Last night someone said they had never seen a picture of Jesus laughing. And I know what they meant. This is the stylised image we have of Jesus:

(Sorry – wrong pose – here He is)

Our Church. The Sanctuary. The inner sanctum. Where God and Jesus live.

Holy. Polished. Revered. Where we scrub up clean. Where we are washed clean again. Quietly. Reverently. Righteously. That’s the stylised image of church.

And it got me pondering. Why do we prefer our Jesus image to be holy, calm, quiet, thoughtful, tender, silent, constant, eternal, unchanging (and please accept I am guessing on your behalf)?

Because the verses this morning are:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15:1-10

These people are noisy. These people are raucous. These people are not generally attracted to confessional silent reverence. That is the stylised image of sinners: bad people … Lost World people … drunkards … licentious … unchurched … party people … noisy people … irreverent people … “not our kind of people at all” people.  And yet … tax collectors and sinners gathered … to hear Jesus.

(and yet WE name ourselves “sinners” week after week … really????)

I remember reading a book by Anthony Robbins – a NeuroLinguistic Programming, NLP, guru – years ago.  He described how he led group sessions for depression. He wrote how he would see all these depressed folks arriving in their cars, chatting to each other, doing all the usual “interaction” stuff we do before the lights go down. And then the lights went down, and out he stepped to call them to order: We are here talk about depression …

And every head went down a little, shoulders slumped a little more, and the “I am depressed” pose swept through the room.

Sort of like I see Sundays: Let’s all prepare for worship …. And the “I am a Christian” slump sweeps through the Sanctuary.

And yet … tax collectors and sinners gathered … to hear Jesus.

Last night someone said they had never seen a picture of Jesus laughing. And I know what they meant. So this morning I went off and found one.

As with all images used in blogs, copyright is an issue. The Mona Lisa? Tricky!!  Whose copyright of which version of which reproduced image? Stylised Jesus? Tricky!! Same difficulty, same reasons.

But laughing Jesus? When it comes to a “laughing Jesus” I found this:

Who created the iconic image of Laughing Jesus?

It got me thinking: how come I can track back copyright of a “laughing Jesus” so quickly? And that left me pondering:

a) We seem to have established a hierarchy of sinning: the Okay kind – us … and the Not Okay kind – them.  I wonder why that is.  Which then caused me to ponder …

b) Just what is corporate worship doing to Jesus?  And why do we so often distance ourselves from “corporate worship” and “the church” – that institution we cannot change – that gets in the way of God?  Because that led me right back to …

c) We ARE corporate worship … we ARE the church … and until WE change … nothing changes.

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Susan Sayers was the person who asked the question last night.  She brought me closer to My God.  In church.  In a Sanctuary.  In corporate worship.

Here is a little about Susan Sayers

Thank you Susan, I think you prompted a lot of conversations with our Lord last night.

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