A New Covenant

What does it mean to be a Christian, and why is the Bible divided into the Old and New Testament?  Paul tells us in 2 Cor 3:6 , “Who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” So what is the spirit of the New Covenant that we have in Jesus Christ?

Jesus was asked  "which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” and he replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^[ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Paul would later write "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." And James would write, "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well."

The Spirit of the law and the substance of the New Covenant is that we love God and our neighbor. (Mar 12:30-31) And make no mistake - it’s much more difficult, to follow the Spirit and love our neighbors as we ought to, than to judge and impose a self-serving letter of the Law against our neighbors, to appear more religious than they are.

Which is why many Christians prefer to be legalists and fundamentalists. Because however strict fundamentalism may appear, it’s much easier than letting go of our pride, our fear, and any prejudices that we may still harbor against our neighbors – including the fear and hatred of gays and lesbians. It’s much easier to become a fundamentalist Christian than to make those fundamental changes of heart that define a Christian.

Many of them would say: ‘It’s not about judging gays; it’s about looking at how the Bible considers homosexuality a serious offense. Unless we want everyone living by their own rules and doing whatever they please, we must look to the Bible for bedrock principals. The notion that homosexuality is wrong is one of them.’

Or so their argument goes…because they don’t have any faith in the New Covenant that we have through faith in Jesus Christ. They have no faith in the power of faith to transform a person’s life, and they believe a Christian cannot be trusted with the liberty guaranteed us when Jesus said, Joh_8:36  "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." and when Paul warned us to Gal_5:1  Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.. Frankly, they’re afraid of the New Covenant; they much prefer the letter to the spirit of the law; and they don't believe that Christ died to free us from the Law. They talk about the power of the gospel, but they’re afraid that it won’t work.

Their line of reasoning doesn’t conform to the truth of the Gospel because they have the wrong kind of faith. They've put more faith in controlling people rather than in loving them. Certainly the Bible can - and should - be used for edification and instruction: But only within the context of the absolute liberty guaranteed every Christian. The Bible cannot be used to refute or to dilute our liberty in Christ, or to safeguard Christians from the freedom that Christ died to secure for us. In the most necessary sense, the Gospel law of Love is the only law that matters. We are no longer under the Law of condemnation, but under the full and complete authority of God’s grace.

The problem with using the Bible to build a circumstantial case against gays is that you are doing something that directly contradicts the New Covenant. You are misusing scriptures in an attempt to prove something you would never need to prove if you had followed the Spirit of the law by loving your neighbor - rather than giving into the temptation to judge and condemn him.

The Gospel says that a Christian is free from the Law and any condemnation coming from the Law; and yet many have attempted to construct an entirely New and Abridged Mosaic Law aimed specifically at singling out and condemning gays. While at the same time, they conveniently excuse themselves from all the other obsolete prohibitions in the Bible, inasmuch as they judge those to be merely ceremonial, not as important, or no longer in force. Like the law against eating shellfish or wearing clothing with mixed threads, or stoning a bride when she is found not to be a virgin, or killing anyone that practices a different religion, or marrying off a young girl to the man who raped her. And there are many more like these.

Their new and Abridged Law, targeted against gays, could never change the path leading to our justification, which can only come by faith in Christ. They have merely annulled the power of the New Covenant  within their own life by condemning rather than loving your neighbor.

If a Christians is using the Bible to justify their hatred and perpetuate an injustice - however long in existence – he has broken the only Law that matters: ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ He has transgressed the law of love, against which every other Law is ultimately judged. It’s not the Law that judges us, it’s the spirit of Christ’s love that weighs and judges the Law.

 ‘What then?’ they would counter. ‘Can’t we as a society ever decide what’s right, what’s wrong, and make our laws accordingly? Does ‘freedom in Christ’ mean freedom from every moral precept and a sense of common decency? What sort of a world would it be if murderers and rapists and theives were allowed to do whatever they pleased, while we stood idly by with our hands behind our back because we don’t want to violate their Christian liberty?’

The most obvious fault with this kind of emotional hyperbole is that nobody is arguing that those who harm others – those like murderers, rapists, and thieves - should not be brought to justice and prosecuted. That’s a red herring. Society has a duty to pass and enforce laws that establish justice and protect the innocent from harm. However, society has no right to force the personal, private moral standards of one religious group upon everybody. Nor does society have any right to deny folks their basic Constitutional rights - like the right to marry - just because they happen to violate the moral code of others. This is not only unjust and unconstitutional, but an infringement upon the basic liberty guaranteed us by the Gospel.

American law is based upon the separation of church and state. Which is to say, we allow individuals the freedom to practice their own faith (or no faith) and to obey their own conscience in matters of personal and private morality. The separation of church and state is predicated upon the truth of the Gospel because it allows folks to make those kinds of decisions for themselves.

As Martin Luther would later write, “They wish to deprive us of our consciousness of liberty in such a way that we believe that what they do is well done; and it is not permissible to censure it, or complain that what they do is evil… It is solely on behalf of this liberty that I cry aloud; and I do so with good conscience, and in the faith that it is not possible for either men or angels rightfully to impose even a single law upon Christians except with their consent; for we are free of all things.”   Martin Luther

What we call privacy and personal freedom is the outward and secular side of the inward freedom that we enjoy in Jesus Christ. And just because some may abuse that freedom to their own harm doesn’t mean that we all must live under religious tyranny.

The Old Covenant was a combination of both civil and religious laws, since at that time there was no separation between church and state. At that point in history, the mediator between God and humanity wasn’t Christ, but the Mosaic Law. (The same situation exists in some fundamentalist Islamic states in their enforcement of Sharia law.) At one time, the idea of personal rights and moral freedom wasn’t possible because the New Covenant had yet to be preached. The Mosaic Law instructed everyone, not only in how they should live together in a safe and just community, but in how they must worship God and the moral standards they had to uphold.

But the New Covenant tells us that there are no written laws that could teach us how to worship God perfectly - in spirit and in truth through love, as Jesus taught us. (John 4:23-24) And there are no written laws that could enable us to love our neighbors as we ought to. That kind of information and ability can only come directly from God through the love of Jesus Christ working in our hearts by faith. As it says, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” (Jeri 31:33)

Strictly speaking, because a Christian answers directly to a ‘Higher Law’ through faith in Jesus Christ, he is completely free - not only from any religious laws but from civil and secular laws as well.

That’s not to say that a Christian is free to be a murder or a thief; but that a Christian refrains from murder and theft inasmuch as he is already obeying the law of Love written by Christ within his heart. A Christian doesn’t harm others because he’s freely chosen to love his neighbors instead. A Christian honors secular authority, rather than endorsing anarchy, because the law of love includes a genuine respect for civil authorities whom, as Paul tells us in Rom 13:1-5, God established them for the common good.

But where the laws of men and the law written within a Christian’s heart stand in opposition – as often has been the case over issues like slavery, civil rights, going to war, or an equal right to marry – a Christian has the right (and moral duty) to peacefully demonstrate his opposition to an unjust law, even if it means going to jail.

In demonstrating against unjust laws, a Christian demonstrates his allegiance to a much higher law. And though there were once sodomy laws on the books in America – they were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2003, in the case of Lawrence vs. Texas, which found, “no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."  Just as the laws prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying are being struck down today.

Many would counter: ‘It may be that the government has no right to invade our privacy or to impose its moral code. But does that mean a church cannot instruct their parishioners in matters of personal conduct? Isn’t that their purpose and function – to guide their flock in these matters? So then, aren’t churches obligated to reprimand, or even exclude, those who won’t live up to the moral code they teach and believe in?’

The duty and purpose of every Christian church is to preach the Christian Gospel without discrimination or favor - especially to the poor and persecuted. It’s admirable to preach values like love, tolerance, forgiveness, honesty, patience, courage, charity, faithfulness, commitment, and self-sacrifice. However, calling someone’s lifestyle evil when they have done no harm to anyone – but only because they haven't conformed to your particular lifestyle – that isn’t Christian. It’s a heterosexual country-club posing as a Christian church.

Even if they were right and a gay person's lifestyle was wrong, shaming and forcing him to deny how God created him cannot save him. Declaring a cultural war against you neighbors will neither change their heart nor their sexuality. Nor would it matter if it could.

If a pastor solved the problem of stingy parishioners by holding a shotgun on the congregation, forcing everyone to make a much larger donation - would God reward the congregation for their generous giving or consider it extortion and severely condemn the pastor for his methods? Obviously the latter.

 If Jesus intended to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals - why would he need anyone to shame and compel them to leave the “homosexual lifestyle” if he were already leading them in that direction?

The Lord not only judges what we do, but why we did it. He judges our heart. That’s why it’s so important to allow every Christian the freedom to choose, because without it, there can be no reward for making the right choice. Only condemnation for those who took away our freedom and stifled what Jesus may have been working within our heart. It’s not for their sake that gays have been compelled, through religious and legal discrimination, to attempt to transform their sexuality; it’s an attempt to stifle what Christ is already doing within the hearts of more loving and tolerant Christians; and the latter attempt won’t be any more successful than the former has been.

That being said, every church has a legal right to discriminate against whomever they choose; there is no law saying that our churches must welcome gays and lesbians, and none should ever be written. Still, if they are a church that preaches the New Covenant in Christ, they should necessarily adhere to the terms of that covenant, or they’re not really a Christian church.

Someone might concoct a Christian denomination that was based upon the Koran. But if their religion were based upon the Koran or some other revelation, rather than the New covenant, it would be Christian in name only.

Similarly, many legalistic/fundamentalist churches today are Christian in name, though not in spirit. Enforcing a regressive and legalistic moral code doesn’t make them traditional Christians. That they often seem very judgmental, angry, and intolerant towards those with differing points of view is more evidence of a spirit that’s not at all Christian.

Every church that preaches the New Covenant of justification through faith in Jesus Christ is theologically obligated to honor the personal dignity and Christian liberty of every member. They should, and I believe one day will, accept all those who believe the Gospel and have faith in Jesus Christ – whether or not they are heterosexual.

Like the fundamentalists of other religious persuasions, fundamentalist Christianity has become skilled at advancing the view that they represent the only legitimate version. But things don’t always come as advertised. Because those that have compromised the faith are those who have compromised (and taken away) the liberty of the Gospel.

The Lesson of Job

The story of Job may be the oldest source text in the Bible, and it’s certainly been one of the most puzzling. Bandits, fire, and a tornado take all of Job’s children, his servants, and his possessions on the same day. He lost his health and was covered with painful boils.

 Rather than comforting Job, his friends tell him he got what was coming to him. That the calamities were proof he'd done something terribly wrong - so why doesn't he just admit it? 

Often when tragedy or illness strikes, even our closest friends don’t know what to do. Partly it’s because they’re afraid of the same thing happening to them. So long as Job's friends could believe that he had done something terrible, they didn’t need worry about the same thing happening to them.

But, as Job pointed out, the objective evidence proves otherwise. 

People don’t always get what they deserve – or at least, it doesn’t seem that way. The wicked often seem to go unpunished, while good people can suffer such bad luck you would think their lives were cursed. We could argue that everyone will eventually get what’s coming to them on judgment day, but we can't reasonably maintain that everyone will be justly rewarded or condemned for their actions in this life.

Often when tragedy strikes, there's a part of us that wants to believe we are being punished for something we did wrong. Like Job’s friends, we begin to accuse our self. It's especially true when the alternatives are either believing that God doesn’t care what happens to us, or maybe there isn’t a God. Blaming ourselves can be a way of controlling what’s happening to us. We would rather blame ourselves than believe that God could be cruel or unjust. We would rather feel guilty than live in a world where human suffering had no meaning or purpose.

While Job’s friends argued that guilt was the appropriate response to human tragedy, Job wanted the opportunity to plead his case and prove his innocence. He believed that what had occurred should never have happened at all. And we can certainly sympathize with him.  After all, Job was a good man  and his suffering was very great. But just because Job didn’t understand why God  had allowed it didn’t mean he had any right to judge God’s ways or to feel sorry for himself. Self-pity is always a judgment call about God’s fairness and righteousness. We feel sorry for ourselves when we believe life (i.e. God) has been unfair to us.

Job was correct in saying that the tragedies were not a punishment for sin, but he was wrong in assuming that God was being unfair. Job had actually made the same false assumption as his three friends. The only difference was that he saw himself as someone who had - by some tragic mistake - been given the wrong payoff. He wanted an audience with God so that this terrible mistake could be rectified.

But even though Job may indeed have been a very good man, his righteousness in no way came anywhere close to God’s righteousness. As Jesus also pointed out, (Mt 19:17) “there is none good but one, that is, God.” Instead of taking the attitude that God owes us something, Jesus advised (Lu 17:10) “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” 

What if God sends it to rain on both the just and unjust, and causes His sun to rise on both the evil and the good (as it certainly does). What if God’s blessings should not thought of as ‘payment-in-kind’ for our righteousness - as if they were something we should expect and demand from Him, like wages for services rendered. What if His blessings are always a manifestation of God’s underserved mercy and grace, whether or not we think we’re better than other people (as most people do). And what if people suffer tragedy and illness in much the same way – not because they deserved or had it coming to them, but because God has reasons of His own?  What if the meaning of human suffering - just like the logic of God’s grace - must always remain somewhat of a mystery to us since it's outside the scope of our understanding? 

When tragedy or illness strikes, the temptation to blame ourselves, blame other people, blame the devil, or hold God at fault will always be high. Because as human beings, we want to get our mind around what’s happening to us. We don’t want to feel as if our life is out of (our) control, even though is to a large extent. We don’t want to give that control over to God. Unfortunately, the more that we give into the temptation to blame ourselves, blame God, or to blame other people, the more miserable we make ourselves, and the further we are from the truth of the matter. 

Knowing God doesn’t mean intellectually understanding His ways or why things happen like they do.The only way to really know God and His ways is by the way that He has made Himself known to us –  through faith. Faith is healing in the sense that faith connects us to the spirit of healing and wholeness - whether we call that spirit God, a Higher Power, or the power of love, We suffer when we live our life separated from God. As Christians, it shouldn’t matter whether our lives seem blessed or cursed. As Paul wrote (Php 4:12 – 13) “ I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” We should always be seeking His love and comfort inwardly, rather than obsessing too much about the outward trials or passing pleasures of life.

In the end, Job came to realize that "those who suffer, he delivers in their suffering, he speaks to them in their affliction." God is speaking to us through the bad things that happen to us - not to accuse or punish but to draw us closer. The beginning of dealing constructively with any challenge in life is in realizing that we don’t have all the answers. It is precisely within the space of all we don’t know that we become free to draw closer to the One whom we can only know by faith.

 The moral of the story is that Job came to know God much more intimately than before through his suffering. As he declares at the end of the story, (Job 42:5-6)  “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Previously, Job had know about God - through the scriptures, various stories, and oral traditions about God - but he only came to know God directly through faith and by way of his suffering. Job became wiser because he came to understand  more about God and His ways by appreciating all that he really didn’t know, simply because he wasn’t God. The tragedies that he'd experienced strengthened Job’s faith by centering it more completely in God alone, rather than in his own very limited understanding or righteousness.

Simplicity

“The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself,“ Whitman

It does not show off, but neither does it hide.  There is a quiet nobility in nature – a detachment – which is not an absence of connection so much as the absence of any ulterior motive.  Nature does not covet.  It does not cling or call attention to itself.

We tend to look at nature with nature’s own eyes, yet at each other with covetous eyes.

Even a simple flower - a manifestly manipulative device for the propagation of species – is really an old stoic who seems not to care whether or not a bee lands to pollinate.  That is its particular beauty.  The fact that nature does what it does, not for effect, but purely out of character.

It does not plan, predict or calculate the result, it does not toil, nor spin or gather into barns, it does nothing but to act out a certain biological imperative or ‘instinct’.  The ‘faith of a mustard seed’ lies buried within an unblinking biological imperative.

It grows this way or that, because it is what it is.  It is what it is, because God made it so.

Simplicity is the outpouring of an uncomplicated heart.  It is a heart undivided by the things of the world and of God.  It is a pure motive, a single goal.  It is the attitude of a heart no longer at war with itself. 

I walked a wilderness path and was suddenly struck at how everything around me - the Incense Cedar, Coulter Pine, Black Oak and Manzanita and all the little things that crawled or grew in the earth - were unanimously unconcerned and uninterested by my passing through. The self-absorbed insistence of humanity fell away and all at once it seemed such a small and mean thing.

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

          The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

              Hath had elsewhere its setting,

                And cometh from afar:

              Not in entire forgetfulness,

              And not in utter nakedness,

          But trailing clouds of glory do we come

              From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"

William Wordsworth

Easter In Our Heart

(Joh 14:1-3)  “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

When my father passed away, those words were on the front of the program the funeral home handed out to mourners at the door.  It’s often used on such occasions because, at first glance, Jesus seems to be saying that he has prepared a mansion for us in heaven. And while that may certainly be the case, he was saying much more than that. You don’t need to read much further in the same discourse to find out what he getting at.

“Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

The word translated ‘abode’ is actually the same Greek word mon-ay that’s translated ‘mansion’ earlier on. Perhaps it sounds more feasible than if it were to read ‘we will make our mansion within him’ - though that was what Jesus was indicating. He wasn’t really talking about building a mansion in heaven after we leave this world (though it may include that). He was talking about preparing a mansion within our heart where we can be with him now.

Living in the world, our life is constantly beset by problems. We worry about paying our bills, paying the rent or the mortgage. We worry about what might happen if we're laid off or became unable to work, or worried about finding a job in a bad economy. We may have health problems and issues or it may be someone close to us, and we’re disturbed and frightened about that. Many are concerned about their marriage, children, or other close relationships. Or else we may be alone, and we’re concerned that we may never find that person we’ve been looking for. As we get older, we are concerned about losing our youth – and our hair. We may be ashamed about something that we’ve done or are doing, or feel badly about something that we haven’t done but should have.

The rich have troubles of their own, because money cannot substitute for happiness, good health, or peace of mind, and sometimes worrying about losing all that you have can be worse than not having as much – especially when you realize that you must lose it all in the end.

I could go on, but you get the picture.  

Our life in the world is full of concerns and worries – so much so that even if we are living in a mansion - mentally, emotionally, and spiritually it can seem like living in a broom closet.  Whoever we are, and wherever we are living, we feel the concerns of this world pressing down and troubling us.

But Jesus tells us, “let not your heart be troubled.” And how are we to do that? “If you believe in God, believe also in me.” Have faith in Christ and he can lead us to the mansion within our heart that he has already prepared for us by dying on the cross and rising again to the Father. If we’ve invited Jesus into our heart and committed our life to his care, he wants us to begin living our life from that place where we can always be with him.

The world has effectively pushed us into a broom closet with all it’s cares and concerns and temptations, and that’s how the world wants us to live – troubled, preoccupied, and upset by the cares and vanity of life. That’s the trap the world has set for us. That’s the wide road that Jesus was talking about. (Matt 7:13)

But even though we are in the world, we no longer need to be of the world. We shouldn’t conform to the world or allow the world to call the shots about how we should feel or think, or what we must do. If we’ve given our life over to Jesus it means that he’s calling the shots. “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”  His disciples had left their former life and chosen instead to live their life with Jesus. And as Christians, we are to do the same thing. Not only in theory, as some legalistic abstraction, but in practice. 

Whether we are living in a mansion or living out of our car, life is full of troubles and concerns. The square footage of our residence doesn’t matter so long as we remain troubled by all of life’s problems.  

  “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus wants to bring us to that place in our heart where we can let go of the heavy burden that the world has laid upon us - to take up his much lighter and more joyous burden instead. He wants to bring us to that wide open place – to the mansion that he has prepared for us by dying on the cross – where we no longer need to feel hemmed-in by all the problems and concerns of life.

  Psa 118:5  I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.

2Sa 22:20  He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

Psa 27:4  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.

Most Christians have the wrong idea about church. They believe that church is the place where they need to go, for one hour on Sunday, to pray and get closer to God. And while that can be true to a certain extent, it’s supposed to be the place that helps us to find that place in our heart which Jesus has already set up for us - so that we can continue living there throughout the entire week.

Unfortunately, most people go to church to find some comfort and to be with God for about an hour, but then they go back into the broom closet and live the other six days and 23 hours of the week beset and troubled by all of life’s problems and temptations. Yet it doesn’t need to be that way, because Jesus has prepared a mansion where we can remain with him - and stay for as long as we like.

It’s a place where we don’t have to worry about paying the rent or the mortgage or property taxes.  That’s not to say that we won’t have any more problems, but the problems that we face in life don’t need to weigh us down, making us constantly upset, troubled or worried. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. He makes our heavy burdens seem much lighter because the joy of the Lord is our strength.

For most Christians, it’s as if we were given a mansion in Malibu with a spectacular view of the ocean. But instead of moving in, we only go to visit for an hour once a week and spend the rest of the time locked up in cramped quarters. What a terrible waste of square footage!  The more time that we spend in Christ’s mansion while on earth the less disorienting it will be when we get to heaven.. 

Easter is about thanking God for the mansion that Jesus has already prepared within our heart by giving his life for us.  

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

Seek out the mansion that Jesus has built, furnished, and prepared especially for you, and he will help you find it. Knock on the door, and he will open and invite you inside. Ask to stay with him a while longer, and he will give you as much time as you could ever need or want. And the more time that you spend with Jesus, the less likely you will ever want to leave.

The Gospel

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”      (Luke 4:18)

  

Jesus came to deliver the poor from the injustice of poverty, to free those being persecuted, to heal the sick and wounded, and to adopt into God’s family all those who’d been abandoned by the world. Jesus came to bring them all together into God’s kingdom. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world.” (Matt 24:14)

This message was truly revolutionary because in Jesus’ day, it was the more affluent and the religious authorities who were considered God’s chosen people. It’s why his disciples were “exceedingly astonished” when he told them, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.” (Matt 19:23-26)  They’d taken it for granted that the rich, who already seemed blessed, would also be the first to inherit God’s Kingdom.

But that wasn’t how Jesus saw it.

Those who were honored, wealthy, and enjoying all the pleasures of life – they didn’t need to be rescued and didn’t intend to forfeit their advantages. At best, they were like the rich young ruler who, though well-intentioned and moved by Jesus’ words, he refused to share his wealth with the poor. (Luke 18:20-24) It’s not that God has prevented the wealthy from hearing the Gospel - but like the seed that was lost along the way, they are unable to receive it  and so tend to distort and misinterpret the Gospel message. (Matt 13:18-19)

To say that Jesus preached the Gospel to the poor meant that, by in large, they were the ones willing to accept it on the terms that God offered it.

That being the case, it’s understandable why more affluent Christians would need to reduce the Gospel to a series of legalistic beliefs when the alternative might be to forfeit their material and social advantages. The young ruler would have preferred to go the route of many contemporary Christians – retaining all his wealth while following Jesus along the much broader, fundamentalist path. (Matt 7:13-14)

But it was then, and still is, impossible.

Not that forfeiting our social and material advantages is a legalistic precondition for all Christians - though the first Christian church at Jerusalem did require new converts to give all their wealth and worldly possessions to the church and those in need. (Acts 2:45) Still, we need to be honest with ourselves: In what sense are we a Christian if we’re always striving for material things? And how can we claim to be persecuted for our beliefs if we are the ones denying others the same rights and opportunities?

We can’t follow Jesus so long as our allegiance is still focused upon maintaining our advantage over others. We can’t follow the Lord while always keeping up with the Joneses. The Good News isn’t about our willingness to transform the Gospel into a set of fundamentalist beliefs so that we can continue neglecting the poor while persecuting those who are different from us. We can’t serve both God and mammon, though we can always pretend to have successfully pulled it off.

It’s not that God favors the poor over the affluent, because “God is no respecter of persons.” (Acts 10:34)  But when someone is poor, their life is already defined by all that they’ve lost: loss of respect, loss of any voice in their government, loss of the justice the affluent can afford - loss of decent housing, fair wages, basic health care, safe neighborhoods, an equal education … and on and on.

When someone is lesbian, gay, or transgendered, it’s been much the same way: loss of respect, loss of family and friends, loss of equal opportunities in the workplace, loss of basic human rights, loss of any support from your church - and more recently, the loss of some of your closest friends to AIDS.

The Good News is that however great our loss - God has intervened to help through the love of Jesus Christ. His yoke is easy and his burden light; and we can exchange the world’s burden for his, to lead a rich and victorious life. (Matt 11:28-30)  When your life is already defined by all that you’ve lost, there’s nothing more you need lose. Though you might need to rid yourself of any anger, resentment, jealousy, or self-pity, since holding onto these things might also hold you back from experiencing the joy of God’s Kingdom right now.  

When Jesus said that he was sent to preach the Gospel to the poor, the Greek word used for poor, ‘ptochos,’ meant the destitute: those without any visible means of support. It meant the begging poor. The modern equivalent would be homeless people: those pushing shopping carts, sleeping in their cars, living under bridges, and eating out of dumpsters. That was his target audience.

It might also include many gays and lesbians who were emotionally abandoned and left to fend for themselves – the teens who were kicked out of their homes after they told their parents they were gay; those who were abandoned by their friends, beaten up and ridiculed at school; those who’ve been slandered, scapegoated, and rejected by their own churches. It was specifically for these folks that Jesus came to preach the Gospel – not because they’re any better than other folks, but because they’re most in need of hearing the Good News, and consequently, most able to receive it with joy. (James 2:5)

We tend to look at poverty and oppression as two separate issues, though the Bible interprets poverty as another form of oppression and the result of breaking God’s law. (Deut 15:7-9) By preaching the Gospel, Jesus was responding to a socio-economic crisis that had grown much more appalling during his lifetime. The heavy taxes collected by Rome, to fund their colonial expansion, had been especially onerous on the working poor. They often lost the small plots of land that had been in their family for generations; many became homeless and started begging in the streets.

The immediate object of Jesus’ ministry was to establish a measure of social and economic justice. God is much more concerned about how we are living together and treat one another than He cares about all our various theologies and particular styles of worship. How we are worshiping God is a reflection of how we are treating one another – they’re two sides of the same coin. It’s impossible to worship God correctly while ignoring the plight of the poor and oppressed.

Jesus directly confronted the suffering and injustice all around him by healing the sick and injured wherever he went and by preaching the ‘Good News’ that was intended to liberate the poor and persecuted. It wasn’t the sort of freedom that comes through violence or by waging cultural wars; it was the freedom that comes by loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. Jesus demonstrated the power of love and forgiveness – how it can free and make us stronger than those who hate and persecute us. When we know God’s love, we become richer than those who only seem to be wealthy. And as we forgive those who persecute us, we become stronger than those who must resort to hatred and violence. Jesus came to tell the poor and the persecuted that God had chosen them to inherit God’s Kingdom – right now.

When our life seems broken - his gentleness can revive us and his tenderness gives us new strength. 

Jesus’ compassion towards the poor and oppressed was the motivating factor behind the Gospel. It’s not only that he came to save the world, but that he intended to redeem humanity by transforming the lives of the least amongst us. It’s a mistake to reduce Christ’s ministry to an abstract theological mission to save sinners by dying on a cross. It was certainly that too, but it was also so much more than that.

Jesus was not immediately motivated by a legalistic imperative, but by his genuine love and compassion for the poor and oppressed. God had not only humbled Himself as a man, but made Himself a poor and homeless man to draw closer to the desperately poor. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matt 8:20) And he died on the cross in the same way that thousands of poor and oppressed human beings perish every day - not because of any crime they’ve committed, but because we live in a world that doesn’t care how brutally it treats them.

Jesus came to demonstrate that God does care. He died so that we would never have to die; and he gave his life so that we could experience a much more abundant life while on earth.

It’s impossible to live in Christ and not have the same love and compassion for the poor and oppressed. It’s impossible to follow Christ and not be motivated towards the same end. To give up striving for material gain and social advantage isn’t a legalistic requirement; it’s the inevitable consequence of having that same love, that same compassion, and that same identification with the poor and oppressed. “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17-18)

Following Jesus doesn’t mean holding to certain theological beliefs, or having a ‘personal relationship’ that’s always focused upon my selfish interests. That’s not the liberty Jesus was talking about. (John 8:36) It’s impossible to identify with the plight of the poor - as Jesus did - while striving for material possessions derived from economic institutions that defraud the poor. And it’s impossible to say that you feel compassion for oppressed social outcasts - as Jesus made a point of demonstrating - while excluding homosexuals from our churches.

Jesus said that to properly worship God we must first become reconciled towards those whom we’ve wronged. “First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (to God).” (Matt 5:24) The injustice that divides rich from poor, and persecutors from those they discriminate against, must no longer divide us as Christians. It doesn’t mean that we are to convert the poor while maintaining them in poverty - or direct homosexuals to psychological charlatans so that you can continue using them as scapegoats.

How can God bless our life if we’ve helped to curse the lives of others? How could the Lord’s blessings come through material goods derived from slave wages or child labor? Was it God’s will that hundreds of millions of children should be denied the most basic necessities so that more luxuries could be lavished upon us? Did He decide that 18,000 impoverished children should perish of hunger every day so that more of His resources could be channeled into producing video games for affluent children? And how could God’s righteousness come by denying gays and lesbians their basic human rights  (which are like basic necessities that people need) especially when it was God who gave us our unalienable rights?

When we steal from the poor to make ourselves seem blessed or scapegoat our neighbors to make ourselves appear religious – how could that be a blessing from God? His blessings aren’t the consequence of the unfair advantages that we scrupulously maintain; His blessings come by forfeiting those advantages for the sake of others. They come once we relinquish our right to whatever worldly advantage we may seem to have to receive God’s blessings instead.

Those receiving the world’s blessings are those who’ve conformed to the world; while those receiving God’s blessings are those doing His will. And God’s will is that we neither take advantage of the poor nor oppress other people.

Nevertheless, He is not eager to condemn the affluent or to judge religious hypocrites. He is just and He is also merciful. Since He is just, the poor and persecuted can receive the joy and peace of God’s Kingdom right now through the love of Jesus Christ, and one day they’ll be honored in heaven. (Luke 6:20-24) And because He is also merciful, He continues being patient with those who take advantage of them so that some may yet change their mind. Although more often than not, they seem to mistake His patience for a blessing, inasmuch as they’ve reduced His blessings to material things. And since they don’t possess the same quality of mercy, they will often try to prove they are religious by condemning and comparing  themselves to others. Yet in seeking to condemn and exclude others from God’s Kingdom, they’ve condemned and excluded themselves. (Luke 6:37)

That’s not to say that every Christian must forfeit all their worldly possessions - to be a monk, missionary, or charity aid worker. Not everyone has been blessed with that level of faith. Though we all need to look at whether, and to what degree, our lifestyle may be part of someone else’s problem. We need to examine who’s really paying the price for the affluence we enjoy. Many Christians have limited their social responsibility to opposing abortion and the homosexual lifestyle. They are careful to define their faith by things that will never cost them anything. But by neglecting the poor and making intolerance their most distinctive quality, they’ve turned the Gospel completely on its head. 

According to the gospel preached in many churches today, Jesus made a serious error: Rather than taxing the wealthy young job-creator to create another entitlement for the shiftless poor, he should have inquired as to whether he opposed the homosexual lifestyle. The ‘Good News’ that was originally intended for the poor and oppressed has been completely transformed into great news for the greedy and homophobic: permission to continue defrauding the poor so long as they bash homosexuals.