Translators

A fisherman named Andrew and his friend followed a teacher named John. Suddenly, John points to another man named Jesus and calls him the "Lamb of God." They left John and starting following Jesus (to John's delight!). After spending time with Jesus, Andrew decided his brother needed to listen to Him, too. We read in John 1:40-41:

40 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. 41 This one first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is translated “Christ”). 

There's a mine full of riches in this passage, but I want to focus on one phrase that is often ignored because it is surrounded by such phenomenal ideas. I want to dwell on just this: which is translated “Christ”.

The author of this Gospel, the Apostle John (not the same John who Andrew followed), is doing the reader a favor. Andrew told his brother Simon Peter that he thinks they found the Messiah, which John dutifully reports. The word Messiah was highly loaded with religious meaning for these Jewish men. In brought into the conversation all of the Old Testament hope, it opened up the possibility of a righteous and enduring kingdom, and it portended a great future. The Messiah was going to come and be the greatest king ever. The word Messiah means "anointed," referring to God's special designation and blessing on this one king.

John the author takes this word that has been transliterated from Hebrew and tells the reader the equivalent Greek word, Christ. Therefore, the Greek reader who may not have been familiar with a word based in Hebrew would still be able to follow along.

This, my friends, is our job. Our basic job is to translate Jesus to those around us. Jesus means so much to us, including a great deal of history that others may or may not be familiar with. Our job is to take the truth about this Jesus and translate it in ways that people can understand, but from within their context. How do we find ways to communicate the richness of Jesus so that people with a different history can know something amazing about Him?

This does not mean that we change Jesus, change His story, or change His Gospel. Nor does it mean that "being relevant" means that we say anything other than what Jesus says about Himself. We translate Messiah into Christ, not Messiah into Great and Kind Philosopher.

It does mean that we need to translate for those around us, and translate accurately, but in ways that are easy for them to understand.

We can translate with words, of course. But we can also translate effectively with our lives, by reflecting His character and values. That's kind of like using hand gestures when you're in a culture where you don't speak their language - we can still communicate.

Which is translated "Christ." See yourself as a translator, sent here for the rest of your life to translate, showing the same concern for those around you that John showed for his readers.

You Just Don't Have Enough Faith

A friend of mine lost his job - laid off after working diligently to turn around the logistical operations of his company. Then, his own parents told him, "If you had more faith, you wouldn't have been laid off."

I've known more than a few people who became sick, anything from a routine cold to cancer, only to be told by their fellow church members that obviously they didn't have enough faith. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been sick, they say.

I'm sure most of you have also know people (or have been the person) to receive such disheartening "comfort" in your time of need. I hope none of you have been the one dishing it out. The Old Testament book of Job shows us that this kind of advice is older than the Bible itself.

However, these examples are a bit too obvious, almost comical, if they weren't so harmful and uncaring. There is a more subtle, more insidious strain of this disease. Something bad happens to you, something painful, some form of loss, some minor or major disaster, and you begin to wonder, "OK, what did I do wrong? I suppose I didn't pray enough. If I had just been more diligent to read my Bible. God, I know I'm not living right ... are You trying to teach me something?"

Although it sounds different, it's really the same kind of bad advice as "You just don't have enough faith. Otherwise..." And you're the one giving yourself that bad advice!

I try to imagine someone who spews this kind of counsel and how he or she would give the Apostle Paul spiritual guidance. The folks in Antioch pelt Paul with stones and kick him out of town for preaching Christ. "Paul, if you just had more faith, then they wouldn't have hurt you." Paul gets falsely accused of crimes and spends a total of four years in prison before he gets a trial, and an unfair one at that. "Paul, you must not have been reading your Bible enough. Otherwise, you'd be a free man." Paul gets a "thorn" in his flesh, and instead of discovering that God's grace is sufficient for him, he's told by his friend that obviously, he's not praying with enough faith (2 Cor 12:1-10).

Paul has a different opinion about his life, from 2 Cor 4:

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8 We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed, 10 always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body. 11 For we who are alive are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal body.

Yes, the lack-of-faith response is easily debunked as the necessary cause for specific suffering. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

The truth is: You don't have enough faith. You just don't. And, perhaps, some of the things we suffer, we suffer because we don't have enough faith. But we can't let the cold-hearted, ill-informed, judgmental comments of bad counselors keep us from realizing that, in fact, we don't have enough faith, and if we had more faith, our lives would be different. Not necessarily easier or more pleasant, but certainly different. More like the life of Christ, specifically.

"But I can't just turn on faith like a water faucet!" You can't? Actually, you can, because what you're waiting for is not faith but confidence. Faith is merely choosing to live as though some claim is true. If you tell me there's $100 waiting for me on the kitchen counter, I don't need a wave of boldness to move me like the wind into the kitchen. If I believe you, I'll just decide to get up and walk into the kitchen. If I don't believe you sufficiently, I'll keep watching baseball on TV. Just like a water faucet.

What bolsters faith into strong confidence is not a flood of sure feelings, but rather acts of faith already done. I may not have confidence that $100 is in the kitchen ... until after I walk in there by faith. Then I'll be confident. Of course, it matters who I'm trusting in and whether or not I'm trusting something he or she actually promised. But faith, whether justified or not, is acting as if a claim is true. And we don't have enough of that.

So, you don't have enough faith. Get over it. More to the point, you might be confusing faith with confidence. Accept what God says for Himself, and as simple as getting up and walking into the kitchen, walk and act and talk and decide and speak like the promise is true. That's an act of faith, whether or not it is all that confident.

Confidence will come if and only if 1) what God says is trustworthy, and 2) we walk as if it is long enough to discover that it actually is.

I've Got a Great Electrician

My name is George, and I want to tell you about the great job I'm doing as a homeowner.

I bought this house quite a few years ago. It's an older house, and I knew it needed some work when I got it. But it's the house I wanted, and I liked the idea of owning my own home, fixing things around the house, mowing the lawn, painting, buying the right furniture, and having people over. I'm not the handiest guy when it comes to tools, but I can swing a hammer and lay down a pretty smooth coat of paint. But I'll never touch the plumbing or the electrical. I'll climb on the roof and replace a vent and put in new flashing, but I won't touch anything electrical at all - nothing more than flipping a breaker.

After a few years of the lights not staying at a consistent brightness, some of the outlets working only part of the time and others not at all, and tripping the circuit every time I made toast and coffee at the same time, I decided it was time to call a pro.

I did my homework, got some personal recommendations, and called a good electrician. He came, evaluated the whole house, making a clicking noise with his tongue every time he found something wrong. He clicked a lot. He had to borrow some extra paper from me for his clipboard to get all the notes down. This was not going to be a quick and easy fix. Sure enough, when he read his novel of disaster to me, I was facing lots of time, several trips, and the delay of my plans to retire by about 18 months.

We scheduled the first of many visits. This time, he was just going to replace the breaker box and rerun the wiring to the box so that it didn't look so much like Einstein's hairdo. He fixed it all in a few hours, gave me the bill, and then I think he started checking Craig's List on his smartphone for a new boat that he would soon be able to afford.

The next time he came back, I took him down to the basement where the breaker box was and showed him how good the wiring was and how much better the box handled the electrical loads of daily life. And then I thanked him for coming, and escorted him out the front door. He seemed a bit puzzled as he walked back to his van.

He called back to set another appointment, which we made. When he showed up, I took him back down to the basement and showed him again how well the panel was doing, and then excused him. He said something about getting to the rest of the house as I closed the door behind him.

We repeated this three more times - showing him the panel with him making some comments about the other electrical needs throughout the house, while I was quite satisfied to show the electrician how good my panel looked and then show him out the door. He's welcome to come back anytime he wants to admire the good work he did in that one part of the house.

I'm pretty proud of myself as a homeowner. (You should see my electrical panel!)

Does this seem strange to you? Are you a bit confused about how I treat my electrician? You shouldn't be. This is how we let Jesus into our lives all the time.

The Visiting Team

The Royals are 22-15 in games played at home and 22-18 in games where they visited the other teams' stadiums (as of this writing). Like most teams, they are more likely to win at home than away. It's called the "home field advantage."  The reasons for the advantage are many:

The surrounding crowd is on your side cheering you on. They cheer when you do something well and they are quiet or supportive (or jeering) when you do something poorly. When the game is close, they are excited and urge you on. They hold up signs with your name on them, give away bobble heads with your face on them, and they eagerly seek out your autograph.

The park is far more familiar to you than to the other team. You know how the ball bounces off of the walls, where the warning track is, where the wind catches a fly ball, at what angles the lights get in your eyes. You know how the ball skips off of the turf and how far to go for a good lead off the base. This is where you practice hitting and shagging balls day after day, so the park is just part of your game. The dugout is your dugout and the locker room is your locker room. All the support staff are familiar to you and are on your side. You might even live nearby with your family, rather than living out of a suitcase in a hotel.

You are familiar with all the sights and sounds, which songs are played when, even the phrases that are unique to this team in this park. In other words, the "culture" of this park is your culture.

When you play in another team's stadium, the crowd is for the other team, the park is less familiar and not "yours," and the culture is not your culture. And so, they have the advantage.

The church is the "visiting team." We come from "out of town" to this world. In general, the crowd is not cheering for us, but are cheering for the "home team." When you do something poorly, they heckle. They don't hold up signs with your name on them, but the names of their heroes. Virtually no one seeks out your autograph. The world is more familiar with this "park" than you are - it's their locker room. All the sights and sounds are their culture.

We're the visiting team. But we've been acting like we're supposed to be the home team. How inviting is this: We're expecting the world to come into our park where all the fans cheer us on, not them; they hold up signs for us, not them; the "park" is more familiar to us, not them; all the sights, sounds, and lingo are our culture, not theirs. We want the home field advantage, but it's the least inviting offering possible. "Come to us, where we have the advantage, and you have the disadvantage. Interested?" But we were never sent to be the home team. Jesus sent us to be the away team.

We've been expecting to be the home team, and now we're facing the clear reality that we're not the home team. Furthermore, it's not working. Expecting the world to come into our park and be the away team is not a strategy that works any longer.

I want to be careful with this analogy. The goal here is not to "win" the game by beating the other team. The goal is to be engaged with the world in the "game" itself - to be engaged in the same game of human existence, but to demonstrate how to play the game according to Christ. They won't play in our park much. We must play in their park - we must be the away team, giving them the home field advantage. Rather than tell them what we think of their park, we need to show the how followers of Jesus play the game, even in their park.