Soul Graffiti

A fine French champagne is uncorked and poured as more guests arrive, shedding umbrellas and raincoats on a cold and rainy winter night. Some are beckoned to help with preparations for potato latkes while others mingle and nibble on crackers, salad, and noodle kugel. We are clustered in the kitchen between the counter where the bottles of wine are set to breathe and the stove where soups simmer and latkes sizzle in the pan. Excited children run in and out of the room with handfuls of golden plastic dreidel coins. Our host, Michael, collects fascinating friends, and at this party we are all on display: artists, photographers, horticulturists, writers, an attorney, an expert in the classics, a screenwriter and opera singer, an offshore accounts portfolio manager, and the production designer from a major film studio. As I scan the familiar faces in the room I notice: this is a Hanukkah party mostly for and by Jewish atheists who married gentile and relocated from New York to California.
Conversations at Michael’s parties are always interesting, smart, and spirited. It is not long before someone brings up religion, a sore point with many because of the current political administration’s aggressive foreign policies and alliances with religious conservatives The expert in the classics, raised in the Dutch Reformed tradition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, opens the discussion with a merry declaration, “The only religion I’m against is Christianity!” He holds up a tumbler of whiskey and provides a detailed and mocking elucidation of the five points of Calvinism. One woman warns the group to be nice because she is a devout Catholic. With panache the opera singer exclaims, “Just don’t talk to me about intelligent design. I can’t stand to hear that crap,” he says with a teasing smile. “Evolution is a scientific fact.”
Perhaps taking our conversation a little more seriously, I suggest that evolutionary process doesn’t negate the possibility of divine origins. “The greater question,” I add, “is whether life comes from chaos or some benevolent force.”
“Well, the only thing I hate more than Christians is agnostics,” the opera singer retorts with a sly laugh. “I mean, get off the fence. Make a decision. Either God exists or doesn’t.”
I quietly interject, “Some would say that atheists have the most courage—because of the terrorizing implication that life is without meaning or purpose.”
“Well, if there is anything I hate more than Christians or agnostics, it’s nihilists. I can’t stand nihilism and drab talk about how everything is meaningless,” the opera singer says, feigning melancholy. Someone else proposes that it may actually take more courage to believe that God does exist—because of the haunting possibility that how we choose to live really matters. “Even if we try to avoid the tensions and debate about the existence of God, we are still faced with the persistent question: Is there a meaning and purpose to our existence? And if so, what is it?” I add. There is an awkward pause.
“More latkes anyone?” Michael asks.
We drift off to refill soup bowls and wine glasses, mixing into more intimate side conversations. The classics professor continues to monologue about total depravity, unconditional election, and limited atonement, but by now no one is listening.
When I get involved in the same conversation over and over, I start to wonder whether we are having an honest exchange or simply talking past one another to affirm what we already believe or doubt. Early impressions of spiritual beliefs can be enduring, even while they may be simplistic or misinformed, and can serve to vaccinate us from further spiritual curiosity. The limits of childhood understanding often continue to inhibit our adult imaginations—and we frequently resist information that would challenge our embryonic assumptions. Real spiritual investigation sometimes requires overcoming or undoing our earlier impressions, including notions about the message of Jesus.

SCARY JESUS

I can still see my daughter Hailey’s big blue eyes welling up with tears, her soft face grimacing with pain as she began to cry. I was telling her about Jesus and showing her a book of pictures. They were the usual images: Jesus as a baby nestled in a feed trough; Jesus bleeding and hanging on a cross; Jesus lying dead in a tomb; and Jesus sitting on a golden throne. Generally I don’t show pictures of bloody dead people to children—but this was an exception, it was Jesus. The morbidity of these brightly colored pictures did not occur to me—since I had seen them all of my life. As I turned the pages I told her an abbreviated version of the story, finishing with the phrase, “Jesus died on the cross so that someday we can go to a wonderful placed called heaven.” That was when Hailey burst into tears. Sobbing, she murmured, “Daddy, I don’t want to go to heaven! I want to stay here with you and Mommy.” I took her in my arms, attempting to comfort and explain, but my words were no help. For the next few weeks Hailey cried every time she saw the book cover. We hid the book, promising we would not show her any more scary pictures of that man Jesus.

JESUS THE SADOMASOCHIST

My ill-fated telling of the story to Hailey reminded me of my earliest impressions of Jesus and his message. These recollections play in my mind like film noir, with heightened contrasts between shadows and light—juxtapositions between the warmth I felt when my family held hands and prayed to Jesus at meals and bedtime and the cold mildew of the church basement where we sat in rusty folding chairs listening to old ladies teach us songs and use paper cutouts stuck to flannel boards to tell us stories about Jesus. In the pictures and porcelain figurines, Jesus was a white man with soft brown hair sitting with children like me on his lap, or carrying a lamb on his shoulders, or bleeding on a cross, or knocking on a metaphorical door—the “door” to my heart.
When I was three I heard a man on the radio describe the fiery flames and torment of eternal damnation as we bumped along in the old green Pontiac one summer afternoon. The backs of my preschool legs were sweating against the hot vinyl seats as I heard the preacher say, “Believe or burn! Believe that you have sinned and that Jesus died in your place.” “If this is true,” I thought, “then I would be a fool not to pray ‘the sinner’s prayer.’” And I prayed it: “Jesus, forgive my sins and come into my heart.” And in some soothing strange haunting and intangible way Jesus became my savior and I was going to heaven someday when I died.

In my child-mind the story, as I heard it, had sadomasochistic qualities. The world I enjoyed (ice cream, toys, zoos, and movies) was, unbeknownst to me, a dark wasteland that would ultimately be destroyed. God had me tied down and dangling over the flames of hell, demonstrating his love by offering to release me, but only if I would beg for mercy. Love, pain, and intimacy commingled. God was obviously powerful, but was God truly good? And could this God be trusted? I would have to move from fear to trust and unlearn what I knew in order to embrace a life with God more fully.
I later realized that the story was told to me in such a dire manner and with cataclysmic effect in order to bring me to a point of singular decision. Who wouldn’t want to believe when the stakes were so high? My decision was a matter of life or death, heaven or hell. I had to choose now. Telling the story in terms of eternal destiny might have expedited my decision, but it offered little incentive for me to keep seeking or believing.

High-pressure sales tactics had forced the deal but did not produce a satisfied repeat customer. I had done my business with God and was now glad to have God off my back.
If my early impression of the gospel of Jesus seems distorted or peculiar, you don’t have to look far to hear the same story being told today. It is probably the version of the message familiar to the most people. At home I have a growing collection of gospel tracts that are handed to me by well-meaning Evangelistas when I walk down Mission Street. They all contain a message similar to the one I heard and told Hailey—that the message about Jesus should drive you toward one decision, motivated by fear of punishment that will determine your eternal destiny.
As I grew older it didn’t take me long to begin wondering about whether what I was told was really the whole story. Does someone have to become fixated on death and damnation before the life of Jesus makes any sense? Is the message of Jesus only about a distant God and the future in another world? Is fear of eternal punishment the healthiest or most enduring reason to seek your Maker? And, is choosing the path of life really as simple as saying “the sinner’s prayer”?

OBSESSED WITH ETERNITY

On my third helping of latkes Kendal sits down next to me. We chat about our kids (my son Isaiah and her son are best buddies) and then about our families and work responsibilities. She is a production designer at a major film studio. I was fascinated to learn more about the intricacies involved in creating big-budget animated movies. When she eventually asked about my work, I found myself hesitating. People have so many preconceived ideas about ministers, churches, and religious organizations. If I sound too excited about what I do will she think I’m proselytizing?
Once I searched for the word pastor in an online thesaurus and found the following synonyms suggested: “Holy Joe, Glory roader, Sin Hound, Harp Polisher, and Sky Pilot.” The definitions assumed that someone with my vocation is singularly interested, even obsessed, with preparing people to die and meet their Maker. God and eternity are often conceived as being far away and disconnected from our current reality. Sometimes people who are deeply interested in eternity have the tendency to dismiss the significance of life in the here and now—as if a person has to choose between concern about their eternal destiny and caring for the immediate needs in our world. If this world is destined for the wrecking ball, as the logic goes, why seek personal or social transformation? The only thing that matters is spreading the apocalyptic message so that others might believe and be airlifted away from the here and now. It is not surprising, then, that so many people who think that the message of Jesus is primarily about another world struggle to find a meaningful and integrated spiritual path in the here and now. If good news is about another time and place, you may be ready for heaven, but feel unprepared for life on Earth.
Our understanding of the time dimension of the message of Jesus can either limit or expand our creativity and imagination for life here and now. Even if we suspect that an extended version of the Jesus story might reveal a more holistic, nuanced, and tangible message, the fact remains that the collapsed version familiar to the most people is biased toward the apocalypse. Perhaps we see the otherworldly ramifications of the story because this is what we were first invited to observe, and we tend to only notice what we are expecting.
In psychology class at my university a professor asked us to count how many times a basketball was passed between players on a video recording. We watched the ball dutifully. At the conclusion of the five-minute video clip he asked how many times the ball had been passed. Our numbers varied just slightly. “And class, how many of you saw a woman walk across the court through the players holding a rainbow-colored umbrella?” Huh? We didn’t see any woman carrying a rainbow-colored umbrella. When the professor replayed the video clip, there she was. Some of the players had to move out of the way to avoid being hit by her large bright umbrella. Most of us hadn’t noticed her because we were looking for something else: basketballs.
If we are invited to look at the significance of Jesus’ message solely in terms of the afterlife, that is all we are likely to find. In groups, when I have asked, “What is the message of the gospel?” most people predictably respond with a statement like, “Jesus died for our sins so we can be forgiven and go to heaven when we die.” I then ask, “Where, exactly, did Jesus state this as his message?” Awkward silence. There is little evidence within the gospel accounts to suggest that Jesus’ message was primarily about another world or the afterlife. We should wonder about the difference between what Jesus proclaimed as “good news” and what is now commonly thought of as “the gospel.”
Is the message of Jesus primarily about another world or about life in the here and now? The Gospel writer Mark wrote that Jesus came to proclaim the “good news of God”—to illuminate or remind us of the fact that there has always been and will always be a source of life who is present, caring, and active in our world. In context, Jesus spoke as an ambassador of hope for the future and for the present. According to Mark’s Gospel, he traveled throughout Galilee announcing, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). When asked by what power he performed miraculous signs he explained that it was because “the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20). When people misunderstood and thought that he was only speaking about the future reign of God he clarified, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observations, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
Maybe there isn’t such a clear distinction between our world and eternity. Jesus described the kingdom of God as a present reality stretching perpetually into the future. He spoke of “eternal life” not as a destination but as an enduring quality of relationship with our Maker. He once prayed, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is the reconciled connection to our source that is made available through the sacrifice of Jesus. God is not far off and eternity is not in another world. If we find a connection to the eternal life of God in the present, the future will take care of itself.
What difference do these clarifications make? I believe we are more ready to embrace our lives in the here and now when we are able to recognize the continuity between the immanence of God in our worldand eternity. Rather than simply waiting to be liberated to another time or place, we are being invited to collaborate in the healing and redemption of our world.

EXPLORING THE ESSENCE OF JESUS’ MESSAGE

After we finish the latkes and soup and refill our glasses, it’s time for the lighting of the menorah. Excited children gather around to light the candles. “Remind me again of the historical background for this holiday,” one adult asks. It takes several of us brainstorming together to assemble an answer. Something about the Maccabean wars and an oil lamp that miraculously stayed lit for eight days without fuel. “Really a minor Jewish holiday that took on inflated significance as an alternative to Christmas,” someone adds. The lights in the room are switched off, and with gusto Michael leads us in a Hanukkah song, sung in Hebrew; those of us who know it sing along. In the dark room under the glow of candles Michael says, “Hanukkah, it’s the festival of light” and concludes with a toast: “LeChaim! To Life!”
Light and life were two of the favorite words the disciple John used to describe the message of Jesus. Toward the end of his life John was sequestered on the Island of Patmos. As the last of the original disciples, he made an attempt to summarize the essential message of Jesus—and he did it in three words. In the preface to his first general letter he wrote, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” Here John reminded his readers that he was intimately acquainted with Jesus. He goes on to say, “The life appeared. We have seen it and testify to it. And we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and has appeared to us.” In John’s mind, eternal life was less a destination and more an immediate personal connection. Then John described the essence of Jesus’ teaching: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, in him there is no darkness at all” (I John 1:1–5). Three words, “God is light.” Light here implies warmth and illumination, and the clarity to move without fear. John is saying that we can walk confidently in the awareness that the source of all life is good, and that everything Jesus said and did simply confirms that our Creator is good and can be trusted.
Imagine someone asking, “John, what was the message of Jesus about?” And John answering, “Well, it’s really simple; God is light.” I can’t help but notice how different John’s summary of the gospel was from what I heard as a child, or what I told Hailey, or the impression many people have. If I could start over to explain the message of Jesus to Hailey, I would begin in a different place, maybe starting with something like, “Hailey, God is light. Jesus came to remind us that our Maker is good and can be fully trusted. Jesus taught people how to trust the ways of their Maker again. Some people didn’t want to remember that God is good, so they had Jesus killed. But love is stronger than hate. And light is brighter than darkness. And Jesus came back from the dead to keep reminding us that God is light.”
The evidence for a good God can seem ambiguous at times. Life doesn’t always feel good. We can easily look out on our world or within ourselves with eyes that see more darkness than light. Perhaps this is why Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22–23). We are invited to have eyes that recognize the essential goodness of the Creator and creation—to read the narrative of history and the narratives of our own lives searching for signs of life and noting the ways that God can be trusted.

THE CHOICES WE MAKE

At the break during a lecture a young man approached me and asked a familiar question: “Do you think gay people can go to heaven?”
I replied, “I didn’t know I was in charge of deciding who goes to heaven.”
It is commonly assumed that it is our responsibility to assess who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s plan. One day a friend asked my wife Lisa a similar but more personal question: “I need to know if you think our family is going to hell—since we are not Christian. Because if you believe we are going to hell then I don’t think we can stay friends.” Historically, emphasis on a singular spiritual decision has been motivated by an attempt by an institution or community to judge who is “saved” and who is not. Jesus described the way to life as a metaphorical road that we may travel down (Matthew 7:14). Perhaps we should be more concerned about our own pace and direction on that road than someone else’s. Certainly we will each end up at the destination in the direction we are heading toward: either life or death.
I’ve notice that people suddenly become more generous in their assessments about eternal destiny when someone is experiencing loss. My friend Brad was fifteen when he and some friends got drunk and drove a car up a hill on the wrong side of the road and smashed into an oncoming truck at 80 miles an hour. His parents rushed to the scene and held his hand as he took his last breaths trapped in the back seat of the mangled vehicle. I recall standing with his parents in front of the casket, his body patched with embalmer’s putty and heavy makeup, searching for words to console them. At the funeral the minister comforted the family with the hope that Brad had said “the sinner’s prayer” earlier in life. The family clung to any evidence that Brad had chosen the road to life.
At the Hanukkah dinner, the first pangs of flu come over me just as I finish the strudel we have for dessert. I am talking with a professional photographer I just met when my stomach began to rumble violently. “Excuse me for a moment,” I said as I rushed to the upstairs bathroom. When I was finished, I quickly collected our coats and weakly said “Good-bye” and “Thanks for the nice evening.” We walked out the door into the darkness of a winter night to begin the mile and a half walk home over the hill in the rain.
It is later than I thought, and we have to walk slowly because of the trembling aftershocks in my intestines. We follow the path of streetlights past the dim doorways where groups of men lurk in the shadows to conduct nocturnal business. We are usually asleep before this cast of characters appears on the streets. “What series of choices would lead a person out into this cold darkness?” I wondered. My mother-in-law always says that nothing good ever happens after midnight, and I believe she was mostly right. The disciple John concluded that in contrast to the fact that “God is light,” we tend to choose darkness when our deeds are evil. Every choice we make seems to be either a step into darkness or a step toward the light. John concluded that our greatest choice is between remaining in the darkness and learning to walk in the light of God’s love (I John 1:5–7).
Is belief in God one epic decision or a series of choices in the same direction? As a child I was pressed to make a singular decision to believe. The assumption was that this epic decision, once made, endures for all time. Practically we know this is not the case with the other decisions we make. When two people, for instance, decide to get married, they must confirm their choice in daily care and fidelity. Marriage is a persistent series of choices in the same direction.
Spiritual belief functions similarly. Each day we decide whether or not to trust that our Maker is good and has our best interests in mind. We see this in the ancient contracts of the Tanakh: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Each day and each moment we are choosing a path toward life or death. All of our choices matter and function cumulatively to express faith or doubt in the goodness of our Maker.
For three days after the Hanukkah party I lay sick in bed, hoping that I hadn’t given anyone else the flu. For some reason when I’m sick I think more about God. Maybe it’s the altered state brought on by nausea and dehydration or the feeling I have that I am dying. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing, on occasion, to consider one’s mortality. There is a certain reverence that comes by contemplating this finality. Lying on my bed with the blinds drawn, I am the little boy again in the back seat of the green Pontiac with sweating legs, except that now I am less afraid and more entranced by the chance to seek a God that can be found, to find my place in the greater scheme of a good creation. I find comfort in the whisper of words I once memorized: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
Jesus declared, “The time has come.”
The time has come for us to see the thin space between our lives and eternity.
The time has come for us to imagine again that God is light and that we are cared for by a Maker who is good.
The time has come for us to seek light over darkness and to perpetually choose life over death.

CONVERSATION

The Present? The Future? Or Both? What effect do you think it has that so many people believe the message of Jesus is primarily or exclusively about the future? How would a here and now orientation affect your perception of the message of Jesus?

Good News about What? If heaven or eternity were not the primary concerns of first-century people who heard the message of Jesus, what else was compelling to them about his message? Why was his message so controversial?
God as Light. Does the suggestion that the message of Jesus can be summarized with the statement “God is light” seem attractively simple or fuzzily disturbing?

EXPERIMENTS

Reminiscing. Write a journal entry exploring how your view of God has evolved and changed as you have grown and experienced more of life. Include a few interesting anecdotes that illustrate the shifts in your perceptions. What are the critical decisions, to seek, ignore or reject God, that have shaped your current reality and direction?

Choosing Life Today. If eternal life is something we access now and in the future, this implies that we are continually choosing whether or not to walk in the light of God’s presence. Consider what tangible trust in God implies for you today. Try spending the day in conscious awareness of the maker’s presence. Some people find it helpful to use a method called breath prayer as an aid in doing this. As you go about the day, whisper a phrase (such as “Lord Jesus have mercy on me.” Or “your love endures forever.” Repeat the phrase under your breath as you go about daily tasks. See if this helps you stay more aware of God’s care and presence.