“All you’ve ever wanted life to be.” The simple but catchy chorus repeats over and over with images of lovely looking people having great times; at one moment in a packed auditorium, then in a café, then watching a drama, then a clown, then a rock band backing some lovely looking singers and a radiant up-front speaker. “All you’ve ever wanted life to be.” It’s a current commercial on primetime TV for one particular Church in Adelaide, South Australia. Its a really nice advertisement; its very uplifting, wholesome and well – fun. This Church must be spending a lot of money for this because the commercial is often on, it runs for the standard length and it certainly holds its own with the best TV adds in terms of technical excellence. If it is designed to make a Church look a fun and fantastic place to be then it scores 10 out of 10. The Church is a well known one here in Australia and is one of the largest congregations. I am sure that its leadership has the very best of intentions of making their Church look as attractive as possible to a culture that is vastly unchurched.

Somehow, when Jesus of Nazareth began his ministry, he was profoundly attractive to those whom he first called. All the more remarkable because Jesus had none of the technical advantages outlined above. John the Baptist could be seen as a pre-campaign manager of sorts, preparing people for Jesus’ eventual arrival. But he hardly seems like the ideal pre-campaign manager; surely, too rough and ready and in-your-face with the “repentance and baptism” theme.

And Jesus himself, it appears was not exactly the well-groomed, slick, travelling salesman type. In fact, the call narratives in each of the synoptic Gospels, depict Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, with nothing except himself. There are no introductory cards, or references, or sponsorships, or video presentations, or inaugural speeches, or accompanying delegations, or photo shoots, or special pre-discipleship classes, or musical score – darn it, it looks as though he even had the audacity to come unannounced as a stranger to ask these guys simply to follow. Most baffling is that the guys whom he called, simply left what they were doing and followed him. They became Jesus’ followers.

There must have been a wonderfully strange attractiveness about this man Jesus. It appears he was not one of “the lovely people;” bold certainly, but not beautiful. No, his was a more attractive attraction. And indeed as the Gospel narratives unfold we discover many different hues of this attractiveness – his strength of character, determination, compassion, hatred of injustice, intellect, love for the poor and vulnerable, capacity to endure and encourage; in short, his sheer ability to be intoxicatingly human. In the best sense of the word, I believe, he was holy. That is, whole – so perfectly human he was divine. There was about Jesus a divine attractiveness – a deep familiarity that people experienced yet a profound difference also, an otherness, something transcendental. I am reminded of that often overlooked statement by Albert Schweitzer: “He comes to us, as One unknown.”1

Of all people, John Cleese (best known as one of the comedians of the Monty Python team) once spoke publically about the attractiveness of Jesus. Cleese was being interviewed following some of the backlash from their film: “The Life of Brian.” Some felt that the film was ridiculing Jesus; and that perhaps the crucifixion scene was a cynical parody of Jesus’ crucifixion. In the interview, Cleese admitted that part of their original intention had been to send up some of the biblical stories about Jesus. However, he said that after having immersed themselves in the Gopsel material, they felt that it was too problematic. Jesus’ words and actions, on the whole were too difficult to satirise. “Blessed are the cheesemakers” was really about as far as they got. So they invented a life of Brian, set in the time of Jesus, instead. Cleese said that he personally found Jesus too human, too transparent, too real. Cleese said that fundamentally Python humour works by exposing human inhibition, double standards, hypocrisy and self-interest. He said that typically Python humour satirises the facades, masks and fronts that people put up to disguise their hang-ups and inhibitions. Cleese said he had never encountered such an uninhibited person as Jesus – someone not limited by class, gender, status or religion. Somehow, said Cleese, Jesus was free to act as a true human in any context.

Philip R Davies captures the Christological brilliance of the film in his highly creative piece: “Life of Brian Research.”2 There are only two brief scenes where Jesus is actually depicted in the film. The first is a nativity-type scene at the beginning and the other comes a little later as a sermon-on-the-mount back-drop to a comic dispute in the crowd. Davies argues that the scripting of these performances creatively resolves the traditional theological paradox of the dual nature of Jesus. Davies says: “The figure bearing the name of Jesus is emphatically a stranger, and a suitably divine one … His stable is already a media event, of which ordinary humans are excluded or at best remote audience. Similarly, the staging of Jesus’ other appearance, delivering the ‘sermon on the mount,’ maintains a distance between him and the human race.”3 Davies suggests that these two depictions of Jesus present the traditional Christology – a divine Jesus, distant and removed. The rest of the film (the majority of it) is then devoted to the life of Brian. Davies’ interesting thesis is that inadvertently Brian comes to represent the human side of Jesus (mind you I’m not entirely convinced of the Brian caricature for all, or indeed the best, of Jesus’ human qualities). I would be fascinated to hear Cleese’s response to Davies’ proposition.

Whether one is or is not attune to a Pythonesque world-view, there is no doubt that the figure of Jesus is for many powerfully attractive – attested to, for one, by the multifarious and multitudinous secular and religious productions of Jesus’ life and ministry. Jesus continues to be perhaps the most venerated, visualised and verbalised person in human history. As at the 17th January 2003, the hits for Jesus on the internet search engine Google register 16 million; for Jesus Christ 3,500, 000. The only person that I could get to come close is Madonna at just over 3 million hits. John Lennon who once predicted that the Beatles would be more popular than Jesus Christ, registered just over 500, 000 hits, while the Beatles scored 2,740, 000. U2 is not far behind the Beatles now with just over 2 million hits.

As a young boy I can remember quite vividly being captivated by the stories that my Dad would tell me about Jesus. Now that I look back upon my childhood (recognising the tendency we have to romanticise our reminiscences) I realise that my Dad had a nice balance in his Christological presentations as well as a wonderful ability to tell stories. I fell for the idea of a man called Jesus, tall and strong, yet loving and compassionate, mysterious yet present, who was inviting me, personally, to follow him, just like the disciples of old on an exciting journey to discovering myself and the world. For me, Jesus of Nazareth has ever since been an attractive proposition. Indeed the Gospels depict Jesus as someone who is life affirming. It seems that it is indeed over a doctrine of anthropology that Jesus and John the Baptist differ. John practises fasting but for Jesus there is no time to fast. John is the aesthetic and the stoic, whereas Jesus is the luxuriate and the libertine. Jesus is not wanton or wasteful but he is not a wowser either. Somehow Jesus’ disciples and many others who were encountered by him along the byways of Palestine, intrinsically knew that in the person of Jesus they were in the presence of salvation. In his presence there is little time to fast or get too caught up in doctrinal debates or disputes. No, in Jesus, the divine dispensation of salvation is immanent and therefore it is time to celebrate and to give thanks. Edward Schillebeeckx says, “Although his disciples did not always understand precisely what he was getting at, at any rate they were certainly carried away by their master, Jesus – they simply adored him because they knew: in him they were receiving a gift, a present from God to us.” 4

People getting carried away, being exuberant about Church – that is what came across in the TV commercial for the mega-church here in Adelaide. I suddenly realised that whilst it is a very engaging add for what Church can be, there was no association made with Jesus in any way. I find that most intriguing. What does that imply? They forgot? I suspect that Jesus in fact is not any easy subject for commercialisation. Western Christianity, is probably not well enough acquainted with the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth to be able to easily present his attractiveness. Compounding the problem is, I think, that Jesus’ attractiveness is not essentially a worldly one. Rather, Jesus’ attraction is a fatal one – a fatal attraction – a life of discipleship that leads to his execution upon a Roman Cross. His is a life that loves so deeply that he freely gives his life away for that love. And this is the life, a life of dis-interest over self-interest, that is Resurrected to live on forever. Jesus’ life is one that revels in parties and celebrations and the good things of material creation; but it is not a self-indulgence, rather his joy wells up from an abiding love and self-giving for the holistic wellbeing of all people. Everything about Jesus is subordinated to this abiding love.

No wonder the disciple Peter is shocked when Jesus explicitly reveals the true nature of what it means to be a disciple; to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ. Peter was amongst the foundational members who were profoundly attracted to Jesus and his mission. What heady days those early times in Galilee must have been. In Mark’s Gospel, after Peter’s great Messianic declaration, Jesus choses to teach the disciples the rejection and suffering he must undergo (Mark 8: 31-38). The shock for those disciples must have been severe. You can almost hear the bewilderment, frustration and angst. “Hang on Jesus! But you are the long awaited Messiah. You are God’s chosen One … to take up the position of true King of Israel. We’ve believed in you Jesus. We’ve given our lives to this mission of reconciliation and justice, we’ve left our families, our homes, our jobs, our communities; we’ve been abused and ridiculed for our trouble. And now your telling us that you are going to let those in authority kill you?” One can only wonder what was said amongst the disciples on that fateful day. Mark’s storyline is indicative of the disillusionment and anger of the disciples at this point. No where else do we have one of the disciples responding to Jesus like Peter does here. Mark reports that Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. And then no where equally do we have such an emphatic retort by Jesus. He openly addresses all the disciples, in turn rebukes Peter and says: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mark 8: 33b).

Subsequently Jesus teaches the crowd and the disciples the nature of this journey of discipleship they have been called to. Jesus says: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8: 34-35).

Gunther Bornkamm wrote: “The Gospels state very clearly that the fact of someone becoming a disciple or being a disciple depends on Jesus’ sovereign decision, and not on the free choice of individuals who are especially drawn to him.”5 Friends, the call to discipleship, depends upon God’s attraction to us, through Jesus Christ. We might have felt that it is a matter of our attraction to Jesus. We might be tempted to think that the survival of Christianity is dependent upon how strategically we can make Jesus or the Church culturally attractive. The Gospel emphasis is startlingly and we need to be reminded of its’ fatal attraction. It was fatal at one point for God, this attraction to humanity: God allowed himself to be crucified for this attraction. Just as the call to discipleship is a sovereign one of God, so too is the content of discipleship. The sovereign nature of discipleship articulated by Jesus to Peter, the disciples and the crowd on that momentous day is that: TO FIND YOUR LIFE, YOU MUST LOSE IT. When we have become followers of Jesus, there is no choice in the matter.

Friends of course we need to be making our Churches as user-friendly as possible. And we need to share the life giving attractiveness of the Living Lord Jesus Christ in culturally relevant ways. But the challenge for our friends at the mega church and for ourselves will be to spend as much time, money and energy in preparing our people for the life of following Jesus, for the world shaking program of discipleship, for losing our lives so as to find life. Friends, let us pray for, work for and worship for losing our lives for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel. Let us learn to celebrate the giving of our lives away in generosity, compassion and self-sacrifice – let us become joyful, inspired, empowered followers of the fatal attraction.

“Jesus never let me down

You know Jesus used to show me the score

Then they put Jesus in show business

Now it’s hard to get in the door”

– Verse from U2’s song: If God Will Send His Angels

Blessing’s in Jesus’ name,

KIM THODAY, HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST

http://www.hewett.org.au

1 Schweitzer, Albert The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, London: Black, 3rd edn., 1954, p.401.

2 Davies, Philip R. “Life of Brian Research” in Biblical Studies/ Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloqium, J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D Moore (eds), Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. pp.400-14.

3 Davies, Philip R. op.cit., pp.407-8.

4 Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An experiment in Christology, London: Oxford University Press, 1983, p.203.

5 Bornkamm, Gunther Jesus of Nazareth, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960, p.145.