In my elementary school, we had two sisters, the Forsyth sisters. Someone started the rumour that they had fleas.  I can still hear the chant. We even made a game of it, an adaptation of tag, but instead of saying “you’re it,” we would say, “Forsyth’s fleas!” Because of this rumour you can be sure that the Forsyth girls were picked last – if at all.

It is one thing to be discriminated against because of a rumour, but what if they say about you is true? What if your choices or lifestyle or behaviour have ostracized you and set you up to be picked last, if at all?

“Jesus was going down the road, he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. “Come, be my disciple,” Jesus said to him.  So Matthew got up and followed him.¹⁰That night Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to be his dinner guests, along with his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners. ¹¹The Pharisees were indignant. “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” they asked his disciples. ¹²When he heard this, Jesus replied, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” ¹³Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture:’ I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices.’ For I have come to call sinners, not those who think they are already good enough.” Matthew 9:9-13 NLT

Matthew was a publican or tax collector. He collected taxes on behalf of the Roman Government. He was the scum these church leaders were referring to. There were two orders or levels of tax collector. Rome recruited Administrative or Executive level collectors from the best of society. Zacchaeus, the short guy who called down to Jesus from up in the sycamore tree was this kind of collector. Disliked for sure, even hated, but respected because of his place in society.  Beneath men like Zacchaeus were the street level guys.  Matthew was a street level guy, unethical and not trusted, comparable to a thug or a loan shark. FWP Greenwood writes “considered Ignoble and contemptible even by the gentiles, they were as a group vulgar, rapacious (read greedy, predatory) and unmerciful.’ Of the Twelve Apostles, FWP Greenwood.

The Greek poet Theocritus, when asked which was the cruelest of all beasts, responded:

“Among the beasts of the wilderness the bear and the lion,

Among the beasts of the city the parasite and the publican.”

Matthew the tax collector was barred from entering the temple. He could not give testimony in court. His tithes and offerings to the temple were rejected. When someone was considered “beyond salvage” – I borrowed that from Robert Ludlum – the people of the day would say, “Let him be to you as a heathen and a publican.” That was Matthew.

Jesus was going down the road, he saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. “Come, be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.

Imagine the tension at that dinner, but even before the dinner, before his decision goes viral. Consider the strain about 30 feet down the path from Matthew’s booth. The disciples to that point are mostly fisherman, some of them are Zealots, dedicated to overthrowing Roman rule and even if the disciples aren’t card-carrying Zealots, they are sympathetic to the cause. All of them including Jesus have been taken advantage of by men like Matthew, maybe even by Matthew himself. The man Jesus invited to share in their lives works for the Romans. To many, he is a traitor.

I would love to have heard that first conversation Christ has with his other disciples.

How does Christ get buy-in?

He challenges to their outrage and indignation by exposing their hypocrisy. “Do you actually think you’re better than him?”

Perhaps some them did think they were better than him. I wonder if Matthew’s presence – his acceptance – helped tip Judas, who managed the money for Christ and the disciples, to betray Christ.

Christ also gets buy-in by pulling this offensive person in close, so close that the social stench of Matthew rubs off on him. Christ makes it clear by his actions that it is a two for one deal. You can’t have Christ without Matthew. Of all the people that Jesus asked and of the many who declined Christ’s offer, Matthew responded with a yes. There is no one that is “unreachable.”

You and I often cross paths with those whose lifestyles and beliefs rub against every value we hold to. By what measure are we better? This is closer. Some of us engage in behaviour and choices that we believe make us unredeemable. Ponder this: do you think Christ used Matthew to encourage others?

“Do you think you’re worse than him?” Do you really think you are beyond salvage? Really?

Imagine what Matthew felt as he recorded these words of Christ:

“Anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever—because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life. ³⁰This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.” Matthew 19: 29, 30 The Message

When we read the book he authored it is obvious that Matthew bowed out of the life of the tax collector.

In Oswald Chamber’s devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, he says:

“No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretense. What our Lord wants us to present to him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavor, but real, solid sin; that is all he can take from us. And what does he give in exchange for our sin? Real, solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretense of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration. Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?”

Matthew becomes the living metaphor of grace offered and accepted. Matthew, one most hated, is a writer of one of the gospels. He traveled as far as Ethiopia sharing Christ’s redemptive story – where he relinquished his life and was martyred.

Matthew, the most hated man in town, is on my list as the one who would be last picked…or is that first?

The Holy Spirit as Paper

Rocky:

But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and none of you has asked me where I am going. ⁶Instead, you are very sad. ⁷But it is actually best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Counselor won’t come. If I do go away, he will come because I will send him to you.

Scissors:

⁸And when he comes, he will convince the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. ⁹The world’s sin is unbelief in me.

¹⁰Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. ¹¹Judgment will come because the prince of this world has already been judged.

Paper:

¹²“Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

¹⁴He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine; this is what I mean when I say that the Spirit will reveal to you whatever he receives from me.

John 16:5-15 NLT

For thousands of years paper has been a medium of communication. Paper informs and influences; what is written on it shapes our beliefs. Newspaper barons have often been larger-than-life individuals who, whether we like it or not, have influenced society.

The film Citizen Kane was based on the life of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Conrad Black is the Canadian version of Citizen Kane.

I, like many of you, am a bit of a news junkie, and though my fix comes mostly online it cannot replace the experience of sitting with a coffee and a newspaper. My life, like yours, has been influenced by paper. And my life has been influenced by the stories of others that I read about. Biography and autobiography are my textbooks of choice. It is how people practice their theology that has motivated me.

Henri Nouwen is one of my heroes. How he processed his same gender attraction and the way he gave up his academic life to serve in the L’arch community has impacted me.

Mother Teresa is another. Her tenacity and single-mindedness has shaped my faith. This poem written by Mother Teresa and now embedded in my psyche has affected my life:

Love has a hem to her garment, which reaches the very dust

It sweeps the streets and lanes and because it can it must.

Paper provides knowledge, information, and inspiration.

But it is still inadequate.

You and I may know about the person we have read about and we may understand better the precept and principals, the life circumstances that shaped them, and in turn we may have been motivated to make changes.

But it is still inadequate.

A Theologian named Christian Schwarz lives in Emmelsbull Germany. I have read everything he has written. I am an amateur expert on the theology of Christian Schwarz. While on our way to Africa a few years ago, I contacted Schwarz and asked I could have lunch with him. He said yes – he would give me 1 and 1/2 hours – how precise, how German of him. So we planned our itinerary to land in Germany, and from Munich I rented a car and drove 1000 kilometers across Germany to meet Christian Schwarz. To be on the Autobahn with jet lag is not a good idea.

He gave me two hours, and I returned 1000 kilometers to Munich and on to Africa. What I learned about Christian Schwarz in 2 hours made his books come to life, gave me context. I asked questions, got clarification. I didn’t learn much that was new, but what I knew had more meaning, greater understanding.

Paper:

¹²“Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

¹⁴He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine; this is what I mean when I say that the Spirit will reveal to you whatever he receives from me.

Christ realizes that what you and I read about him on paper is inadequate. As essential as the Bible is and how ever helpful the insights of others are regarding Christ; they fall short. We cannot inform our way to a relationship with Christ. If we think the sum of Christ is his teachings – precepts and principals – we miss his intent by a gap as wide as eternity.

If we believe that God can be fully understood on paper and through clever arguments we risk committing idolatry by reducing Christ to something manageable.

⁷This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!

John 14:17 The message

It’s one thing to read the publisher; it’s another thing to listen to the publisher over a cup of coffee.  If you wish to have a relationship that transcends the published page consider that we cannot actually know Christ and we cannot grasp his intent for our circumstances unless the Holy Spirit speaks for Him to us. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples about himself and the kingdom of God, but they didn’t understand. They could only understood him in their own context. The Holy Spirit helps us transcend our worldview – a worldview shaped by prejudices beyond our control. The Disciples only get who it is after Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit meets with their spirits.

The Bible is the revelation of Christ to humanity. It informs. But the spiritual formation necessary for us to know Him requires the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit moves us off the printed page. He moves Christ from passive to active, from a time past to real time, forming a relationship of the immediate – a sense of “nowness.”

Our present immaturity and partial insight needs His input. And His truth for our lives unfolds as we mature in relationship with the Holy Spirit. He gives revelation and insight on how one should live and how to apply the information that is found in Scripture. Often Christ’s words do not make sense unless the Holy Spirit breaks down the meaning for us. Sometimes his words appear to be in conflict and the Holy Spirit provides clarity. Sometimes the conflict remains but because of relationship, we trust even when we don’t understand.

The Holy Spirit helps us unpack the editorials.

What is necessary is to internalize Christ. As we do, the Holy Spirit covers us. Then we access the spiritual realm, and we know Christ, and Christ changes what we are, and influences what we do.

Join Urban Bridge as we experience the Light of the World come to be with us. The Word made Flesh. Emmanuel.

We’ll discover Christ together in John, Chapter 1.

This will be an experiential service in two parts. Come expecting the unexpected.

December 20th, 10 AM, Royal Alberta Museum Theatre, “Jesus”

December 28th, 10 AM, Royal Alberta Museum Theatre, “John”

For this second service, please bring any flashlights you may have, as well as an instrument, if you play and it is portable.

We look forward to celebrating with you.