The Good News Isn’t For Everyone

If you have ever been to a rock concert, you will have undoubtedly witnessed the customary exchange between the lead singer and the crowd: “How’s everybody doing tonight?” to which the appropriate response is a collective “Wooooo!” The gesture, of course, is a token tradition. It is a simple way to connect with the audience. Don’t, however, mistake it for a genuine question. Whether you are actually having the best night ever or the past few months have been nothing short of a dumpster fire, the correct answer is to cheer.

To feel a part of something greater than oneself is nothing to scoff at — many people come to church on Sundays for that very reason — but the events that actually shape a person’s life are often extremely intimate, one-on-one encounters. The German writer, Jean Paul Richter, once said, “In life, only a few persons influence the formation of our character; the multitude pass us by like a distant army. One friend, one teacher, one beloved, one club, one dining table, one work table, are the means by which his nation and the spirit of his nation affect the individual.” Whether it is the one coach that believed in us, the one song that always makes us cry or the one that got away, our lives are often shaped by one thing or one person at a time.

This is completely counterintuitive to the way we think. If we want to be successful in life, we are told we need to grow a massive following. The novelist Justin Bryan once bravely admitted, “If I only sold one copy of my next book, but that one reader had a deep, profound, and abiding experience with the book, fundamentally changing the way they see the world, that would suck.” In truth, we are repelled by oneness. It is the loneliest number.

Jesus, however, disagrees. He eschews the importance of having a wide social media base. Yes, the masses follow him, but he is most at home with an audience of one. He meets one-on-one with Nicodemus by night. He is one-on-one with the woman at the well. He does not demand the spotlight; rather, he fixes the spotlight on whoever is in front of him. Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but Christianity is not a religion because it is not for the masses; it is for you. Jesus makes clear that the Gospel is either for you or it’s for nobody. He forfeits the ninety-nine in order to save the one lost sheep. The multitudes pass by as he hones in on the loner.

The power of the gospel lies in its specificity. God’s love is not best expressed on a billboard but in a support group. He does not speak in blanket statements to the crowd, but a specific word to the individual. His chief concern is the very thing that keeps a person up at night. We may want to cover our bases and have a spiritually diverse portfolio: the teachings of Jesus combined with a high-paying job, three healthy children and six-pack abs. And yet, the Apostle Paul recognizes the singular nature of Christianity in his letter to the Ephesians: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” For Paul, there aren’t two of anything. One is enough. Jesus is the basket in which to put all of our eggs. He is the square on which to put all of our money down. Any other investments are a waste of time.

Only after recognizing that Jesus is the one Lord are we allowed to live fully and freely in the world. The more Jesus is seen as Lord, the more human we become. As Karl Barth once wrote, “We can permit ourselves to be more romantic than the romanticists and more humanistic than the humanists. But we must be precise.” To be as precise as possible, well, “X” marks the spot. The “X,” of course,” is the cross which is the exact location of our redemption, salvation and identity. Many of us feel like there is one thing in life that most defines us, whether it’s going to Harvard or getting a DUI. In the cross, however, God has permanently one-upped us. There is nothing that can outweigh its importance.

Patti Smith, who has performed in front of millions of people over the years, once had an extremely intimate experience of grace that would help shape her life. Back in 1956, when she was ten years old, living in rural New Jersey, she would accompany her mother to the A&P to buy groceries. While there, she saw a promotional display for the World Book Encyclopedia — the volumes were beautiful, the covers, forest green, the spines stamped in gold, and Volume One was ninety-nine cents with a ten-dollar purchase. At the time, money was tight — her father wasn’t working at the time and her mother was supporting them as a waitress. When she asked if they could buy it, her mother said, “Not now, Patricia. Today is not a good day.”

A week later, Patti’s mother sent her to the store. Patti had been thinking about the encyclopedias nonstop. She went straight to the World Book display. There was only one volume left. She put it under her windbreaker and says, in hindsight, you could have easily seen it. On her way out, she gets caught by the store detective — “the biggest man I had ever seen,” — who tells her that he’ll let her go as long as she promises she’ll confess what she’s done to her mom. The minute Patti gets home, she’s so anxious she vomits on the floor. And then tells her mom the whole story. And this is what happens next according to her:

My mother was a good mother, but she could be explosive, and I tensed, waiting for the barrage of verbal punishment, the sentencing that always seemed to outweigh the crime. But she said nothing. She told me that she would call the store and tell the detective I had confessed, and that I should sleep. When I awoke, sometime later, the house was silent. My mother had taken my siblings to the field to play. I sat up and noticed a brown-paper bag with my name on it. I opened it and inside was the World Book Encyclopedia, Volume I.

This very private experience had a profound effect on Patti Smith. It likely changed the way she saw herself and other people, the way she understood justice and mercy. The great novelist Cormac McCarthy once wrote, “Mercy is in the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.” The same applies with our salvation. God’s love may have been for the world, but the good news isn’t for everyone. It’s for you.