A Jesus like me … sort of

From left: Tall Jesus, Pretty Jesus, Hot Jesus

You have to be very careful, especially in these touchy days, portraying Jesus visually.

  Witness the uproar in Seville over a Spanish artist’s painting of Jesus for a poster celebrating Easter.

  According to the Associated Press, “The poster by internationally recognized Seville artist Salustiano García Cruz shows a fresh-faced Jesus without a crown of thorns, no suffering face and minuscule wounds on the hands and ribcage.”

  Some critics say the Jesus shown in the poster is simply too handsome or too sensual. Others call the image effeminate or homoerotic.

  I agree it may be a bit much, but it shows a risen Jesus, not a suffering Jesus, and it’s a healthy contrast to some of the other grisly stuff we see this time of year.

  Images of Jesus are visible in parades throughout Seville during Holy Week, but most follow traditional conventions. This one, of course, is fully traditional in the sense that Jesus is European. How could he not be, when the artist used his own son as a model?

  (Follow that logic through. God’s Son, artist’s son. Get it?)

  Interestingly enough, I found a somewhat similar Jesus for sale at a Catholic store here in the states. This one is a statue, and it’s 10 feet tall.

  Both “Pretty Jesus” and “Tall Jesus” remind me of a Jesus portrayed in the movie “Son of God,” starring Diego Murgado.

  When I showed photos of this Jesus to my youth group at the time, the kids dubbed him “Hot Jesus.” They liked him a lot but agreed that he was somewhat over the top.

  Hot, pretty, or just tall, images of Jesus are always popular, and always controversial. We like our Jesus to be just like us. Nothing wrong with that. We just need to remember that Jesus also is just like others, and they are not at all like us.

  That’s why we can have European Jesus, Black Jesus, Asian Jesus, Native American Jesus and Mediterranean Jesus – and though the Mediterranean version may be the most historically accurate, the others also are relationally on target.

  While you may cringe at the Jesus who is not like you, you should not throw stones just because he’s different. Remember, as alike us as Jesus was (and is), he also was (and is) visibly unlike us.

Hawking religion on TV

You may have thought that the Super Bowl was about football, or maybe Taylor Swift, or maybe even those hyper-expensive ads hawking chips and beer.

 Nope. It’s really about those hyper-expensive ads hawking a different kind of religion, not the religion of consumerism but the real thing – you know, real religion that’s focused on your relationship to God and others.

 Super Bowl commercials cost about $7 million for 30 seconds. For that price, you get exposure to millions of TV viewers – this year a record 123.4 million viewers, by one count.

 Surveys show that for a mere $230,000 per second, plus production costs, these commercials can provide valuable exposure for new products, though in general they do a pretty poor job of moving product.

Obviously some religious organizations are willing to cough up huge bucks for such exposure, whatever result they expect.

Five religious commercials appeared during Super Bowl LVIII. One generated a lot of controversy. I’ll mention it last.

Strangely enough, to my mind anyway, the most compelling message may have been the 60-second pitch for the Church of Scientology. It starts with the dubious claim, “Every day millions of people ask, ‘What is scientology?’ ”

Millions? Really? At least the claim establishes the theme for the commercial. It never really says what Scientology is, of course. Rather, it encourages people to “Come take a look” and “Decide for yourself.”

Christian churches might do well to emulate such a low-key, “Our doors are open to all” approach, though it could be argued that not a lot of people are listening anymore.

Also effective was the 30-second pitch for Hallow, a Roman Catholic prayer app. “Join us for prayer this Lent,” movie star Mark Wahlberg urges. Of all the celebrity pitches during Super Bowl commercials, this one seemed the most personal and authentic.

Curiously, another personal and authentic message seemed to fall flat. This was the brief anti-hate ad featuring Clarence Jones, an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. “Sometimes I imagine what I would write today for my dear friend, Martin,” Jones says.

To us, he says, “All hate thrives on one thing: silence.” He concludes: “When we stand up to silence, we stand up to all hate.”

A strong message, but somehow it didn’t connect with me. Maybe just me?

Two other messages were part of the “He Gets Us” campaign supported, in part, by the founders of the Hobby Lobby chain.

The ad in the second quarter, lasting only 15 seconds, asks, “Who is my neighbor?” After a series of photos of people who mostly look on the down and out, it says, “The one you don’t notice, the one you don’t value, the one you don’t welcome.”

Those are our neighbors! Great message! Though maybe it’s so short and punchy it gets lost in all the ad clutter.

A similar message gets blurred in the first-quarter “He Gets Us” ad, a 60-second look at foot washing.

Not surprisingly, some observers were simply baffled by this, a few even wondering if it involves a foot fetish. Others railed at the “woke” nature of it all and claimed satanic influence. Both responses show how ignorant of Christian basics many people are.

The ad is intended to be provocative. It hits on many of our hot button issues, without apology. It pairs apparently unlikely people: a cop washing the feet of a Black youth, for example, or an anti-abortion protester washing the feet of a pregnant woman about to enter an abortion clinic.

It concludes: “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.”

The stated goal of the “He Gets Us” campaign is "sharing the life and love of Jesus in thought-provoking new ways." Maybe the message would be better received if some of the sponsors were not so vocal in their opposition to birth control, abortion, or the rights of LGBTQ people, among other things.

And maybe the millions of dollars somebody paid for these ads might be better spent actually working in the fields among those unnoticed, unvalued, unwelcome folk whom Jesus wants us to care about.

But, hey, at least somebody tried to slip in a little religion of some kind in a very long evening otherwise devoted to selling the excesses of pop culture and mindless chatter from football commentators.

All are welcome

Who knew you could pick up good theology from the back of a cereal box?

When I was a kid, I read the back of cereal boxes while munching breakfast. They made great reading because they were always selling cool stuff like sets of green army men and Tony the Tiger punching bags.

I once badgered my parents into ordering one of those punching bags for me. A century or so later (“allow up to six weeks for delivery”), I received a TINY plastic Tony the Tiger punching bag that didn’t survive more than a few six- or seven-year-old punches.

It was one of my first clues that the real world wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. If you can be bamboozled by Tony the Tiger, who can believe in heroes anymore?

The other day, while getting ready to make Chex Mix for Super Bowl munching, I read the back of a Kellogg’s cereal box. (The local Price Chopper suddenly dropped most Best Choice versions. Boo!)

Imagine my surprise when I read the main headline on the back of the box:

“EVERYONE DESERVES A PLACE AT THE TABLE.”

The first word, “everyone,” is in red. You can’t miss the emphasis.

Turns out, it’s part of a campaign to support NaviLens, a service for the visually impaired that uses color QR codes.

But it’s actually so much more than that. It’s a huge statement of faith.

Everyone deserves a place at the table that God sets for us in God’s kingdom, as well as in the miserable counterfeit thing we call “the real world.”

To be sure, no one actually deserves such a place. Not one of us. But God graciously invites all of us to the table anyway.

To be sure as well, many Christians want to limit access to God’s table. No, they say, God only invites the holy – you know, those folks just like you and me.

It’s a lie. God loves everyone, and God wants everyone to join in the banquet of grace. Sure, everyone – that is, every last one, of all theological stripes and all manner of sin and all degree of holiness or lack thereof – will be changed by the experience.

That’s part of the point. Sharing a meal with the Lord changes you. Or at least it ought to.

The next time you’re reading the back of a cereal box, remember the message from Kellogg’s: EVERYONE DESERVES A PLACE AT THE TABLE.

It’s a message from God, too. Come to the table and find out.

*   *  *  *  *

I’m still processing the messages of religious commercials from the Super Bowl. I’ll talk about them soon.

Children, grow up

As a standup comic might say, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

  Begin with an NFL quarterback who claims that the colors in a Super Bowl promotion reveal the pre-ordained winners of the game, even before the playoffs have narrowed the choices of who will play.

  Move to some grousing about how the Kansas City Chiefs are becoming a football “dynasty” because they’ve played in the Super Bowl so often recently. Remember, this is a team that for years routinely won the “race to the cellar” award.

  Now pop music superstar Taylor Swift is linked romantically with football superstar Travis Kelce, and she starts attending Chiefs games. Because she is clearly (and maybe even deservedly) the most famous person on the planet, the TV cameras occasionally show her among other notables in the Chiefs viewing box.

  Now there’s grousing about how all this attention to her distracts from the purity of the game. Like the endless commercials, constant self-promotion and inane chatter from the broadcasters are not even remotely distracting.  

  Children, grow up.

  Now the political hacks get into it. Seems it’s all part of some huge conspiracy to swing voters to vote Democratic. Swift has jillions of fans who might do her slightest bidding. Kelce is known to drink Bud Lite, and he supports vaccinations. This all has cosmic implications.

  Children, grow up.

  It has been noted that real children are watching the behavior of the so-called adults in the room, and they are not likely to be impressed.

  The other day I noticed a long trail of beer cans along the side of an entrance ramp to a local highway. A very long line. This was no casual “aerial burial.” This was a deliberate act of vandalism.

  Children, grow up.

  Isn’t it past time for the cultural vandalism to stop?

  We who claim the name Christian say we are maturing in Christlikeness, growing into the image of Christ. Don’t we need to show the world this better way?

  I’m thinking beyond a snort and eye roll the next time you encounter a bizarre conspiracy theory being touted as truth.

  A simple, pointed, skeptical question might be enough. “How can you believe such a thing?”

  Arguing “facts” will only take you down the conspiracist rabbit hole. Don’t go there. Simply ask why the person believes such a thing can be true. This is about belief, not facts. It may be a superficial thing, or something far deeper and more personal. Push gently because you can’t know how much the person has invested in the lie.

  In the New Testament, we are told not to believe every spirit but to “test the spirits” to make sure they’re from God (1 John 4:1). In the context, John is arguing for the divinity of Jesus, against those who deny it. But there are many false spirits in the world, and there are many ways to be led astray.

  The best way to counteract any false path is to live faithfully and stay committed to the true Way without being distracted by the false spirits.

  Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will lead us to all truth (John 6:13). When you consider any assertion, ask what spirit might have led you to it. Can you be sure that you were led by the Spirit of Christ? Might some other agent have been at work?

  Here’s a basic litmus test. God is love, and the Spirit will always lead us to act in love. If the “truth” you proclaim is not loving, it cannot have come from God.

  Children, grow up.

Hard conversations

It started 14 years ago with a postcard and a simple invitation:

Race.

Your thoughts.

6 words.

Please send.

  Michelle Norris, a widely respected Black journalist, hardly expected the huge response she received – first on thousands of postcards, then an avalanche of electronic replies when she expanded the project to a website.

  The Race Card Project, as she called it, was intended to be a conversation starter. It has been that, and much more, and yet it can be argued that the conversation needs to be expanded so much farther. So many of our conversations remain hidden.

  Norris tells her story, and many others, in a new book, Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Diversity. A friend kindly loaned me her copy (thanks, Patti!), and over the last week I’ve made my way through its 400-plus pages.

  Yes, it’s a big book, in a big format, on glossy paper with lots of color photos – a fitting format for its subject. Reading it blew me away. It is so much more than I expected.

  “I started this exercise because I thought no one wanted to talk about race,” Norris says. Turns out, a lot of people do – at least in the safety of the relative anonymity allowed by a postcard or an email.

  Norris says the six words of her invitation “could make you gasp or smile or wonder about the full story behind that brevity.” In her book she explores many of those stories more deeply.

  It is truly amazing what can be said in only six words, a miracle of compression.

·       I’m their Mom, not their nanny.

·       No, where are you really from?

·       That’s funny. You don’t look Jewish.

·       I forget I am not White.

·       I can’t help being born White.

·       Black babies cost less to adopt.

  And hundreds more. Plus, I learned these things, among others:

·       Jan. 1 was Heartbreak Day on the plantation, when families might be split up as slaves were sold to pay off debts.

·       One in five marriages in America is interracial.

·       The phrase “the real McCoy” is named after a Black inventor, Elijah McCoy, the son of former slaves who escaped to Canada. In 1871 he invented a lubricating device for steam locomotives that became the industry standard.

·       The phrase “cotton pickin’ ” was first used to describe slaves – and only much later, as when I first heard it as a child, as a euphemism for “goldarned,” itself a euphemism.

·       How do you define racism? If you’re Black or Brown, Norris says, you probably don’t need a definition, though a lot of White people do. It’s a lot like the question posed to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” It’s an act of avoidance.

·       Book burning is only the beginning. In a library in Berlin where Nazis once burned books is this bronze plaque: “’That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.”

·       The horrors of lynching are such that even today in the South some communities won’t allow plaques to mark the sites where lynchings occurred.

When Barack Obama was elected president, some people spoke of America becoming “post-racial.” That notion was shattered, of course, when a certain White man came to the White House.

  When George Floyd was murdered by a White cop whose smirk as he did it betrayed his conviction that he could get away with it, there was talk of a racial awakening or reckoning in America. Such a national conversation has not happened, though it must if the issue of race is not to be our national undoing. This book is a major step toward such a conversation.

  Read more about it at https://michele-norris.com/theracecard/ or https://theracecardproject.com/.