Imagine if you heard a praise hymn with these lyrics:
Jesus, you are my Lord and my King of Kings
Jesus, you are my Life; hope and joy you bring
Jesus, yours is the love that causes me to sing
Unto you, only you alone.
Is there anything about these words that bother you? Read it again.
I have to be honest with you and say that I have some trouble with the words to this type of praise song and the hundreds of others like it. Why, you ask?
First of all, this song specifically encourages one to worship Jesus. The line, “Jesus, yours is the Love causing me to sing unto you, only you alone,” in my mind, borders on idolatry. Only you alone? Where does God come into this picture?
As I read my Bible, particularly the New Testament, I don’t find any place where Jesus says to worship him. As a matter of fact, scripture is very specific about worshipping God and God alone.
Matthew 4:10, “worship God alone and serve only him.” Jesus also said, which was a repeat of scripture, “worship God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself.” Nothing in there about worshipping him.
He told one of the Pharisees, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but God alone.”
Now I know what you’re thinking, what about the reference in John’s gospel where Jesus says that “the father and I are one”?
The essence of this saying in the Greek is not that they are the same person, because that would be improbable, because God is not a person. The meaning here is that they are of the same essence.
Imagine, if you would, I had an apple, unto itself it’s whole. If I cut a piece off, is the piece any less a part of the apple than the apple itself? The piece has the same physical and chemical properties as the main part of the apple, yet they are separate.
In the same sense, a child is of the same essence as the parents, but is a separate entity.
Jesus brings clarity to this when he says to a group of disciples who wanted to know the signs of the end times: “No one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.” (Matthew 24:36) Only the Father knows. Now, if Jesus were truly God, wouldn’t he know when and what those signs would be? But you say, “Jesus just said that because the disciples were not ready to hear the truth.” Oh, so you are saying Jesus intentionally lied to them? I don’t buy it!
If you also remember, Jesus said when you pray, do it this way, saying, Our Father…meaning, of course, God. No place have I found where Jesus says to pray in his name and worship him.
Jesus, on the other hand, asked his disciples and followers to FOLLOW HIM. Matthew tells us, “If anyone will come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” It is through following Jesus that we get a clearer understanding of what God is like. We know God to be love because Jesus modeled love with his life.
What is really at issue here is that it is much easier to worship Jesus than it is to follow him.
And because we have tended more to worship Jesus than to follow him, that act of worship has created what I call a Jacuzzi Jesus.
The last thing that many Christians want is a Jesus who demands denial, take up a cross, and follow him through the oppression and injustices of our culture and life. We don’t want our religious experiences to be disrupted or challenged. What many people really want is a Jacuzzi Jesus, a relationship that will leave them relaxed, warm, and bubbly, at the same time feeling fit and trim when they get out. Those who seek a Jacuzzi Jesus want their soul to feel soothed, not stirred, by their encounter with Christ.
A Jacuzzi Jesus cannot reshape your life. When you step out of the Jacuzzi, the air hits your artificially warmed muscles and they all tense up again; your artificially-toned muscles sag and bag again. Nothing has really changed.
It’s not unlike the people of Israel during their wandering in the wilderness. Moses went up the mountain to convene with God, leaving the people to fend pretty much for themselves. What do they do? Their leader is gone, and for that matter, their God is too, so they did what seemed logical at the time: they made their own God; a statue of a bull made of gold. Who knows what kind of demands Yahweh will make on them when Moses returns. If they make a statue of Gold, it will ask nothing, demand nothing, and consequently, will give nothing, just like a Jacuzzi Jesus. There is no accountability.
Perhaps this quote sums it up:
“I would like to buy only $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a foreigner, or pick fruit with migrant workers. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God please…with double discount coupons if possible!”
— Attributed to Wilbur Rees, from his reflection titled “Three Dollars Worth of God”
The Jacuzzi Jesus has been further encouraged by the popular acronym WWJD that grew out of the religious fervor of the 90’s: What Would Jesus Do? Interestingly, this popular iconic theology only asks what Jesus would have done. You may admire the accomplishments of an artist; you may love listening to a gifted musician play an instrument. But your listening will never make you play a note. Only commitment to daily practice, exercise, and drills will make you into a musician.
Keith Drury, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, has said, “we’ve been duped to believing that to KNOW is to do.” Knowing is only half the challenge; the other half is doing.
The epistle of James reminds us in its brief message that faith without works is useless. To know is not to do. Knowing WWJD is only half the challenge…the other half is doing it. Following Jesus is doing what we know to be true, honest, and just regarding those around us in response to the gospel.
The acronym WWJD should more appropriately be: WWJHMD…What Would Jesus Have ME Do?
What would Jesus have me do puts the yoke of accountability on me, and like it or not, there is no easy way out, no mega-processor to download our spirituality in nanoseconds. This kind of commitment to Jesus’ teachings involves time, pressure, and practice. It’s tedious and often exhausting.
So, how do we move beyond the Jacuzzi Jesus and find the vital and living Christ?
As biblical people, we know that the gospels inherently express the message of Jesus; if we look there, we can find a reasonable formula. Specifically, the Sermon on the Mount found in the gospel of Matthew gives us a pretty clear prescription of what Jesus asks of us. And even more specifically than that are the Hebrew Beatitudes, which most likely Jesus expounded upon in his Sermon on the Mount.
Micah 6:8, I’m sure you’ve heard it before: “What does the Lord require of thee but to act justly, love kindness and walk humbly with God.”
To act justly means to serve the cause of justice. The bells of justice will not ring until all the homeless have homes; all the hungry are fed; all abandoned and abused children have been given loving families to care for them; battered women can walk safely in their homes; farmers and farm workers can work purposefully together; and when our streets are free of crime and violence. We all have the opportunity to work for justice here in this country and in our community. What are the social needs of your community? You can mentor children, visit the sick or elderly, provide medi-taxi, go to the hospital and rock babies, start a food bank…
We are told to love kindness. Who doesn’t love kindness? Love, of course, in this instance, is an action verb which means doing kindness. And it’s not just doing kindness to family and those we know, but also to those we don’t. It is random acts, spontaneous, in the moment, that offer a kind word to a harried, stressed-out retail clerk; help a harried mother gathering her brood, open doors; offer a smile or simply say please and thank you, ad Infinium. Bishop J.S Spong calls this loving lavishly.
Last, and certainly not least, is to walk humbly with God…What is it to walk humbly with God? It is to walk forthrightly in faith, not necessarily with all the answers but with the understanding that God is the source of all creation and live in that knowledge, caring and respecting his creation as if it were our own. It presumes an understanding that we are one people of creation, regardless of skin color, and that we share many faiths. It presumes a transformation of the heart that understands a “WE” not just a “ME”. It’s a commitment to an understanding that we must live our spirituality, one day at a time, 24/7.
The problem for most of us with this kind of commitment is that there is no day off. Like life, it’s a 24/7 deal. It does not recognize retirement, days off, or holidays. It’s not acting justly some of the time or when we feel like it, but taking the opportunity to share ourselves with others.
Now, I don’t believe that we are to always go out of our way to serve justice and act kindly. Age and physical condition limit the scope of our involvement, and active prayer might be the best we have to give. However, there will be times when the cause will be such that we will do so. In the normal everyday course of our life, as we live and breathe, react in and around people, do our work, shop, exercise, play or whatever, we are continually called to be the best me we can be. Acting in a just and kind manner and walking in confidence that God walks with us, wherever we go.
A Jacuzzi Jesus will always be around to taunt us and encourage us to do as little as possible for the cause of justice and kindness. Joshua posed the question: Choose this day whom you will serve, as for me and my family, we will serve Yahweh, Lord of Creation.”
Like Joshua, I hope that’s a choice you can make, too. And that your Jesus will challenge you daily to act justly, show kindness, and walk faithfully with the creator.
Blessings!
