Shift Happens...Leaving No Paradigm Unturned!

The Jewish people celebrated the Festival of Shelters by living in tents for a week. It was a reminder of their homeless days. It must have been something like a combination of Tent City and Family Camp!

The brothers of Jesus thought it would be a perfect time for him to go public in a big way. They goaded him to put on a spectacular show to drum up a greater following. Jesus preferred to fly under the radar but he still rocked the festival. He seemed to be intent on leaving no paradigm un-shifted.

Jesus subverted the “will to power” – even in himself! (John 7:16-18) He wasn’t pitching propaganda to enhance his own political leverage or social position. He wouldn’t resort to manipulation and intimidation. He chose kindness at every turn. Even his confrontations with the religious elite were acts of bold kindness, intended to liberate them from frozen legalisms.

Jesus recalibrated the metrics of righteousness. (John 7:24) He measured his own character in terms of doing what he saw the Father doing. He was more interested in right relationships than heartless adherence to a code of religious conduct.

Jesus collaborated with the calendar. (John 7:6, 8, 30) He worked with time as a creative medium like a musician or an athlete. Music depends upon the skillful use of slow and fast, of pauses and rests. Great athletes understand when to accelerate and when to wait for a blocker, when to pace for a marathon and when to kick into a sprint. Jesus sensed when the time was ripe for him to stir up redemptive controversy and when it was time to disappear into the crowd, when to linger and when to make haste. He didn’t fight with time, he worked with it.

Jesus decentralized the Fountain of Life. (John 7:37-39) His Holy Spirit became an engine of life-energy, equally available to everyone everywhere. He showed that there was no particular place, person, or religious system that controlled the source of spiritual life. This was a radical affirmation of the dignity of common humanity.

Jesus deconstructed unbelief. (John 7:5, 47-49) He engaged different types of unbelief differently;

• His brothers might have been unwilling to believe because they were too familiar – too used to him in their everyday lives. Maybe they grew dismissive of the wonder of his presence. Jesus didn’t try to prove himself to them.
• The religious elite were unwilling to believe because their closed system of thought was too precious to them. They weren’t interested in being surprised. Jesus persistently messed up their tidy categories.
• The desperate dad of an epileptic boy confessed, “I believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) His unbelief was honest and humble. He knew he was literally unable to believe hard enough on his own. The sort of faith Jesus was calling for required divine assistance. Jesus responded by instigating a miracle.

Jesus liberated Nicodemus from the matrix. (John 7:50-51) Nicodemus was open to new perspectives after his conversation with Jesus (John 3:1-21); so much so that he was willing to lob a loaded question into the middle of his religion. He had become dis-illusioned in a very redemptive sense. The shrunken world of closed beliefs had been exposed as inhospitable to persons infected by the truth.

Scott Burnett