Was Jesus Mr. Nice Guy?

Was Jesus Mr. Nice Guy? If pictures of Jesus cradling sheep, or embracing children came to mind, no doubt you thought, “Sure, he was.” Or perhaps you heard Jesus intoning, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow….” Was Jesus Mr. Nice Guy? Or, does today’s gospel reading make you think again?

We have switched to the Gospel according to John for this and the next two Sundays. We return to the Gospel according to Mark on Palm Sunday, at the very end of the month, when we hear Mark’s story of Jesus’ death. Since the three-year Revised Common Lectionary does not set aside a year for the Gospel of John, as it does for the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it interweaves readings from John into the various seasons of the liturgical year. We’ll hear a lot more from John during Easter tide.

John takes a very different approach to Jesus’ story from that of the synoptic gospels. Although it may contain earlier material, the gospel of John assumed its final form about 90 AD, thus making it the last of the four gospels. The Temple had been destroyed about twenty years earlier, and Jesus had been gone nearly sixty years. This gospel was written for a community of mostly Jewish Christians, most of whom were fighting with leaders of the mainline Jewish community around them. Each of the evangelists had a decided purpose for writing down Jesus’ story, and that purpose is reflected in the how the story is told. The writer of this gospel wanted especially to reassure the members of this beleaguered Christian community that they had made the right choice in separating themselves from the mainstream. We hear right at the beginning of this gospel how the evangelist views Jesus, that Jesus is the Word of God become human. At the end, the evangelist again states the purpose for the gospel: “these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).

So was Jesus Mr. Nice Guy? At this point in the story, Jesus has just come down from Galilee to celebrate the Passover. In Galilee he had attended a wedding in the village of Cana, where he offered the first sign of who he was to a small group of friends and relatives. When Jesus came into the great temple in Jerusalem, which Herod the Great had begun rebuilding forty-six years before, was Jesus tempted to be just another ordinary pilgrim, blending into the crowd with all the others? Apparently not. Instead, Jesus became angry. He flipped out, he lost it. Why? The evangelist is not clear. The commerce that was taking place in the Court of the Gentiles wasn’t really wrong. In order to follow the 610 commandments of the law, especially the laws regarding sacrifice, pious Jews had to offer unblemished animals, which they typically bought just as they entered the temple. They could not pay for those animals with ordinary coins, the coins with Caesar’s head on them, but had to exchange the Roman coins for Palestinian shekels. Both the animal sellers and the money changers were thus necessary for the required sacrifices to take place. The gospel doesn’t say that either the vendors or the money changers were gouging the pilgrims, or cheating them, or colluding with the Romans, or doing anything against the law. Why do we need to see Jesus call them to account and demonstrate his anger at them?

Perhaps the reason is that the evangelist was less interested in the pilgrims or the vendors and money changers and more interested in Jesus. Perhaps the evangelist wanted his readers to remember that one of the roles of the messiah, of God’s anointed one, was to be God’s prophet, to speak God’s truth, to challenge those in authority, even when those around him don’t want to hear him or face him. A long line of prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures had spoken God’s truth to leaders who resisted hearing it. Jeremiah, in particular, spoke hard truths to the king and was put down in a cistern, and then subjected to house arrest for his trouble. In the opposition that Jewish Christians were confronting, perhaps the evangelist wanted to remind his hearers that speaking God’s truth is dangerous. Most important, perhaps the evangelist wanted his hearers to remember, long before the story comes to Calvary, that, although Jesus’ story culminated in his death, it did not end there.

Was Sam Dodson Mr. Nice Guy? Sure he was. He was a well-regarded Methodist minister in a white congregation in Nashville Tennessee.1 It was the early 1960s. Dodson had been born in a small town in Tennessee, gone to Vanderbilt University, and earned his divinity degree at Yale. He had come to Calvary United Methodist Church in 1958 at the age of 43. Although they didn’t always agree with his sermons, his parishioners knew that Dodson generally supported sit-ins and racial integration. In 1963 he accepted the governor’s appointment as chair of the Tennessee Human Relations Commission, which had been formed to work on civil rights issues. A few members of Dodson’s congregation bristled at the appointment. Then came the unthinkable. On May 5, 1964 Dodson joined 150 seminarians and other members of the clergy, marched to the city hall, and presented the mayor with four demands: immediate desegregation of the public schools, ordinances assuring complete access to all public spaces, full access to recreational facilities, and equal employment opportunities in city government.

The hate mail poured into Dodson’s office during May and June. Most of the letters chastised him for his involvement with “politics.” His board wrote to his bishop asking that he be demoted to assistant pastor. Dodson stayed for another year, then in the spring of 1965 he and his family left for Athens, Greece, where he became the pastor of St. Andrew’s American Church.

Sam Dodson’s story culminated in his leaving Nashville in disgrace, but it didn’t end there. About ten years ago or so, people rediscovered his work in Nashville. Those who left Calvary Church because of Dodson have returned and apologized. When Dodson died in 2002, he was eulogized on the front page of the church newspaper. In 2013, a committee at Calvary began working on a permanent memorial to his work and courage. Today, on the wall outside the senior pastor’s office is a colorful timeline and display. Written across the top of the display are the words, “Dr. Rev. Samuel R. Dodson, Jr.: Man of Courage.”

And what about us? The evangelist has shown us Jesus’ prophetic actions. Jesus spoke out and demonstrated against what he considered unacceptable practice. He did so knowing full well that wearing the prophet’s mantle would not endear him to the authorities. Sam Dodson spoke and publicly demonstrated against practices he knew to be unacceptable and unjust. What about us? Lent calls us to “self-examination and repentance.” What do we need to face in ourselves, our parish, and our community? What wrong or injustice do we need to speak and work against?

In ourselves, do we need to forgive? Do we need to confess a wrong and seek forgiveness? Do we need to put aside anger, hurt, or indifference, and reconcile with someone? Do we need to forego gossip? Do we need to listen to someone’s story more attentively? Do we need to free ourselves of addictions, even harmless ones? Do we need to quit making excuses for ourselves and find time for prayer? Do we need to take our Christian commitment more seriously? I invite you, between now and Palm Sunday, to look at your way of life and find one thing that you know needs changing.

In this parish, what needs facing and changing? Are there conflicts that need to be resolved? Do we need to be more attentive to one another? Do we need to be more serious about supporting the parish with our resources? Is our ministry truly serving the needs of those around us? How else might we serve Jesus in our neighbors?

In the community and the world, are we taking seriously our commitment to work for justice and peace? Do we support elected leaders who work for the welfare of the poor and seek to defuse, rather than exacerbate, conflicts? Are we serious about addressing climate change, and especially about looking at our own consumption habits? Do we ever speak out for issues close to our hearts and support organizations seeking change? Between now and Palm Sunday, I invite you to find one issue about which you can be passionate and educate yourself on that issue, whether it be food insecurity, adequate access to healthcare, literacy education, clean water, climate change, opposition to capital punishment, or whatever calls out to you. Educate yourself and make a commitment to doing what you are called to do.

Jesus did not call us to be nice. Jesus called us to follow him and take up the prophet’s mantle, to seriously and intentionally follow his lead as one who actively critiqued the powers that be. Jesus called us to stand with the truth as we see it and to actively work against oppression and injustice. He did not promise that the way would be easy. Like Sam Dodson, we may indeed find ourselves with Jesus at the cross. And, like Sam Dodson, all our hope on God is founded. As Jesus’ story did not end with the cross, neither does ours.

1. The following is based on Erin E. Tocknell, “The Cost of Discipleship,” Sojourners, March 2015, 31-33.