Me, the Hypocrite

At the church I work at we are currently getting ready for our second year of an event called Shadows of the Cross. It's basically an interactive journey through Jesus' last week before the cross. Last year we made it feel like you were walking with Jesus through ancient Israel. This year is different, and we are mixing old and new images together as we interact with the words of Jesus during that last week; specifically as Luke repeats them. At each station there will be headphones where participants will actually hear Jesus' words spoken to them. As tiring as it has been, the reward has far outweighed the work. Personally, I've been put in charge of two stations, which I thought I'd describe right now (briefly).

My first station comes out of Luke 20, "the story of the corrupt farmhands" (Message). I am in the process of creating a small, fenced-in area that makes it feel like you are in a small farm. Once inside, the participant will hear Jesus' tale. Honestly, I think most people will just hear those words and think "wow, I can't believe those people didn't appreciate and respond to the prophets and Jesus...luckily I'm much better." As they leave the station, though, an interesting thing happens on the way to the next one. There will be a series of tombstones set-up, each with the name of a deceased prophet and a brief quote from each of them. Their words are just as condemning now, to us in our culture, as they were thousands of years ago. Whammy!

The second station I am doing comes from Luke 23, where Jesus goes before Pilate, then Herod, then Pilate again. Reading this a few times through, I began to notice something intriguing: Jesus is silenced, progressively pushed out of the narrative as the trial moves along. Read it right now and see for yourself. At first, his only words are an affirmation of Pilate's words which are spoken for Jesus. With Herod, he isn't quoted at all, just standing there being abused. Finally, when he's back with Pilate, he's barely even part of the fight any more. He's been banished to the shadows of the story, the least important character in his own Gospel. To show this progression, the station will have headphones playing the Sermon on the Mount on repeat. The action step is simple: take off the headphones while Jesus is still teaching. The reminder is painful: we just don't like to listen to Jesus. Along with it, I took some old artwork depicting the trial scene, and used my photoshop at home (I didn't really sleep last night) to blur, darken, and cover Jesus so he is barely seen in the paintings. It should be really amazing when it comes together.

Oh, so concerning the title. I've been working non-stop lately. I worked at home until 11:00 last night and started working at 5 today (obviously I'm taking a break at the moment, though), am driving 8 hours tomorrow to go to a memorial service, am then working another couple of days before going to a week-long camp right before Easter. The next weekend I have a retreat, followed by going to the Mustard Seed Conference the following weekend, and then the next weekend is our Spring Retreat, which is the biggest thing my ministry will do all year. Apparently I can tell everyone else about Sabbath, rest, sanity, etc, but not live it out very well. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite today.

Peace,
Matt

Last note: I read this cool quote from Zechariah in the Message translation yesterday: "You're interested in religion, I'm interested in people" (7:6).

Currently Reading: Recently read The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis. I seem to enjoy the Narnia books less and less the further into the series I get. The first 3 are definitely my favorites so far. Late last night I started reading Selling Out the Church by Phillip D. Kenneson and James L. Street. I'm still not sure if it's very amazing, as much as I like their premise.