Episode 509 - The Disabled God

¡Hey friends! It's Rick Lee James here for a quick episode today. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. I'm so glad that you're here with us. This is really gonna be a short episode, actually. I had a guest that was gonna be able to come on this week, and if all goes well, it's It's probably going to happen next week, but my guest became ill and I thought, well, you know what, this is the perfect time to offer a quick Holy Week reflection. Now I know Holy Week was last week, but we've just entered into the season of Easter and I feel like if I start briefly with Holy Week and lead into Easter, I'll be able to get across what's been on my heart and mind a little bit lately. As I've been working through my clinical pastoral education, my theological study goal has been to develop a theology of suffering. And so this is going to be partly inspired by that and a book that I just finished reading called The Disabled God, which is written by a person who has disabilities. And it's really a look at the way that many times the church is one of the hardest places for people with disabilities to enter into the fellowship. I think she says something along the lines of the church is a city on the hill, that because of it being inaccessible to so many people with disabilities, is a hill that they cannot climb. And so it was an interesting look, but you'll see where I'm going with that at the end of this short reflection today here on Voices in My Head. But what I wanted to say just in thinking about Holy Week starting with Palm Sunday, you know, I kind of came up this year with a parallel, something that helped me understand Palm Sunday a lot better. You know, the palms that would have made Jesus weep, you know, and the way that they suspected that Jesus was going to be this Messiah that was going to come in and take back the government, to make Jerusalem great again, so to speak. And so Jesus comes in, and depending on which gospel account you read of the triumphal entry, Jesus is either riding a colt, a small donkey, or sometimes he's riding two. Sometimes it's like he's riding a donkey with a sidecar. We've always speculated on how Jesus can ride two donkeys at once, but I want you to kind of picture an image, if you would, that may be helpful. Because the people were expecting a violent revolution to happen, something where they would overthrow the government, take their nation back, so to speak. It's a very similar mindset to what we see on January 6th when former President Trump riled up the crowd saying, "We're gonna have to fight like hell and we're gonna march to the Capitol and we're gonna make them basically not count the votes that were legitimate because we believe we have been grieved and we believe that our way is better. So in the name of taking the nation back, the crowd was riled up and they were ready to go. But Jesus was not that kind of leader, even though they were expecting that kind of a leader. And the crowd was poised and ready, and they were ready to go in and take over the Capitol. I want you to picture a crowd like that insurrectionist crowd on January 6th. At our nation's capital. They're ready to revolt. They're feeling— they are feeling oppressed and persecuted. Only the difference being that the people of Israel actually were oppressed and persecuted, not in the, the, the imagined ways that the cable news pundits tell people they are today. And so we have all the Make America Great Again rhetoric that wants to take us back to the 1950s, which, as we know, people actually were persecuted at that time. And anyway, before I digress too much, you have this crowd that was ready. And in many ways, it's a, it's an, it's almost exact parallel in some ways, because this literally on January 6th was a Christian crowd. It was the, the Christian insurrection crowd led by people who have been for years using violent language in the spiritual realm. And they would say, oh no, we didn't mean real violence, but every word they used leading up to that point. The so-called prophets of, of their denominations were speaking violent rhetoric in and taking things back and coming over and taking over control, so that when it happened, when they broke in on January 6th and started violently inciting this mob together— consider back to Palm Sunday. And that was the kind of group you had shouting, "Hosanna!" God save, which was really a war cry. But Jesus comes into the midst of that crowd that was shouting, "Hosanna!" And he's a parody of the kind of violent and victorious ruler that would ride in on some huge stallion Jesus comes in on this lowly donkey, and as he goes down the street, the crowd is expecting him to— now is going to be the time, we're going to take our country back. But instead, Jesus takes a turn and winds up in their churches. And in the gospel accounts, when you read them, you see that's where the triumphal entry ends up. Each gospel tells it a little bit differently because each writer had a different objective when they were writing, and they were trying to tell a little bit different story. But Jesus ends up not at the Capitol but at the temple. So Jesus takes this insurrectionist crowd and they end up in the temple. And instead of taking the nation back, Jesus goes in and starts flipping over tables in the church. Jesus winds up in our churches flipping over the tables, driving out the money changers, driving out those who are buying and selling doves. But then I love in Matthew 21 how that temple narrative ends. Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. It wasn't a violent insurrection for Jesus. Yes, it was turning some tables over. Yes, it was disruptive. And yes, it was changing some things. But Jesus came in not to kill, not to take back something that had been there, you know, 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago. Jesus comes in with something new and he heals them. So this same crowd, you can see why they were so upset. And why the leaders wanted to crucify him. And then, as we know, on Good Friday, Jesus was crucified. And we don't have to get into all the details here. Those of you who are listening, you know this, you know these details. And yet then Jesus returns, resurrected Lord, and the first people he reveals himself to are the women basically telling them to go preach the good news. Go out, tell the story of what you have seen. Different gospels end it in different ways, but I love the account of Jesus coming back and revealing himself to the disciples and telling Thomas, often called Doubting Thomas, but I have a lot of affection for Thomas, touch the wounds in my hands and in my feet and in my side. And as I think about this disabled God, as I think about this triumphant resurrected Lord, we so often talk about, "Oh, one day when I get to heaven, I'll have this new body." Well, think about Jesus's new body. In many ways, it was the old body. It still bore the wounds of the cross. It still bore the pain. In many ways, as the author of this book, The Disabled God, tells us, Jesus represented the disabled God in human form, willingly becoming this way for his people. And as I think of the theology of suffering, I think, hallelujah, what a Savior who doesn't come back as someone who is so far away and far removed from the crowd and just saying, "Here I am, the victorious King." No, this God comes back resurrected with wounds. And for those of us on this earth who have wounds, for those who are suffering, for those who are disabled, even our resurrected Lord, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, chooses in his resurrected body to still be there with the wounded, with the suffering, with the blind and the lame who come to the temple for healing. And I think Jesus continues to be the Messiah who comes into our churches to flip over the tables, to drive out those who are buying and selling, to drive out the animals so that the blind and the lame can come in and be healed. Our wounded Savior is a wounded healer. What a beautiful story that as far off and far away as we can get from the story because of our rhetoric and our politics and our national identity, Jesus comes back and says, But this is what the Kingdom of God is like. You've had it wrong for so long, and you're getting it wrong again, and yet I'm coming back with wounds in my hands for those who are wounded. Not for the victorious and the mighty so that they can show us how great they are. I'm not here to make you great again. I'm here to be your Lord, your wounded Messiah, and I want you to be my witnesses. Of the wounded, resurrected Messiah. Hallelujah! What a Savior! Well, thanks for listening to Voices in My Head this week as I give a few thoughts. Hopefully next week our guest will be able to be with us, and I'm excited about that. But until then, I pray that you will have a wonderful beginning to your Easter season and that these 7 weeks of celebrating the resurrection Maybe you will see the wounded, resurrected Savior in a new way this year. Thanks again for listening to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm Rick Lee James, your host. Follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames. Come to my website, rickleejames.com. And oh yeah, and I have a new single out. It's actually a song, just a live version, kind of recorded on the phone, You Are My Salvation. I did it at church here a while back, but if you're interested, you can go anywhere that you stream music. Look up You Are My Salvation live version. You'll be able to hear that new single. I guess that's it for now, so thank you so much for listening to Voices in My Head.