Qumran, West Bank,
Palestinian desert, 1981 (CRG)
Christian got tired of hanging out with God in the
wilderness and began having temptations to be something more than a mere
follower of Jesus.
Turn these stones to “bread,” as in “money,” and
with that money enjoy the prosperity you were intended to have! It’s long been believed
that those with big houses and expensive cars and material wealth are
especially blessed by God. You can’t live by God’s words alone!
See the high steeple of this megachurch: this will
be yours—large and influential, popular and spectacular, maybe even global!—as proof of your faith
and goodness and success to the world and to other churches. God will surely be
tempted to reward you bigtime!
You will have political power if you bow to leaders
who join you in abusing and controlling the bodies of others: workers, women,
trans people, lesbians and gays, immigrants, people of color, the needy, and
anyone who stands in your way. You can have all the power you need to make the
world in your image! It will be sweet.
No, Jesus can’t come along. He would never
understand. He had a good idea but just doesn’t know how to capitalize on it. You do. You’re better
than he is. Remember even he said you’d do greater things than he did. And such a loser! Got himself crucified!
This
parable came to me in the middle of the night, as I thought about how much
kinder my evangelical, fundamentalist parents were than the evangelical
Christians of today. I realize, in their hunger for power, influence, and
control, evangelicals have lost their way.
What
got me to thinking of this was an opinion piece written by Liesl Schwabe,
“Everything I Know about Feminism I Learned from Nuns.” It reminded me that many
of the values I now hold and promote as a progressive Christian I learned from
evangelical, fundamentalist Christians. Now, I know that many of you may have had
quite a different experience, either of nuns and Catholic school, or of fundamentalism
and evangelicalism, but some of us at least have takeaways from those
experiences that may never have been imagined or anticipated or desired by
those spiritual communities.
“Jesus
loves the little children,” we were taught to sing, “all the children of the
world: red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight, Jesus
loves the little children of the world.” In no way does this support white
privilege, let alone white supremacy. There are no boundaries or borders to
God’s love; we are all God’s children.
“Jesus
loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong,
they are weak, but he is strong.” The vulnerable, deprived, underprivileged, marginalized,
and abused alike belong to those whom Jesus loves. And, as process theologian
Daniel Day Williams pointed out, it is more vital (as in life-giving) and
needful to belong than to believe.
How
many times we were taught that Jesus welcomed lepers, children, women, people with
disabilities, those with mental health issues, the poor, the oppressed, while, in the
words of his mother Mary, “sending the rich away empty” and in his own words calling
upon the wealthy to sell their possessions and distribute the proceeds to the
poor! Jesus was an early advocate of health care for all and a challenger of
income inequality.
We
learned that Jesus praised the faith of a child, the faith of those outside his
religious community, the faith of foreigners, the faith of outcasts.
And,
as he was himself dying on a cross, he welcomed a convicted criminal into
Paradise, surely a subversion of the death penalty.
Jesus
witnessed a God of mercy that too many fundamentalist evangelical Christians
have abandoned, ignored, or forgotten.
Related Posts:
Progressive
Christian Reflections is entirely
supported by reader donations. To
support this blog: http://mccchurch.org/ministries/progressive-christian-reflections/
Scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!
Copyright © 2019 by Chris
R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and
blogsite. Other rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment