"Jesus, the Revolutionary" Judy Skaggs, UPC
Luke 2:41-52
Over the last several years, San and I have set aside the lectionary in our preaching and have focused on a theme or book of the Bible. This year our inspiration came from the conference we attended in Albuquerque on the Emerging Church, particularly on the writings of one of the speakers we heard, Brian McLaren.
During the sermon I preached on the Sunday after Easter, I mentioned a little exercise that Brian had us do where we totally missed seeing a gorilla in the midst of a ball game. And his point was that whatever your focus is determines what you miss. So in McLaren’s writings, he asks what all we have missed about the life of Jesus. And that is what we want to explore.
What if we have misunderstood the core message of Jesus? What if through the centuries, we have developed a religion that celebrates Jesus in ritual, art, music, sermons, but somewhere along the way, we missed the rich, radical, revolutionary treasures hidden in Jesus’ message?
What if the message of Christ really was GOOD NEWS to every person? Would we want to know what that message is? Are we willing to search for it? To question all our previous assumptions?
Well, this summer, we hope to raise these questions in different ways, hoping that we will have the courage to re-examine what we believe about Jesus and his teachings. Of course, we all realize that this search will be very individualized, for none of us is in exactly the same place with our faith. Nevertheless, as we come together in community, perhaps we can help each other in our quest to see what we might have been missing in our study of the person we claim as Lord and Savior.
This morning, I would like us to look at the only story we have of Jesus as a boy from Luke 2. Let us listen for God’s word to us. (read Luke 2:41-52)
One of my favorite TV shows is Joan of Arcadia. It was only on for a couple of years, and now we get reruns from time to time. Joan is a teenage girl who encounters God. God appears to her as a variety of persons. The theme song of the show is:
What if God was one of us; just a slob like one of us;
Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?
When Joan encounters God in each episode, he or she usually asks her to do something. Joan usually asks tons of questions which God usually brushes aside. But the more you watch the show you realize that Joan never fails to try to do what God asks. And by the end of the episode, we all see why God asked her to do this thing.
In one episode, Joan’s friend Grace who is Jewish, is finally getting around to having her Bat Mitzvah. Now Grace is somewhat of a rebel and has been putting off this ceremony for several years. God tells Joan to help Grace, and so through the show we learn about many of Grace’s struggles that she has kept hidden.
But in the end, Grace goes through with the whole thing. At one point her father, the Rabbi, hands Grace the large ornate scroll, and says that she is now a child of the Torah – that it is given into her keeping. Grace chants the Hebrew lesson and then makes some comments. She said that holding that scroll made her finally understand something in a new way. She had always been reluctant to take the Torah for her own self because she thought it was full of answers and rules that she did not agree with.
But now she understood – this is a book that teaches you about questions, about searching for the right questions, not necessarily the answers.
As we think about this story of the boy Jesus, coming of age in his own Jewish faith. Perhaps for the first time, he has acted independently of his parents, seeking out the elders and scholars in the temple, the center of religious experience. And so he sits with them for 3 days and asks them questions.
Perhaps, like Grace, Jesus was seeking the right questions, not the right answers. For Jesus continued to question all during his ministry.
He questioned the religious authorities, particularly when they kept putting up barriers between different peoples. For Jesus welcomed and ate with all sorts of folks – the very people that the scribes and Pharisees scorned.
Jesus continued to question the status quo and called all who would listen to change their world views, to love neighbor as self, to love enemies, to be salt, to be light to a darkened world.
And because Jesus questioned, he was seen by many as a revolutionary – but not a typical revolutionary, for he had no army, no weapons, no wealth. Jesus was a revolutionary who identified with the poor, the homeless, the marginalized.
For Jesus’ revolution advances without violence, without hatred or revenge. The kingdom he teaches about is not like the kingdoms known in this world.
Our children’s sermons this summer are on the parables of Jesus that describe this kingdom. Yeast hidden in the dough, seed planted in the soil, pearls of such value that you give everything you own to have it. Jesus’ revolutionary kingdom advances slowly, quietly, hidden beneath the surface.
It advances with reconciling, forgiving love. When people love strangers and enemies; when people forgive from the heart, the kingdom gains a little ground.
I hope you all heard last Sunday’s choir anthem with words from The Quest for the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer. Ara, this anthem really expresses our theme for the summer.
He comes to us as one unknown…
And for those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself…
And they will learn in their own experience who he is.
Like Grace when she was handed the Torah and understood it would help her find the right questions…
Like the boy Jesus who began to understand who he was by sitting among the scholars and elders of his faith and asking them questions…
Let us also seek to live the questions, seeking a new and revolutionary way of understanding of the one we call Lord. May God bless our quest. Amen.