One step beyond

Some of you might remember a song called ‘One Step Beyond’ by Madness from 1979. I'm going to take that phrase, ‘One Step Beyond,’ as a catchphrase for thinking about what Jesus meant by saying: "If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me.” As I do so I hope you will see why it is relevant that this catchphrase comes from a band called Madness.

To understand this key statement from Jesus about what it means to follow him we need to think through what he was doing by taking up his own cross. For me, in my journey of faith, a key verse for that understanding has been Romans 5. 6-8: “For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose. It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us – it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!”

Jesus took up his cross and died for us, who at that time were sinners – those opposed to and rebelling against God; in other words, the enemies of God. So these verses from Romans actually explain Jesus’ death as being the outworking of his own teaching because Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your friends and hate your enemies.' But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5. 43-45)

Now this pattern of teaching - ‘you have heard it said ... but I now tell you ...’ – is one that Jesus regularly uses and each time he uses it he is, in effect, saying, go one step beyond what people normally think is acceptable. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer them the other (Matthew 5. 39); if someone sues you for your shirt, let that person have your coat as well (Matthew 5. 40); if someone forces you to carry their luggage for one mile, then actually carry it for two (Matthew 5. 41). If someone says it is enough to love your neighbour, go one step beyond and love your enemies as well.

Jesus’ teaching and example in this respect are taken seriously in an important book called What would Jesus Deconstruct? by the Christian philosopher John Caputo. Here are some helpful quotes from Caputo’s book:

Jesus’ “life and death are marked precisely by excess, not the excess of violence but the excess of gift, of finding the point of equilibrium and then recommending the step beyond so that to follow in his steps is to be committed to taking an extra step, to going the extra mile. You have heard it said, love your friends and hate your enemies, but I say love your enemies ... The opposite of love is not hate ... but to be mean spirited, nit picking, parsimonious, never straying from inside the borders of an economy or a set of rules, never taking the risk of love. The only measure of love is love without measure.”

“The key to the kingdom is to love those who do not love you, who hate you, and whom you, by worldly standards, should also hate ... Loving the loveable is entirely possible but loving the unlovable, those who are impossible to love, that is when the kingdom reigns.”

“If you love those who love you, what good is that? It makes perfect sense. Even the mafia does that. The unaccountable excess of love is felt when you love your enemies, when you love the unlovable – those whom it is unreasonable to love – which is the madness of the kingdom ...”

This is, Caputo says, the madness of the kingdom. You can see now why it was appropriate that our catchphrase ‘One Step Beyond’ is the title of a song by Madness. The madness of this unaccountable excess of love - the impossible becoming possible – is what we see lived out in the life of St Francis of Assisi.

If you would like a suggestion for a book to read this Lent then I would suggest reading G.K. Chesterton’s biography of St Francis. In this book “Chesterton takes us into the life of St. Francis not by giving us a list of facts, dates, and accomplishments, but rather by taking us into the mind and heart of the man.”

Unlike the rich young ruler that Jesus asked to give away all he had to the poor, Francis literally abandoned his fine clothes, his possessions, his rights and the privileged life he had been living in order to help the sick and the lepers, and the derelicts and outcasts from society. He took on the clothing of a poor farmhand, the tunic which to this day is the trademark dress of the religious order he founded – the Franciscans. He kissed lepers, stripped himself of all possessions and clothing, gave his money away, and greeted animals as brothers and sisters.

Chesterton writes that “it was truly under the inspiration of his divine Master that St Francis did these ... quaint or eccentric acts of charity ...” and that in them he is a Mirror of Christ in which we see “something of gentle mockery of the very idea of possessions; something of a hope of disarming the enemy by generosity; something of a humorous sense of bewildering the worldly with unexpected; something of the joy of carrying an enthusiastic conviction to a logical extreme.”

It is our responsibility to do what Francis did and to fashion our lives on the pattern of Christ’s. Caputo writes that it “is our responsibility to breathe with the spirit of Jesus ”; to have “the same madness for the impossible and love of paradox which scrambles the laws of worldly common sense and submits them to the foolishness of the cross.”

How do we begin? By taking one step beyond! One step beyond the way in which we love now and one step beyond the people who we are comfortable in loving right now. One step beyond, may that be our prayer and practice this Lent and beyond.

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Donovan - Brother Sun, Sister Moon.