Let’s try a little experiment. Close your eyes and conjure a picture of Jesus. What does he look like?
For many of us the first image that will come to mind is the famous Warner Sallman painting of Jesus, the one that has hung in homes and Sunday school classrooms for close to a century. You know the one: Jesus has wavy light brown hair, smooth skin, very white-European features. It’s called The Head of Christ.
This image has influenced so many of us, as well as many other artists who have created their own version of it. We see blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesuses galore – images that appeal to many Americans. But, of course, it is very unlikely that Jesus looked anything like that. Jesus was a Middle Eastern man, who certainly would have looked like other Middle Eastern men.
But this is only one way that people have, over the course of two millennia, modified the image of Christ. Jesus has been subjected to a lot of makeovers.
There is Christ the Victorious, who wears a suit of armor and crushes a snake with his foot. This was a popular image in the early church to emphasize the belief that, through Christ, God has defeated evil.
Then there is Gentle Jesus, cradling a lamb or sometimes surrounded by children. This is a man you can trust. There has also been Calling Jesus, the man who knocks on your door with a hopeful look on his face, like a Fuller Brush salesman.
There is Laughing Jesus, one that was pretty popular for a while. This one bothered a lot of people who weren’t sure Jesus ever laughed, and it seemed, possibly, sacrilegious.
But sometimes Gentle Jesus seems too gentle. Sometimes the guy who politely waits at your door doesn’t seem forceful enough. Sometimes the Jesus who laughs doesn’t feel serious enough for all the problems we have in this world. So we also have Ripped Jesus, who looks like he’s taken all the steroids and he’s ready to get into the ring with the heavyweight champion of the world. And the expression on his face is mean.
There are a lot of different Jesuses. We have a tendency to look for the Jesus we think we need, at any given time.
I am sure there isn’t one single image of Jesus that fully captures who he is, just like there is probably not one single image of you that would tell us everything there is to know about you. Jesus is, like us, fully three dimensional, a complex human being – and even more when you factor in his divine nature. So it is appropriate that we have many different images of Jesus.
Perhaps the challenge for us is to discern which are true images and which are not. By “true” I don’t mean to suggest there are any that look just like him. Because, of course, we don’t know that. What I mean is that there are some images that reflect his true nature, while there are others that do not.
And the gospel is our best guide for discerning this.
In this chapter of Luke’s gospel we hear Jesus talking to us about treasure. What are the things that hold real value, and what are just passing things, worthless things?
In last week’s reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that.
He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to manage his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. “Your life is being demanded of you this very night.” There is a message of urgency here, the urgency of setting our priorities straight, adjusting our vision appropriately.
And as he was speaking, maybe Jesus looked into the faces of the people who were listening to him and saw fear. Because they recognized themselves in that man – the “rich” man. Maybe they, themselves, were not rich, but it is what they were striving for: to have enough. Always, in this world, it is about having enough.
Maybe Jesus saw the fear in their eyes and he felt compassion for them. I say this because his next words are, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” There is comfort in his words now.
He asks them, can you not see how much God values you? But perhaps they could not see that. Perhaps their expressions still held uncertainty. Confusion. Fear.
Fear. Because every day of our lives we know that we might lose what we have. Every day, when we look around we see scarcity. We see threat.
If we are employed, we could lose our job. And if we lose our job we probably lose our health insurance. So we could also lose our health.
If we are self-employed, so many things could happen: an accident, a lawsuit, a downturn in business, tariffs, a supply chain problem. There are so many hazards.
Inflation causes us to worry about making our dollars stretch far enough and worry about how much worse it might get. Bad days on the stock market cause us to worry about the size of our savings and whether we have enough.
We can lose anything and everything, including our life, and so we take measures to protect ourselves, like the man who built bigger barns to store all his grain. But, still, we know nothing is guaranteed, don’t we? And so we worry. We worry about being caught short, just as the ones who stood listening to Jesus that day worried.
As he saw their worry, he softened his tone a bit more. “Do not be afraid, little flock. For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He wants them to really believe this, to shed their fear and know how much God cares, and so he does the thing Jesus does best: he tells them another parable.
“Be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks… (the master) will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.”
This is where we see the importance of recognizing Jesus. Of all the images of Jesus we might have seen in our lives, which one do we see now?
He stands at the door and knocks. When he enters the room, we see that he has brought the banquet with him – a feast of rich foods and well-aged wines, as the prophet Isaiah described it. Then he hoists up his banquet robes, cinches his belt to hold them so they won’t get in the way of his work. Because this master is going to kneel before us and serve us.
This is the image of himself that Jesus provides for us. Blessed are those who are alert to see him and receive him. You see?
If the one you are looking for is the guy with bulging muscles who busts down the door with fury, you might not recognize Jesus when he comes to you.
Because Jesus does not conform to the world’s values. Jesus is an alternative to the world’s values. I think we all know this; it’s just that we forget it sometimes.
Remember all the times he said things that seem to turn our world upside down. Remember the times he said, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” “Let the little ones come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it.” and “Whatever you did for the least of these you have done for me.”
The question for us is will we recognize this Jesus when we see him?
It is an urgent question that we must consider. Because, as Jesus goes on to say, there is a thief who would come and break in the house. A thief who would steal everything of value, destroy the Master’s house.
You and I know that the Master’s house is this place: the church. And there is a thief who wants to take it.
The church has always had enemies, there is no question about that. From the earliest days when the followers of Jesus were thought to be dangerous to the Empire, because they would not worship the emperor as they were expected to, to the days of the German church in Hitler’s Reich, where those who would not bend the knee to the fuhrer were persecuted, and those who wanted to avoid persecution were forced to get behind Hitler’s programs. And, to tell the truth, there were certainly some in the church who liked Hitler’s programs, and didn’t need to be forced. But even so, we must know this: Jesus has always stood against the destructive powers of this world.
This is an urgent message for the church, when there is a thief lurking around the house. It is essential for us to be able to recognize the thief, just as it is essential that we know who Jesus is, always has been, and always will be.
We know who he is:
He is the one who feeds people simply because they are hungry.
He is the one who heals people of their illnesses even if they don’t have health insurance or a job.
He is the one who welcomes the strangers, even if they look like immigrants, even if they don’t have papers.
He is the one who cares for the prisoners; the one who says, ‘love your enemies, not only your friends.’ That’s one that seems to get harder and harder for us all the time.
The followers of Jesus must know who he is. And we must not ever confuse the law of the land with the law of God. We must take care not to let the thief in the house and turn it into something else, something that no longer resembles Jesus. The church must, when necessary, reject the priorities of this world and stand up for the Jesus we know and love.
There have always been lots of different ways of envisioning Jesus. Some are wild distortions of the man from Galilee, and they should pass away like the grass that withers. Look for the ones that are real. Look for the ones that will last.
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