Whatever is Beautiful

One of the larger theological revelations in my life came by way of children's fantasy fiction.  It may be less than surprising to hear that this fiction was one of C. S. Lewis's Narnian books, the last in his Chronicles series, The Last Battle.  As you mayknow, the Chronicles of Narnia are a thinly veiled allegory of the salvation story of Jesus Christ.  They are also excellent fantasy fiction with many generations of stories woven together with overlapping characters, themes and geographies.  To dismiss them because they are Christian allegory would be as foolish as dismissing them because they are children's fantasy fiction.  There is good stuff in these books whether you look for the allegorical or not, but for me the allegory is a strong pull and the reason for the revelation.

If you're not familiar with The Last Battle, it is the culminating story of the Narnian world where the forces of right and good battle with the forces of evil.  These evil forces are an advanced nation with a pagan god, a fearful and demonic and very real god named Tash that they call into battle almost unwittingly.  One boy in this pagan army believes firmly in Tash and endeavors to see his god by entering a shack where he believes the god to be.  However instead of his pagan god he meets Aslan, the lion that represents Jesus, and is surprised to be welcomed by the lion even though he has obediently served Tash his entire life.  He questions the lion about this, and Aslan lays out a surprising theological argument.

Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.  Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thous hast done to him.  For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.

 When I read this I was taken aback; this is not a subtle theological point Lewis is making and this is where the allegory is important.  Here we see Aslan, the representative Jesus,  saying to a man who is a non-Christian that everything good he did in his life was for the glory of the true and living God, not for the false demonic god he had intended to serve.  His fervent obedience, his desire for religious piety, his service to his god and to others in the name of that false god; all of it was to his credit for God's glory.  I had never heard an argument like this, but it was a revelation I had been searching for, one that seemed to answer questions I had harbored for a while.

I remember as a kid wondering what would happen to people who didn't hear about Jesus.  As I grew older, that significant question held a place in my heart even though I didn't pursue an answer.  Looking back I think that I supposed the answer was exactly as Lewis describes it in The Last Battle, but I would have articulated it with biblical context.  I would have quoted Paul when he said no one has an excuse for not believing in God - just look around you at this amazing world: His divine nature is all over the place.  But this isn't the same as knowing Jesus and knowing about his sacrifice on the cross, so the question would linger.  There are other instances in the Bible that hold up under Lewis's scrutiny, but didn't strictly hold up under my theological requirements.  Much like other aspects of my theology, I had to go beyond what I thought was true and embrace what God was revealing to be true.

This is an uncomfortable place to be as a believer, in a place where the Lord forces you to either claim that His revelation is wrong or incomplete or admit that your theology is.  It's much easier to have a flexible theology when you walk with the Lord, especially when you consider which of the two in the relationship is omniscient and perfect in all ways.  But we don't always do that, do we?  Most of the time we dismiss the revelation of the Lord by assuming we're misinterpreting it, or that it doesn't hold up to our current convictions so it must not be God.  Or if those around us aren't up on that revelation it can't be right.  We have a lot of reasons for leaving God in our theological box when things get uncomfortable, chief among them the motive to keep things comfortable and contained.  My box is just fine the way it is, thank you.

I think something else in the scripture that stuck out to me became the final revelation that broke my box open.  In the book of Philippians, Paul's letter to some apparently good friends, he gives some significant pointers about how to live godly lives.  Stand firm in the Lord; work in unity; rejoice in God always; pray in all things without worry.  He seems to sum it up in verse 8 when he says,

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if ther is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

In my own mind I like to summarize this verse with one phrase: Whatever is beautiful.  But any way you say it, do you get what Paul is after?  This list that could easily be put together by a new age Buddhist yoga instructor with a "Hillary 2016" bumper sticker was written by the principle Christian theologian of the first church as a compendium of things on which to meditate.  Now why would that be?  Why would Paul culminate his passage of Christlike directives with a list of adjectives that could be uttered without a context of God whatsoever?

Well, maybe because these ideas CAN'T exist outside of the context of God.  Just as Lewis's Aslan said: all service that is not vile is to the credit and the glory of God.  It's a beautiful revelation and a beautiful affront to so much bad theology in the American church, because we learn that the beautiful things in the world, regardless of their source, are divine.  Just as Jesus told us to offer a cup of cold water, he wasn't limiting the grace of this act to those who believed in him.  The cup of cold water is the kind act that glorifies God regardless of who hands it out.  To my eye and ear this is just the kind of thing Jesus would teach, baffling and deep and wonderful as it is.

For my part I'm taking back the beautiful things of the world for myself, for the glory of God.  I'm celebrating whatever is beautiful because I know that God is glorified in it.  Especially so-called secular music, and the best example I've found to date may be the Avett Brothers, so I will leave you with the lyrics to "The Ballad of Love and Hate" (although I could easily substitute any other of their songs).  Aside from the musical, melodic beauty of their music, the poetry and sentiment of their lyrics are right up my alley as a lover and follower of Jesus.  I like to imagine this song as a contemporary parable, the kind of quirky and deceptively deep story Jesus would tell (or sing to) a crowd just to confuse them and haunt them until they yearned to learn the truth behind it all.

The Ballad of Love and Hate

Love writes a letter and sends it to hate.
My vacations ending. I'm coming home late.
The weather was fine and the ocean was great
and I can't wait to see you again.

Hate reads the letter and throws it away.
"No one here cares if you go or you stay.
I barely even noticed that you were away.
I'll see you or I won't, whatever."

Love sings a song as she sails through the sky.
The water looks bluer through her pretty eyes.
And everyone knows it whenever she flies,
and also when she comes down.

Hate keeps his head up and walks through the street.
Every stranger and drifter he greets.
And shakes hands with every loner he meets
with a serious look on his face.

Love arrives safely with suitcase in tow.
Carrying with her the good things we know.
A reason to live and a reason to grow.
To trust. To hope. To care.

Hate sits alone on the hood of his car.
Without much regard to the moon or the stars.
Lazily killing the last of a jar
of the strongest stuff you can drink.

Love takes a taxi, a young man drives.
As soon as he sees her, hope fills his eyes.
But tears follow after, at the end of the ride,
cause he might never see her again.

Hate gets home lucky to still be alive.
He screams o'er the sidewalk and into the drive.
The clock in the kitchen says 2:55,
And the clock in the kitchen is slow.

Love has been waiting, patient and kind.
Just wanting a phone call or some kind of sign,
That the one that she cares for, who's out of his mind,
Will make it back safe to her arms.

Hate stumbles forward and leans in the door.
Weary head hung down, eyes to the floor.
He says "Love, I'm sorry", and she says, "What for?
I'm yours and that's it, Whatever.
I should not have been gone for so long.
I'm yours and that's it, forever."

You're mine and that's it, forever.

When Jesus is Present

      Jesus is always surprising. There are so many things that he says and does that surprise me and that surprised his audience.  Like when he said "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. "  He surprised us by redefining family.  Or when the man asked for the greatest commandment and Jesus gave him two: love God and love your neighbor.  He redefined what it means to love and serve God.  Aside from redefining principal tenets of religion, Jesus just does things differently, surprising us with his unforeseen commentary and arresting us with his visceral humanity.
      When Jesus appears to the disciples as a group after his resurrection, he has already appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus.  The disciples know that he has risen because the two who met him on the road have reported it to them.  In fact, just as they are sharing about their encounter with Jesus, he shows up in the middle of the room.  As they marvel that he has risen - and we must admit that this was surely an astounding moment - Jesus says something surprising.   He says, "Have you anything to eat?"  Now, I don't know about you, but this is the last thing I would expect the resurrected Messiah to ask three days after his death if he suddenly appeared among me and my friends.  I'm not even sure I would expect that Jesus would need to eat, seeing as how he had, you know, risen from the dead rather miraculously.  But there it is: "Have you anything to eat?"
      I don't know how surprised the disciples were.  They were probably so shocked by his sudden appearance that his asking for food didn't register as the least bit odd.  And to their credit they quickly oblige with some broiled fish, and Jesus readily eats it.  So whether or not it's surprising that he's hungry, it's evidently true that he is, which means that he is still the man Jesus - all God, yes, but also human - because this need to eat and the sensation of hunger have not disappeared.
      Maybe this is one of the really surprising things about Jesus - that he really is human.  In spite of the fact that this is the most important thing about him, that he is God incarnate, we find it difficult to truly grasp.  Sure he may be a man, but he's also completely God (whatever that really means), so I can't possibly relate to him.  I mean, look at the miracles he performed; no one else had ever done what he did, everybody recognized that, from his friends to his mortal enemies.  But at the same time the scripture tells us that Jesus "was tempted in every way," so we know his experience matches our own.  We want so desperately to let ourselves off the hook by taking away the humanity of Jesus, but each time we encounter him he reminds us of how human he is.  "Have you anything to eat?" he says, and not only because he's hungry, but because he wants us to have the chance to offer him something he needs.  He wants us to share in the surprising truth of his humanity.
      What is so surprising about Jesus is that he wants or needs us at all.  In that little room appeared the man who had fed four and five thousand people with a couple of fish asking if he could have supper.  Surely he didn't need someone to give him a broiled fish.  Or maybe he did.  Maybe it wasn't the food that he needed so much as he needed to remind his friends that he too they could provide something necessary from time to time.  And that this would always be the case, and that it would be just what he and his dad wanted.  How is that for surprise, to know that God wants something from us?  Because just as surely as Jesus the man wants our company, our friendship and our aid, so too does the Father want our part in His life.  He wants us to be quick to offer up to Him what so satisfies His heart: praise and honor, love and mercy and glory and all of the beautiful things He's made that get so trampled in our hearts and on this earth.
      I'll bet that if we knew Jesus better we wouldn't be surprised at all when he asks for a piece of fish.  Or a cup of cold water.  We shouldn't be surprised because he told us he would ask, and just as surely as we clothe the naked and visit the prisoners and feed the hungry, there he is in all of his humanity with his hand held up slightly, a surprise in the dark with the word "peace" on his breath.