Here's to the losers

Christianity was intended by Jesus to be a minority position and always will be.  He wasn’t dividing the world into those God loved and those God didn’t love. Jesus was creating a remnant who were useable by God – to keep the whole world from its violent path toward self destruction….  That is very different from forming a new tribe of saved and superior people.

                               Richard Rohr

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from the moment he took his first breath

and lay squalling among the cows and sheep

Jesus was aligned with the poor and vulnerable

 

he spent time as a refugee

he grew up rural (as far as we can tell)

he was a blue collar kind of guy

 

his ministry was to the common folk

the dirt farmers

the street people

the nobodies

the riff-raff

 

Oh sure, he spent a little time with

some rich folk

but many of them were shady

 

and the few moments he spent with the religious elite?

let’s just say both sides were disappointed

they in the uncouth libertarian they saw

he in the rigid, arrogant moralism

 

Jesus never lined up with the power structure of his day

He didn’t use the “elite”

and he didn’t allow them to use him

 

instead he hung out with the poor and the powerless

the sick

the sinners

those who were so very, very “out” of power

 

it is interesting that when he talks about the Kingdom

he uses images like “yeast”

and talks of the “small” permeating and transforming

everything

 

The way of Jesus was always meant to be transformative

It was always meant to align with the “least of these”

It was always meant to stand against the power structure of the day,

 

Because power and wealth corrupt

and when the church aligns with corruption

it is corrupted

and becomes useless

 

there is no more unholy alliance than

religion and political power

 

and when the church tries to use political power to reach its ends

it ends up abusive, and lost

when political powers try to use the church to reach their ends

they corrupt the church

and reveal their own paucity

 

if the church would deign to touch the world

with the love of God

 

it must be like yeast

separate, unique, powerful

yet mixed in

 

what would happen if the church dared oppose earthly power?

(it did, at one time, a long time ago, briefly)

 

what would happen if the church said

lying is wrong

greed is wrong

trickle down is bullshit

coercion doesn’t work?

abusive power is evil?

 

what if the church did that?

instead of lining up with things “not Jesus”

to promote its “agenda”

 

what if the church trusted God rather than Presidents?

what if it relied on love rather than coercion

what if it fought for the poor, rather that cater (pander) to the rich

what if supported the way of peace rather than violence,

what if it went with servanthood rather than domination

 

we are so afraid of letting go of influence

of earthly power

we think that if we win the White House,

or stack the Supreme Court with “our people”

or use might to create right

 

we will somehow “win the day” for God

 

but when we align with power

it gets ugly

always

and the way of God loses

 

the foolishness of the cross tells us

that if we want to change the world

we have to align with God

who is aligned with the poor and the vulnerable

 

we have to be a remnant people

who dare to abandon

the way of domination

who dare oppose the way of inequity and privilege

who dare stand up for justice, and against oppression

who dare to serve rather than dominate

 

choosing the way of earthly power has never done anything

but rob us of spiritual power

and create a destructive tribalism

that crushes and kills

 

so here is to the losers

here is to the poor

here is to the humble

here is to those who will give up everything

everything

 

in order to welcome

forgive

heal

and love

 

here is to those who are willing to be the yeast that changes the whole

rather than the hammer that merely destroys