Weird Religion
Scripture Reading: John 17:9-16
When I was in Korea, I had a sign that I taped on my cubicle wall (yes, we had cubicles—it was a very corporate environment). The sign said “Keep church weird.” I don’t remember where I came across it. I probably found it online somewhere and liked it enough to print it.
“Keep church weird” became the unofficial motto for the English ministry that I led, similar to the little sign that rests on the lectern at open-mic night and reads “It is what it is.” There was something weird about working for a Korean church but leading a worship service in English for worshipers who were, for the most part, native Korean speakers. We did attract some foreigners, but the vast majority of those who came to the English service were Koreans who happened to speak English.
I also thought that the sign would make a good conversation piece, but I think in all of my six years at the church, I was asked about the sign just once. It was by one of the other pastors who spoke pretty good English. “What does that mean?” he asked, like he was trying to interpret a piece of inscrutable abstract art.
“Well, to start with,” I began, “we call ourselves Christians but we worship a Jewish rabbi who was executed as a criminal by the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago. We call his death ‘good news.’ We believe that this Jewish rabbi was God in the flesh—the same God who created the universe, who is also the God of Israel who spoke to Moses through the burning bush and who parted the Red Sea. We gather around a table where we commemorate his death by symbolically eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Don’t you find all that a little bit weird?”
I remember him saying something along the lines of, “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” as though he had never considered any of that before. I don’t mean to pick on this pastor, who was a friend. Many of us, I’m sure, would answer as he did, perhaps even more so because of our context. If you’re a Christian in a culture where most people are at least nominally Christian, it’s easy to take your faith for granted. Everyone’s operating under the same basic assumptions and celebrating the same holidays. You don’t ever need to think about some of the more radical aspects of Christian doctrine and practice…that is, until someone points them out by saying, “Hey, isn’t that weird?”
Well, I’m here to say, “Isn’t that weird?” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is wonderfully weird, especially when set against the ways of the world. And speaking of the world, did you hear that word being repeated over and over again in today’s reading?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is wonderfully weird, especially when set against the ways of the world.
“I am not asking on behalf of the world,” Jesus prays.
“I am no longer in the world but they are in the world.”
“They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
Those are just a few of the more than dozen occurrences of the phrase “the world” in this passage.
What in the world is going on here? If we expand the context beyond this passage to the entire Gospel of John, we find John mentioning “the world” 56 times. By comparison, in the other three Gospels occurrences of “the world” never reach double digits. Each Gospel author has certain themes that run throughout their Gospel. One of those themes for John is this idea of “the world.”
But what John means by “the world” can vary depending on the context. Sometimes it means all of the created world, i.e., the cosmos. In fact, the word in Greek is literally “cosmos.” Sometimes it refers to human beings, as in the famous verse that begins, “For God so loved the world….” But most often John uses “the world” to describe the secular world, i.e., the world as it exists apart from the revelation of the gospel. That’s how he uses it all throughout today’s reading—the world is that which is either ignorant of, or hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Last week, if you can remember back that far (it’s not easy for me), we read John 15. The context was the Last Supper. Today it’s John 17, and we’re still with Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper, only now Jesus is no longer addressing them but praying for them. These are the last words that the disciples will hear Jesus say, for after finishing this prayer, Jesus will walk with them out to the Garden of Gethsemane where he will be arrested.
As I mentioned last week, Jesus knows what’s coming. He says in verse 11, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” It’s as if Jesus is between two worlds—no longer in the world but not yet with the Father.
Another curious aspect of this prayer is that not only does Jesus know that the cross awaits, but in the way that he words the prayer you get the sense that he is fully in control of events. Twice he says to the Father “I am coming to you,” as if he’s completed a task and is about to return home. In other words, Jesus is not a passive victim. He is not a lamb being led to slaughter. He has agency. He is allowing events to unfold. He goes to the cross willingly, and he goes on his terms. But before he goes, he blesses his disciples with a word of prayer.
This prayer is sometimes called the Great High Priestly Prayer, because like an Israelite priest would do, Jesus both prays on behalf of the people and makes a sacrificial offering to atone for their sins. The one key difference, however, is that there is no sheep or ox being sacrificed; Jesus himself is the offering. He is both the priest and the atoning sacrifice.
With his death on the cross just hours away, how odd—one might even say weird—it is to hear Jesus speak of his joy. “But now I am coming to you,” he prays to the Father, “and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” Jesus prays that the disciples might have his joy. It’s reasonable to ask, what joy? What joy is there in dying a horrific death on a cross? In what world can we associate the cross with joy?
Let’s begin to unpack that by noting that joy and happiness are not the same thing. Here another illustration from Mad Men, which I talked about last week, may help us see the difference. There’s a scene where Don is trying to sell his agency’s services to executives from Dow Chemical. They don’t appear interested, saying that they’re happy with their current ad agency. Undeterred, Don counters that even though Dow’s success is a reality, its effects are temporary. “You get hungry even though you’ve just eaten. You’re happy because you’re successful for now. But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”
Don’s right in that happiness is contextual. Our happiness depends on our circumstances. If things are going well, we’re happy. If not, then we’re probably not happy.
By contrast, joy is not based on circumstances but on a deeper reality, which is why Jesus can speak of joy even as he prepares to go to the cross. Make no mistake, Jesus is not happy to die. He is not a zealot gladly giving his life for a cause. In fact, at the conclusion of the Last Supper, he will walk to the Garden of Gethsemane. There he will pray, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want” (Matt. 26:39). Jesus’ joy comes in carrying out the will of the Father, a Father who sent him into the world on a mission of love. “For God so loved the world….”
Jesus is not the only one sent into the world. “As you have sent me into the world,” Jesus prays, “so I have sent them into the world.” Jesus was sent into the world, a world to which he did not belong. In the same way, he sends his disciples into a world to which they do not belong. “They do not belong to the world,” he says, “just as I do not belong to the world.”
What does it mean not to belong to the world? We’re here, aren’t we? We’re here on Earth, in the United States, in New York State, in the Village of Haverstraw, on Hudson Avenue, at Central Presbyterian Church. I mean, what other world is there?
Is Jesus suggesting that we shouldn’t worry about the state of the world? That we should just focus on so-called spiritual matters, like where we will spend eternity? There is certainly a strand of Christianity that endorses that view, but I don’t. More importantly, that’s not what Jesus is suggesting.
Jesus says that we have been sanctified in the truth. Now, when some Christians hear the word “sanctified,” they think it means undergoing a Christian form of self-improvement. If I want to be sanctified, then I need to get up early to pray and read the Bible, go to church every Sunday and try not to think evil thoughts about my neighbor in the pew in front of me. Now, I’m not saying, “Don’t do those things.” By all means, do them. Just know that they have nothing to do with being sanctified.
To be sanctified simply means to be set apart for a holy purpose. Take, for example, the bread that we eat at the Lord’s Supper. Communion bread is no different than regular bread. It’s not made with special flour or baked in a special oven. It’s regular bread, but it’s been sanctified—set apart for the purpose of the Lord’s Supper.
To be sanctified simply means to be set apart for a holy purpose.
In a similar fashion, as followers of Jesus, we—regular folks that we are—have been sanctified to proclaim the word of God. We have been set apart from the world, even as we have been sent into the world for the holy purpose of proclaiming Jesus Christ.
And because we proclaim Jesus Christ, Christians ought to be—and will be—perceived as weird. In fact, that will increasingly be the case as the church as a whole continues to experience decline. As the nation becomes less religious, fewer people will have even a basic understanding of Christianity. That means that when they see and hear Christians proclaiming and practicing the way of Jesus Christ, it will strike them as utterly contrary to the ways of the world, and as weird even.
This is why I don’t worry about the decline of the church. The church should be perceived as weird. The church should be out of touch with the world. If in our heyday we appeared respectable because we conformed too much to the ways of the world, then that means that we lost sight of the weirdness of the gospel.
Weirdness of the gospel? What does that mean? It means this…
In a world of first-come, first-served, the gospel says that the last will be first, and the first will be last.
In a world that says curse your enemies, the gospel says love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
In a world that says if you’re hit, hit back even harder, the gospel says if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer them the other also.
In a world of self-interest, the gospel says that whoever wishes to become great must become a servant of all.
Now that is some weird religion! And you know what? It’s about time the church got religion.