Not That Guy!

Tim O'Brien and friends sing a little gospel about how wrong we are when we insist that Jesus is for everyone -- just not that guy.

The Pharisees had just challenged Jesus' authority to teach, heal, work miracles, and, in general be the Son of God -- a claim they also challenged. It wasn't the first time, but it would be the last. The next time they came for Him, it would be to arrest Him, subject Him to a show trial, and turn Him over to their Roman conquerors to be crucified.

Jesus knew what was coming, and He told the Pharisees this parable -- one of the saddest stories in the Bible.

"'A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.' But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.' And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.' When they heard this, they said, 'Surely not!' But he looked directly at them and said, 'What then is this that is written: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him." (Luke 20:9-18)

"I will send my beloved son," says the owner of the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard is God. His beloved Son is Jesus Christ. The evil tenants? Everyone who rejects Jesus Christ and consequently, God the Father.

But He wins, right? He's the stone that the builders rejected. He is the stumbling stone for the Pharisees and everyone else who thinks they can get into heaven on the basis of who they are and how they've lived. You try doing it that way, He says, and either you'll trip over Him or He'll crush you.

I talked about this just a couple of days ago in "Reliable," but it looks like we have some new folks here. If you are new, I hope you'll go read that post, as well as "Things Not Seen," but for now, let's talk about why some of you think you'll get to heaven without Jesus.

Most people, if they take the long view at all, decide it'll be good enough just to get through life without making any colossal mistakes. There are two other kinds of people -- the kind who decide they're bad and the kind who decide they're good.

You, my friends, are the latter, and you've devoted your lives to making life miserable for the bad guys. When I say bad guys, I mean the kind (either gender) who Paul talks about in I Corinthians 6:9b-11a, "Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you." Some of you know, as I do (because I used to be one of you), that there are people who are so depraved that they inflict things on others that Paul never dreamed of.

Even so, Paul writes in I Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

No way! Not that guy! Not the guy who did -- and does -- something so depraved, so hateful, so unnatural that you have panic attacks just remembering it. You work hard, you play hard -- or maybe you just drown yourself in more work, more case histories, more interviews, more investigations, more fundraisers, more action alerts, more campaigns. Nothing helps. This is the bell you can't unring. These are the the pictures you can't un-see, the screams you can't un-hear. These are the "preferences" and compulsions so disgusting that they can't even talk about them on CSI. Those of you who think you're edgy because you know about, say, the furry culture, can stop snickering now. If some of us told you about the things we've seen, heard, and read in the course of championing the victims, you'd run out of the room screaming. And you would never, ever be able to forget our stories.

But I digress.

Doctor, lawyer, caseworker, advocate -- you think you're one of the good guys.

Guess again.

"None is righteous, no, not one." Why? "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:10, 23). And that means, no, I'm not running background checks on anyone -- artists, band members, theologians, preachers, celebrities, or anyone else -- that I mention on this blog. I neither need nor want to reassure you that I or anyone else is "above reproach" -- as if that were possible. It's silly, really. We're all sinners.

That means me, you, everybody. See, God's system of justice isn't like ours. "For the wages of sin is death," as Paul writes in Romans 6:23. That means all sin -- not just capital crimes, felony offenses, the stuff you haven't done, the stuff you've gotten away with, the stuff you think is worse than the stuff you've done, or the stuff you think is icky -- but all sin.

Yup, you too, knights in shining armor. You're in good company: Everybody who made the Sunday magazine's list of the Top 100 Americans with the least odiferous waste product is in the same boat.

Dead meat, all of us. "[N]o one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:11-18)

What's a sinner to do?

Nothing. There's nothing we can do. But Jesus can.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." (Romans 3:21-28)

What does this mean? That you take your former adversary and parade him around on TV like King Kong -- "See the monster not do that thing that the monster does!" -- adding, ever so humbly, that you had very little to do with it, and folks can find out just how little by reading your book, visiting your website, or downloading your compilation CD on iTunes?

Well, then, you're making it all about you, aren't you? You need to get this, and get it straight: If someone has been victimized, it is not about you. If someone is a calcified offender, it is not about you. If either of these types of people is given the grace to heal -- It. Is. Not. About. You.

That's not how we roll.

"Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends," Paul writes in II Corinthians 10:17-18. That applies to us all. Those sinners who make the rounds of the talk shows, implying that they don't sin -- that they aren't tempted to do that thing -- anymore? This passage applies to them, too.

As does this one: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?" (James 2:14-20)

That goes for all of us.

"For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (II Corinthians 10:3-5)

Those weapons -- the ones that destroy the strongholds of obsessive thought and calcified behavior -- are given to us by the Holy Spirit. I can personally testify that the Holy Spirit also shows us things that allow our knowledge to transcend the theoretical and the practical. "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6), and "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."

If God wants us, He'll take us.

Not that guy!

Yes, even that guy.

Here's Kathy Mattea, Todd Burge, and bluegrasser Tim O'Brien singing a song that O'Brien introduced into the bluegrass gospel canon -- Blind Alfred Reed's "There'll Be No Distinction There".