We must do what it takes.

 

Luke 10:1-20 is the Gospel Lectionary text for Pentecost IV.

 

The Message and Movement of Agape Love has got to be put out there.  The false teachings of who Jesus is and what Jesus is about permeate our society.  American Civil Religion has all but swallowed up Christianity in our nation.  What the Temple Cult leaders did to God’s Will and God’s Word in the First Century was much the same.  They turned it into a tool for manipulation of God’s people in order that they might gain more power, wealth and status.  They abused people with their power and stirred up hatreds in order that they might have more of it.  They used their positions of leadership to line their own pockets and keep influence with empire’s elite.  They represented empire instead of God.

 

Today’s evangelicals in America have been doing the same thing since 1981, when they got into bed with the political “right.”  As America has become empire in the world, the right-wing church leaders have twisted even the Gospel to make it reflect the values of empire and have twisted the idea of Jesus in the minds of many to support their false claims of “superiority”, entitlement and privilege.  So, Jesus sends us out.

 

And when we go out, we are to recognize that it is dangerous.  They will stop at nothing to silence the real Gospel of Agape Love, because it does not serve them and their purposes.  They will dismiss and then confront, ignore and then attack.  When we go out with a message and ideology of love for the other, we are sheep among wolves, for they are well practiced at their ruthless pursuit of more for themselves. 

 

We go out into homes.  Most of the churches have been institutionalized to represent empire on one level or another.  They exhibit the values of greed, lust for power and desire for status that is empire ideology, and they aim their hatreds at others in order to scapegoat them for any lack of them having what they want.  We go with just ourselves.  We give the Good News of Jesus upon which the world relies for a return to sanity, and we receive having our needs met.  Our value necessarily must counter the values of empire.  We must embody the generosity, sharing of power and value for equal value of all people that is the Good News of Agape Love.  We must not be hateful.  We must confront evil, name it and expose it, but we must proclaim Shalom to those who we meet, for it is the Way of Shalom which is the Way of Jesus.

 

If we are rejected, we simply let them know that the Kingdom has come near and we leave, not taking anything from them with us.  For the ideology of empire has twisted minds and hearts so much that to stay and debate is a waste of time.  Some will get the Way of Jesus in Agape Love toward Shalom for All People, and some just will not.

 

Jesus talked about how intolerable it will be for those who reject His Way.  Using a literary method as old as Isaiah, Jesus rebukes those areas in which the empire ideology is so well engrained that no one will repent (change their thinking and thus their direction).

 

It worked then.  The seventy rejoiced at the results.  People were hungry to hear the Good News of Jesus and they responded to it.  Jesus had to warn his followers not to get caught up in their own glory, however, as that reflects the very empire ideology that the Good News counters.

 

It could work again.  I believe that.  If we stay with what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled, and resist empire’s ideology and ways by showing people Jesus’ Way, some will get it.  I believe that this is the only hope for the church that bears the name of Jesus, that we offer current generations an alternative to empire’s ideology, rather than a reflection of it.  If we are followers of Jesus, we will live what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us, in this part of God’s Kingdom, here and now.  And it could transform the world, one person, one house, one community at a time.  It worked for the seventy.  It worked in the First Century through the Apostles.  It must be done in the 21^st Century in order for the world to survive.  Empire must fall, and the values of empire must die.  We have seen the injustice, despair and destruction it has caused.  Only Jesus’ Good News of Agape Love toward Shalom for All People can save and sustain us.

What is your priority?

 Based on Luke 9:51-62, the lectionary text for Sunday, June 26 - Pentecost III.

Rabbi Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem.  He knew His mission.  It was to challenge empire and its values of Greed, lust for Power and desire for Status.  It was to challenge hatreds.  It was to challenge the seat of corrupt Political, Economic, Military and Spiritual power and control.  It was to gather people who would demonstrate in front of and caricature the powerful of Rome.  It was to cleanse the Temple of the corrupt, greedy practices of false teachers.  It was to offer the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Agape Love as an example of what it means to be faithful to God and Neighbor.

I would submit that that is the mission of anyone who would profess to follow Rabbi Jesus.  Giving up personal comfort and gain, re-defining family and staying laser focused on the mission of living Agape Love in the face of empire and its values takes constant, consistent commitment and focus.  Having other priorities renders that mission irrelevant.  The world has had enough of the values of empire.  The divisions, despair, desolation, destruction and death caused by the living of empire values is quite apparent in the world in which we live.  The Way of Rabbi Jesus, the Way of Agape Love in the world is the only real, sustainable way for us to exist and hope to exist in the future.

What is your priority?  Is it your personal comfort and security?  Is it keeping the normative social mores of our time in order to fit in or "get along?"  Is it to get everything you can for yourself, your own and those just like you?  Is it to have power and control over others so that you can manipulate or exploit them, or even destroy their lives in hatred?  Is it to appear to be better than everyone else and reap the benefits of some false sense of your superiority that others are duped into believing?  Is your priority in life to promote the ways of empire and benefit from them at the expense of others in the world around you?  Or is it to transform the world around you in the living of Agape Love, to transform individual lives and communities by living an example of self-less, other-centered, communally responsible commitment that benefits all, equally?

One way leads to more of the same inequity, inequality, inhumanity, incivility, insanity, injury and destruction.  The other leads to sustainable life, unity, joy and peace.

What is your priority?  What will you put out in the world around you, the world in which you must live with the rest of us?  Will it lead to destruction or transformation?

Is it all about the swine?

 

Luke 8:26-39 is the lectionary Gospel text for Pentecost II on Sunday, June 19.

 

Jesus went to a largely non-Jewish region.  A man, marginalized by society because of his behavior, even being shackled and chained, met Jesus there.  The demons within him called Jesus out, and after giving Jesus their name, begged Jesus not to send them back to their confinement under God’s control.  They instead wanted to go into a herd of swine after being cast out of the man.  Jesus allowed it, and they ran the herd into the water and were drowned.  Jesus restored the man.  The man could now return to his life and life in the community.  It was a great spiritual victory.

But the swineherds told the people of the city, and they came out to find the man restored to his sanity.  It scared them.  They asked Jesus to leave.

Jesus took the time to engage the demoniac, to diagnose the issue, to consider a solution and to work a care plan for the sake of restoring the man to his life in community.  It was unsettling to some in the community, perhaps because of the cost.

We dare not disturb the status quo, even to bring healing to individuals.  People are scared when they see things that seem to work against their limited imaginations regarding how things work in the world, because they have bought into those things deemed normative in how society works.  Those with mental health issues need to be shunned and marginalized, because there is “nothing we can do about them.”  Those whose behaviors scare us need to be removed from being among us because we do not understand them, nor are we interested in getting to understand them.  That’s just the way it is and needs to be.  You start finding out what the underlying problems are, and the cost could be too great!  You start restoring people to their lives and it could make things uncomfortable or complicated or less profitable for the rest of us.  We can’t have that.

There is a cost to restoring people to Shalom in their lives.  It takes time, energy, effort in learning new ways, and it costs money.  Sending mental healthcare practitioners on calls for disturbances with the police, or instead of them, is much more time consuming and complicated than using brute force and then locking up the "perpetrators" in for-profit prisons or killing them when they respond badly.  It is also more costly of money.  It may mean less money for military-style equipment for those charged with protecting and serving all citizens equally.  Some in communities are calling for such measures because they value human life.  Others in communities are opposing them because they value the status quo and are not willing to pay the cost to restore lives. 

Some are more concerned with restoring people’s lives.

Others are only concerned for the swine.

Jesus taught, commanded and modeled the living of agaph in the world.  Greed, lust for power over others and desire for status above others, along with the hatreds they produce, are directly opposed to the living of agaph in the world.

Are you more concerned about living agaph and thus restoring others’ lives because you are following Jesus, or are you more concerned with the swine?

Truth will be declared to you

John 16:12-15 is the Gospel Lectionary text for Trinity Sunday, June 12.

The Spirit of Truth will come and declare all things true, taking what is Jesus' Way and declaring it to us.

Has the Spirit of Truth been seeing what is going on in this Post-Truth, Alternative facts era of ours?  Does the Spirit of Truth see whole TV and Radio networks spreading misinformation and disinformation purposefully in the world?  Does the Spirit of Truth see organized groups of computer hackers and social media influencers purposefully sharing what is false to further their causes of hateful ignorance with the masses?  Does the Spirit of Truth see a whole political party being hi-jacked to spin and twist any semblance of truth to suit their manipulative and exploitative goals?  

Oh, Spirit of Truth, where are you?

Well, it seems to me that the Spirit of Truth is the ultimate influencer.  The Spirit of Truth whispers in our hearts and minds, gives us a nudge and sometimes uses a board across our backsides to confront us with the truth.  The receptors are the problem.  The transmitters are the problem.  

The receptors have turned off their frequencies centered in empathy and compassion, integrity and active commitment to others.  The receptors have been influenced by Empire's propaganda machine and have turned inward, to look only to their own desires.  The receptors in communities, in business, in politics and in church have bought into the idolatries of the age - self.  The receptors filter everything they receive from the Spirit of Truth with, "Does it get me more money, power or status?"  The receptors have been tuned out or turned off from receiving the message of the Spirit of Truth.

The transmitters are too weak sometimes and are full of static at others.  The transmitters are too afraid to share the message of the Spirit of Truth, because it may put them at odds with their "constituents" or friends or family or the public, whose adoration they crave on social media and elsewhere.  The transmitters put out a message that is not the Truth of Jesus' Way, but a jumbled-up mess of messages about Empire and Jesus, to the degree that the Truth of Jesus is lost in its relevance to the Truth.  The transmitters take what is declared by the Spirit of Truth and confound the listeners with their own, mixed messages about wealth, power and status.  The transmitters transmit messages that are not in the Spirit of Truth.

The Spirit of Truth is listening and watching, present and powerful.  Those who desire to know what the Spirit of Truth declares - the truth of Jesus' Way of Agape Love, tune out the other noise and receive it clearly.  Those who desire to transform the world with Jesus' Way of Agape Love broadcast it clearly, with a powerful signal to many around them.  Those who desire to know the Truth of Jesus' Way of Agape Love and transform the world with it are the conduits through which Jesus' Good News is shared, even though others do not transmit that or receive it.  

Are you tuned in?  What are you transmitting out into the world around you?