. So I plan to sue them. Should I instead let them rip me off? How about the fact that I believe they are oppressors who mostly insure the poor and then never pay their claims?
As Neil puts it, “We can see. . . that Jesus does not mean his hearers to take him literally.” “For if a man gave his cloak as well as his coat, that would of course leave the man naked except for his loincloth!” And going a second mile is “obviously the last thing a conscript would dream of doing.” And as for lending to all comers, “to obey this literally would encourage spongers and reward the thriftless and shiftless at the expense of those who work for a living. Jesus is obviously not encouraging indiscriminate charity, which is demoralizing.” All Jesus is trying to say is that we should be generous and respond to harshness with kindness.
I find myself very sympathetic with Neil. What Jesus is saying is perfectly foolish if taken literally, and what Neil is saying is perfectly reasonable. I can expand Neil’s case much more easily than Jesus’. And yet….
Neil makes me nervous. His heavy use of words like obviously and, of course and his appeal to common sense make me wonder. Such things are generally a sign that those using them cannot defend their case and are therefore falling back on what we all agree on – on common sense.
At the risk of being simplistic, I suggest we must choose between Jesus and common sense. What is common sense except accepted wisdom? And what is accepted wisdom except the wisdom of this world? What reason is there to suppose that this world knows how we should act? It has after all made quite a mess of itself.
Besides, Jesus was obviously lacking in common sense, and he was always doing things which he of course shouldn’t have done. Yet something in Jesus’ life speaks to us so deeply that millions have felt he must be God himself. And isn’t it exactly what Neil is explaining away which speaks so deeply? If all Jesus meant is Neil’s common sense, then why do we need Jesus? We could get everything Jesus taught out of common sources like Time magazine.
I suggest that Jesus came to tell us things that are not obvious and that he offered a worldview that is clean contrary to the worldview of our culture. He called us to repent (to turn completely around) and be born again.
That is, he called us to a whole new life-a life so radically different that we can only dimly imagine its rough outline. To move into this new and exciting world that Jesus brought requires continued openness to basic change, as the Spirit and the Word lead us. But if we measure everything by common sense, we are trapped in the old creation.
Perhaps I am only saying that what seems obvious to Neil doesn’t seem obvious to me. Perhaps it’s only that he’s a moderate and I’m an extremist. But I think there’s more to it than that.
For one thing, Jesus’ life was extreme. It was impractical and foolish. For example, he had nowhere to lay his head. He gave away everything except the clothes he wore.
For another, he so challenged the accepted wisdom (the common sense) of his day that the rulers killed him. You don’t kill someone for saying, “Be kind to the kind, and be generous.”
And, finally, if Jesus did literally mean what he said, what more could he have done to tell us that? How could he have lived more extremely, less moderately than he did? What could he have said that we couldn’t have found some way around?
All this is not to say that I know what Jesus meant. It’s not at all clear to me that I should lend out my Oistrakh or my paint brushes.
But before we look at those concrete issues, we need a larger context. Jesus’ extremism is not limited to the few verses I quoted. It is everywhere in the Gospels. “Whoever does not renounce all that they have cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). “If any would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 3:34). “I have not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10: 34). “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43). “One thing you still lack’ Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor” (Luke 8:22).
One of the clearest examples of how far out of phase Jesus is with our society happened in the last presidential campaign. In his Playboy interview Jimmy Carter made an obvious application of the Sermon on the Mount. He admitted that he looked at women lustfully and therefore had committed adultery with them in his heart. But our culture is so unchristian that the whole country came unglued-despite the fact that it was one of the few things in the whole campaign that one could be absolutely sure was true.
Jesus’ extremism is also obvious in his more general commands. Most approaches to ethics (including those in the church) merely ask what is permitted or seek to determine what we absolutely have to do. Often they seem to be asking how far we can go without being zapped. This is seen clearly in discussions of what is called “works of supererogation.” These are good things we do which go beyond the call of duty.
But for Jesus we are called to give ourselves totally. Works of supererogation are to be part of our daily routine. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Jesus requires everything. Or consider, “Whatever you wish that others should do to you, do so to them” (Matt. 6:12)’ What more extreme suggestion could be made? Or try this one: “I desire mercy, and not burnt offering” (Matt. 12:7). (But offerings are so much easier than mercy!)
Nor is this extremism restricted to Jesus. The rest of the New Testament is just as extreme. Paul, for example, tells us to “present our bodies a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1). And he tells us to have the same mind as Jesus Christ when he humbled himself from being God to becoming human, a person who served to the point of death (Phil. 2:5-9). And John says, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).
So the followers of Jesus are called to be extremists. There is no getting around it. But what does that mean when it comes to my paint brushes or to being robbed?
I can’t spell it out in any detail, but I do know that Jesus means our lives are to be changed in drastic ways. It’s a direction, not a conclusion. And the direction is that we are to be forever stretching to grow up into the fulness of Christ, not forever settling more uncomfortably into the present world order. And I think that means an alarm should go off inside us every time we find ourselves saying, “Jesus couldn’t mean that; it’s too impractical and costly.”
But what about all those beggars downtown? One of the chief objections to giving them money is that if we did, we would soon be broke. But that is a very peculiar objection-maybe our being broke is exactly what Jesus had in mind. The reason we find being broke so unthinkable is because our culture finds it unthinkable, not because it’s unchristian. After all Jesus was himself completely broke, and he told the rich young ruler to get that way. Maybe our trouble here is simply that we are too conformed to this world to believe Jesus could mean what he said.
Another problem is that if we give the beggars money, they just drink it up. But we could take them to McDonald’s or establish a soup kitchen like the Catholic Workers have or like Pacific Garden Mission.
But those things take time. If every time I went downtown I took all the beggars to McDonald’s, I’d never get all my busy work done. Or is that exactly what God wants?
How about my paint brushes that I want cleaned properly? Well, I could talk to borrowers very honestly and spell out in detail what they cost and how to clean them. If they then want to take responsibility for them, it would probably be okay. The hang-up is that in our culture such openness is not normal. So we scarcely know how to assert ourselves to that extent.
Or, if I don’t think the person will be able to take care of the brushes, I could always go along and paint and clean the brushes myself. Of course, I wouldn’t get some of my office work done, but I hate office work anyway.
But what if someone tries to rob me? Should I just let it happen? Dorothy Samuels in Safe Passage on City Streets tells about a robbery. Two girls were accosted by a guy who put a knife to the throat of one of them and demanded money. But they had no money. Instead of fighting or trying to trick him, they told him to trust them and they would take him back to their apartment to get some money for him. Naturally he couldn’t believe what they were saying to him, but in the end he went along. When they got there, all they had was a $10 bill, which they gave to him. He was so astonished he didn’t know what to do. At first he said he didn’t need all that-only $5. But since they had no change, he finally took it and ran.
Now I don’t imagine the young man straightened out. Probably their act did no good. But at least it was a sign of the kingdom-to him and to the girls. And no one was hurt. If they had been smarter, one of the girls would probably have got her throat cut. The wisdom of this world is not nearly as wise as we think it is.
My point is this: the unthinkable, impractical things Jesus commands are not half as unthinkable as we suppose. We just need to decide where we get our standards-from Jesus or our culture. If from Jesus, we will have to change in very extreme ways and it may seem costly. However, my all too limited experience of such things is that once I let go, following Jesus is tremendously liberating. What I need is to break out of common sense and start living the life of the kingdom.
I must remember that Jesus’ call is as broad as it is extreme. He means us to be extremists in our whole lives. When we think of the spiritual life, we tend to narrow it to some small section. For some of us that is our private lives; for others, it is the public sector; for others it is personal relations and pastoral counseling; for some it is contemplation and prayer; etc., etc. But what Jesus wants is for us to apply his extreme call to every aspect of our lives.
To do that I’ll need to be creative, I’ll need faith, and I’ll need support and guidance from my sisters and brothers. (Someone is going to have to give me some ideas on that insurance company!) If we launch out together, my experience is that we’ll be astonished at how good it is. We “shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” (Ps.1:3).
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Note: The original article can be found here on pg. 14 of the pdf copy.