Jesus, the Biggest Loser

Today I have allowed a mysterious stranger (not unlike the one Mark Twain wrote about) to pen this post, one who wants to remain uncharacteristically anonymous. For balance, however, I have followed this screed with creed.

Anyone who gets crucified is a loser. Someone who can’t save himself cannot possibly save the world. He certainly shouldn’t have his name on so many buildings.

Jesus, you hung around with losers. You could’ve had the best seat in the house and hung out with winners, but you preferred people I wouldn’t even spit at.

And your speeches are all for losers. The meek inherit the earth? Ha! Love your enemies? Gimme a break! Go the extra mile? On whose dime? If someone sues you for your cloak, give your coat as well? That’s only if you can’t afford a good lawyer or a creative accountant.

Blessed are the poor? What were you smokin’? Theirs is the kingdom of heaven? Sounds like welfare and entitlements to me! Woe to you who are rich? That’s the line of those income inequality guys.

Anyone who gains the whole world is a winner in my book, not a loser!

Your best speechwriter was John, who made grand claims on your behalf, but John lived almost a century too late. Boy, I’d love to get my hands on those lost gospels—maybe they’d show you up for what you were.

Jesus, ya shoulda listened to me in the wilderness! Tell people stones are bread! Keep doing and saying spectacular things to get noticed! Worship anything that gives you power!

Now, a lot of your followers have taken my advice, and are doing quite well, much better than you. That’s the power of positive thinking, speaking in superlatives, and telling people what they want to hear. In truth, many of your followers are embarrassed by you and by your weak, socialist ways. They want a winner, that’s why they declare you king, when you and I both know you’re only the king of losers.

Telling people they need to change their ways is a downer. Challenging them on those they exclude or mistreat or judge is not the way to win friends and influence people. And telling ‘em to be compassionate, like God—haven’t you read the Bible? Wrathful and jealous, ready with the fire and brimstone and Tweets, giving ‘em hell!  I incarnate that God better than you!

Now I gotta admit the Resurrection was a good deception. Makes people believe that you were really successful, that what you taught was right, even eternal. But we both know the truth, don’t we? Your life and your words no longer live and have not changed the world for the better. Where is this kingdom of heaven you promised? Looks like I’m not the only one pretending to be a messiah.

Give it up, Jesus! You’re fired!

So this contributor doesn’t have the last word, I’d like to provide an excerpt from Paul Ramsey’s Basic Christian Ethics (1950), a text I read in college, followed by a scripture from Philippians: 

Ordinarily it is supposed that the way to obtain a more and more perfect conception of the divine nature is to add on as much power as possible, as much impeccable self-sufficiency, as much imperturbable sovereignty, as much unqualified majesty. …

However, from a Christian point of view it is possible to think of God too highly, for Christ reverses all we expect Highness to be; the God who put him forward is one whose “grace” is only his mercy and forgiveness. Of him we cannot think too lowly. …

Such radical reversal of ordinary conceptions of the divine nature follows from the basic conviction that Christ is clue to knowledge of God. Christianity does not say, “Behold the Christ, half-God, half-man, Behold glorious strength thinly disguised, Behold Superman in a business suit, Behold the majestic God you know already in a peasant’s tunic.”

Instead the New Testament proclaims, “Behold weakness, Behold divinity divine enough to abandon divinity, Behold majesty secure enough to proceed un-majestically, Behold strength strong enough to become weakness, goodness good enough to be unmindful of its own reputation, Behold love plenteous enough to give and take not again.” 

Philippians 2:4-8: 

Let each of you look not to your own interests,

But to the interests of others.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death—

even death on a cross.

Related post: The Leader I’d Like to Have

You may support this blog ministry by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

"I Thirst"

Jesus’ Seven Last Words, sayings offered from the cross, may serve as guidance for the spiritual life. You are invited to contemplate each saying during the seven Wednesdays of Lent and Holy Week.

When we carry bottles of water with us everywhere, run water from the tap to rinse a dish, or make a cup of coffee or tea, it’s a challenge to wrap our minds around a concept of thirst. Obviously I am speaking to the minority of the world’s population, for whom such conveniences are commonplace, the most probable readers of this blog. Maybe our “contemplation” of thirst will prompt our action environmentally and politically on behalf of those with limited access to unpolluted water. “Whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones” will be rewarded, Jesus said.

Forty years in the wilderness seeking the Promised Land or forty days in the wilderness discerning the Commonwealth of God would have made thirst a frequent companion.

The Hebrews complained to Moses, Moses kvetched to God, and water was provided from solid rock. In his hunger, Jesus was tempted to turn rocks into bread, and responded that we don’t live by bread alone, but by God’s word to us.

But what was his temptation when thirsty?  Are we missing a fourth temptation? A convenient oasis, perhaps, or rain, if only he would bow to “the powers that be”?

Did Jesus long for the plentiful waters of his baptism, which had initiated this trek into the wild? We too know what it’s like for our baptism to wear thin in the real world.

How would Jesus have answered? Maybe quoting Yahweh from Isaiah 55? “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters… For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish what I purpose.”

Or his own beatitude in Matthew 5? “Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be filled.” Or, “happy are those who hunger and thirst for saving justice, they shall be satisfied.”

Jesus asked the Samaritan woman for water, and offered her “living water,” which is water from a stream moving beneath the surface of the ground, thus living, and of course also implies something deeper than earthly needs.

Jesus’ supplication “I thirst” was true on the surface, the well-being of his body, but maybe was more, a confession of his spirit, like that of the Psalmist: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

The writer of this psalm (42-43) was prevented from going to the house of God and laments, “As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’ … Why must I walk around mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?” In his ministry and on the cross, Jesus endured wounds that went deeper than Roman torture and execution.

Every day in the paper and on the news, in our neighborhoods and in our cities, we witness those who thirst physically, spiritually, grieving oppression, prevented from entering houses of God.

“I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”

For those who would like daily readings for this week of Lent, click here and scroll down to the end of “A Single Unified Force.”

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here or mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you! This year, I offer a signed gift copy of my book, Communion of Life: Meditations for the New Millennium, to each one who donates $100 or more (at once or in installments) over the course of 2015.

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.