Seeking a Jesus agenda

A minute ago it was Ash Wednesday. Now here we are half way through the Lenten season! When I was reading and preparing to preach through Lent, I encountered a ‘how to’ message for preparation – first know the goal, know where [I] want to end up and then work backward. At first glance this made sense. But with a deeper look I saw this approach as manipulating where we go; me trying to control an outcome, putting myself in a position as the leader or authority. Hasn’t this been the history of colonized Christianity? The colonized way of ‘Knowing what is best for you – and if not manipulating you into my way, forcing my way upon you with a manipulated theology.’ I know, this may be more than you were looking for today. But I welcome your companionship on the journey of all my questions and wondering. It is not my desire to lead for but to lead with in discovering what Jesus was about…to upend the box in which Christianity too often would contain God and see how the human Jesus lived into the character of God.  Here’s what I understand for now about a Jesus agenda…
it wasn’t imperialism
surely not the glory of power or honor
he didn’t hang with the elites but was hung by them.
he mingled with the minorities
he healed the infirmed of mind and body.
Jesus didn’t demand but invited
he welcomed the children
was a neighbor to the least of these
he washed dirty feet.
Yet the church sits him on a throne 
donned with a robe and a scepter in his hand 
worshipping his rule over some heavenly realm when what he lived was to bring heaven to earth.
his grace was not for the other side of death 
but the grace of forgiveness to die to our imperial, prideful, manipulative ways 
to embrace the ‘other side’ and live into a fullness on earth … as it is in heaven.

Jesus the man seemed to set himself apart by moving beyond the belief God exists or belief that God’s promises come true, to believing into a way of God that is way harder to follow than it is to worship. I spoke more on believing into here and continue to wrestle with it, contemplating with Jesus the prophet, the healer, the man who lived fully into a beloved identity. 

Thanks for walking with me today, for being
in this together...