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I
do not know his name. I probably would never have stopped to ask for it. It
is a scene I’ve witnessed only a few times in my life. The scene of the
Street Preacher.
You know the type. Some guy who stands on a street corner, shaggy beard, dirty
face, unkempt hair, and little or no hygiene. His eyes seem to penetrate right
through you, intense and direct, in a Charles Manson sort of way. If you have
never seen a street preacher then you might have a hard time envisioning what
I am describing. A lyric from DC Talks Jesus Freak
gives an apt description of this kind of minister:
A saw a man with a tattoo on his big fat belly,
It wiggled around like marmalade jelly.
It took me a while to catch it said,
Cause I had to match the rhthym of his belly with my head.
“Jesus saves” is what it raved in a typical tattoo green.
He stood on a box in the middle of the city,
And he claimed he had a dream.
My first experience with street preachers was in San Francisco when I was
11 years old. About the only thing that remember about him is that he scared
me. I was in Washington several years ago and a street preacher had taken
up a pieceof real estate on the lawn in front of the Lincoln Memorial. If
you have ever been to D.C. then you know that he more or less fit into that
scene. Most recently Big John and I were in Amsterdam on our way back from
the Ukraine. We had been walking around Centraal Station and were headed back
to train. And there he was.
Here was the Poster Boy for all street preachers. He was waving his arms and
shouting his message: “The kingdom of God is upon you. Repent and believe
the Good News. Christ Jesus died for sinners. God wants you to be saved, for
He is coming in judgment!” And on and on he went. And the people walked
by. No one stopped. No one listened. No one cared. Including us.
Let me ask you a question, and I want you to answer it as honestly as possible.
Why do we respond the way we do with those kinds of
people? Why is that our natural reaction? Why do we put the street
preacher types in a category that falls somewhere between mental patient and
heroine addict?
Disciples as Social Anomalies
That's
easy. Because they are different, because we don’t act that way, because
we see them as abnormal. Most of us see them as a social anomaly. An “anomaly”
is a departure from the normal order or rule of things. If we are honest we
would say that he is either a Freak, a Fool, a Fanatic, or some combination
of all three. And so we keep on walking by, we pay no attention, we try to
ignore those kinds of folks.
But what about John the Baptist? Wasn't he a little odd, abnormal, “out
there” in his day and time? The Nazarite type who wore leather (long
before it was in style) and had a diet of locusts and honey. His message was
the same as our Amsterdam friend: “Repent!” And yet we read about
ole JtB and then put him in the category of prophet and saint. Jesus said
that “among those born of women there is no one greater than John”
(Luke 7:28). But John was anything but run-of-the-mill.
The religious leaders of the day could not stand his popularity or his message. He was just some wild man out in the desert that needed his head examined. Let us go back to DC Talks song Jesus Freak to see their description of the forerunner of Christ:
There was man from the desert with naps in his head.
The sand that he walked was also his bed.
The words that he spoke made the people assume
There wasn't too much left in the upper room.
With skins on his back and hair on his face,
T hey thought he was strange by the locusts he ate.
You see, the Pharisees tripped when they heard him speak
U ntil a king took the head of this Jesus Freak.
So What About Us?
And
now for the bombshell that should explode in your theological thinking: unless
we, those who call ourselves Christians, incite the same reaction in people
as the street preacher, as John the Baptist, then we’ve not fully understood
our calling as His disciples.
Let me make myself perfectly clear. Unless the world at large puts us somewhere
in the categories of Freaks, Fools, or Fanatics, then we're possibly guilty
of Chameleon Christianity: blending in to the point
that we look no different from anyone else.
Does that surprise you? Probably so, and here’s why: we have a tendency to make God safe. At times we are guilty of the most vile form of idolatry, that of making God in our image. We take Him down from the throne of Truth and put Him into a box so that we can control Him, and thus control what we think of Him.
Here
are just a few examples. Some avoid being honest about the Lord’s
decision to make an astronomical amount of wine (John 2) because they can’t
reconcile that with the sin of drunkenness. We adore the compassion shown
the whores and outcasts but our churches tend to repel those same people.
We cherish the concept of salvation by grace through faith but then kill ourselves
(and others) when we don’t feel that our works cut the mustard.
That is idolatry because we change God to make Him safe and comfortable. That is sin because it is a violation of our design; we were designed by God and not vice versa. In this world we are called to be Freaks, Fools, and Fanatics. If that unsettles you, GOOD! Follow along and see if you think that statement is true.
Freaks, Society’s Definition of Abnormal
A Freak is someone whom society defines as abnormal, different, not run of the mill, a nonconformist. People still pay big bucks at circuses for the freak sideshows. You know, the Bearded Lady, the Two Headed Goat, the Midget Wrestlers. They don't fit in so we call them Freaks, and in so doing we make ourselves feel better.
So who decides what’s normal in the world? Don’t say “God” because the world does not let Him define it. Look back over the course of human history and you’ll agree it's true.
The Crusades were an attempt to conquer the Arab world, barbarians to the English, in the name of Christ. Hitler’s Germany didn’t consider Jews human and so their “Final Solution” involved torturing and murdering over six million people created in the image of God. Many Southerners didn’t (some still don’t) consider African Americans to be normal, i.e. white, or even to have souls, and so enslaved them as property. And what about certain individuals throughout history? Mozart, Columbus, Galileo, and a host of others were labeled by their contemporaries as lunatics, abnormal, as Freaks, because they were brave enough to be different.
When
you read the Text and study first century history, you can see right away
that the Pharisees, elders, teachers of the law, and the spiritual leaders
in general didn’t consider the handicapped, poor, tax collectors, and
even women to be normal. The great Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector
well illustrates the “religious” definition of normal in Jesus’
day, at least in terms of righteousness:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14, emphasis mine).
What were the popular religious beliefs of Jesus’ day? The poor are poor because of unrighteousness. Gentiles are the kindling wood for hell. The sick and lame are getting what they deserve because of sin. A popular rabbinic prayer contained the phrase, “Thank you Lord that you made me man.” And tax collectors? Satan’s own offspring.
Jesus’ Response to the Freaks of His Day
So what did Jesus do? What did He say? He chose a tax collector as a disciple (Luke 5:27) and called another (Zacchaeus, Luke 19) a “son of Abraham.” He allowed women to care for His needs (Mark 15:41), wash His feet with tears (Luke 7), and even anoint Him for burial while dining at the home of a leper (Mark 14:3). He even went so far as to say to the spiritually giant chief priests and elders of the people, “…the prostitutes and tax collectors are entering kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31).
Can you recite the Beatitudes in Matthew 5? “Blessed are poor in spirit…the mourners…the meek…the hungry and thirsty…the merciful…the pure in heart…the peacemakers…the persecuted.” I like to call this the Anthem of Blessedness for Freaks in the Kingdom of Jesus!
Fools, Those Who Make Crazy Decisions
Think
it’s bad to be called a Freak? Then you'll not like it any better to
be called a Fool. As kids we always understood Matthew 5:22 as your ticket
to Satan’s playground: “Call someone a fool and you’re in danger
of hell!” But we never considered that the world would see us that way
if we followed Jesus! Yet that’s exactly how the world sees His disciples.
Misguided, ignorant, fools. Don't believe me? Watch TV sitcoms and talk shows
and see how Christians are portrayed.
When we’re looked at in this way, we can take heart. Christ was looked at in the same way. Any time we put ourselves in harm’s way, we will be seen as foolish. Remember how Jesus’ own family responded to His “success” among the people?
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. Mark 3:21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:20,21).
Literally the Text says, “He has lost His senses.” In other words, “He’s behaving foolishly.” Why would they think this? What had He done that would make them think He’d lost His mind? Why would He make such claims about Himself, or allow others to make such claims about Him? Why would He deliberately do and say things that put Himself in harm’s way?
What a Fool Believes
“If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…when forced to go one mile, go two…give to those who ask and do not expect repayment…love even your enemies and pray for them… you must obey [the teachers of the law and the Pharisees] and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach…” (Matt 5:39-44;23:2,3).
Imagine a banker taking the position, “Loan to those whose cannot repay.” He’d be laughed out of town and he’d bankrupt the bank. And who, if forced by the police to vacate their home for a month long stakeout, would freely give it to them for two months? And no one that I know finds it simple, or desirable, to forgive those who refuse to acknowledge wrong. All of these perspectives and thousands more are just plain foolish in the eyes of the world.
Remember the movie, Field of Dreams and the refrain, “If you build it, they will come”? A man massacred his corn crops to build a baseball diamond so that deceased MLB Hall of Famers could play baseball again. The catch? Only those who believe can see the game. Everyone else thought he was a complete fool. Believing what you cannot see makes you a Fool to the vast majority of humanity.
Jesus’ Foolish Decisions
Christ
often made decisions that had others scratching their heads. Even His disciples
wondered about some of His decisions. Jesus wanted to go to Judea, and His
disciples were perplexed. “They just tried to stone you and now you want
to go back?” (John 11:7-9).
He
purposely did things that violated the cherished views of people and put Himself
in danger. Not because He was trying to be foolish; Jesus was simply being
God in the Flesh. And if you don’t believe that the world at large sees
Jesus and Christians as Fools, just look at the ultimate act of foolishness:
the cross.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1Cor 1:18).
What fool believes in something or Someone they cannot see? What fool takes up a cross, the lasting image of certain death, daily? What fool would lose his own life in an attempt to save it? The Fool for God, that’s who. Or as Michael Card sings in his song, Fool for God:
So come give your life for a carpenter’s son, for a madman who died for a dream.
And you’ll have the faith His first followers had, and you’ll feel the weight of the beam.
Fanatics, the Christian Kamikazes
Do
you know what a Fanatic is? It’s someone who sticks to His mission no
matter the consequences. No matter the fallout. He lets the chips fall where
they may as the saying goes. Persistent. Committed. Resolute.
When Jesus’ own family thought He had lost His senses, He was willing to call His followers, those who do God’s will, His “mother, his brothers, his sisters” (Mark 3:31-35). He healed on the most sacred of days because people came first (Mark 2:27). He hung out with the sinners and tax collectors (Luke 15:1), and touched the ceremonially unclean (Matt 8:2). Why? Because God’s love is Fanatical and reaches where none would believe.
My favorite passage regarding Jesus’ Fanatical behavior is John 2. Watch how He acted in God’s own Temple when its integrity was threatened. When He found men doing what was not proper in His Father’'s House, He did what seems contrary to His earlier teaching:
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my FatherŐs house into a market!” (John 2:13-16, emphasis mine).
Some
make Jesus into a pacifist who never got angry, never raised His hand against
anyone or anything, never became indignant. But here He makes a whip out of
cords and took
on a whole courtyard full of people with the zeal of a 1,000 men. He stood
His ground lovingly but He did not back down from His convictions. He took
on the most respected religious and spiritual leaders of His day and spoke
truth that cut them to the quick, knowing they would retaliate (Matt 23).
He came to seek and save the lost and He would not be deterred. Was a Fanatic, driven by His love for us and for His Father.
I am a Christian, a disciple, a minister, and hopefully, someone that the world sees as outside the realm of normal, sensible, and reserved. I am a Freak, a Fool, and a Fanatic, and I want to grow more and more into the image of the Christ who was viewed the same way. I am a Jesus Anomaly, and I pray that I will never fit in.
So What’s the Point?
Make Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of you life, and allow God to do what He gave His only Son to do: save your soul and give you the abundant life right now.
Would you like to know more about the Freaky Foolish Fanatical life? Would you like to discuss these or other matters of faith, doctrine, or theology? Email me and I’ll be happy to share the message of grace with you!
God bless you and thanks for surfing my site!
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