Wednesday 4 July 2018

The Gospel Is Not Good For The Rich! Huh?!!!



The gospel has been re-duced to a few sentences....a few "key" phrases/ideas. Is that acceptable? What really motivates such a reductionist approach to the life of Jesus? Do people even read the whole gospel? Who decided what is acceptable in the "message"?

We are told "gospel" means good news. But is it really good news to all? To the rich, Jesus said they cannot enter the kingdom of God...And the Jews knew that a camel cannot - ever - go through the eye of a needle!  But the poor peasant disciples were relieved that even they can "for all things are possible with God". What a reversal of what they were taught and what society enforced.

We have the "gospels" of Mark, Luke, Matthew and John. Mark is the earliest - about 45-55 AD. A long time after Christ was here! Matthew and Luke took much from the source "Q". Hence the commonalities. Yet there is quite a difference in all four - making one question the reliability. They started off orally before being written down - and the goal was not to be word for word true as we expect from published reports today [or do we? #fakenews]. They had a message that the authors wanted to communicate.

One must wonder how "Christians" reduce entire books down to: we have sinned, Jesus died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin, accept him into your heart [sic] and you go to heaven"...."Sounds a little fishy", says the fisher men who followed Christ.

So what got excluded from this bastardization of the historical Jesus? Well...let's start with predictions about him in Luke 1. He was to bring down authority, feed the poor and reject/condemn the rich. And that's just chapter one. Later he condemns retaliation, wealth, racism, sexism, the Jewish/state authorities.... We see him accepting those detestable creatures called gentiles....oh, and let's not forget other "scum" like women and prostitutes. He even said the kingdom of God belongs to them....and the poor. What? When have you heard a TV [or twitter/web...] evangelist say this?

Of course the authorities - both the occupying Romans and the Jewish hierarchy enforcing their laws saw this dude as a threat....enough that he needed to be murdered - for sedition. Oh, but he was such a good Jewish boy!

So we see this Palestinian! Jew who was illiterate, poor, a stone worker [few trees so not a carpenter]...a low class scum essentially. But wait! My very brief summary is excluded from the evangelical's nice SELL-able story. You don't need to change anything. Just go to church, bible study, say a few words and study DOCTRINE. The religion becomes one of shoving your doctrine on others - not the radical social change that Christ lived and called for. In fact, he didn't say believe in me. He said, first you must repent: i.e. change: stop doing wrong. And he wasn't talking about masturbation or homosexuality or making love to a beautiful women [or man]. Not a very sell-able message. We also see a similar de-radicalization of Judaism. Once a radical social movement drawing much from the prophets, "lamed out" to be a Torah-based ritualized religion.

Christ! You should have known better! But that is the point. As "christians" pick and choose: i.e. destroy the message - they proclaim how right they are and how wrong the rest are [all funda-mentalists do this: whether atheist, Muslim, ...]. But they miss the point. Jesus stressed dying for your "brother"...sacrificing all to help the other - even if it is an "enemy" or occupier. But who wants to follow this crap message? Not a lot of fun to me!

Time to get into your expensive car, pollute God's land [killing the poor and all], go to church...and "praise" [with the mouth - not the entire body/life] the Creator.... What a sham. What a shame. Speak out and they will murder you - as they did to the real Christ. Good luck challenging institutions of conformity. The cross awaits you and your ideas!

1 comment:

  1. I like this message. I like that you ask a question: Is the good news good to all people?

    ReplyDelete