How to Do the Impossible

Studies in the Gospel of John #14
John 6:16-24; John 6:25-35

John 6:21 They were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
John 6: 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one God has sent.” 34. “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared

, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never grow hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

How to Do the Impossible? How to overcome against all the odds? Most of us are familiar with the stories regarding Jesus’ walking on water. I want to suggest that while his walking on the water is indeed miraculous, in that it shows God’s ability to transcend the limitations placed on our human existence, that the real miracle is often missed.

Yes. Walking on the water is a miracle, but there is a more important miracle that takes place here, and it leads us to a more important truth. The disciples were rowing to the other side of the large lake known as “The Sea of Galilee” because of its depth and turbulence. All of the gospel writers tell this story, and Mark informs us that Jesus began to walk across the lake when he was that the disciples boat was in trouble. They had been rowing hard, but making no progress, because a strong gale wind had risen up, halting their movement toward the shore.

When Jesus walked up on them they cried out in fear. Matthew and Mark tell us the source of their terror. They thought he was an evil spirit. The people of Jesus’ time believed that the water was a domain of evil creatures, spirits, dragons and monsters. Because of its depth, there indeed may have been large marine creatures in that lake. Nevertheless, these beliefs were fear-based and mitigated against faith. But it was also believed that squalls and gales were products of demonic activity. So as the wind whipped up, they suddenly saw Jesus walking across the water and cried out in fear. They were afraid because even though it was Jesus coming toward them, they were blinded by fear. Jesus then spoke words of comfort to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” John reports that with these words, “THEY WERE WILLING TO TAKE HIM INTO THE BOAT.”

This is the first miracle that occurs in the story. It is the miracle of FAITH OVER FEAR. The active engagement of our minds, our spirits, with God’s word brings the PEACE that FAITH gives to our souls. God’s Word, God’s speech through Jesus, dispelled their enslavement to fear-inducing myths and stories. With his WORDS, “BE NOT AFRAID. IT IS I,” they were given miraculous courage which followed an act of will. This was the second miracle that occurred on that Lake. Their WILLS CHANGED. They went from crying out in fear at his presence, to a WILLINGNESS TO TAKE JESUS INTO THE BOAT.

John does not tell us that Jesus ever had a chance to get into the boat, because AS SOON AS THEY WERE WILLING TO LET GO OF THEIR FEAR AND INVITE JESUS INTO THE BOAT, the BOAT REACHED THE SHORE WHERE THEY WERE HEADING.

Jesus may not have full access to your boat yet. There may be, and are, many areas of our lives where we have yet to surrender to the LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST. God calls us to live lives of complete devotion and surrender, “Be perfect as God is in heaven.” “Seek to live and bring peace to all human beings, and holiness, without which no human being will experience God" (Hebrews 12:14).

When Jesus said, “Straight is the way and narrow is the gate that leads to life,” he was addressing the Jews, and reminding them that the abundant life, the victorious life, the life of blessing that every Hebrew was promised through Abraham, would not be experienced unless God’s presence was fully alive in their lives. THis required that they embrace "the spirit of the law" rather than just "the letter of the law" which is "the unconditional love of one's neighbor." He was reminding them and us, that the promise of God’s Spirit being poured out on all human beings was at hand, “When no one need say Know the Lord, for all shall know Him.”

Jesus also predicted that the “broad road” to a miserable life, devoid of peace, devoid of the security that comes—not from food, not from having things, not from avoiding difficulties, not from having a trouble-free existence, not from having perfect health—but from failing to put our whole trust in God through Jesus Christ, was already crowded. It is crowded by our fear and unwillingness to invite the Christ into our troubled boat on the restless, turbulent, trouble-filled and dangerous waves of life. This is not what God wants for us, and should not be the fate of those who have connected with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The disciples were unaware that Jesus was watching them. They did not realize that he only began to walk across the lake when he was that they were stuck, rowing feverishly and furiously, and yet making no headway.

The Apostle Paul wrote to in his letter to the Philippian Church regarding overcoming turmoil, trouble and adversity:

“Not that I am preferring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. (12) I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, or having plenty and being in need. (13) I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (14) In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress (Philippians 4:11-14).

We often quote verse 13 without considering the full context of Paul’s statement. He is thanking the members of the Philippian church for a financial offering they have sent as salary for his labor as a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Paul gives a spiritual interpretation to both his needs, their supply of his needs, and what it is that really satisfies our total hunger as human beings.

The Bible does not promise the simplistic prosperity that so many preach of and flock to hear preached in today’s world. The Bible promises total prosperity—holistic spiritual--a mature faith-filled disposition in relation to all needs—body, mind and spirit—to those who walk in Christ, who live the victorious life in Christ, to those who can say as the apostle said in chapter 1:27-28, “Only live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ . . . standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel . . . not intimidated by opponents.” Then he goes on in verse 29, “for he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well--.

The disciples overcame their fear by taking Jesus into the boat. It is one thing to have faith in Christ for the salvation of our souls in the life to come. But if we would grow in faith, if we would grow in confidence, if we are to experience the total prosperity of God, body, mind and spirit, then we must take on the character of Christ. When we are willing to invite Jesus into our boat, to connect with Jesus regarding every aspect of our lives, the good and the bad, celebrations and disappointments--then we become Christ-like and have a mature disposition regarding joy and pain, suffering and celebration, success and failure, poverty and wealth.

It is then that we benefit from the blessings of our salvation, the gifts of the spirit, and we proclaim boldly, "I have learned to be content, to be at peace, to exercise complete trust in, reliance on, dependence on and courageous boldness with God in whatever state I find myself." It is then that we will discover the blessing of the complete security of living in the perfect will of God.

They learned to overcome their fear of the impossible. They learned to do the impossible, by taking Jesus into the boat. Spiritual prosperity means, I can be in need, I can be physically hungry, and yet I can do this through God who gives me strength through Jesus Christ my Lord.

I can be lonely. I can be sick. I can be unemployed. I can be impoverished. In whatever state I am in, I have learned to trust God. I have learned to rejoice when I suffer criticism and slander. I have learned to count it all joy when others have counted me out, because I have not just watched Jesus walk on water. I have not just been fed by him. I have not just been healed by him. I have taken him into my boat. I no longer seek him because I believe he will satisfy my physical needs, but am learning to live in communion with him, to live a life connected to him, which brings love, joy, peace and satisfaction, beyond anything I can imagine.

God has a perfect plan for our lives, total complete holistic prosperity. As those who embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, we have no business living in the broad way of destruction--misery, uncertainty, envy, anger, fear, hopelessness and nihilism.

God has enabled us, even when everything is crumbling around us, to live in the narrow way of life, the blessed condition of living beyond the challenges, the threats, the maladies, the darts, the onslaughts of Satan to body mind and spirit. God is not finished with us, but in Christ and through Christ, we are off to a good start. We still have the opportunity to abandon fear, and in faith to willingly invite Jesus into our boat. He will still the waves, and then WE CAN ROW OURSELVES peacefully to the golden shore that leads to life. Through faith, let it be so with both me and with you.

More than Enough - Make it Count

Studies in the Gospel of John #13

John 6:5-13
When Jesus looked up and saw the great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Each of us who knows Christ in the pardon of our sins, who has come to understand that our righteousness comes from his life, death and resurrection, and not our own goodness, has what the church calls a “testimony.” We have a story to tell about our encounter with Jesus Christ from our own angle of vision. None of our stories are the same. Each of us is unique and different. Even “the very hairs of our head are numbered by God”—even the ones we no longer find on our head. As we come to this next miraculous event in the life of Jesus, it is important to remember that all of the Gospels are a testimony. 

Mark, Matthew, Luke and John are testimonies of early Christian communities gathered around the preaching of these great evangelists. The Council of Nicea, which developed the early Christian doctrine of the “Trinity,” did so to combat the teaching of “adoptionism.” The adoptionists taught that Jesus Christ did not come into the world as the Christ of God, but that he became the Christ of God through his experiences, through his faithful obedience, through his suffering and death, and/or through his resurrection. 

The reason that Nicea condemned this as a heresy, is that if Jesus, or anyone else can be born human and through obedience become the Christ of God, then sin does not restrict human nature, and righteousness and holiness, the total fulfillment of the law and will of God, can be accomplished solely by human effort. 

Most scholars agree that the Gospel of John presented the strongest arguments against adoptionism in presenting their arguments. Yet I believe that even the Gospel of John does present a form of gradualism. Jesus comes into the world as the pre-existent Christ, but as the author of Hebrews pointed out, he did become the savior of the world by appreciating and developing his own humanity in the context of other human beings. 

John begins his first chapter, the Word; the Christ became flesh and dwelt among us. The pre-existent Christ of God came to us in human form, in order to accomplish God’s total, full and free salvation in the human plane.

Jesus first encounter was his Baptism. The Spirit of God coming down in power, the voice of God’s declaration, were not his becoming Christ, but Christ taking on full obedience as a human being. Later when the Pharisees began to gossip in an attempt to create a rivalry between Jesus and John (He makes more disciples than John does, his disciples baptize more people than John’s disciples), Jesus decided to leave Judea and return to his home in Capernaum of Galilee. 

Jesus respected the authority of John’s ministry. AS disciples of Jesus we must always respect the authority of the humanity of those who travel the Gospel road with us. We need to see Christ in each other. We need to recognize and honor the gifts and contributions of one of the other. We must follow the example of perfect humanity that Jesus set and learn not to interfere in someone else’s vineyard, ministry, field of endeavor. So Jesus demonstrated the process of his own developing “incarnation,” because he traveled eighty miles north, so has not to violate the boundaries of John the Baptist, whose ministry of calling Israel to repentance was necessary and important to Jesus’ own ministry, yet very different and unique. 

Jesus only got as far as Cana. There his mother had summoned him to come to a wedding and bring his posse with him. This first miraculous act attributed to Jesus occurred because Jesus had developed a special feature of his humanity, his human personality. Jesus had learned to honor and obey his mother. This speaks to our own experience. “Momma” is central in Black American African culture. Momma is to be respected and adhered to, even when we may not agree that what she wants us to work on or consider has anything to do with our mission, our goals. So when Jesus’ mother told the servants at the wedding feast, “Do whatever he tells you to do,” this was a way in which Jesus continued his “incarnation.”

After the wedding Jesus went home to Capernaum of Galilee, but he wasn’t there long. He was once again summoned to Cana, where there at the pool of Bethesda, he found a man who had been lying on his back for 38 years, a victim of a victim story and a victim mentality. When the man expressed that he wanted to be healed, Jesus told him, “Then get up, take your pallet and go home.” Jesus identified with the humanity of those who suffered—yes, who had even made a culture out of their suffering, out of their perceived inabilities. In this, he demonstrated his “incarnation.” He did not heal, but encouraged the man to accept the healing that he already saw God do for the man, perhaps even 38 years earlier.

John tells us that Jesus was trying to get away from the crowd. They had followed him from Cana to the sea near his hometown of Capernaum—drawn by the miraculous signs. Jesus and his disciples went up on a mountainside and sat down. They were seeking rest. But it was not to be. Jesus looked -- a great crowd was coming toward him.

Now many of us think that since we are retired, life should be easier, but the truth is that since God has blessed us with much more energy at age 65 and 75 and 85 and even 90 than our parents had at the same ages, folks tend to expect more of us. “I know they must be home, because they are retired. Let me ring them up.” The truth is, we don’t retire from life, from our obligations and witness and testimony and ministry as disciples of Jesus Christ, until God says its time to retire. 

While Jesus and his disciples had gone up into the mountain to get away from the people, he found himself in a position on that mountain to see the people coming far off in the distance. Isn’t God wonderful? Doesn’t God have a great sense of humor? He was saying to Jesus by placing him at this vantage point, “You rest when I say its time to rest.” Jesus was learning another lesson of the incarnation. He had to respond to basic human needs. 

What do you think Jesus/ first thoughts were? —“Wow, guess we won’t get any rest now,” or “Really, what do they want now?” No. Jesus first thought was “How will we provide food for them? The people of the multitude weren’t even hungry yet. As they continued to pursue Jesus, they had not even stopped to think about where their food would come from. But God cares for us. God not only provides, God has a plan for how are needs are to be met. God is not haphazard, but rather strategic on our behalf.

We must come to realize, that every situation of need, every crisis, every challenge, every test, is allowed by God because God desires to demonstrate his provision. God has “something else” for us. God has a “deeper life’ planned for us, better use of our gifts and talents, better places to live and work, more relationships for us to engage in. God has predestined us as children of God, sons and daughters of light, to grow, to prosper, and to overcome. God wants our faith to grow until we learn that in every situation, just as Jesus had already telegraphed and made preparation to feed the massive crowd—even when they did not even yet realize they would be hungry, so “there is a way of escape.” There is “light at the end of the tunnel.” No temptation has confronted us but such as is common to the human condition, but GOD has made “a way of escape” for us so that the tempters darts and arrows will not overtake us. In fact, on the other side of our crisis is “God’s better for us.”

So is it ever with us. Before we call, he answers. God’s unconditional love always responds to the reality of our needs, and even anticipates them. Jesus could see ahead. He was not “What miracles can I do to satisfy them?” but rather, “They will need something to eat.” The Apostle Paul wrote to the church of Philippi, chapter 4:19 “And my God will meet all our needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The irony is that Jesus asked Philip, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? Philip was the pragmatist. When he went to Nathaniel and told him, we have found the Messiah, Nathaniel protested, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip’s response was “come and see.” Philip lived at the level of common sense, at the level of “seeing.” It was Philip who responded to Jesus saying, “Lord show us the father and that will convince us.” And so to the man who believed what he could see, Jesus asked, “Where is the bread to come from to feed all these people? 

In Philip’s calculations what Jesus was asking was the impossible. This is why we affirm, “I’m not moved by what I see.” The five senses are important, but they can work against you. Likewise, Christ confronts us as he did Philip, to remind us that we must rise above the material and visible. He wants all of us to remember that what is possible is not bound by the challenge of what we face. Neither is it bound by doubt. Philip was a man of figures, he believed in what could be put into tables and statistics. Philip was leaving out one small essential element in his calculations regarding what was possible. He was leaving out Jesus Christ. Jesus never asks us or expects us to do anything that he has not given us the ability and power to do, in accordance with our faith.

A friend wrote to me recently, “God doesn’t count numbers. God makes numbers count.” Whether it is five thousand, five hundred thousand or five billion, numbers never challenge God for God supplies all our need according to HIS RICHES IN GLORY. The One who created all things will not run short. God’s provisions, God’s resources for every aspect of our lives are inexhaustible. 

God is calling on us to give our all, to give up our enslavement to the five senses, to move beyond counting numbers to making numbers count—even according to our faith in the one who makes our discipleship possible. Amen.

Remember the Deeds of the Lord

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of you evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel . . . . , the glorious riches of this mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:21-23; 27)."

“I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands …. ‘Will he never show His favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? . . . You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples . . . . Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, through your footprints were not seen (Psalm 77:1-2; 7-8; 14; 19).’”

We want to see "footprints." As we travel through our “seas” and the “mighty waters” rising threateningly around us as they did around ancient Israel in their “Isra” (striving-contending) with “El” (God), we desire visible signs of God’s presence, God’s hand, God’s keeping power. Yet Jesus was to say again and again, as far as God is concerned, physical signs of security, success and comfort are deceptive, and are natural for the common/ordinary person to want ( —John 4:48 “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.”)—but ultimately produce only a momentary, temporary faith experience.”

Paul writes to the church at Colossae, reminding them that they are not "common and ordinary" any more, because God has reconciled, has recovered the relationship between God and us, through Christ’s physical offering of himself on the cross.

It does not matter what we have done to end up in the circumstances we find ourselves in. It does not matter that we were “alienated from God and had our minds conditioned against him resulting in evil behavior.” Through faith in Christ we are presented “holy in God’s sight without blemish and free from accusation.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s good news for me! It is good to know that my success or failure in life is not dependent on my own flawed and faulty moral compass. Sin makes it impossible for me to please God, to live a life of moral rectitude before God. My hope is not in my stellar past, my great moral rectitude in the present. “All have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23-26).”

“If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we agree with God what we are sinners, God is faithful and just to continue to forgive us, to overlook us, and to keep us cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:1-9).

Given this truth of the Gospel, it is amazing that we find people who claim to know that their justification in Jesus Christ alone, demanding that others who come to Christ adjust their behavior to the moral code of Moses. Early in Paul’s ministry, (especially evident in 1 Corinthians), it was clear that he still struggled with having Gentiles live according to the Mosaic codes. I am not referencing the actual “Ten Words (commandments),” but rather all the religious rituals, prohibitions, curses and judgments set up for those who belonged to the community of ancient Israel. These were established in opposition to the Gentile communities all around them as they settled in the “land of promise,” so that they would remember who they were and whose they were. I believe that God raised up the legalistic spirit of error called "Judaizers=people who demanded that Christian converts be circumcised and follow all the rituals of the Jews" and the conflict that followed, in order to help the early apostles (including Paul) who were Jews. make the needed transition to "our acceptance before God by grace and grace alone."

The extensive and laborious Law codes of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy have nothing to do with us, for in Romans that same apostle, informed by his own struggles with those who wanted to turn the faithful back to Pharisaic Judaism, what Paul, himself, had been a part of, writes these words:

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-22).”

When people saw Jesus feed five thousand men (apart from women and children) with five barley rolls and two fish, when they saw a man healed who had lain on his back for 38 years, when they reasoned that since he was not in the boat when his disciples traveled to the other side of the sea of Galilee and yet he was there with him, concluding that the story of the disciples was true, that he had indeed walked across on the water, they asked him, “What shall we do in order to work the works of God.”

Jesus’ response was clear. “This is the work of God, to adhere to, trust in and rely on the one God has sent (his efficacy, his righteousness, the power he is demonstrating).” It comes through faith. We believe that no matter what our circumstances, as the old Black saints used to say, “God is able.” Jesus had prefaced these events and questions with the following declaration:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes
God who sent me has eternal life and will not be
condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
(John 5:24)

A song I learned many years ago comes to mind:

My heart can sing, when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a trail that’s winding always upward—
This troubled world is not my final home.

The things of earth will dim and lose their value
If we recall, they’re borrowed for a while;
And things of earth, that cause the heart to tremble,
Remembered there, will only bring a smile.

This weary world with all its toil and struggle
May take its toll of misery and strife;
The souls God gave us, like a waiting falcon—
When it’s released, it’s destined for the skies.

(refrain)
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then my joy I’ll carry on—
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.
(“Until Then” by Stuart Hamblen, 1958)

In Psalm 177, we are instructed to “remember the deeds of the Lord," and the Psalmist responds on behalf of Israel, “Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on your works and consider all your mighty deeds (11-12).”

Whatever our trouble, our loss, our disappointment, our failure, our longing—through faith in the power that raised Jesus from the dead, we who have been separated, made not guilty, without blemish and complete through the cross, have another day, another future, miracles to look forward to, deliverance to come, joy to replace sorrow, healing to replace heartbreak and loss, and a glorious reception in God's eternal kingdom of life and light, even according to our faith.

No one, no thing, no situation can bring what God offers us to pass. Nobody but Jesus, the Christ of God. All that God has for our goodness, out of love, comes not from our efforts, our attempts to atone and reconcile, our attempts to improve and make amends. All comes from God and God alone, who is indeed UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to us in Christ, forever and ever. Amen.

Victim No More

Studies in the Gospel of John #12
John 5:1-15

And far away, he saw the skyline of New York…. Broadway, the way that led to death was broad, and many could be found thereon; but narrow was the way that led to life eternal, and few there were who found it. 

But he did not long for the narrow way, where all his people walked;…, close to the filthy ground, where the streets and the hallways and the rooms were dark, and where the unconquerable odor was of dust, and sweat, and urine, and homemade gin.

In the narrow way of the cross there awaited him only humiliation forever; there awaited him, one day , a house like his father’s house, and a church like his father’s and a job like his father’s where he could grow old and black with hunger and toil.

The way of the cross had bent his mother’s back; they had never worn fine clothes, but here (Midtown Manhattan), where the buildings contested God’s power and where men and women did not fear God, here he might eat and drink to his heart’s content, and clothe his body with wondrous fabrics, rich to the eyes and pleasing to the touch.

And then what of his soul, which would one day, come to die and stand naked before the judgment bar? What would his conquest of the city profit him that day? To hurl away, for a moment of ease, the glories of eternity!
(From, Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin, 1953, pages 31-32)

5: (1) Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. (2) Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. (3) Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] (5) One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. (6) When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
(7) “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
(8) Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (9) At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, (10) and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
(11) But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
(12) So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
(13) The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
(14) Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (15) The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Psalm 73
A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.
11 They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”
12 This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence.
14 All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.
15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children.
16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.
21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

James Baldwin’s protagonist in his novel, John, is a young Black American African boy struggling with the issue of the goodness of God, the relevance of being devout in his faith in Jesus Christ as the savior of the world, and the call to holiness of life, “Without which no man (or woman) can see the Lord” as expressed by his church.

James Baldwin raises a larger question for us as young teenaged John stands on a hill in Central Park, looking off in the dimness to the lights of Midtown Manhattan New York, site of the “great white way” known to us as “Broadway.” For Baldwin, “Broadway is a triple entendre for Black faith. It is the “broad road that leads to destruction,” it is a metaphor for the antithesis of Black life (the “Great White Way”) and it is also a symbol of the “good life” on earth that seems so elusive to “the saints” of his small world in the uptown community of Harlem.

Is the life of faith one of deprivation, poverty, suffering, sickness and ultimate death and victimization at the hands of those whose comfortable, safe, healthy, well-fed, well-dressed, self-assured life is symbolized by the “Great White Way?” Are these the only choices available to those who choose to take their faith, their heritage and their people seriously? Is the only comfortable, safe, warm and secure reality that of the “white pagans” all around them? Must one sell her/his soul and surrender the claim to the eternal life of God in order to life “the good life?”

The composer and singer of Psalm 73 raises the exact same questions before God in a worship context. But he begins his complaint, his celebration of the paradoxes and contradictions, yes, even the absurdities of life with the affirmation:

“Surely God is good to Israel.” When we understand the name Israel, what it means, and how through the promise of Abraham it can be applied to all who live under its name, we can better unpack this Psalm and respond to Baldwin’s concerns.

God is good, is beneficial, is benevolent, is loving, is full of care and compassion, for all who strive through life following “El” God. Many of my colleagues and friends are highly critical of the so-called “Prosperity Gospel.” Progressive evangelical social activist Jim Wallis has even gone so far as to label it a “heresy.” One of my friends on Facebook pointed out to me that it is a “heresy” because it puts and undue amount of emphasis on one aspect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the faith of the Judeo-Christian community to the exclusion and lack of emphasis on other critical aspects of that faith.

I believe that Jim Wallis and some of my colleagues have a valid issue which those who adhere to “Prosperity Theology” need to grapple with. And yet I do believe that we need to understand why the Black American African community has so eagerly embraced this message. Its major proponents in our community, Revs. Creflo and Tammy Dollar and Rev. Frederick Price, Sr. have received much criticism, but I do believe that while they may indeed overemphasize money and success to the exclusion of God’s sovereignty and exclusive claim (Lordship) over our lives, their message can be a much needed corrective to the “victim mentality” and “victim theology” of slave religion.

The idea that because we belong to Christ, we have nothing to hope for in this world, no earthly blessings to anticipate, but rather poverty, suffering, disease, oppression, failure and death is no more an authentic feature of the Gospel than the idea that if we are truly faithful God will bless us with riches and material prosperity. If God is “surely good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart,” then surely there needs to be some positive expectations about our future, our well-being, our health, our plans, etc.

Imagine, that just as Israel was about to go into seventy years of exile, an exile and oppression, which God had prophesied and brought upon them because of their stubborn resistance to him—their desire to worship idols, to be just like the Gentiles around them, to have what they have, to look like them, talk like them, dress like them, eat like them, enjoy what they enjoyed, worshiped what they worshiped, go to their schools and rank each other on the basis of standards they have set, positions they had created as well as art and music and organizational tools and formulas they had created, God also assured them through the same prophet—

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).”

Oppression, suffering, hardship can so break us down that we can sometime substitute it for the reality of life. The life of a victim is not God’s will, it is not God’s intent, and it is not God’s plan. God’s plan for us, no matter what we may presently be going through, and no matter how long we may have been going through it, is to give us hope, to give us a future, to prosper us, to be good to us--because GOD IS LOVE. God is good to us because WE ARE pure in heart.

Baldwin’s own father is portrayed in the aforementioned auto biographical novel as abusive, using his own beaten, defeated situation in life to enforce a theology of failure on his family. Only when his sister seems broken and contrite and in fear of death is he happy. He hates John because John believes in himself, his innate abilities, and his gift to right and create and to think beyond the limitations of “Black existence” in Harlem.

Too often the righteousness of the so-called people of God is not God’s righteousness, but our own. Our own censorious sense of who we are and what God expects of us is substituted for that purity and righteousness which comes from God alone, through the offering of his son Jesus on the cross for us. It is not OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, but GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS that we are to depend on, celebrate, give praise for and seek to share with others.

When Jesus came upon the pool of Bethesda, the hundreds of people who lay on pallets around it were all laid prostrate, not by their ailments, but by their victim mentality. There was even a twisted, victim-oriented theology associated with healing at this pool. God was said to send an angel to trouble the water, and the first person to get into the pool while the water was troubled would be healed.

Of course this is a victim-oriented story. What kind of vengeful, vindictive God would only make it possible for one to be healed, if someone would get her or him into the water? This kind of works-righteousness religion is the man-made, not of God. God is love. God would never have set up such a scenario. I would suggest the story was developed in the context of a victim mentality. No one could ever be healed because no one could “get up” to get themselves into the water when the pool was troubled.

Because a culture of victimization becomes comfortable, and even is accompanied with such absurd theological rationalizations, it is difficult to break through. So before Jesus said or did anything he asked the man point blank, “DO YOU WANT TO BE HEALED?” This is a very important question. Do you want to be free of your victim mentality, your victimization, of always seeing yourself as a failure and a loser? “Can you really contemplate seeing and understanding yourself as anything other than a victim?”

The man answered “Yes, but . . . .” Jesus did not ask him to repeat the absurd victim story; he did not make any reference to it, but the man did anyway. So Jesus annoyed with his response simply said to him, “Get up, pick up that smelly, musty, urine- stained symbol of your misery and victimization, and walk away with it. Get away from this pool and away from the victim mentality that has trapped you here for 38 years. The man picked up his bed and walked away.

Low and behold, before he could get a few feet away, here came the keepers of victim theology, the works-righteousness crowd of the church. Where do you think you going boy? Why are you carrying your pallet on the Sabbath instead of laying on it? You can see that their theology of the Sabbath was a victim theology. However miserable you find yourself on the Lord’s Day, however sick, however broke, however hungry, however homeless, remain that way. This is God’s will. Imagine how petty, how stupid, how seriously stuck with “majoring in the minors” self-righteous proponents of poverty theology, suffering theology, deprivation theology and failure theology can be.

Jesus had authority to tell him to carry his sick bed on the Sabbath because the Sabbath was made for us to REST. We find our rest in God when we let go of all that would hold us down, hold us back, paralyze us and give us a sense of hopelessness, frustration and failure. Jesus was not a victim. He was victorious.

Jesus was not victimized by Satan’s schemes, by the challenges of loneliness, by the challenges of the cross, by the challenges of being misunderstood, by the threats of Rome or the traitorous machinations of Israel’s so-called leaders. Likewise neither do we have to be to walk the straight and narrow road that leads to life. We are, through Christ, through the incarnation of God’s unconditional love, “victims no more.”