Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Is it just me, or does it feel like we are in a perennial cycle of political campaigning that never stops?  It’s like the day after an election, future challengers to newly-voted-in politicians are already criticizing and strategizing for the next round.  And, of course, there are now a seemingly unlimited number of information sources that report on all of this through their particular lens.  My wife grew up in a home where her parents chose not to install cable television service.  They got one channel.  CBS, I think. My parents opted to get cable, and we got 13 channels!  What a luxury!  Two of those were C-SPAN, another was The Weather Channel, and a couple of local broadcasting stations.  Boiled down, we still basically had three media outlets that told us what was happening in the world: ABC, NBC, and CBS.  If you are my age or older, you should feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that is thrown at us.  If you’re younger, you simply may not know you are overwhelmed because such saturation is normal.

How do you sort all of the information out?  When you are considering a candidate for public office or discerning how you want to vote on a ballot measure, what sources do you tap, and why?  What values are you looking for in a candidate that you need to see if you’re going to give them your vote?  Is it simply what political party they are aligned with?  If so, why?  Note: if you are curious what observers think about the bias of your favorite news sources, just Google “Media Bias Chart” and you’ll find a lot to chew on.

It may surprise you to learn that Jesus’ public ministry looked a lot like a political campaign.  Why do you think his words were remembered?  It wasn’t just one sermon on the mount – it was likely dozens and dozens if not hundreds of public teachings and conversations with smaller groups of people and talking a lot with his disciples as he traveled around mostly the Sea of Galilee region of northern Israel. Remember that he was executed by crucifixion, the most brutal form of capital punishment the Roman Empire could conjure, custom-made for those whom they wanted to make an example: follow them and die in absolute shame and disgrace.  Remember also that the Jewish religious leaders – the High Priest and company – were deeply instrumental in bringing him to court and finding him guilty of blasphemy and insurrection.  Jesus’ life ended in humiliation.

For many people, being a Christian simply means to be a nice person.  Christians should be nice persons, for sure, but is that what Jesus was really about?  No offense to “Be Kind” campaigns – which are wonderful and serve as good reminders of what should come naturally in a world of unkindness – but I don’t think the Jewish leadership or the Roman Authorities would have had Jesus killed for handing out buttons and giving hugs.

What does being Christian mean to you?  Is it more than being a nice person?

Jesus had a lousy tech team.  None of them knew how to create a website and thought social media was a fading trend.  But they did manage to record their remembrances of what he said and did in four related collections: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Each were written by different groups of people, with Mark being the first, followed by Matthew and Luke (which used Mark as a key source, explaining why they are so similar), and many years later, John was written (with greater interest in theology than chronology).  These are called gospels, which translates as “good news”.  What was the good news that captivated enough people to garner interest from religious leaders and Roman Empire officials?  What about Jesus’ message was seen as a threat?  Why didn’t Christianity die with Jesus on the cross?

This teaching series may be disturbing for many of you, because you will discover that the Christianity that resembles Jesus is quite different than the Christianity you may have originally signed up for.  It is incredibly likely that you signed up for a “Be Kind” campaign with the assurance of heaven thrown in.  Or maybe you were compelled by the heaven piece and you’re trying really hard to be kind until your reward.  Jesus does have something to say about being kind and getting to heaven – both matter – yet neither of these things were part of his core campaign message.  For the earliest followers, to say yes to remaining a Christian after Jesus’ death was to invite trouble, perhaps even torturous death. Was that part of the deal for you when you embraced the faith?  Was there any disclosure stating that your life may be at risk if you take this seriously?  I doubt it.  What was it, then, about Jesus’ message that won the hearts and lives of such ardent followers? Why did they sign up and stay signed up?

What was it that won your vote for Christianity originally?  Why did you say yes?  What was the primary message that you were saying yes to?

Every election cycle, candidates seeking office talk about the need for change.  Incumbents talk about how well their change-making is going and the need to keep changing the way they’ve been leading, and their opponents declare that the person in the office needs to change.  In one sense, Jesus was no different. Following in the footsteps of his relative, John the Baptist, famous for his fire-and-brimstone type preaching followed by baptism as a response and indicator of repentance (turning/changing), Jesus was known for talking about change, too.  Most of the time in our experience, regardless of the political promises, many are generally left underwhelmed by the lack of progress toward deep change that actually takes place, perhaps because the means to change – power – is used by all opposing sides, perpetuating the need for another coup of sorts.  The Jewish leadership at that time crafted a working relationship with Rome whereby they enjoyed a large amount of power to govern their Jewish adherents.  But power has a way of corrupting those who hold it. Jesus came to realize that the power model only led to more strife and was not rooted in the nature or person of God.  So, while Jesus came to announce a change was coming and is already here, it was founded on an entirely different paradigm: love.

Let’s take a look at how Jesus began his ministry for clues about the vision he was casting and how he was going to bring to reality. Remember that Jesus was born into extreme poverty in Northern Israel, when the Jewish people who lived there were under the Roman Empire’s occupation, which brought order to their subjects via threat of violence.  They were the world Superpower at that time.  The Jewish religious leadership were corrupt, having struck a deal with Rome whereby they were able to keep their power so long as they kept the Jewish people in check, which they did using a different threat of religious violence.  They became known for living very comfortably in Jerusalem while those they served struggled to scrape together food for each day.

Before Jesus began his public ministry, his distant cousin, John the Baptist, was calling people to turn from their former ways toward God, because he believed God was about to bring about a new chapter in history.  When he saw religious leaders who came to observe him, he called them a “brood of vipers”, charging them with only giving lip service to God without any action to back up their belief.  This was the beginning of a movement.  Jesus resonated with it, and joined the cause with his baptism, in which God showed up in a tangible expression:

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ I did not recognize him as the Messiah, but I have been baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.” –John 1:29-34 NLT

            Everybody who heard the story heard that this Jesus was anointed by God to take away the sin (singular) of the world.  Not the sins, but the sin.  Sin has been defined as the culpable disturbance of shalom. The prevailing systems that dominated the political and religious realms worked against shalom, which refers to peace, wholeness, harmony, equity on a large scale, which includes personal lives but extends to the entire world.  Jesus came to change that, to rectify that, to bring peace and harmony back to the world that had lost it because it chose the ways of power and control that offered a false peace – the absence of conflict because it was squashed by violent domination.

            Immediately following his baptism, Jesus went on an extended retreat to sort out how he would live into the new reality, the different way of God’s kingdom that leads to true shalom.  While on retreat, the following happened:

Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.

Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’”

Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. “I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. I will give it all to you if you will worship me.”

Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say, ‘He will order his angels to protect and guard you. And they will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”

Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’”

When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.

Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Reports about him spread quickly through the whole region. He taught regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. – Luke 4:1-15 NLT

 Jesus was tempted to live by his passions (bread), to bow down to the world’s system of order, dominance, and peace, and to place himself above God.  The temptations were to give into everything wrong about the way the world was living and leading, to which Jesus simply said “no.”  The way of God that would restore shalom was markedly different than the way that disturbed it.  Politicians say that if you want what you’ve got keep doing what you’re doing.  Jesus was fully aware that real change required an entirely different path and sensibility.  If God was the origin and goal of the shalom, then the way of God had to be the means to get there.

All four Gospels record that Jesus quickly invited people to become his disciples:

From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”

One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.

A little farther up the shore he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets. And he called them to come, too. They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind.

Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed—he healed them all. Large crowds followed him wherever he went—people from Galilee, the Ten Towns, Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River. – Matthew 4:17-25 NLT

  Who did he choose?  Not people in power, but everyday people.  Not highly educated religious folks, but common folks.  Why?  Probably because they were more in touch with the problems baked into the system that disturbed/destroyed shalom, and they would therefore have less unlearning to do going forward.  Furthermore, if they “got it”, anybody could. This was a truly grassroots movement of real, normal human beings, who resonated with the message from his home turf and beyond.

Note also that the anointed was extremely powerful on him, giving him the capacity to teach powerfully and heal many forms of diseases which, at that time in history, were considered curses by God.  Through Jesus, God was restoring people from their “sin” within their physical bodies.  He was beginning to gain great notoriety.

However, as he was prone to do, he made sure to clearly communicate that the Way of God that restored shalom to the world was not like the way that disturbed/destroyed that shalom:

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,

that the blind will see,

that the oppressed will be set free,

and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

Then he said, “You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself’—meaning, ‘Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.’ But I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown.

“Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a foreigner—a widow of Zarephath in the land of Sidon. And many in Israel had leprosy in the time of the prophet Elisha, but the only one healed was Naaman, a Syrian.”

When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on his way. – Luke 4:16-30 NLT

            What was he saying to his nationalistic home crowd?  That God was not nationalistic.  What was the result?  Those that were counting on a paradigm where they would come into power over those who had overpowered them were infuriated. They had not yet understood that the way out of the problems of the world would not come from the ways that created the problems in the world.  You don’t restore shalom via the means that disturbed and destroyed it, even if you feel like you are God’s beloved.  Note how powerful this paradigm was in Nazareth.  They were ready to kill him, an allusion to what would eventually come.  Jesus, however, was not stopped by their attempts to nearly kill him, also an allusion to a day when power-brokers thought the movement died with Jesus, only to discover that the Kingdom of God extends beyond this life, which cannot be touched by the kingdoms of this world.

            We are living, once again, at a time when the world’s paradigm of power and domination has greatly disturbed shalom even while claiming to be its source.  We are living, once again, during a time when it appears that religions have bought into that same paradigm to varying degrees and have found themselves culpable of the very shalom they were entrusted to restore.  Once again, to see Jesus and his message clearly calls us to the same questions it did originally: do we want to see shalom restored in all its fullness?  If so, do we understand that the shalom sought by Jesus was also the shalom lived by Jesus – the means becomes the end, the end is determined by the means.

            There remains a great threat in Jesus’ mission, personally and beyond.  The power and domination mode of this world that lives in us is challenged.  Can you tell?  Can you feel it?  What do you really want in your life and in our world?  Are you satisfied with the system that got us where we are, or is there something within you that longs for something deeper, a peace that is much more than the absence of conflict but is truly the expression of harmonious well being.  If not, don’t utter the prayer Jesus taught and lived, because it is a rally cry for restoration.  If so, let your voice be loud and clear:

 

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.