Unexpected
Whenever I want to have a conversation about living life the best way possible, I start by looking at Jesus. I consider his cultural context, circumstance, and specific mission in life. I listen closely to his teaching and pay attention to the way he lived and moved through the world. From these things, I can draw some conclusions about his philosophy on living and what it means to be a whole human being. And, then, I can begin to think about my life. I can think about my cultural context, circumstances, and specific mission in life. I can think about my hopes, dreams, skills, and desires. Only then can I ask myself how Jesus would live, if he were me, and go and do likewise.
So, it stands to reason that we will need to examine the rights and responsibilities of Jesus as we enter into an examination of our own. How did Jesus live within his rights and exercise his responsibilities as a human being?
As I said in my last post, there are many ways to understand rights and responsibilities. To recap, I’m defining rights as things that you are born into, things that are just true about you because of who you are, where you were born, etc. You can think about these in the context of your birth nation: you did not earn your rights there, they were just given to you when you were born by virtue of being born there. I’m defining responsibilities as more fluid. Responsibilities are things that you can work for, earn, or lose. A job, family, skill, or obligation are examples of responsibilities. As a citizen of the United States of America, I have the right to vote, but I have the responsibility to take care of my family. Not every American citizen has a family, but every American citizen is born with the right to vote.
Now, to an incomplete list of Jesus’ rights and responsibilities.
Jesus was a human being, so we know that he was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Side note: Jesus was God, so this can get a bit existential and trippy, if you let it. Right now, we are focusing on Jesus the human, not Jesus, God. Something made in the image of its maker has the right to reverence, respect, and care. I believe that Jesus, and every other human being, has the right to be treated with dignity and respect just by virtue of existing.
As a human being, Jesus had the right to choose how he would live his life (Proverbs 16:9, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Genesis 2:16). Every human that’s ever existed has the right to choose what they will do when they get up in the morning. Of course, our circumstances, such as the Roman occupation of Jesus’ day, will limit our choices, but we still have agency or free will. This was Jesus’ right.
Finally, Jesus was also God. The earth is not only his nation of origin, but his Kingdom (Psalm 24:1). He made it. So, just by nature of existing and being born, Jesus had the right to rule and restore his Kingdom. It was actually through the exercising of our (read: humanity’s) right to choose how we will live that the Kingdom got into such a shape that it needed restoration (Romans 8:20-25, Genesis 3:16-24). I won’t be discussing this today, but it’s important to note.
I’ve pulled out three rights that Jesus Christ had when he lived on earth:
The right to be treated with dignity and respect
The right to choose how he would live
The right to rule and restore the earth (his Kingdom)
Now, for the responsibilities.
Jesus had a job. Before he was an itinerant teacher and healer, Jesus worked with his hands in his hometown at a trade that he learned from his earthly father, Joseph. It’s long been assumed that Jesus was a carpenter, but scholars recently have noted that the word often translated as “carpenter” could be used to mean any sort of skilled labor with hands. So, a stone mason, builder, or carpenter would all work. (Read more here) Jesus had the responsibility to do his job and do it well to support himself and his family.
After about thirty years working in his hometown with his hands, Jesus switched careers to become a rabbi. In this job, he had similar responsibilities (do the job and do it well), but there were some added ones that I’d like to point out. As a teacher of God’s word, Jesus had the responsibility to teach truthfully and carefully (2 Timothy 3:16-4:2). He said himself that it would be better for someone to be drowned at the bottom of a lake than to lead someone astray in your vocation of teaching (Luke 17:2). That’s a lot of responsibility.
Finally, Jesus had a responsibility to suffer the consequences of his actions. This might sound a little strange because, as a person who believes the Bible is true, I would say that Jesus was perfect- he never did anything wrong (Hebrews 4:15). Can I ask you a question, though? When was the last time that you or someone you know did the right thing and had to suffer negative consequences? Did you lovingly support a friend or family member only to have them steal from or betray you? Did you operate with integrity at work, following all the policies and procedures, and still get accused of dishonesty? It happens all the time. Jesus lived a perfect life and did exactly what he came to earth to do and, yet, he suffered: the Romans murdered him with no crimes ascribed to his name (Luke 23:13-16).
The three responsibilities of Jesus Christ that I focused on are:
The responsibility to perform his job and perform it well
The responsibility to teach God’s word truthfully and carefully
The responsibility to suffer the consequences of his actions
I have pulled out these examples because I think that they are broadly applicable to us today. Every human being has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. All people have the right to choose how we will live. Everyone that I know has the responsibility to perform some kind of job or vocation and perform it well. Anyone who wants to teach the word of God, or any other subject for that matter, has the responsibility to do so truthfully and carefully. And I haven’t met anyone yet who hasn’t had to suffer the consequences of their actions, whether their actions were good, right, and just or bad, wrong, and wicked.
You’ll notice that I left Jesus’ last right off that list. That one is pretty unique to him and we’ll come back to it because there’s something really beautiful about how Jesus goes about renewing and restoring his Kingdom.
I want you to take some time to reflect on these lists and see if you can add to them. What other rights do you see in the life of Jesus? What other responsibilities did he have? What might all of this have to do with you?
It doesn’t matter that I’m not a first-century Jewish rabbi living in Palestine. I have the right to be treated with dignity and respect. I have the right to choose how I will live my life. I have the responsibility to do my job, teach truthfully and carefully, and deal with the consequences of my actions, both positive and negative. These things just are what they are. The learning curve, for me, comes when I see how Jesus did this.
I believe that Jesus, because he was God, was actually owed a lot more dignity and respect than he got. He was mocked, thought to be crazy, and ultimately murdered (Mark 14:65, Mark 3:20-22, Matthew 27:33). Jesus could have chosen to live as a King, but he didn’t (Philippians 2:6-11). He chose to live as a common person, doing common things (Mark 6:3). Jesus was God and he not only became a human being, but he took the time to learn human skills and trades like building tables and walls (Mark 6:3). Don’t forget that this is the same being that created all that there is with his voice (John 1:1-5, Genesis 1:1-3).
Jesus shows us, in the most remarkable and backwards way, that our rights and responsibilities don’t always play out like we think they will. If we’re going to use him as our example, then we’re going to have to give up some of our rights, like those to being treated with dignity and respect. We’re going to have to take on responsibilities that we may think are beneath us, like learning something the long way around from someone we wouldn’t choose to learn from. We’re going to have to suffer the consequences of our actions, especially when we didn’t do anything wrong. Even though we have certain rights and responsibilities, we cannot walk around like we own the place. Jesus actually did own the place, but he certainly didn’t act like it, at least in the traditional sense.
And that’s why it was so incredible, to the first century religious leaders, that he claimed to be the Messiah. They knew that the Messiah would set things to rights. They knew that the Messiah would actually own the place. But they didn’t expect the Messiah to give up his rights. They didn’t expect the Messiah to put a different lens on his responsibility to rescue the Jews. (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:21, Micah 5:2, Psalm 2)
If Jesus Christ is anything, he’s unexpected.