A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [62]
He hasn’t sold the humble donkey (Luke 19:30–35) on eBay and purchased chariots, warhorses, tanks, land mines, and B-1s instead (Zech. 9:9–10). He hasn’t climbed back to the top of the temple and decided he made a mistake the first time (Matt. 4:1–10), or concluded that from now on he’d be smarter to follow Peter’s Greco-Roman “human” strategies (Matt. 16:23). He hasn’t decided that the message of the cross is a little too foolish after all (1 Cor. 1:18) or that Christ killing his foes is way more exciting than that lame, absurd “hippie” gospel of “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
He hasn’t decided that my loyal critic was right, that nobody can be expected to worship a king they can beat up (Matt. 27:27). He hasn’t decided that a tattoo down his leg would look a whole lot tougher and macho than scars in his hands, feet, and side (John 20:27). He hasn’t decided to defect to the Greco-Roman narrative, since the majority of people who claim adherence to the religion that bears his name seem to frame their lives by it rather than by his good news of the kingdom of God.
The one I believe to be the real Jesus—the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Jesus of Acts, the letters, and Revelation too (wisely interpreted)—cannot be understood and must not be trimmed to fit within the Greco-Roman framing story; he can only be crucified upon its violent right angles. Jesus matters precisely because he provides us a living alternative to the confining Greco-Roman narrative in which our world and our religions live, move, and have their being too much of the time. That’s what Revelation actually tells us, that the humble man of peace is Lord. It confesses, in the midst of persecution and martyrdom, that the poor unarmed Galilean riding on the donkey, hailed by the poor and hopeful, is the one to trust. It invites us to pledge allegiance to the one who rules by his own example of service and suffering rather than by making examples of others.
Revelation celebrates not the love of power, but the power of love. It denies, with all due audacity, that God’s anointed liberator is the Divine Terminator, threatening revenge for all who refuse to honor him, growling “I’ll be back!” It asserts, instead, that God’s anointed liberator is the one we beat up, who promises mercy to those who strike him, whispering, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The suffering, serving one who bled on a cross—not the one with a commitment to make others suffer and bleed—is the King of kings and Lord of lords. In response to the crucified one’s name—not Caesar’s or any other violent human’s—every knee will gladly bow.
If you don’t want to worship a guy you can beat up, then I might humbly suggest you reconsider Caesar and the Greco-Roman narrative. It sounds like “Christ and him crucified” is not for you. At least not yet.
PART IV:
THE JESUS QUESTION
13
Jesus Outside the Lines
I am blessed, it turns out, with more than one loyal critic. Another one, even more well known than the first, on a widely disseminated radio broadcast (and in a book with a rattlesnake on the cover) contrasted his views of Jesus with my own:
The only reason Jesus came was to save people from hell…. Jesus had no social agenda…. [He didn’t come to eliminate poverty or slavery or]…fix something in somebody’s life for the little moment they live on this earth.1
Now what could possibly cause this earnest and educated Christian to assert that Jesus had no agenda regarding poverty and slavery? What could motivate a dedicated Bible teacher to minimize horrible social realities