My Beloved Community Chapter Four; Part IV: JESUS, THE SURPRISING CONTEMPORARY(A) - Redeeming in Action
In every age, some would have Jesus adjusting to the contemporary cultures, value systems, mores, and styles of life. They would have Him accepting the prevailing political, religious, and social structures. But Jesus was not this world conformer, waiting on another world. He was a confronter. He confronted men and women and societies with their sins, individually and collectively. Nobody was spared. The highest as well as the lowest came under His Judgment. But all were given the opportunity to start anew. He showed them that they could become the children of God.
He was a disturber of the peace. He disturbed the serene order of the status quo; the order built upon the gratification of the few and the degradation of the masses.
He was a shatterer. He shattered religious and social and political systems that were corrupt to the core.
In a word, He was a troublemaker. He just could not leave things alone. He always had to be meddling and poking around.
He came with a new order. And to inaugurate a new order it is always necessary to overturn or to remove the old order. Now that is true individually, and it is also true collectively. "You can't put new wine into old bottles," He once said, "nor can you put old wine into new bottles." New wine must be put in new bottles. You need a complete newness, newness through and through.
He came with a new ethic, a new morality, a new way of looking at old problems and questions. He came with a new value system, one not grounded in tribal preservation or ancient laws, but in the eternal rightness of things.
Now His disciples had learned their lesson well. For it was said of them that they were turning the world upside down. What a description: "These are they that have turned the world upside down." What did that description mean?
It meant that they rejected the world's idea of justice and rightness. It meant that they refused to accept society's concept of what was important and what was meaningful and what was authentic. It meant that the followers of Jesus, following the example of their Lord, went everywhere with a disdain for political, social, religious systems; they cared nothing for old moralities, old authorities, old traditions, etc. For these things had not brought peace and justice to the world, to say nothing of producing an abundance for all earth's inhabitants. And, therefore, the disciples felt that these things needed to be swept aside to make way for the new order which would start in the minds and spirits of humanity and would issue forth into a new community comprised of all the people of the world, and give rise to new social structures.
Jesus had said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." What He meant was that His kingdom gathers its ethics, its rationale, its philosophy, its lifestyles, its values, its strategy, not from the systems of men, for these are bankrupt, for they are built upon the wisdom and self-interest of men. But rather, His kingdom is sustained and perpetuated by the infusion of the Eternal Spirit of the Almighty Himself, which captures the spirits of men and catapults them out into the world with messages of salvation for all; and, therefore, His Kingdom is incorruptible. Its treasures are in heaven, beyond the corruption of earth. You can't buy or bribe your way in; you've got to be born anew. You've got to undergo a radical reordering of your attitudes, values, associations, and desires.
His kingdom is irresistible, the gates of hell cannot stop it. And it is eternal, for it flows from God Himself. And it is always in opposition to the kingdom of this world, for the systems of men are demonic. They are conceived in pride, nurtured in arrogance, and raised on selfishness, yielding a harvest of injustice, violence, inhuman behavior, and misery. And one day His kingdom, though small and insignificant now, shall grow and grow and gather momentum with the passing years and shall destroy the systems of men, and a new nation will begin.
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