Transaction or Transformation?

“Jesus among the teachers” by JESUS MAFA (Vanderbilt Divinity Library).

Transactional approaches to life & faith abound. Formulas for how to achieve success are everywhere and they are oh-so-inviting.

If only we could believe more, envision better, pray the right words, etc. etc., maybe we would finally get the thing that helps us live more comfortably.

But is that really the story we find unfolding in Scripture? Is that really the message of Jesus?

There is of course value in knowing & naming & even asking for what we want. We hear echoes of this throughout scripture, particularly in the Psalms. Honest conversation with God reveals what is really rumbling around our hearts & minds. Jesus invited this kind of honesty, but it almost always seemed to be a means toward a greater end, not the end goal.

It was part of a Bigger Story.

Expressing our desires, our wants & our needs is an important part of a process that helps us align more fully with the Just and Generous Life we are being invited into (Jeremy Courtney calls it “The More Beautiful World” and Aaron Niequist calls it the “Eternal Current”. I have really grown to appreciate their language.). Jesus called it “the kingdom of God” and he described it most often in stories and metaphors, maybe because he knew we’d have trouble grasping it or because it wasn’t meant to be fully grasped.

We have just started moving through the gospel of Luke together and yesterday we came to the story of the 12-year-old Jesus getting separated from his parents on their annual pilgrimage home from Passover. Already in Luke, we are seeing faith in the form of journeys taken by Mary, Joseph, and now a Jewish community from Nazareth. So many journeys already and there are more to come. That should tell us something.

I love this painting (above) by JESUS MAFA that depicts Jesus as a 12-year-old in the temple. He looks like a mini-master of meditation and the teachers gathered around him are amazed by his words & his wisdom. This particular portrait also seems to portray how moved they are by his way of being. They look as though they are experiencing a compelling invitation. In the story Luke tells, Jesus invites even his parents to enter a Way of Life that transcends their expectations. They do not understand (which is super comforting because seldom do we), but they are being transformed by their deepening relationship with him.

Perhaps that’s why we keep coming back to these stories, back to Jesus, back to the Mystery back to our longings & our gratitudes & our questions, back to practices & rituals that shape and form, and back to this community of kindred spirits. It’s there, too, that we experience an invitation.

We may have been conditioned to want a transaction, but what we get - what we are invited into - what we need & what the world needs - is Transformation.

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[More about the artwork: JESUS MAFA is the response of West African Christians in Cameroon to New Testament lectionary readings. Each reading was adapted for dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photos of their interpretations were then transcribed into paintings.]