Pentecost 14

Pentecost 14 (Mark 7:1-23) “For from within….”

Moses and the Prophets are very clear. The Law has no power to save.

The Apostle Paul clarifies that the Law is holy and good. It is in fact so holy and so good it can only reveal to us our own separation from God and rebellion against God. It can only help us understand that we need a savior.

Jesus, and only Jesus, can fulfill the Law. Because only Jesus can fulfill the Law only Jesus can save us from the condemnation embedded in the Law. The condemnation emerges in the function of the Law to serve as a perfect mirror to the soul. The holiness of the Law reveals to us our own willful rejection of the law.

No one in Jesus’ day believed this. Everyone believed that God gave the Law through Moses so that people could exercise their free will to earn God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. They taught that right behavior plus right belief produced a spiritual state of righteousness that God was obligated to reward.

Of course, once you buy into this belief system you need to know exactly what the right behaviors and right beliefs are. And, therein lies the problem. No one then and no one since then have ever been able to agree on the right lists of beliefs and behaviors. People then and now are left with a Gordian Knot of religious, non-religious and anti-religious teachings that are mutually exclusive and mutually hostile.

The great problem in the ancient world as in our world is how do we know and what must we do?

The various sects within ancient Judaism developed a detailed and complex set of lists. Those lists, unlike the Law of Moses, attempted to define every aspect of our daily lives. These lists spiritualized the mundane and made even simple ordinary acts like washing your hands a matter of supreme importance, a test of loyalty, and a condition for salvation. Jesus fulfilled the Law of  Moses but he frequently ignored the religious, cultural and political lists of belief and behavior that the religious elites of his time called the sacred tradition.

Jesus pointed out that the commentaries on the scriptures had taken the place of the scriptures. Jesus taught that human created traditions are not necessarily bad unless they take the place of a personal transforming relationship with God.

Of course, by and large people did not listen to what Jesus was saying. In their pride they could not accept a different understanding of righteousness. In their will to power they refused to change their beliefs and behaviors. In their fear they decided Jesus was a false prophet, an agent of Satan, who had come to lead people away from the Law and into rebellion against God.

Jesus understood all of this. Jesus knew the source of these fear based accusations and slanders. The source is separation from God. That separation lies at the core of the human soul. Jesus revealed to all who would listen to him that sin is a result of separation. The solution to separation is reunification.  More law cannot accomplish this. Less Law cannot accomplish this. People then and now were trapped in a false belief that it is up to us to earn God’s favor through righteous acts and righteous deeds.

When Jesus taught that God is love the people were confused. When Jesus invoked the message of the prophets that our relationship to God is similar to a marriage the people were scandalized. When Jesus defined grace as universal unconditional love people would not and could not hear him. It made no sense to them. They all knew that God demanded unquestioning belief and unconditional submission to the Law as administered by the religious courts and enforced by the religious police.

Jesus reminded them, as he reminds us, that who we are, what we are becoming and where we are going proceeds from within the depths of own souls. Jesus clarifies the choice before us: choose reunification with the Father through the Son. Choose inner transformation of the soul by the real presence of the Holy Spirit. Or, choose to remain separate. You can remain separate in list based religion. You can remain separate in self-indulgent entitlement secularism.

Jesus is the unification of humanity and divinity, Salvation is an organic union. Salvation first touches the depth of the soul and then slowly and meticulously works its way outward to change our perceptions, our beliefs and our behaviors.

If you start with the Law you will fail. You will fail to earn salvation. You will fail to change your innermost nature.

If you start with Jesus you will succeed. You will receive salvation as a gift of universal unconditional love. You will begin to grow in grace from the inside out. One day in that process you will wake up and no longer desire that sin of belief or behavior you held onto so tightly. The Holy Spirit will have given you a new desire. He will have given you a vision of how a particular sin is merely a distorted and diminished version of a pure and perfect virtue. He will help you to delight in the way of right relationship that eventually changes our desires and transforms particular sin into original virtue.

A list based righteousness perpetuates pride, self-will and fear. A list based righteousness maintains separation. A list based righteous kills.

A Jesus based righteousness gives new life. A Jesus based righteousness is a new and personal relationship with universal unconditional love. A Jesus based right relationship gradually and incrementally changes our desires so we can delight in the beauty of holiness the law invites us to experience in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, you lose nothing. In Jesus you gain everything.

Pentecost 11 (2015)

Pentecost 11 (John 6:35,41-51)

“I have come down from heaven.”

Who is Jesus Christ?

How do people define Jesus? Who did Jesus claim to be?

The people Jesus met in his three year public ministry held many beliefs about Jesus. Some believed he was a prophet. Some believed he was a rabbi. Some believed he was just an ordinary carpenter will aspirations to power. The political and religious leadership In Jerusalem believed he was a threat.

They believed he was a threat because he could perform miracles. That was an undisputed fact even they admitted. They could not dispute the works so they attempted to discredit Jesus by saying he performed miracles by the power of Satan.

They believed he was a threat because he knew the scriptures, taught the scriptures and lived the scriptures. They could not dispute his commitment to the sacred writings of Moses and the Prophets. Instead, they asserted he only invoked the Scriptures to subvert the Law. It was in fact a bold faced lie. Perhaps they convinced themselves it was true. Jesus made a distinction between the words of Moses and the Prophets and the traditions and interpretations and the commentaries religious scholars had developed over the centuries.

They believed Jesus was a threat because his followers wanted to make him king….by force if necessary. This was the key to the fear the religious and political authorities felt when they looked at Jesus. Perhaps Jesus really was reluctant to assume power. But, his followers were not. Things could get out of control quickly.

The ruling elites calculated that the kinds of people who followed Jesus, the largely uneducated working poor, might just try to make him king. But, they would fail. They lacked the knowledge, the organization and the resources they would need to succeed. They would try and they would fail and many would die in the process.

Jesus was very clear about his person and his plan. In a series of “I am” statements he very clearly and explicitly claims to be God. In those “I am” statements he draws on the observations, experiences and writings of Moses and the Prophets to help the people understand who he is and therefor who God is.

Jesus said: I am the bread, the bread of life that came down from heaven. Jesus is life because God is life. God is not judgment, condemnation, or exclusion. Jesus came to seek the lost who do not want to be found. Jesus came to set free the enslaved who embrace their chains. Jesus came to reunite what people want to keep separate. Jesus came to bring the blessing of divine love and compassionate service  to a people who wanted the power to judge, condemn and rule.

Sadly and tragically, the lost cannot and will not listen to the reality of God. The lost live from the place of pride that says: my will be done. Jesus lived from the place of faith that prays: heavenly Father not my will but Thy will be done.

The lost live from the place of self-will (the will to power) that says: do it my way. I want what I want and I want it now. Jesus lived from the place of charitable love that says: how may I help?

The lost live with a deeply seated fear of scarcity, threat and anxiety. They fear that God may not exist. They fear that if God exists he is distant and demanding and filled with wrath. They fear other people will take from them or hurt them or impose their own will on them. They fear they can’t hold meaning and purpose in their souls and so live on the thin edge of anger, cynicism and despair.

Jesus offers a new life and a new way of living. It is the life he himself has brought from the source of life. it is a new way of living formed by faith, hope and charity.

The last reason the elites in Jerusalem feared Jesus is truth. What if Jesus is who he says he is? What if all of these centuries we have been wrong about God, other people and ourselves? What if God is not the power and the glory of righteous rule and dominance? What if we are indeed our brother’s keeper and not his ruler.

Many people today, both secular and religious, make the assertion that Jesus himself never claimed to be God. The people of Jesus’ day thought differently. The people who knew Jesus and heard him and observed his actions understood very well that Jesus claimed to be God.

They knew this and they rejected this. They did not want the God Jesus revealed. They wanted a God who stayed in heaven and delegated his authority to the religious professionals and political elites.

They could not and would not acknowledge that they were wrong about God, religion or government.

It is one thing to have a set of beliefs about God. It is acceptable to speculate about God. It is common to have debates about whether God exists and who or what God is if God does exist. It is totally shocking and unacceptable for God to show up one day and quietly announce: here I am.

That is exactly what God did and continues to do in Jesus Christ. To the religious of all religions he says: have you been looking for me? Here I am. To the secular in all nations he says. Have I got a surprise for you. Here I am. To the angry, cynical and despondent he says. Come. Let’s talk. Walk with me. Share your griefs and burdens and fears with me. I am here for you just as you are.

Jesus tells us, shows us and helps us to understand that God is real and God is love. God the Father created all of us and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit to be the forever friends of the co-eternal Son, the Beloved, Jesus Christ.

There is an old song that says; looking for love in all the wrong places. God the Holy Spirit reveals to us that humanity has been and continues to look for God in all the wrong places. Jesus reminds us that we are lost in that search for God. Jesus assures us that God finds us. He finds all of us and each of us in Jesus.

Jesus says; I have come down from heaven. I am God with you. I am God for you.  Here I am.