A Jesus for the twenty first century!
We just returned from a thanksgiving breakfast at our favorite restaurant where we were greeted warmly by old friends and acquaintances. Our waitress this time and we got into a brief discussion about whether Jesus hung out with the outcasts of his time and she stated that she did not believe that was so. We reminded her of Jesus dining with the despised and diminutive Roman tax collector who had climbed a tree in order to see his savior over the crowds. She did not seem to know about that. On a subsequent visit as she cared for us we asked her of what faith that she belonged. She stated her current church was a mainline named establishment that took its teaching from a multitude of differing churches to arrive at its credo.
We often wonder just what so many religious institutions that have sprung up around the nation over the last few decades get their idea of the Christ from. They certainly cannot be thinking of the Jesus who wrote in the sand as he told a group of the supposed righteous that those who have not sinned cast the first stone in regard to a woman who was up for stoning because she had been adulterous on her spouse. Could they have been talking about the Jesus who spent time with a despised by the Jews Samaritan woman at a local well who had five previous husbands and was living with a man to whom she was not married. Could they have been talking about the tale of the good Samaritan who took care of a total stranger whom two good Jews had passed by after he was set upon on a road strange to all of them.
It is not known what happened to the Conservapedia Bible project of a few years ago that was going to rewrite the Holy Bible to be more relevant to the needs and desires and prejudices of those who inhabit this century but we wonder if any of the things just mentioned in the above paragraph would have been included in it at all.
It is interesting to note that Mitt Romney, the failed Republican candidate of 2012 is leading by a wide margin over his fellows in an early presidential preference poll in a New England state as he mulls whether to try for a third run at the presidency of the United States. One of the reasons that Romney lost in 2012 was his famous private comments to a group of potential contributors where he stated that forty seven percent of Americans were net takers and the fifty three percent who were not were supporting them. Could it be that enough Americans have changed their minds about that in four years to actually elect him to the presidency in 2016? Given a second chance will these people come out in enough force to put the supposed forty seven percent in their place and cast this nation on a new course so very judgmental against those who will no longer form a majority in this nation any longer. Have they forgotten Jesus admonition: “Judge not lest yea be judged”?
In the last parable that he stated before his arrest and subsequent trial and execution, Jesus Christ talked, in the book of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 31 through 46, about those who treated God well by their various actions including taking in strangers and visiting the sick and those in prison, and how, at the end of it all, that they themselves would be treated in heaven. “As yea treat the least of these, yea treat me” it says at one point in this fifteen verse homily pertaining to those less fortunate in life. How will those who espouse this new Jesus and his revised teaching explain that away. Perhaps it will not be in the new Bible as well.
To try to pigeon hole Jesus Christ and use him for a radical new agenda is a very dangerous game to play. For, no one was more counter culture and radical for his time that our Lord. Many theologians talk of wrestling with Jesus and his many sayings that defy both his contemporaries and even those of us who read him today. Jesus is not easy and to send those out into the world to preach a message that is far from the complete realities of the New Testament because they do not wish for them to know what that message really is, is indeed a dangerous game to embark upon. Jesus has been usurped for many reasons through the years mainly by those who are far away from his teachings and their total message of giving, service, and love. One theological scholar has called Jesus commandment to “love one another as I have loved you” the platinum rule even above the golden rule which states “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
If we are to gain admittance into heaven, we must embark on a course of service to others that includes feeding the poor and others in need with a giving heart that does not discriminate in any way, shape or form. It reminds us of the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to follow him and truly gain admittance into heaven. Jesus told him to give away all of his possessions and follow him. This the man was not willing to do and walked away sadly to presumably meet his later fate. And we forget the writings of St. Paul in Acts of the Apostles where he describes the early church as being truly communal in nature where everything was pooled and shared equally among all.
Those who profess to preach the gospel to others have a heavy responsibility to both know what they are talking about and to relay it correctly to those who so adore them and what they need to hear. We may want to hear that Mitt Romney’s 47 percent are those who are not productive and need, in reality, to be cast out from among us but that is not the message of the Christ. And, if religion and faith are to remain relevant to this new century that is growing so suddenly old, those who carry its torch must do a far better job of relaying the message of one who has remained relevant for two thousand years and almost twenty centuries now--Jesus Christ! We see an electronic billboard as we drive here in southern Illinois that asks if God has withdrawn his blessing for America? Nothing will cause him to do that any more quickly than if we withdraw our blessing for those who need it so.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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