You belong to God.
This is my sermon intro for this Sunday. Thanks to Steve, I updated the title. If you don't read Steve, you may want to check him out at Ragamuffin' Ramblings.
When you think of Jesus, what comes to mind? In other words, what’s your image of Jesus?
For the past four years I have spent countless hours in Berkeley at the Graduate Theological Union where Christians from all over the world attempt to grasp the theological significance of Jesus and his proclamation to the world. Some folks take great pride in pontificating their theological positions and their understanding of Jesus’ message to the world.
I have heard a lot of things about Jesus in my four years at the GTU, but the one thing I liked best was found on a bumpersticker on the back of a Volkswagen bug in the parking lot behind the Pacific School of Religion.
It sums-up for me the Jesus I want-- my own personal Jesus.
It said: Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite.
This reminded me of my childhood Jesus and his pet lambs that made their way across the flannel board during Mr. Dewease’s vacation bible school in the summer of 1968. I have images of the rosey-cheeked, powder-puffed Jesus with long flowing brown hair with golden highlights that had recently been washed with Wella Balsom extra-volumizing shampoo.
But we don’t find scholarly Jesus or the sugar-coated, rosy-cheeked Jesus, do we? For an esoteric Christ or the sugar-coated Jesus only distorts and perverts the Gospel.
We find the Jesus who speaks as the voice of Divine Love a message of transformation… of changing the world… conversion through love, mercy, and justice; it is not idealistic but realistic. It is not a new teaching but a new reality and Jesus reminds you that you are part of God’s reality. That you belong to God and have worth and incredible value in God’s eyes… that all God’s children have worth and great value in his eyes.
Jesus doesn’t come to stimulate our intellects or to make us nice; we find the Jesus who comes to liberate us from all that prevents us from being fully human in the reign of God. And he said we have to participate in God’s kingdom… we have to risk something, perhaps our own lives to follow him.
In Matthew 10 we find Jesus concluding his instructions to his disciples and encouraging them to have faith in the hard road ahead. He concludes by teaching that he did not come to bring peace but a sword—that is, he didn’t come to maintain the status quo in system that perpetuates injustice, violence and hatred.
He came to speak truth of God’s love and acceptance for the poor and the persecuted… the oppressed and the overpowered… the sad, the suffering and the surpressed… the humiliated, the excluded; those on the fringe who have been shut down, shut out and shut up by the dominant religious and political community. Those who have been stripped of their God-given dignity. Those who have been treated as non-persons and sub-human. Jesus comes and says, "You belong to God." And when truth is spoken in words and actions… when Love speaks, it can often be divisive. Truth can divide those who don’t want truth or those who want remain in power and control.
4 Comments:
Wednesday night, I said a lot of good things to a young man I was having dinner with. (If you're bored, you can see more about that encounter over at my place.) But the one thing I didn't say explicitly is the heart of your sermon intro - "You belong to God."
How desperately I needed to hear those words, clearly and lovingly spoken, for the first 35 years of my life.
Thank you - for continuing to strip away the Wella Balsam and the sticky-sweet nonsense about Jesus, so we can see the miracle of God-with-us face to face. Your voice carries the transforming power of the Gospel - the words so many people desperately need to hear.
Happy Pride, brother.
go forth and preach it, brother..
you nailed it. he didn't come for the healthy and i keep forgetting that.
peace my friend.. hope sunday goes well.
A few things need saying....
First, some innate arrogance on my part. I commented that "I said a lot of good things to a young man I was having dinner with." The fact is, I spoke the words, but none of them were mine. Almost every word I spoke that was worth anything was the result of what people like you have shared with me. I just needed to come clean on that one - because I'm just not that good, that wise, or that smart.
Second, thanks for the shameless plug. I'm doing the same thing.
And my best wishes for Sunday. As a wise man once said to me, "I'd say 'Go with God' - but fortunately, neither of us gets a vote on that one..."
All my best lines were stolen by the ancients. (attributed to Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain)
Your childhood vision of Jesus from the images of Vacation Bible School was so reminicent of my experience. It made me smile.
You make so many wonderful points in this post. One my heart particulary responded to was "Jesus doesn’t come to stimulate our intellects or to make us nice." You suggest that "Jesus came to liberate us from all that prevents us from being fully human in the reign of God. And he said we have to participate in God’s kingdom… we have to risk something, perhaps our own lives to follow him." It seems to me that few people truly know what this might mean for the individual - I surely don't know. But I get that in part it means I must strip down, take off my mask of simply being nice, drop from my thinking mind so much and search and open my heart, and take a risk - a risk of loving more, more fully, more authentically, loving beyond borders and class, of loving as God loves. This is what it means to me to live in God's kingdom, and to nurture my potential to be fully human.
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