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BookReview: Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos

November 14, 2011 in being christian, books, creative writing, resources with 2 Comments

I thought I knew Jesus… Then I read Mikalatos’ book.

In one of the most imaginative works of Christian fiction that I’ve picked up in ten years, Matt Mikalatos brings his own search for the “real Jesus” to life… in a weird, out-of-body kind of way.

The story opens in a communist coffee house, somewhere in Portland… Matt narrates in first-person, occasionally speaking directly to the Imaginary Jesus that has joined him for latte and vegan chili. The tranquility is broken when a large, hairy brute (who later identifies himself as the Apostle Peter) enters the room and punches Imaginary Jesus in the face…

As Imaginary Jesus flees the confrontation and Mikalatos pursues him, we encounter an ex-prostitute, a talking donkey, an atheist Bible study group, George Barna (eating a vegan taco salad at the same communist cafe) and a host of other imaginary Jesuses…

The razor wit with which Mikalatos vivisects our tendency to create Jesus in our own image is both entertaining and poignant… Nobody’s Jesus is off-limits: Business-suit Jesus tells us that everyone creates a convenient version of Jesus to believe in, only to discard him when he becomes irrelevant. Men’s Retreat Jesus speaks in barely intelligible sentences, cries like an 8-year-old girl and is so easily manipulated that he follows the principal characters around for several chapters like a lost puppy. Social Justice Jesus has hands but no mouth… Legalist Jesus has a loud voice and no arms…

Wherever you land theologically, you’ll laugh at the Jesuses that you don’t like and fume when he slices to bits the Jesus that you do…

And when he finally encounters the real Jesus (ironically, hanging out in a prayer labyrinth) it will touch you to the core…

This book has been around a while and is actually being reissued under the title My Imaginary Jesus, which includes an interview with the author and a discussion guide…

Definitely worth a read.

You can purchase the Kindle edition here… or if you’re more old school, the paperback is here.

Defending the Godspell, Part 3: The Chief Clown…

January 28, 2011 in being christian, leadership, theatrical with 1 Comment

Jesus, as he is portrayed in the film version of Godspell...

I have to launch into this with a disclaimer:

I’m not a big fan of the clown imagery in Godspell.

Can I have my eternal life back now?

Seriously, as a follower of Jesus, I find the idea that Jesus is a clown a bit disrespectful. I don’t really think that was the Tebelak’s intent in writing the character that way, but calling someone a “clown” is not generally a favorable comment. Tebelak is no longer around to question about this, so I’m going to speculate on his intent and extrapolate (what I believe is) a better alternative.

The notes by Stephen Schwartz that have been added to the Godspell script since Tebelak’s death, give us some basic instructions about the character of Jesus in the show:

It is important that Jesus be the leader at all times… Even when a game or parable is initiated by another, there should be a clear sense that it is done for and with the master’s approval… It is easy for the show to appear to be “Jesus and His Nine Zany Friends;” this is wrong… (if He is) too “serious” or passive, the balance of the show is distorted. He is, if you will, the Chief Clown, in that He must drive the action at all times…

Jesus… must be the most charismatic individual in the cast. High energy, charming, funny, gentle but with strength. He is the sort of person others instinctively follow.

Tebelak’s use of the clown imagery was influenced by Harvey Cox’s essay and lecture entitled Christ the Harlequin, in which Cox emphasizes joy, festivity and holy mirth, saying:

The recent focus of theology has been on doubt, unbelief, or on the church’s mission to the world. All this is very important, but what has been missing is the joy of serving.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838029,00.html#ixzz1CMCiLgyB

This also correlates to Tebelak’s view of the Church, which I’ll tackle in another post, that the experience of following Jesus should be one of joyful volunteerism and fun. He even goes so far as to contrast this with the dutiful piety of the Pharisees.

The other obvious reason for using a theatrical device like this is to cast off the “religiosity” that has come to surround the image of Jesus. I’ve said before that I find it difficult to relate to most (if not all) of the iconic images of Jesus. And it was for the sake of relating to people that Jesus put aside His equality with the Father and “became flesh” (Philippians 2:6-8)…

Jesus should be, above all else, relatable… or we’ve missed the boat. It is not blasphemous or irreverent to portray Jesus as a real guy, with real feelings in a theatrical setting… I’m not talking about a “Buddy Christ” who winks at wrong-doing, but rather a relatable Jesus who is touched by our weaknesses and loves us in spite of them.

A Jesus, worthy of worship… worthy of sharing…

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name…  (The Bible, Philippians 2)

So, we’ve decided to make sure that we’ve removed the religious trappings from Jesus’ appearance… No beard, for starters, and embrace a “normal” and simple style… a T-shirt-and-jeans-Jesus who might meet you at Starbucks or McDonald’s…

Which, by the way, I’m off to another meeting about our Godspell production…

Defending the Godspell, Part 2: Super Jesus…

December 13, 2010 in being christian, leadership, theatrical with 1 Comment

I've alway struggled with the image of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild, chasing the moneychangers out of the Temple with the power of his perfectly-groomed beard...

“Who do you say that I am?”

I wonder if Peter ever wondered how he seemed to always end up in these situations: on the receiving-end of some hard question or seemingly impossible command…

From the outside, it’s pretty obvious: Peter couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. He volunteered for most of the hard questions… He volunteered to step out of the boat…

Sometimes, I’m like Peter: my enthusiasm puts me out here on the limb, answering hard questions and fending off critics… And today, the Master is asking me that same hard question that He asked Peter…

“What about you, Tim. Who do you say that I am?”

You are the Messiah… The Only Son of the Most High God…

“So, how do you think that Superman shirt looks on me?”

I confess, I’ve never really understood the controversy of the Superman shirt in Godspell… It is Jesus’ traditional costume in the show… It sets him apart from the rest of the players.

So, I had someone spell out the argument for me… It goes like this:

Jesus was the Humble King… He was always Clark Kent and never Superman. He described Himself as “meek and lowly” and he never set Himself up as the Hero. The people in that time were looking for a Hero to overthrow the Romans, but that was never Jesus’ intent. His humility was His defining virtue and He never put on any show of strength…

You get the idea… and for my part, I see that Jesus was all of those things, BUT He also did some things that set Him apart as the Hero:

Jesus questioned the Pharisees… Moreover, He refused to answer their questions and even rebuked them publicly. Normal Jewish people in the first century didn’t ever do that…

Jesus threw the money-changers out of the Temple… He went to worship and found people selling sub-standard sacrificial animals in the Temple court. He picked up a whip and went to work, turning over tables and chasing the scoundrels out into the street…

Of course, anyone with enough zeal and cheek could have done these things… It wouldn’t take Superman…

But then He healed the sick, brought sight to the blind, made the lame walk… He even demonstrated that He was empowered to forgive sins…

Then there was that whole scene of raising Lazarus from the dead…

Sounding more and more “super” to me all the time…

He also said some incredible things about Himself:

“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God.”

“I am the Vine, you’re my branches.”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to God except through me.”

And as if just for dramatic effect, Jesus took 3 of His followers up the mountain and revealed Himself in His radiant glory…

My concern is that the Superman shirt is too weak as a metaphor… It never crossed my mind that the comparison might be too strong.

I think that it is an over-simplification to say the Jesus was always Clark Kent… Jesus is and was fully God and fully man… A complete representation of Jesus will show Him to be both human and divine:

Jesus humanity is more apparent in Godspell than His divinity… It’s not that His divinity is denied – it’s established at the very beginning of the show… But the theme of Godspell is the community that Jesus built around Himself and His teaching, so it’s His humanity that is emphasized.

A small, visual reminder of the power He is containing seems appropriate to me.

So, what do you guys think about the Superman shirt? Does it represent Jesus?

NEXT UP: The Chief Clown… Why dress Jesus up like a clown? Is there a point to it?

Defending the Godspell: Part 1…

December 12, 2010 in being christian, leadership, theatrical with 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned recently that I’m planning a production of Godspell with LVC Creative Arts in the spring…

There have been some questions about the show from friends, from production leaders that I have recruited and from my pastor…

Valid questions and concerns along with non-issues that grow out of a misunderstanding of the show’s actual content… some of the misunderstandings are centered around the 1973 film version of the show and some of them grow out of rumor and innuendo that has little ground in fact but has, nonetheless, persisted in evangelical and traditional Christian circles for nearly 40 years.

About a month ago, I jotted down a few thoughts in the form of a single post with the title, Defending the Godspell, but as the questions have piled up, I decided that it needs a bit more treatment than my typical 500-word format will allow… The single post has grown into a fairly protracted discussion that I have moved from the GodspellColorado website to this one for a number of reasons…

First, this is primarily a discussion between Christ-followers and the GodspellColorado site is primarily used to promote the show to non-believers… We Christians have a reputation in the world at-large for being argumentative and some of the issues with Godspell are polarizing among believers… I would rather have the “family” disagreement apart from the scrutiny of people who would not understand or care about the outcome of the discussion.

Secondly, I want to welcome the input of the community that has grown up around WorshipOnPurpose… The majority of the questions are going to come from a more theological worldview and I’d like to hear the thoughts of other artists and Christian leaders…

So, the first discussion is coming in a day or two… Prepare ye…

NEXT UP:  Jesus in a Superman shirt… The controversy that I still don’t understand.

RetroPost: Initiating Contact…

September 23, 2010 in being christian, featured artists, GiveBack with 1 Comment

After talking with FeaturedArtist: Troy Rowe last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of artists helping out ministries and missionaries… Here are some thoughts from June 2009 about artists initiating contact (with annotations in orange)…

"This is Joe, let me tell you his story..."

"This is Joe, let me tell you his story..." Tree by brionnasweetie2 on flickr

Do you know any missionaries… personally?

I remember the very first conversation that I ever had with a missionary… I was 11. The conversation was about Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which had just hit theaters. He was excited about the movie and I was feeling very mature because a bona-fide grown-up was having a conversation with me.

One minute we were debating whether Darth Vader was lying about being Luke’s father… the next minute, we were talking about hand-carved jewelry from Sri Lanka and how selling it was changing the socio-economic landscape of the village where he worked.

It’s been like that with virtually every missionary that I’ve known or talked to… They simply can’t help but tell their story.

Let’s help them…

Phil Cooke observes that “branding” is the visual hook for your story (in his book, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-profits Impact Culture and Others Don’t).  What a number of independent missionaries need is a branded presentation that provides audiences with a visual hook. For a skilled graphics designer, this isn’t much more than a doodle. I work with a missions organization that recently had a pro designer volunteer to rework the branding… it has had a tremendous impact.

The other thing that could really change the impact of a missions presentation is a video or some quality photo images.  We’re going to talk later in the week with a student filmmaker who has put together a brief documentary-style presentation for a missionary.  Watch that video here. It presents the vision and mission in a powerful and engaging way that makes a great opener for the missionary’s presentation…

I mentioned poor photo quality yesterday and I wanted to touch on that again. Church groups that go on mission trips should take a photographer and let that be her designated job for the duration of the trip. I have been trawling through Flickr.com, looking for mission trip photos to invite to our Flickr Friday slideshow. There are LOTS of photos of the “people on the team” but almost never any with the missionary and very few good shots of the people being served. In other words, the photos are for the home church, not the missionary. I met a guy on Flickr who goes on missions trips with his church as “the photographer” and I’ll be sharing his story in the FeaturedArtist slot sometime in November…

This is where the focus needs to change and this is the practical reason that the artist should initiate contact with the missionary.  We’ve got to find out what his story is… then we’ll know which photos to take, what footage to grab, which of the people being served has a story that the missionary likes to tell in presentations.

The other reason that we need to initiate contact is spiritual… Artists have so-called critical thoughts like, I could take a better photo than that one, often because the Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts about a need we can fill in that person’s ministry. Initiating contact becomes a matter of obedience to God.

In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), Jesus makes it clear that once we become aware of a need, we are responsible to meet it as if it were Jesus himself in need. These missionaries that we’re talking about live that out in their daily lives and we can contribute to that work in ways that are empowering and engaging.

And remember that offering the works of our bodies as living sacrifices is our own spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1)…

Are you getting any ideas?
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