" The End...or a New Beginning "
I am a " heretic "...for forty some years of reading the gospels ...Jesus consumes me. It's all I really think about. I continue to pick it apart like a mad man, a man possessed looking for a treasure. I know it is like the ocean, depths, fathoms of endless mystery. I dive off the edge of everything I know, holding my breath kicking pulling myself into it as far as I can go. I come up gasping for air drained by the experience...but excited to see something I hadn't seen before.
Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. There you go, I said it...my bad. God, the infinitely divine creator knows the condition of the human heart. You would think this cosmic creator, author and director of the human play could have fixed that little glitch before he pushed the start button. He didn't, and we can assume " all knowing " he knew what the outcome was going to be. Or, was it more magic rather than being wonderfully made and now he's thrown his arms in the air consigned to say " shit happens." A thought that keeps coming into my my mind like someone waving their hand in my face is, Jesus had the same heart. We're told he was fully God, and fully human. Think about that...it was not Jesus with maybe a God brain, and a God heart...and maybe God feet because he walked on water. It wasn't Jesus with some human bits, and a whole lot of God bits. Ok, go look in the mirror. There, that's what Jesus looked like...the ethnicity, gender might be different, but Jesus was no less human than you.
So there you have it, shit happens...God knows my heart. I'm going to screw up, I'm going to sin sometime today, tomorrow, the next day. So " no " I'm not saved from sin. And for all you religious folk, this might be my biggest sin..." I don't think Jesus cares."
Jesus was consumed with earth and all humanity...his did not come to turn us into some " pious and holier than thou gods ", and once we'd reached a certain level of sprituality we be ready to enter heaven's gates...which I believe is somewhere just left of " cloud nine."
In our world of sound bites, headlines, facebook status and tweets...today Jesus would likely post exactly what he did in the opening of Mark's Gospel ; "Time's up! God's kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message."
This post, proclamation did not come from the temple, the synogogue, the pulpit of a church, from the recliners of the philospohers den...it came into the midst of humanity. Jesus words engulfed all humanity, all religion and all philosphy. If Jesus the Word in Genesis spoke the embryonic beginnings of creation into existence, this was the Word with flesh and bones speaking a new creation into existence. It was all creation being re-iamgined in the profound mystery of " The Kingdom."
To change one's life is not to focus on sin. Remember, God knows the condition of the human heart, and shit does happen. But, when we constantly focus on sin, it is like being trapped in a spinning washer. It is a life constantly revolving around fear. It's feeling like dirt, guilty...to forgiveness, being momentarily clean...until the cycle repeats itself again, again and again. As much as you think it won't, it will, because that's life.
But something even more incideous is, you begin to think you got your shit together. Forget the log in your own eye, you begin to see with crystal clear clarity, the speck of saw dust in your brother's eye. Or in the context of religion, you really begin to think you've got this " God Thing " figured out. You own the story, the story is only about you and your people...truth has been formulated, you own it...and you have all the answers. And the greatest tragedy is, you really begin to believe God likes you more than everyone else...suddenly it is a world of us and them. It is the world of the sacred / secular divide, the world of boundaries, barriers...of black and white.
Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. What he died for( THE KINGDOM OF GOD ) was mind boggling, it was something so redemptively imaginative that rather than embracing the thought of re-creating humanity...we'll settle for the perpetual cycle of sin and forgiveness.
Jesus died because we caught him red handed, we caught him proclaiming the Kingdom with these crazy wild scandalous parables that began re-capture the mind, heart and soul of all humanity. We saw and caught him in the act of living out the Kingdom...eating with drunkards, prostitutes, loan sharks. We saw him heal the sick, we saw the lame walk...we saw an incredible multitude fed with five loaves of bread and two fish.
When you start to give humanity an alternative story to live by, the story of the Kingdom, of profound redemptive imagination, rather than the story of the prevailing world power that as enslaved humanity, that accepts the status quo...as " Life " as a whole lot less...the story of the Kingdom must be erased.
They say never mix religion and politics. The Kingdom confronts both. Jesus and his Kingdom pissed off the religious and political establishment of the day. That's who killed him...and that is why he died. The real sin for christians is...we're afraid to say that. The reality we've bought more into the story line, the philosophy, the ideologies of world power...than we have, the profound redemptive imagination of the Kingdom.
We might believe in Jesus dying for sin...but dying for the Kingdom...that's just crazy. Like I said earlier, I'm a heretic. You better grab a stake, rope, firewood and matches, because I'm not going to stop talking like this.
My imagination has always been captured by the scene in the upper room. This rag bag tag of raggamuffins has been hanging out with Jesus for three years wandering the countryside and sea shore. They've heard the insanely beautiful redemptive stories of the Kingdom in Jesus parables...of a world re-created. They have seen Jesus act out the Kingdom in his miracles. And yet, this night in the upper room just before Jesus death...I really don't think they get it.
Jesus and his friends gather around the Passover meal. This story would have been etched in their minds, as if carved in stone. I find it fascinating again, even here...we've turned it into a story about sin, rather than the redemptive beauty of the Kingdom.
The Passover was not about sin, It was not a lamb, slain for sin. It was a lamb slain for a journey in to the profound mystery of a promised land.
Jesus spoke of a new covenant for " all " humanity. He took bread, something that was very much a substance of everyday life. He took it, showing all life was in his hands...and broke it, revealing the brokenness of " all " humanity. His body broken, for the brokenness of " all " humanity. ( Jesus did not die just for Christians ) And he took wine, his blood poured into the midst of the brokeness, to bring healing and wholeness for " all " creation, and " all " humanity.
That night the Passover became a Kingdom story. Jesus would be the lamb slain for the journey. The cross would become the lintel, the door post on which is blood would be spread. This would be the threshold into which humanity would cross on a new journey. This would be the beginning of the new creation, the Kingdom that filled Jesus' divine redemptive imagination.
The world powers of the day thought they had erased the Kingdom. The worldly empire said a resounding death blowing, No! Three days later God said, yes to the Kingdom. That day the Spirit blew, and continues to blow across all creation, in the midst of all humanity...as in Genesis, the Spirit broods over all creation, ready to bring the Kingdom into being.
When we consume Jesus, the lamb of the Passover meal...we are consumed with a journey of bringing the fullness of the Kingdom to the world now.
Jesus did not die for sin and forgiveness. What he died for was mind boggling, it was something so redemptively imaginative that rather than embracing the thought of re-creating humanity...we'll settle for the perpetual cycle of sin and forgiveness.
