Some time ago I was asked to share with a small gathering on the practices of Jesus.  It seemed a daunting subject matter to broach, particularly in a way that felt applicable and not merely a case study on the life of Jesus that makes us feel his divinity is unreachable and we should stick to the practices of the modern world instead.  Things like social marketing strategy or attending parenting seminars.

Often times we are told to “be like Jesus” or “follow his teaching” in the way that we love others, stand up for social injustice, manage our finances, tend to the poor, serve our enemies, pursue relationships, forgive the seemingly unforgivable, resist temptation, the list goes on.  We can easily become overwhelmed by the amount of maturity it seems we need to walk as Jesus walked.  Messages we hear at church, even, become inspiring words to live by but fall easily away as unattainable standards, even though acknowledged as good and admirable.

Consider for just a moment how Jesus lived when he walked the dusty roads of Galilee in a time only too close to our own history, even though generations have walked between us.  In contemplating how Jesus lived, we may credit his ability to love the unloveable or extend compassion to the needy on his divine nature, not necessarily his human one.  And yet, even knowing that he was the Son of God and his followers were not, but rather perfectly mortal, he still told those that walked alongside him bizarre declarations such as “You can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea and it will be done.’”  Or “Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these…”  In essence his words implied that one doesn’t need to be both fully God and fully man, as he was, to do as he did or to walk in the ways he had taught.

So there you have it.  As human as we are we can move mountains with a word and bring the dead to life with but a touch.

Not exactly.

Jesus was not merely implying that you need only to be human to be as himself.  Otherwise the teachings of Jesus can easily be inserted into self-help books to procure the same results.  No irony perhaps that indeed they are, and we eat up the teachings of Jesus in only the guise of our humanness, and for more money.

No.  Instead he is saying that even in our humanness when we do these things through God himself, then, and only then, does it become possible to walk as Jesus walked.  As cliche as that phrase might sound and sit you back in an uncomfortable church pew where you were made to dress well and listen to the drone of a righteousness to-do list, to walk as Jesus is anything but that.  If you know him and his story, you know that he repeatedly chose the harder way.  The way that we are often scared, or otherwise too proud to take, knowing that it may inhibit the self that we want so desperately to accomplish.

Listen to these words of Jesus.  There is something in them indicating that we need to move beyond our own humanness, beyond self help strategy, to procure such outrageously vigorous and beautiful results.  And haven’t we all been trained to love results.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things that these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

What does this mean then?  And why doesn’t it always “work”.  I know several people have asked for several things, not all of which come to be, and devastatingly so.

While this is not a writing on suffering and the “Why, God” that often accompanies prayers seemingly gone unanswered, there is another questions I have heard asked and have asked often enough myself:

How do I know I am asking for the “right” thing?  I naturally want to ask the question that will come with the most favorable answer, and meanwhile don’t want to simply ask for the mere sake of self-betterment or personal boasting or this attainment of pastor punctuated upright living.  So what did Jesus do that grants us the ability to not merely ask but receive?  Do I need to ask differently?  Do I need to give myself more grace?  Or maybe instead strive to be more free of sin?

Every app has an algorithm that the user can unlock in order to receive the most benefits of that particular tool.  So what is the Jesus algorithm?  What do I need to do in order to get what I ask for and so procure the benefit of following him?  Because if we’re honest with ourselves, these words are one of the reasons we thought about following Jesus in the first place, are they not?  “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

The Jesus Algorithm.  Can you spot it?

“While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.”

“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

“Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”

“When Jesus heard what had happened [referring to John the Baptist’s beheading], he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.”

“With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.”

“But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.” (Apparently this jaunt, from Galilee to Jerusalem, was a 90 mile hike, giving him five days in solitude.)

“Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here, while I go over there and pray.’ And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.  Then he said to them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’  And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’”

Jesus sat with his Father.

All that he encompassed, not only in the sacrifice of himself, but in the captivating life that he lived, was not solely rooted in his divinity, but in his human ability to commune with the divine.

It would do us well to keep in mind that even Jesus did not receive all that he asked for.  The night of his betrayal he pleaded with God in severe overwhelmment that the road he was about to walk might be taken from him.  Yet he knew that the emotional state of even his own soul kept him from being able to ask for what was best and only for what was desired.  And so, with perspiring drips of blood, he groaned the words, not what I want, God, but what you want.

The Jesus algorithm is not about receiving all that we want, or even desperately plead for.  While some longings are joyously gifted, others are left in weeping desire.  Yet we can be strangely confident even still that our posture of prayer gives us courage to utter “whatever you want, God” when we know our hearts are too desperate for only one answer.  And strangely confident even further that the answer we receive is somehow what was needed.

The divinity of Jesus brought him to life on that third day, but his humanness brought him to his knees. 

A humanness we know all too well.

A humanness we can readily embrace.