Jesus of Nazareth Didn’t Come to Make Jerusalem Great Again.

(Image is "James Cone's Black Jesus" by Felicia Follum)

Jesus of Nazareth didn’t come to make Jerusalem great again. 

He didn’t promise to build a wall to keep his people safe, in fact, he told them over and over again that they were NOT going to be safe, that they were going to be UNSAFE, and that he knew they were going to be unsafe and he wasn't going to stop it. 

In the book of Matthew, Chapter 5:44, he said “Love your enemies and bless those who persecute you” and in the Book of Luke he spelled it out a little more:

Luke 6:27-36

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.”

Jesus of Nazareth didn't come to pass out hats. He didn't come to defend your right to kill someone who took what was yours.

He came to tell you that you even though the way was narrow, all souls could find a way, and it wasn't through the sword.

It wasn't through the power of your voice, or how clever you were in business.

It wasn't through the gold or the silver or the power you could command.

Religious scholar Reza Aslan wrote a book called Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, which explores the historical roots of Jesus as a revolutionary figure.

Aslan hates the concept of the modern idea of prosperity gospel-  the idea promoted by some televangelists who say that God wants you to be rich.

“If there’s one thing you can really zero in on when it comes to Jesus’ preachings — I mean the historical Jesus — was his absolute hatred of wealth,” Aslan said. “This wasn’t a man who was neutral about it. Jesus wasn’t about equality. His preaching wasn’t that the rich and the poor should meet in the middle. That’s not what he preached. What he preached was that those who have wealth, that wealth will be taken away. Those who are poor, they shall be the inheritors of the earth.”

Aslan described those ideas as being “as close to Marxism as it gets,” but added that Jesus took the message even further.

“Marxism says we should all be in the middle. Jesus is saying, ‘No, the ones in the top and the ones in the bottom should switch places,’” he said.

Jesus came to speak to the poor.

He came to speak to the tired and the cold and the sick, and the unwanted. He came to speak to those crawling on the ground or walking with two sticks. He wanted to talk to the guy who made beer, and the girl who thought she was ugly, and to the ones who were darker or lighter or of a different tribe from anyone else.

Because he came to be a revolutionary. He came to change the world.

Jesus came to fight for social justice before either of those words existed.

When he started his ministry he didn’t do it the easy way. He didn’t flatter the Romans, or make friends among the rich and wealthy Jews. He didn’t try to get a patron, or to gain enough political influence to smooth his way and let him make change from the inside.

You can’t dismantle the master’s house by borrowing the master’s tools.

No, instead he went to the poor. He gathered his followers from fishermen and laborers, IRS workers, and women from minority ethnic groups. 

This wasn’t a saintly group of wise men in sparkly clean white and blue robes. 

These were the guys from the corner or the street.

McDonalds workers, a garbage man, a girl from a check cashing place, a few guys from a fish market, a pawnbroker, a drag queen, a rap artist, a girl on food stamps. A mechanic, a cowboy, a stripper, a cook.

Honey Boo Boo’s Mom. Dontre Hamilton and the Black Lives Matter Activists.

And he came to tell them not how to live with the system, or how to succeed in the system, but how to destroy the system.

Do not accept things the way they are. Do not accept that getting rich is important. Do not accept that hurting people is acceptable.

Put down your weapons.

The system is broken, he said, and I am coming to bring a new way. What is important is taking care of one another.

Rome wasn’t afraid of Jesus because some said he was the son of a God. Messiahs and demigods were a dime a dozen during that particular period in history. 

Rome was afraid because this man came into a world where income inequality was obscene, where wealth meant power and safety and privilege, and he said to the poor in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let’s just not participate anymore.”

He said to them, “You’ve got it all wrong. Sit down here and let me feed you. Sit down and let me give you a drink and wash your feet.” And when they all could hear him, he said:

Blessed are those who need help, I came for you. Your struggle has taught you so much.

Blessed are those who are sad at the way the world is, blessed are those who have been hurt by the way it all is now, he said, because once you realize it can be different you are going to laugh again.

Blessed are the ones of you who are too gentle to survive the way this system works right now, because you are the people who are going to inherit it all.

Blessed are you who just want to do right, instead of somehow winning, blessed are you who know it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.

Blessed are you who understand that taking an eye for an eye just means that we all go blind. Blessed are you who want the best for everyone, and you who want peace. Blessed are you who are willing to stand up and get picked on and still say I won’t perpetuate the system anymore. You get it, you really get it. This is what I came to say.

People are going to pick on you because you believe in the way I’ve shown you- If they’re picking on you good- it means you have it right. It means you aren’t doing it the old way.

If you try to take away privilege from the people in power, and give it to other people, you just perpetuate the same cycle and it all becomes worthless. Instead stand up and shine- let people see that you have chosen another way and that they can too- let them see me through you.

The people who lead you are following the wrong goals, and unless you do better than them, this new movement will fail.”

On Sunday of the last week of his life, Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem riding a donkey in peace. The crowds, those fast food workers and drug dealers and insurance salesmen, and pole dancers, and young families, and poor families- they laid palms in the dirt road so he wouldn’t get dusty and they scared Rome and the wealthy political establishment because they were listening to this young Rabbi who told them to do things differently.

By Wednesday, the Jewish High courts had accused him of blasphemy and had him arrested. Like Sandra Bland or Eric Gardner, he was stopped and arrested for something a wealthy politically connected person would have been fined and lectured for.

On Friday he was tortured, and crucified by Rome. He died because he represented a refusal to participate in a rigged system. He died because he told people there could be another way. He died because he refused to stop and politely ask permission to fight for change in a world where people were suffering day after day.

Maybe he was buried in a tomb, maybe not. Catholic scholar John Dominick Crossan finds it hard to believe that he alone was allowed burial, when most political criminals were burned or tossed aside after being left to hang for a time.

But he died.

And on the third day after his death, on the Sunday one week after his triumphant entry into the city, the movement he created was resurrected.

Jesus returned to life in another form, to lead his people once again, to lead them in a new way.

We rejoice on Easter today because of that resurrection. We rejoice because we are inheritors of that message.

The old systems of privilege and power serve only to destroy. Help to change the world, help to support this dream of help for those who need it the most. Christian or not, the resurrection brings hope that the dream is still alive.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

On Easter morning you can say that the light has come, the stone has been rolled away from the door of the tomb and a new way of being has been born into the world.

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.

Amen.