Chapter Seven– Jesus Teaching on Justice, Kingdom and Salvation
This week I want you to do something what we did last week. Use the
internet or a Bible Concordance and look up the words justice and Kingdom. Find
scriptures in the four Gospel’s using these words and read not only the
scripture but the contextual scriptures (the whole story surrounding the
scripture). Also read John 3: 3-7; Matthew 13: 24-30; Matthew 25
Jesus was quite
the rebel in 1st century Israel. His ministry reflected His desire
to change the culture of His day. If He were physically with us in our day and
time we would hear Him responding to wherever He sees social injustice and
oppression. His ministry was radical for the time and would still be considered
radical in our day. Social issues like equality (true equality) for women,
removing racial bigotry and bias, finding ways to help people out of poverty
and addiction, making the privileged realize their need to support the poor and
making the church be the church. Throughout the Gospel accounts of His walk
among us are stories of standing against the forces of privilege and
oppression. Whether we are talking about His compassion for those who suffered
illness and because of that illness found themselves excluded from the very people
they needed to be in relationship with, to rejecting racism, to embracing the
marginalized, to sticking up for the poor, Jesus ministry was about forcing us
to realize that we are to love everyone and to be good stewards not only with
what God has given us, but with the world around us.
So what were Jesus
justice issues? We can start with the marginalized, those people that society
sees to push aside for a number of reasons. Then we can go to equality issues
of gender and race. From there it is an easy path to the equality of class. But
His most significant issue is certainly spiritual justice. Let’s start with
those who are the marginalized in His day. In Jesus day to be sick was to be
excluded. If you had diseases that we realize are not contagious today, you
could still find yourself on the outside of society, having to beg for food and
the necessities of life, living in caves and in Leper camps and not being able
to have the basic family functions available or be able to attend religious
events. For Jesus this was a cause for great concern, to Him, a great social
injustice. The sick were to be cared for and to be wrapped within the loving
care of the family, not to be excluded and sent into the streets. We have
stories in Matthew, Mark and Luke about the healing of the blind, the Lepers
and the woman who had been bleeding. When we review the stories of the Lepers
for example in Matthew 8:1-3; Luke 17: 11-19; Mark 1: 40-44, the thing that
strikes us is the focus not so much on the healing of the people but the
request by Jesus to keep it quiet and go get the certificate that allowed them
to be restored to society. Jesus focus was on the idea that we all belong and
the social injustice of being pushed out. We need to be careful in our world
today of not being guilty of the same type of behavior when it comes to health
challenges. Challenged children and young adults are often pushed aside by
society in their differences. Those with HIV/ AIDS are routinely set aside out
of our fears and concerns. Jesus showed us through His actions how to confront
the poor, the sick and imprisoned (Luke 14:12-14; Matthew 25: 31-46).
Jesus also was
concerned with issues we call civil rights issues, issues of gender and race
and equality. His story about with the Samaritan women at the well (John 4:
1-42) is a classic example of how He continued to deal with inequality and
racism in His day. I remember working with a company where it was better to
have graduated from an out of state school than the University of Virginia in a
Virginia Tech dominated management. Issues of bigotry and racism can show up in
many different ways. Jesus struggled with this issue as He dealt with the ease
of men to get divorce while women could not, even in the face of abuse (Matthew
19: 1-10). Jesus challenges us with treating everyone with love and respect as
He challenged the leadership of His day. Stories like the Good Samaritan are as
much about racism as they are about compassion. Eating meals with Tax
Collectors (Luke 19:1-10) is to remind us that everyone is part of the Kingdom
of God and only when we love without regard to race, class and gender, can we
witness to that powerful message. The Rich Young Man story (Luke 18: 18-27)
reminds us that those of us who have been privileged in life, to have the
opportunity to get a higher education, find ourselves more affluent than poor
and call ourselves middle or upper class, have an obligation to those who have
not had those opportunities. It is easy to say that everyone should be able to
pull themselves from where they are to a better place but that is often not the
reality.
We often find
Jesus confronting the powerful and the religious leadership in His teachings
and His actions. He clears the Temple of the money changers which He finds
offensive on many levels. It is an injustice to require people coming to make
sacrifice to God asking for repentance to have to pay for that privilege. He
constantly confronts the Pharisees about religious understanding. Years ago I
spent time learning about and participating in a union environment. What I discovered
was that we so often got stuck on the wording of the contract and when we had
to justify our actions, the mediators always went back to the intent of the
language. The intent of God was love. The intent of God was a connection to
creation itself. What had happened in Jesus day (and I would suggest the reason
we have so many denominations today) is that they had focused on the language
and the rules rather than the intent. So we see Jesus confronting constantly
this legalistic way of living that was so contrary to what God intended (See
Luke 6: 1-11; Matthew 23: 1-3). In fact, Jesus goes so far as to remind us not
to become stumbling blocks to others (Matthew 18:1-7) in their spiritual journeys.
Jesus continues to
remind us of the difference between our spiritual lives and our political
lives. When confronted He always made a distinction (Mark 12: 13-17) between
the two and reminds us that His view of the Kingdom is completely opposite of
the success minded world we currently live in (Matthew 20: 20-28). This brings
us to the Kingdom!
Jesus central
message was that we are in the Kingdom of God. Throughout the Gospel accounts
we hear Jesus reminding us that the Kingdom is near. In the Old Testament we
have stories of a present, visible God. But the people of Israel had moved so
far away from God that we no longer see this visible presence. So God sends
Jesus into the world to remind us that God is present with us (Emmanuel). Jesus
preached continually that the Kingdom was at hand (Matthew 4: 17). What Jesus
wanted us to know through His life and His teaching is that we live in the
Kingdom right here, right now. We are Kingdom people claimed by a loving God.
IN other words, eternal life is not something that occurs at some future point
but was claimed at the moment of rebirth (John 3: 1-16). The church is to be a
foretaste of that Kingdom for those who encounter it, not necessarily in the
four walls of the building, but in the love and compassion extended beyond
them. In the Kingdom Jesus is triumphant and sovereign. In the Kingdom social
injustice disappears and people live in harmony with all of creation. It is a
return to the Garden. The very idea that we could live in spiritual harmony is
at the center of His teaching and His example witnessed in the Gospel accounts
of His life (Matthew 13: 1-8; Matthew 13: 31-32). Through the Kingdom all of
Jesus teaching comes to fruition and completion. Being born anew, from above or
again (the wording is not important) allows us to enter into the Kingdom of
God, spiritually, even in the physical period of our lives where we become
obedient to God. It is a place where we learn to love one another and live into
the imitation of Jesus as He lived. It is listening to creation and finding God
in places of meditation and prayer.
When we understand
the Justice of Jesus and His concept of the Kingdom we are on the precipice of
Salvation itself. Jesus constantly reminded the people of His day that one must
give up their life to be born anew (Luke 14:26; John 10: 27-28). Salvation is
not a place, but a state of being. For Jesus, it was an awareness of one’s self
and where we fit in the greater understanding of the cosmos. John begins his
Gospel with this idea that the very idea of us, wisdom, consciousness and being
began with God from the beginning of time. Logos was with God and Logos was God
and Logos was made flesh. Salvation then for Jesus was not that moment of
Judgment that for all of us must happen in our lives (Matthew 25: 31-45) but
the moment when we accept that God’s love is an integral part of who we were
created to be. Jesus tells us that His sheep know Him and follow His voice.
That we inherently know God and when God speaks we listen. John 3: 16 sums it
best when we understand that God sent Jesus not to seek judgment but to seek
understanding, that all may live into this beautiful love not in the future but
right this moment. John 15: 4 beautifully explains it as something not of words
but of experience, “Abide in me, and I in you.”
No comments:
Post a Comment