The Temple

 John 2:13-25 is the lectionary text for Lent III on next Sunday.

This comes early in John's Gospel.  THIS is how Jesus establishes Himself, after the miraculous turning of water into wine, in John.  It certainly is memorable.

Jesus marched from Cana to Capernaum to see mom, and then off to Jerusalem at Passover time.  It was quite a walk.

Jesus went into the Temple and found the merchants and money changers doing what they did - participating in the economy of empire, and not addressing the injustices of empire economics.  He fashioned a whip and drove them out, trashing the marketplace and pouring out the coins collected by the money changers, owning the Temple.  The money changers were notorious for unfair exchanges as they traded shekels for empire coinage.  They were making lots of money off the poor people who came to do what was commanded by God.  They had given in to empire values, and were colluding with the corrupt temple cult leaders.  Jesus exposed, resisted and confronted them dramatically.

The corrupt ones always demanded signs of God's favor and authority.  Jesus equated Himself with the Temple and foretold of His death and resurrection.  They only saw their building, the club house for the corrupt temple cult of that time.  Their vision of greatness was skewed by devotion to empire and its ways, so they could not see God's new Way in Jesus.

It seems to me that riding the fence of devotion to empire and lip service to God is not faithfulness.  Jesus claimed (Matthew) that we cannot serve two masters - God and wealth.  The same is true of power and status.  We cannot be faithful AND give lip service to God while doing all we can at the expense of others to promote our own gain.  God in Jesus does not allow it.  So, we must look at our own corruption in the church that bears Jesus' name, and whatever ways we are duplicitous in our devotion.  We must examine in this Lenten time of reflection, repentance and sacrifice of self, how we "blow about in every wind of doctrine" that might help us rationalize our unfaithfulness to God, and how "having itching ears to hear" what we want to hear in the Word has led us to our duplicitous devotion.  

Jesus did not mince words.  Jesus dramatically demonstrated how seriously God takes this church thing.  Jesus differentiated Himself and His Gospel from the Temple building, temple cult and trappings of religion.  Jesus cut through the layers of rationalizations and justifications to the truth of corrupt souls, leaders and ideologies.  Jesus confronted those who gave their devotion to empire while claiming God.  Jesus (Matthew) talked about division and separating the faithful from unfaithful in parables and in His vision of the end and His return.

We are in alignment with Jesus and Jesus' Good News Way of Agape Love and Grace, or we are in alignment with empire and its way of Greed, Lust for Power and Desire for Status.  We cannot serve two masters.  We cannot be on the side of the world and of God.  We cannot give lip service to God and our devotion to empire, at least we cannot do that and be faithful to God.  The Temple - Jesus - cannot be divided, though it is.  The Body of Christ cannot be divided, though it is.  

Jesus did not create the division, but Jesus certainly and dramatically pointed it out.  

So, how have we as the church that bears Jesus' name, corrupted the Way of God in Jesus?

How have we as individuals attempted to align ourselves with empire values while claiming to be children of the Kingdom of God?

How have we as a nation been duplicitous in our walk in this part of God's Kingdom, under empire?

Lent is our time to examine ourselves, reflect on our path to the Cross and repent of our unfaithfulness to God in Christ Jesus.  It is here.  It is now.

Pastor Jamie

Put Up or Shut Up

 Mark 8:31-38 is the lectionary text for Sunday, February 28 - Lent II.

The Religious leaders of Jesus' time were corrupt.  They were in collusion with Rome and the King, trying to survive, but also trying to get what they could under empire, by exhibiting the values and practices of empire.  Jesus was at odds with them over this constantly, as we have witness in the Gospels.

In this text, Jesus tells His disciples of what His end will be at the hands of the corrupt religious leaders who were adherents of the empire values of greed, hatred, lust for power and desire for personal status above others.  It was inevitable that those with power would silence anyone who would challenge their immoral, unconscionable way of life. 

Peter's rebuke is curious to me.  Was Peter being naive in his rebuke of Jesus' declaration, believing that the religious leaders would never do such a thing?  Was Peter putting his own feelings for Jesus above a value for Jesus' mission in the world?  Both?

I have heard it preached for many years that Peter could not bear to think of Jesus dying, especially such a horrible death, because of his personal (brotherly) love for Jesus, and that this was his motivation for rebuking Jesus.  Thus his mind was set on human things and not divine purposes.

I have come to read the Gospels differently in my life.  I wonder now if Peter was expressing some disbelief that the religious leaders were corrupt and would turn Jesus over, or perhaps that Peter even questioned whether a challenge to empire, life under which was all he knew in his lifetime, was sane or worth losing one's life over.  Those in Israel who had sat in this deep darkness under the occupation and oppression of empire did all they could just to survive.  It was not the matter of divine purpose, but of survival with which they were preoccupied.  It seemed hopeless to challenge Rome's iteration of empire.  It was a pointless suicide mission.  Was Peter questioning the wisdom of challenging the religious leaders, king and empire?  Was he trying to bring Jesus to His senses over just surviving under the oppressive system like everyone else?  Was Peter questioning that Jesus' mission was divine?  Jesus' rebuke of Peter suggests to me that the mission of the Cross was God's divine warfare against the work of Satan through empire.  Jesus' rebuke of Peter suggests to me that there is a choice to be made, even to sacrificing oneself in this spiritual warfare.

Then Jesus made it clear.  Save THIS life, and you lose life with God.  Preserve this existence of participating under or colluding with, even giving one's devotion to empire means that you lose a faithful relationship with the God of Jesus, who resists empire, teaches against empire, challenges empire, commands a different way, and fights it even unto death.  If you seek to profit under empire, rather than resist its immoral and unconscionable ways, you lose your soul.  If you try to give lip service to God while giving your devotion to empire, you lose your soul.  If you claim God but are ashamed of a Good News of Jesus that directly contradicts the values and practices of empire, you lose your soul.  In that case, when Jesus comes back, you may hear the words, "I do not know you."

But if you lose THIS life under empire, you preserve your life with God.  If you sacrifice any gain under an immoral and unconscionable system based on greed, hatred, lust for power and desire for status, even making sacrifices because you resist that and refuse to participate in it, then you gain a faithful, genuine relationship with the God of Justice, Shalom for All and Peace unlike the Pax Romana.  If you lose the life that puts you at odds with the Kingdom values that Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us in Agape Love and Grace, then you are in alignment with Jesus' Way of living in this part of the Kingdom of God, here and now.

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Lent is our journey to the Cross with Jesus, if we will go there.  It is our choice.  We can save the life of empire which puts us at enmity with God, or we can lose that life and preserve our life with God.

For Peter and Jesus' disciples, and perhaps for us, it's time to put up or shut up.

Pastor Jamie

Good News: A New Way

 Mark 1:9-15 is the Gospel text in the lectionary for February 21.

There is a new sheriff in town.  Jesus came, baptized by John and identified by God as the Beloved.  The yoke had been passed.  Elijah had ushered in Messiah.  It was a new beginning that provided new hope for a people who had struggled under, sat in the deep darkness of oppression under empire for generations.

Jesus was prepared for the mission ahead by going through His spiritual boot camp in the wilderness, tempted to make it about Himself instead of the mission and God's people.  He emerged from that wilderness experience and went to work, even as John was taken out of the picture.  There is no one else.  It is Jesus.

And the first words of this one sent by God were Good News.  In the first Gospel written, in the first chapter, the first words of the Messiah are, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

Not "believe in me."  He had emptied Himself of his glory in the wilderness through His trial by Satan.  He was now all about the mission to save God's people from their oppression under empire, sin and death.

Believe in the Good News.  Period.

And what is the Good News?

Glad you asked.

It is Agape Love and Grace.  It is resistance to the evil values of empire.  It is justice and the Shalom that comes when there is justice.  It is therefore PEACE, not as the world gives, but Jesus' Peace - Shalom built on justice, equity and community.  

At the center of EVERYTHING Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for His followers is the living of Agape Love (active commitment on behalf of the other, even stranger and enemy and especially the most vulnerable among us) and Grace (undeserved loving mercy) toward the Shalom (completeness, wholeness and well-being) of ALL PEOPLE.

This IS the Good News!  God commands us to live this with one another.  It is a different way, a better way, this Jesus' Way.  It brings peace within and among.  It is not solely about personal salvation, but about saving lives here and now, in THIS PART of God's Kingdom, which has come near.  God's Kingdom come and God's Will being done on earth as in heaven.  It is Good News of liberation from the oppression of systems built on greed, hatred, lust for power and desire for personal status above others, which are at the core of empire.

Believe in the Good News that you are about to read or hear read to you.

Believe in the Good News of what it means to be people of God, together in loving, Shalom community.

Believe in the Good News that turns the worldly systems of oppression on their head.  

Repent (change your thinking and direction).

Believe instead in the Good News of Jesus' Agape Love and Grace.

This was Jesus' mission, built on Agape and Grace, embodied in selfless sacrifice for others and fulfilled in the ultimate act of Agape and Grace on the Cross.

Jesus' Way is to be OUR Way.

Believe in the Good News.  Apply what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us to your life.  Live it.  

Do you want to be faithful to God?  Here's how, folks... (see the Words and Actions of Jesus, as we have witness in the Gospels).

THAT is God's Way for us.

Pastor Jamie

Listen to HIM

 Mark 9:2-9 is the lectionary text for next Sunday, February 14, Valentine's Day.

The passing of the mantle.  The fulfillment of Law and Prophets in the flesh.  The New Covenant established on the foundation of the Covenant of the Law.  The Transfiguration is much more than just seeing the glory of Jesus.  It is Jesus' Installation as the new Rabbi, Pastor and even more, Lord of our lives.

In this first Gospel written, in which Jesus' first words are, "believe in the Good News," we now have Jesus presented as God's voice, the Word made Flesh, fulfillment of Moses and Elijah, Messiah and Lord.  With Moses (Law, Liberator) and Elijah (Prophets, Agitator) present, God tells the disciples to "listen to HIM."

Jesus is my authority on how to live faithfully with God.  What Jesus taught, commanded and modeled as faithfulness to God in this part of God's Kingdom, here and now, IS my authority in my life of faith.  This far exceeds the grandeur of a countenance dazzling as snow.  It is the hope of all people who have suffered under the oppression of unjust, unloving, uncivil, unrighteous and un-Christ-like powers and principalities at work in the world around us.  It is the deliverance from our exile under oppressive power.  It is the agitation of truth in the face of the lies of greed and status presented by empire and its devotees.  It is Good News for those who have suffered under the bad news of empire.  It is Good News for me and for most folk who I love in this world, here and now.

And through the Gospels, we have seen Jesus' glory - in teaching, in healing, in casting out demons, in acts of kindness and graciousness, in inclusion, in provision, in protection, in deliverance and in the redemptive Grace of the Cross.  We have seen Jesus' glory in the Cross, in the agonizing, twisted, tortured and fatal execution of the glorified one.  That is Jesus' glory.  After catching the glimpse of Jesus' glorious, splendid image, we see the visage of glory in the gory, bloody brokenness of the Cross.  That is the journey we begin with Transfiguration Sunday and then Ash Wednesday, not up on a mountain with scenes of glory, but in the work, the hard work of deliverance and agitation, and the sacrificial consequences of doing that work, on the Cross.

What wondrous love is this?

Jesus walked this walk.  If we are to follow Jesus, we must get beyond the desire to stay in or obtain some glory, and do the work that will lead us to the Cross.  We must walk the walk and not just talk the talk.  We must go where and how Jesus went.  We must LISTEN TO HIM and follow Him in order to be Faithful to Jesus.

Where is the prosperity, worldly glory and power and status in this?  Nowhere.  It is not in this Good News of Jesus.  It is about sacrifice as liberators and advocate agitators on behalf of "the least," who have been held down, back and out, oppressed and excluded.  THAT is faithfulness to the Jesus of the mountain and the Jesus of the plain, going to the Cross.

Listen to HIM, here and now, in this part of God's Kingdom, if you would be faithful.

Pastor Jamie