The Last Shall Be First

A Generous Orthodoxy has me thinking tonight about these words of Christ. We say that "Jesus is Lord," but what do we mean by that? McLaren discusses a couple of meanings, but I'm just going to mention one of them here. The image of a master/slave relationship. The apostle Paul claimed to be a "bond-servant" of Christ. This was, essentially, a slave, as a debtor would be enslaved to the debt-holder until the debt had been paid off. Christ, however, taught that the master/slave relationship was one in which the master served the slave. This is very radical thinking. When Paul claimed to be a slave of Christ, I believe that he understood this. He knew the people who were Christ's closest friends when Christ was executed. He had spoken with the first people to have seen Christ after the resurrection. I believe that Paul fully understood that Christ suffered death on purpose and for him (and us as well). This was Paul's view of his master, the suffering Servant.

McLaren goes on to remind his readers that Christ is still very clearly the One who calls the shots. Christ is not "our wish-granting genie, taking commands from us" (p. 84). This is a very important reminder. Christ gave all that could be given, no more, no less. This was done in the spirit of a Servant. We, on the other hand, seem to think that God still owes us something. In doing that, we place ourselves first (and the second part of the quote that I used for the title of this post tells us what happens to those who are first...). The fact is, God doesn't owe us anything. We may desperately want to think that God does, but it just isn't so. God does not owe us an explanation for tsunamis or earthquakes or cancer or plentiful crops or a great new job or anything else, whether bad or good. We may want them, desperately want them, but we are not owed them. If we were owed those explanations, then God would not be a god of any type. Reflection on that would add a whole lot more to this post, so I think I'll leave it at that.