When a Pharisee Becomes the Victim

Mike Leake

146cadb120b5a51d99f677486628e326They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. –Matthew 23:4

This is what it looks like when a Pharisee is in power. They load you down with rules and expectations. And these are distant rules. They don’t feel a single ounce of the weight of their biblical interpretations. This is arm-chair quarterbacking at it’s zenith. They have zero experience being a day-laborer but they are still able to use the Scriptures to bog down their daily tasks. The Pharisee can comfortably hypothesize about whether or not you can save a lamb who fell into a pit on the Sabbath. But they don’t have to bear the anguish or financial burden of losing a lamb. They are distantly opining on other people’s problems.

Have you noticed, though, reading through the Gospels that this schtick doesn’t work on Jesus. He doesn’t bow to their authority. He plucks grain on the Sabbath. He heals the lamb that falls into a pit. He gives life, not rules. He’s out of control. Or rather He’s out of their control.

Do you notice the posture they pick up when they are interacting with Jesus? They are victims. I can almost hear the Pharisee giving their defense.

“You all claim that Jesus was preaching a message of good news, that has not been our experience. We asked for signs, so we could know if he was from God, and he simply refused to give them. We tried asking questions to further understand his positions and he either didn’t answer them or he dodged our questions. Then, he goes on the attack. He calls us brood of vipers. He had the audacity to say that we don’t actually have Abraham as our Father. And he threatened to destroy the temple, to take away our livelihood. Then, completely unprovoked, he came into the temple and started flipping things over. This is hurting the economy. And he blocks all temple work on that day. Jesus is destructive. He preaches about love and blessedness and caring for the poor while at the same time causes a farmer to lose a whole herd of pigs.”

Pharisees are masterful at flipping the script. Jesus says, “blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek” and the Pharisees then weasel themselves into those titles. Jesus says that his ministry is about giving sight to the blind, freeing captives, rescuing the vulnerable, etc. This rescue mission causes difficulty for the Pharisees. It exposes their blindness, their captivity, their vulnerability. But rather than coming to Jesus they flip his words and make him out to be a false teacher. “He says he’s about rescuing the vulnerable and then he makes us vulnerable. You aren’t really about good news, because your mission is nothing but bad news for us.”

If a Pharisee is in power they will put impossible burdens upon you. This is an effort to keep power. They will beat you down with expectations. They will make you feel as if you are a failure, not enough, weak, and incompetent. When Jesus captures your heart and you rise above this by refusing to believe their message they will then put impossible burdens upon you as a victim. Your freedom will hurt them, and they’ll let you know it.

Don’t apologize for walking in the freedom of Jesus. If another person refuses to walk in the light of Christ their darkness isn’t your fault. But beware of our own inner-Pharisee. Our “vulnerability” can really just be a ploy for regaining power. Be wary of the impossible burdens our hearts desire to put upon others. Jesus is the only anchor to keep our hearts from being pulled in by this deception.

The Sun Shines Even at Midnight

Mike Leake

photo-1438179152657-8ce7dfda4f0bAs I look out the window in my office I see that little creek that forms on our parking lot during rain storms and impedes my ability to get to my vehicle without wet shoes. The sky is an indiscriminate gray that advertises a great day for a nap. The sun is shining just as bright as it was yesterday.

I forgot something in my car last night. It was cold and dark outside. For some reason when you open the door to the Trailblazer the interior lights won’t turn on unless the vehicle is started. I couldn’t readily find the keys, but had the flashlight on my cell phone handy. It was dark. I didn’t have enough light to get what I had dropped on the floorboard. The sun was shining just as bright as it had been at noon.

The sun shines just as bright at midnight as it does at noon. The problem is that either clouds or the position of our earth is blocking it’s light. It doesn’t stop shining. Our experience of it’s rays change. It doesn’t. (Okay science nerds—I know it does change some, but bear with me).

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” –1 John 1:5

John sums up Jesus’ message about the Father by saying that “He is light”. Of course, this isn’t all there is to be said about the Father. Nor is this even him saying “He is light” is the pre-eminent attribute. But this is set against the backdrop of the Gnostic heretics. They viewed God as being shadowy, secret, hiding himself to all except for the elite.

To this John says that God is light. There is no darkness in him. No not none at all. (I know that’s not quality grammar, but that’s how John says it for emphasis). Not one speck of darkness. He is always shining.

When the Bible speaks of “light” it’s typically a reference to either moral purity or knowledge/revelation. Here it’s probably both because John will later speak of “walking in the light” in the context of living in purity, but it’s also in the context of Gnosticism. God is both morally pure—not even a speck of sin—and absolutely no hiding in the shadows.

I appreciate how John Stott explains this:

It is his nature to reveal himself, as it is the property of light to shine; and the revelation is of perfect purity and unutterable majesty…

The miserable errors of the heretics were due to their ignorance of God’s ethical self-revelation as light. They could never have laid claim to a private, esoteric gnōsis into which they had been initiated if their conception of God had been of one who is light, diffusive, shining forth and manifesting himself, in whom there is no darkness at all, no secrecy, no hiding in the shadows. (Stott, 75)

God delights to reveal himself. That’s part of what it means that He is light. This is incredibly good news for those of us who were raised on a theology which seemed to teach that God was always hiding behind bushes and in signs and cryptic messages. He isn’t hiding from you. He isn’t punishing you until you figure out his tough lessons. He is always shining.

The issue is that we don’t see so well, just as on a cloudy day when we cannot see the bright sun because of the clouds. This is why the Psalmist prays, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Or that God says, “let there be light” so that we can see the “knowledge of the glory of Christ”.

When we think about God teaching us those painful lessons of providence, it’s not meant to chastise us for our ignorance (see James 1). Suffering has a way of giving us His eyes. Scales are removed in the furnace of suffering. Our prayer really shouldn’t be, “show me, Lord” as much as it is, “open my eyes”.

God is light.

No darkness.

God isn’t playing hide and seek with you. He’s not a God of secret knowledge. He is a sun always shining. We are dependent upon His revelation and He happily gives it. May our eyes be opened to seeing Him.

The sun shines even at midnight. God is shining even when we cannot see. In moments of darkness we do well to trust what we saw in the light.

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Photo source: here

What It Means For a Jesus-Follower to “Be This Guy”

Mike Leake

1a0wfbI’ve seen this meme pop up a few times. It’s usually in the context of not following the progressive liberal narratives of our day. For the follower of Jesus there is certainly something to be said for this. When many around us are bowing to the golden statues of the Nebuchadnezzar’s of our day, we need to be modern-day Daniel’s.

But I’d like us to think a little more about that guy in this meme. All those extending their arm, “Heil, Hitler” are falling in step with Nazi ideology. An ideology that saw Germany as the superior nation and sought to exterminate any who were not part of the Aryan master race. It was a survival of the fittest. It was German nationalism at full throttle, breaking the bones of any who were vulnerable.

It’s true that power was transferred to the Fuhrer, and their extended arms is an act of subjugation, it’s not quite so simple as to say that they are actively giving up their freedoms and laying them at the foot of the emperor. This man, with arms folded, refusing to “Heil, Hitler” is not merely a lone lemming, standing upon his own character and principles, refusing to follow the crowd. It’s more than this, or at least it should be.

I suppose it’s possible that someone captured this photograph when our hero was day-dreaming and was only moments away from extending his arms. He may not have been heroic at all. But there is One who was heroic, who exemplifies what this picture is going after, and His story is certain.

Jesus stood against the religious system of his day. Yes, he didn’t bow a knee to Pilate or Herod or any of the secular rulers, but his sphere of resistance was predominately found within religious circles. He stood against the Pharisaical temple-system. A system which feasted upon the vulnerable rather than fighting for them. They were those who “devoured widows’ houses” (Luke 20:47). Jesus sharply stood against them in Matthew 23. He was a dissident. Diane Langberg explains:

A dissident is one who disagrees…We defined a system as a people standing together. Jesus sat apart from those who stood together in his day. It is quite a picture isn’t it? In the same manner and spirit of Jesus, all Christians should be dissidents in the corrupt systems of the world, including in our own beloved institutions. (85)

Stand with Jesus, against them all, to the glory of God for the sake of the vulnerable. That’s what I hope we see whenever we see this meme. That’s what it means to “be this guy”. It’s not about fighting for my own perceived rights, it’s not about fighting against one political party whilst bedding another. Christians must stand against every corrupt system and never be co-opted to party. Ever.

Be that guy.

Stand with Jesus.

Stand with Jesus against corruption.

Stand with Jesus against corruption to the glory of God.

Stand with Jesus against corruption to the glory of God for the sake of the vulnerable.

Be that guy.

An Autopsy of The YRR Movement

Mike Leake

photo-1481970285016-33d3d5d85491I don’t know much about gardening. So, when I’m reading through Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and I see the phrase “hothouse flower” my mind goes to an early 90’s Irish rock band. A hothouse flower is actually a flower which isn’t able to grow under normal conditions. If it’s outside then it’s going to die. It can only grow when it’s pampered inside of a greenhouse.

When I read that definition I start thinking about so much of the “deconstruction” that is taking place in evangelical circles. That’s how it’s phrased. I think it’s probably better to call it fundamentalist circles, but that’s for another day. And I’m particularly seeing this happening within many who, like me, were heavily influenced in the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. (And I’ve had my own share of feeling fragmented).

Many of my peers are abandoning the faith altogether. Some are moving away from unhealthy baggage that was more cultural than biblical. Others seem to be digging their heels in further and becoming something else entirely. But the YRR movement, it seems to me, is definitely over. I think Kevin DeYoung’s recent Why Reformed Evangelicalism Splintered admits this much. 

Bonhoeffer, I believe, gives a prescient autopsy of the YRR movement. In this section he is outlining the difference between spiritual love and human love.

Therefore, spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too personal, direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another. (26)

Bonhoeffer is saying here that the only access we really have to another person is through Christ. When we try to influence based upon the strength of our own personality we are moving away from spiritual love. Think of Driscoll’s bus. (“There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done”)

Perhaps it’s unwise of me to give one of the worst examples within the YRR to prove my point. We know how the Driscoll/Mars Hill story ended. But ask whether or not there isn’t often in our churches a similar environment. Bonhoeffer charts another path:

It will not take pleasure in pious, human fervor and excitement. It will rather meet the other person with the clear Word of God and be ready to leave him alone with this Word for a long time, willing to release him again in order that Christ may deal with him. (26)

This very point is where I credit the Lord with using John Newton to rescue my own soul. Early on in this movement I stumbled upon his “On Controversy” and dove deeply into his interactions with John Ryland, Jr. Newton was passionate about preaching the truth to people but ultimately leaving them in the hands of the Lord. He believed that the Spirit knew better how to cultivate and grow a believer.

But consider all of the discernment blogs which came out of the YRR movement. I would argue that part of the issue with fundamentalism is an inability to leave the growth of another believer in the hands of the Lord. And I believe this type of fundamentalism attached itself to the YRR brand. If you wanted to be part of the speaking circuit, have your books promoted, your articles linked, etc. then you had to toe the line.

Our “somebody is wrong on the internet” impulse is what Bonhoeffer is talking about here. Because of our misunderstanding about the nature of community (that Christ always stands between me and others) we could not bear the thought of giving independence for other believers to even be wrong for a moment.

I believe the YRR movement failed to do this:

Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. The other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ’s; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes. (26)

All of the unhealthy cases of church discipline gone wild, spiritual abuse, cult of personality, etc. can be traced back to a failure on this very principle. And it, I believe, has lead to our fracture as a movement. The YRR is no more because it viewed itself not as a part of “the one, holy, catholic, Christian church” (27) but as the school of piety. And in doing this it could not allow others to “be Christ’s”.

Leave him freedom to be Christ’s. The degree that any movement, denomination, or individual believer fails to do this is the degree to which fellowship will be lost and fracturing will result. It is what Bonhoeffer termed human love and it is always doomed to fail.

Human love produces human subjection, dependence, constraint; spiritual love creates freedom of the brethren under the Word. Human love breeds hothouse flowers; spiritual love creates fruits that grow healthily in accord with God’s good will in the rain and storm and sunshine of God’s outdoors. (27)

Hothouse flowers. That’s what we grow in our discipleship when we try to exert far too much control. When we build fences around our disciples. When we filter through all of the resources they read. When we try to be the center of control in their relationship with Jesus we do more harm than good.

Certainly, a new believer needs help and discipleship. He needs rails around his newfound faith. She needs to grow into maturity. But never are we to “desire direct fellowship” with them. They belong to Jesus. Always. Definitively. We need to be humble enough to acknowledge that new disciples need to be protected from their well meaning shepherd maybe as much as they need to be warned of the wolves.

Give them Jesus.

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Photo source: here