The eCrozier

We all have things we are sheepish about, particularly those things we know are sort of silly, but we like them anyway. Some call them “guilty pleasures.” I, like you, have them. So, I have a confession about my guilty pleasure: I like Superman – the comic books, the TV shows, the movies – all of them. I like Superman because, whatever trouble Lois Lane or Jimmy Olson ever got into, Superman could get them out. Whether they were in a car heading for a cliff or in a plane crashing to the ground, he would always rescue them “faster than a speeding bullet.”

I used to see Jesus as a Superman, only it wasn’t Lois and Jimmy in trouble, it was the disciples. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee. A raging storm comes upon the sea, so Jesus steps up and says: “Peace! Be still!” and the storm calms and everyone is safe. But in the Book of Job, God isn’t described as Superman, but rather as a mother who gave birth to the sea and who wrapped the clouds in diapers. This calls to mind that old Gospel: “Jesus, Savior, Pilot me,” where it says “as a mother stills her child thou canst hush the ocean wild.” So, maybe Jesus, rather than shouting at the storm, is actually singing a lullaby to it? “Peace, be still.”

I know from experience that you can’t calm a crying child playing Superman. I’ve tried it. I’ve thrown out my chest and yelled: “Hush!” It doesn’t work. Superman would be as helpless as I was with a crying child. He could force the child into silence by his strength, but a mother who calms a crying child does so using a different kind of power: the power of love. When a mother hears her child cry, she goes to the child and holds it securely. It’s not superhuman strength that calms the child, but rather it’s the loving arms of the mother and her closeness that gives her the power to calm her child.

I believe Jesus stills the storm like a mother calms her crying child. That means we should take the Gospel to others in lullabies, not shouts. We should hold others in the arms of love the way a mother holds a child. We should share the Good News the way a mother pleads with her child and not in the way that Superman dispatches evil ones. The Superman way isn’t the way of the cross. We need less high-testosterone evangelism and more maternal evangelism. I’m not suggesting some weak proclamation of the Gospel. We should never associate maternal love with weakness. I don’t know about your momma, but there’s nothing weak about my momma. She’s always been a force to be reckoned with.

No one will truly come to Jesus through high-powered force. And, even if they did, it wouldn’t be true to the mind of Christ. God’s love for us is more powerful than anything we could ever imagine, but it’s conveyed to us in a way that’s the exact opposite from how the world defines power. We live in a world that is crying out for God’s love, but does not know it. Our families and communities need it. The bitter partisanship we see across our nation should tell us that our nation needs it. Being true to heart of God, can we give up the “Muscular Christianity” we see being so ham-handedly displayed these days and simply learn to love one another with a motherly tenacity?

+Scott