March 8, 2009
"Getting Cross"
Crosses were a sign of death in Jesus' days. Not just death - it was a painful, humiliating capital punishment. The closest we have to it today in the US might be the electric chair. Yet, we seem to miss the impact of what the cross was supposed to communicate. We wear them around our necks, tattoo them on our arms and hang them on the walls of our churches. All of them cast in gold, embellished with artful swirls or carved out of the finest wood. Can you imagine all of us walking around with electric chairs hanging from our necks, tattooed on our arms and hanging on the front walls of our sanctuaries. Along with our golden, cleaned-up crosses, we seem to have cleaned up our understanding of what it means to be Christian. Much like we've turned this difficult and brutal form of capital punishment into an easier to handle image, we've turned Christianity into an easier to handle religion. Gone is the hard sacrifice that the cross was meant to symbolize. Gone is the personal sacrifices that we are asked to make: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." It's time to instead of cleaning up our act to - well, messy it up a bit. To take seriously the sacrifices God requires of us. It is time to really understand what it means to take up our crosses (our modern day electric chairs) and get to the difficult business of truly living out a Christian life.
March 15, 2009
"Destroying the Temple: Radical Reform"
As many ministers have pointed out, it wasn't Bingo that Jesus was talking about when he over turned the money changer's tables. Jesus was making a statement that was delivered on many levels. A statement to the Roman guards who watched from the walls above. A statement to business people who would take advantage of poor and weary travelers. A statement to the heads of the temple who were allowing corrupt policies. In all likelihood this was the beginning of the end of Jesus. This was all a bit too radical for those with power: the Roman government, the wealthy business people, and the heads of the powerful religious machine. Whether he knew what he was doing (in terms of assuring that they would come after him) or it was preordained or if he just stumbled into the situation, really isn't the point here. What is important is that Jesus was not oblivious to who was watching and how powerful they were, he was just more interested in cleaning up the house of God - no matter what the cost. The question we have to ask our selves is, how far are we willing to go to, how radical are we willing to be, in order to set God's church right?
March 22, 2009
"1 John 3:16"
In John 3:16 we learn how far God went to show us how much we are loved by God. In 1 John 3:16 we learn how far we are to go in response to that love to show all the children of God how much we love them.
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