Lent 1C (Romans 10:8b-13)

When I was in college, I went to my friends’ church event without knowing what it was about. I was just attracted by the fact that my friends were all going to Manhattan. I simply wanted to go over the bridge and look around the city. I did get to walk around that day but it wasn’t what I had imagined. My friends were going to the city to get training for street evangelism, and the training was literally to talk to random people and to proselytize them. Their tactic goes something like this: “Because you’ve sinned, there’s a gap between you and God. Before your time to return comes, you need to do something. There’s a way to bridge that gap. If you say with your mouth, ‘Jesus is my Lord and Savior,’ you’ll be saved.” 

I so regretted my decision to follow my friends on that precious Saturday but it was a good learning lesson for me to see how my belief system differs from these street evangelists. I failed to proselytize a single person that day (though I didn’t feel like I left anyone in hell!) and ended up arguing with one of the trainers that their tactic was based on very bad theology, which was inspired by today’s lesson. I still think it’s unhealthy in that it has to make someone sinful first and then offer a remedy of cheap grace by selling Jesus. “Say that you believe in him and all will be better” would be the type of opioid that Friedrich Nietzsche refused to take. 

The irony of it all as well as the best part of it all, however, was to meet a crowd of “Deadheads,” the Grateful Dead’s devoted fans who were gathered for the concert. While my trainer was busy, making these peace-seeking Deadheads sinful, I had fun talking with them. I learned about the Grateful Dead from the most trusted source (!) and was recommended some songs. Deadheads’ effort to proselytize me failed since I’m a fan of Creedence Clearwater Revival but I greatly appreciate their song “Ripple” which was inspired by Psalm 23. Listening to Ripple, what would be much more loving and effective than singing the message, “Reach out your hand if your cup be empty / If your cup is full may it be again / Let it be known there is a fountain / That was not made by the hands of men.”

What does it mean for us to confess that Jesus is Lord? We do have a choice to mean what we say. It doesn’t have to be Jesus or Jose or Joshua if what we want from this confession is to get what we want, whether that is to avoid going to hell or to have a successful life in our lifetime since all these reasons have nothing to do with the life of Jesus. We look at how this person from Nazareth experienced a sense of losing himself and rediscovering his human nature in the presence of God. This was most explicitly pictured at his baptism where his sense of self was resurrected as God’s beloved. This belovedness is not another identity to add on but the wholeness of God that completes our being. In this full immersion into God, there’s no void, no lack, no thirst, but deathless fulfillment. This is the “fountain that was not made by the hands of men.” Whatever identity goes into that immersion would expose its own incompleteness as if pasta sauce stains a white tablecloth. 

To say Jesus is Lord starts with curiosity about the person Jesus. What happened to him that he was so compelled to live a life for others? What did he experience? With this wonder and awe of his life, we want to try out his way of living, which originated from his spiritual life. Seeing himself as beloved or being embraced in God’s unconditional love, that all he ever needed for his life was God alone, we are constantly invited to this inner place of love. In this same respect, to confess Jesus is Lord wholeheartedly is to actualize the inner place of love outwardly in our neighborhood. It’s never a cheap way to salvation but a costly one that requires our entire lives. In our union with God, all our sociobiological identities become secondary. Rather, they are transformed to our spiritual means to love better and deeper. My male heterosexual identity (which is privileged in our society), for example, will be used to improve those without it by freely choosing to disempower it. A privilege can be happily given up when used for the benefit of others. It’s like finding the right place where pasta sauce should be on pasta, not on a clean tablecloth. 

So, is Jesus Lord? Do you believe in your heart God raises you from the dead?