Would Somebody Please Put Me Back Together?!

“Then [the thief] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’”

 

Jesus, remember me.

 

“Remember language” always makes me think of the story of Noah and the flood – more precisely, God’s words regarding the rainbow (Genesis 9:13-17). Whenever God sees the bow in the clouds, God remembers the covenant…More precisely, God re-members it…Whenever God sees the bow, God puts the covenant back together; even though we continue to tear it apart.

 

Jesus, re-member me.

 

Jesus, put me back together.

 

It’s interesting to me that on this Christ the King Sunday – the last Sunday in the church year, we get this story of Jesus hanging on the cross, promising to put this thief back together (Luke 23.40-43: “Then the other [thief said…] ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’”). Another equally valid translation of that last part is, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in God’s garden.” It’s an end-time vision of new creation. I think that is what Paradise is about. I think it’s about creation – or, Creation…And I think it necessitates re-membering. Because we have been dis-membered. We have been torn apart.

 

This is what I’m trying to get at. The biblical witness is very clear that we have been created in the image of God (Gen.2)…the VERY IMAGE of God! But that image has been torn and marred and beaten and buried under mounds and mounds of hurt and anger and fear and self-doubt and greed and war on and on and on.

 

The very image of God is one of creation and peace, not destruction and war. The image of God is love and compassion and forgiveness, not hate and indifference and grudges. The image of God is plenty and inclusion and grace, not poverty and exclusion and pay-back.

 

The image of God in us has been dis-membered, and we can feel it. To be re-membered is to be all that God created us to be. Does that make sense?

 

The second lesson assigned for Sunday is from the book of  Colossians. The author has this to say, that I think is instructive (Colossians 1.16-18): “…for in [Jesus] all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him…and in him all things hold together (I suppose one could say, “In him all things are ‘membered.’” – but that’s playing pretty “loose” with the text.). Instructive, because it is painfully obvious that thrones and dominions and rulers all around us do not behave (in any apparent way) as though they were created for this Jesus, the very image of God (Col. 1.15) – who, as we just agreed is about creation and peace and love and compassion and forgiveness and plenty and inclusion and grace.

 

I think the thief’s dis-memberment (and mine too, for that matter) has precisely to do with the fact that the kingdom of this world (which – now I’m just being redundant – was created for and through the God of love) has lost its way (My friend Hutch, who makes up an excuse to drop by my office every 3-5 weeks – he has the heart and training of a Spiritual Director – and I suspect, that he shows up when he can feel that my spirit needs a little boost – Anyhow, he  just left my office. He says that we are living in Exile from our true selves…in exile from the Paradise God intends for us.).

 

I get asked fairly often, “if God is all-powerful, then why can’t God make us behave?”

The question of God’s all-powerfulness aside (which is a question which necessitates a glass of wine – or, at least, a cup of coffee), I believe that to force someone – or a whole creation’s-worth of “someones” to behave a certain way is a form of abuse. And God refuses to be abusive…Therefore God allows us to make really lousy choices; as evidenced by our lost-ness and the exilic nature of the kingdom of this world as opposed to the Kingdom of Jesus – where even thieves are re-membered and made whole to live and love and be what and who God created them (Us??? Me???) to be.

 

Jesus, re-member me – that I may glimpse Paradise now, and show it to others, as we move toward creation and peace and love and compassion and forgiveness and plenty and inclusion and grace.