A discussion I'm having with an "Evangelical Christian" relative.
First is: "Jesus Rode a Donkey not an Elephant" that I sent to this relative:
Here's the first post I sent him:If Jesus were alive today, would he:
# Feed the poor--or cut free school lunch programs?
# Comfort the old and infirm--or eliminate Social Security?
# Turn the other cheek--or invade Iraq?
In this groundbreaking book, noted author and theologian Linda Seger, Th.D., explores what it means to be a Christian and a Democrat--and shows how the two are not mutually exclusive (as many Republicans claim), but rather inclusive. She reveals the close relationship between Democratic policy and Jesus's teachings--and the many ways in which the values Jesus espouses in the Bible correspond to the values Democrats call their own. The idea that America's real Christians are all Republicans is just that--an idea, and an indefensible, divisive one at that. Jesus Rode a Donkey is a call to Christians everywhere to remember that Jesus was a liberal, who rode a donkey through the streets of Jerusalem....and not an elephant.
Linda Seger, Th.D. (Cascade, CO) is uniquely qualified to write this book--a theologian, author, and teacher with degrees in English (B.A.), an M.A. from Pacific School of Religion (a non-denominational seminary that prepares ministers for the United Church of Christ and the Methodist churches), a Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), and an M.A. from Immaculate Heart College Center in Los Angeles. She's a Christian and a Democrat.-----------------------------------------------------------
Here's the Reply my Evangelical Relative sent me...SAYING...JESUS WAS A RADICAL!-----------------------------------------------------------
Jesus’ Radical Love and Radical HospitalityThe Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Jesus was a radical. This news often comes as a jolt to people who have absorbed a domesticated understanding of Jesus and his ministry, commonly taught by persons who wish to reinforce the power and authority of the dominant culture.
Jesus was a radical. He embraced outcasts, cleansed lepers, protected adulterers, ate with sinners, welcomed foreigners, healed the sick, raised the dead, embraced children, affirmed the ministry of women, defied dietary laws, worked on the Sabbath, and challenged the teachings and influence of the religious and political authorities of his day.
If we discount, or forget, the fact that Jesus was a radical, we will never understand the power of his message and ministry in the first century, or its relevance and relationship to our contemporary world.
II
The New Testament is replete with examples of Jesus’ radical love and inclusivity. Today’s gospel lesson from John, and the New Testament reading from Acts, are two illustrations of Jesus’ message about love and inclusivity.
In John 15:-17, Jesus explains that his true disciples abide in his love. The Greek term for love, found in the oldest texts, was agape. It meant love based on mutuality, reciprocity, and compassion. Jesus’ exhortation to the disciples to love one another was a stretch for them. Throughout the gospel of John, and the synoptic gospels, Jesus implored and exemplified this “agapic” love for all people.
In John chapter 4, Jesus said, “Love one another.” The disciples mused, “Even the Samaritans?” Jesus replied, “Yes.” In chapter 8, Jesus said, “Love one another.” The disciples asked, “Even the adulterer?” Jesus said, “Yes.” In chapter 12, Jesus said, “Love one another.” The disciples asked, “Even the Greeks?” Jesus answered, “Yes.” In chapter 15, Jesus said, “Love one another.” And the disciples said, “Even each other?” And, Jesus exclaimed, “…love one another as I have loved you” (v. 12).
This is hard work, the disciples must have thought to themselves. So Jesus went on to explain that their and our ability to love others is grounded in our ability to hear and believe that God loves us—not only the parts of ourselves that are lovely—but maybe even more importantly the parts of ourselves that are not so lovely, or that are downright ugly.
Do you really believe that Jesus loves you? Do you? Do you believe that Jesus loves you, all of who you are, and who you’ve been, even the parts of you and the parts of your past that you think are unattractive?
Think about that question for a moment. Think about yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit, your personality, your gifts, your flaws, your past, your present, and your future. What of these are lovely in your eyes? What do you find hard to love?Is it your receding hairline, or your expanding waist-line that you find hard to love? Is it the shape of your nose, or the color of your eyes? Is it the bags under your eyes, or the emotional baggage that you’ve been dragging for umpteen years that keeps you from embracing the love of God? Is it an indiscretion in the past, or a dream differed that limits your loveliness? Is it a broken relationship, or a child’s disappointments that have caused you to withhold part of yourself from God? Is it that part of your personality that most resembles the person whom you swore that you’d never be like? Or is it that hole in your heart that never seems to heal since a loved one has died, or your primary relationship has dissolved? Just what is it that keeps you from experiencing the abundance of God’s love for you?
When you’ve identified the parts of yourself and your life that are harder for you to love, then you know what parts you need to hand over to God in prayer, so that God can help you accept yourself more fully and so that you in turn can be set free to accept and love others as Christ has loved you.
Popular psychology has taught us over the last forty years that we must love ourselves first in order to love another. Jesus’ psychology, by contrast, has taught us over the last two thousand years that God loves us just as we are, and that when we allow ourselves to receive that love, we are better able to love others just as they are.
III
The New Testament book, The Acts of the Apostles, describes countless tales of the Apostles’ struggle to love themselves, to love God’s Chosen People (i.e., Israel), and to love the Gentiles, (i.e., all those who were not Jewish). Luke, the author of Acts, reveals that the early apostles ran into a few snags in trying to fulfill Jesus’ mandate to love themselves and others—especially those who were religiously and culturally different from these Ancient Israeli Jews. The big news in Acts is that the apostles were able to overcome the religious and cultural barriers that would have halted the spread of the gospel in general, and the message of Jesus’ love in particular.
Today’s reading is an account from the Apostles’ travel diary, which gives a crucial example of how the apostles overcame a major religious and cultural stumbling block in themselves and in the whole Jesus movement. This account is called “the conversion of Cornelius and the baptism of the Gentiles.” It’s found in Acts, chapter 10.
Before anyone starts thinking that this is going to be a sleeper of a history lesson, let me underscore the importance of Acts 10. Were it not for the conversion of Cornelius and the baptism of the Gentiles, I guarantee you; we would not be sitting here today. Christianity would have probably died an obscure Jewish sect by the end of the first century (C.E.), were it not for the conversion of the Italian Gentile, Cornelius (in Acts 10:1-33), his household, and the soldiers that he commanded.
So who was Cornelius? Cornelius was an officer in the Italian army, and the first Gentile convert to Christianity. From all accounts, Cornelius was a model Christian. He was a man of deep faith, who gave generously to the poor, and who said his prayers every day. One day while Cornelius was praying, God told him to dispatch three men to Joppa to find Peter and bring him back to Caesarea, so that Cornelius could hear him preach. The soldiers did as Cornelius commanded.
Meanwhile in Joppa, Peter, like Cornelius, had received guidance through his prayers that he should not only welcome some Gentile visitors, but that he should accept their invitation to travel with them and to forgo the Jewish dietary customs, in order to enjoy table fellowship with them back in Caesarea.
Peter followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He received Cornelius’ soldiers, accepted the invitation to Caesarea, and followed the soldiers to Cornelius’ home. There in Caesarea, Cornelius described the visions he had received in his prayers, and he asked Peter to preach to his household and to his soldiers, so that he might better understand what the spirit was revealing to him.
Peter went on to deliver one of the most memorable sermons in the history of the early church. He explained how God showed no partiality over any nation, and how everyone who came to God would be received and blessed.
While Peter was still speaking, Luke (the author of Acts) explains in verses 44 and following that, “the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word,” and the Gentiles began speaking in tongues and praising God. Peter was amazed by the work of the Holy Spirit, and took it as a sign from God that the Gentiles should be baptized—not only with the Spirit, but also with water. So Peter ordered his companions to baptize Cornelius and his people in the name of Jesus Christ.
After the baptisms and the worship were over, Cornelius invited Peter and his companions to stay and visit with them for several days, which they did. By accepting the hospitality of Cornelius and his company, Peter and his companions broke down the social barriers that separated the Jewish Christians from the Gentiles, and inaugurated (for better and for worse) the mission to the Gentiles and the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity.
As remarkable as the story is of Cornelius’ conversion, there is a subtext to this story that I find even more compelling and intriguing. I’ll call it the conversion of Peter and his companions. The inclusion of the Gentiles into the early church was no “slam dunk,” at least not in the mind of Luke, the author of Acts. The Gentiles’ conversion, baptism, and welcome, Luke explains (in chapter 10), were due partly to the Spirit’s work, partly to Peter’s preaching, and partly to the sacramental ministry of Peter’s companions. Had the hearts and minds of Peter and his companions not been opened to ministry among the Gentiles, Cornelius and his people would not have understood the Spirit’s movement, and they would not have been welcomed into the church.
Consider the conversion of Peter and his friends. Consider the kind of shift that had to take place in them, so that they could fully embrace the Gentiles, and a ministry with and among them. This shift represented far more than Peter’s discovery of a new or larger “market” for the gospel. This shift required that the apostles set aside many of the cultural practices and values that they and their families had kept for 1700 years. Think about that—1700 years! The dietary laws of Ancient Israel go back at least as far as slavery in Egypt. What are the odds that people with that kind of tradition would break with dietary customs that were not just about table manners, but also about identity? What are the odds that anyone would set aside these kinds practices and meanings to welcome another group into their own?
The odds of Peter and his friends setting aside customs and values like this are slim at best. But Luke confirms that, unlikely as it seems, these Jewish-Christian apostles did embrace the Gentiles. They did exchange hospitality with the Gentiles. And, the rest, as they say, is history.
IV
Jesus taught a radical love, a radical inclusivity, and a radical hospitality that confounded his adversaries, and that put his disciples and apostles to the test. To fully appreciate the profundity of Jesus’ first century challenge, let us consider some contemporary analogies to the Jewish-Gentile polarity that Peter and Cornelius and their cohorts represented. Let’s consider the questions: who are the individuals or groups whose identities and customs challenge our sense of what is “normal” or “acceptable?” To whom are we being challenged to extend hospitality and Christian love in our time?
Maybe those whom we find most difficult to love are members of our own families—maybe they are people from another generation, or who live in another part of the country. Maybe they eat weird food, listen to strange music, and hold and act out of different values than we understand or support.
Maybe the people whom we find most difficult to embrace are those in our community whose ethnic or religious dress is different than our own, or whose marital practices are at odds with our own, or whose cultural or religious holidays are unknown to us.
If not these, maybe the people who we find most difficult to extend hospitality to are persons whose gender or sexual identity seems different than our own (like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-ff), or whose family makeup is peculiar to us, or whose childrearing practices don’t conform to our own. (See the attached Administrative Action calling upon the UCC General Synod to affirm the Participation and Ministry of Transgender People within the United Church of Christ and Supporting their Civil and Human Rights, which was adopted by the NCNC UCC at its Annual Meeting, May 17, 2003.)
If we dare to remind ourselves that God loves us, and the people whom we find hard to love; if we dare to remind ourselves that God may yet be working out God’s purposes in and through them and us; then I believe that we will find ourselves on the cusp of seeing, understanding, and being a part of the grander and more glorious mission of God.
V
May God help us to open--not only our minds, but also our hearts--to God’s gracious love for us, and to the new ways that God may be calling us into mission partnership across a multitude of religious, and cultural barriers.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:1FhL6m37jJwJ:www.edenucc.com/sermons/20030525.html%3Fword+Jesus+was+a+Radical&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
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