Have you found Jesus?

 

Not long ago I saw this cartoon and, predictably, it made me laugh. (I don't know who drew it but the image belongs to them and we will remove it if requested, by the artist!!!)

 



But it also made me think. Why are we so sure we know who Jesus is and what he would do in any given situation? We look at Jesus with the eyes of people who know the whole story. We see the patterns in his life and ministry because we can look back on the whole thing. To those living with him, in 1st century Palestine, Jesus was nothing if not unpredictable.

 

Think of that time he threw the money changers out of the Temple. No one saw that coming. Nowhere else do we see this raging Jesus. He is confronted with lying Pharisees, crowds stoning women, great numbers of silly people who forgot their food for the day; lots of blood pressure raising situations. Not once does he lose his rag - that's what would have made the Temple Tanty so difficult to understand.

 

He also went to people that no one else had any time for - tax collectors (they were seen as below the lowest of the low), lepers ('dirty' people with bits hanging off them), prostitutes (frowned upon by 'polite' society), random sinners (as judged by the religious folk of the day - not nice people at all (do I mean the religious folk or the sinners? You take a guess)).

 

This Jesus chap was radical and unpredictable, sorry that should read this Jesus chap IS radical and unpredictable.

 

So, why do we, the people of the Church, think we've worked him out? We've been arguing about it for 2000 years. Jesus would do this say one group, he would do no such thing says another. Jesus, even today, is a very controversial and radical figure. But there are things that almost everyone sees.

 

Churches, by and large, agree that one constant Jesus does show is love. But, rather predictably, Christians can't seem to agree on how that love is displayed and to whom. There are churches that say you MUST be white to share in the love of a brown skinned Middle Eastern man (??????), other churches say that you have to have to be male to truly get what J.C. says (even though there were loads of women who followed him and the majority of church goers in Australia today are female). Many churches insist you can't be gay because Jesus frowns on gay people (even though he never says anything about them, not once, not in any of the 4 Gospels - he has more to say about religious bigots, and he tells them they are wrong!) Riches are a prerequisite for some (even though Jesus told the rich young ruler to give away all he had, work that out????). Still for others it's the Roman Catholics who are outside the love of Jesus. Think of a group of people and there is a church somewhere that thinks Jesus hates them, and I reckon they are all wrong, but that's just me.

 

If Jesus were to land in Australia tomorrow which church would he go to first, where would be the first place he would visit? Would he come to the Melbourne Welsh Church? Maybe he would go to one of the nice big cathedrals, or a grand church with lavish decorations. Perhaps he would join in with some evangelicals or fundamentalists who seem to know exactly what he wants. Or at the very least a synagogue?

 

We can never find Jesus where we put him, we left him right here in our little church building, waiting for Sunday and another couple of services of praise. Trouble is he goes off and does his own thing, like he did years ago.

 

I heard that he was seen by a soup van for the homeless, someone else claimed he was with the down and outs under the bridges by the Yarra, one women ridiculously suggested he was with the drug addicts near Smith Street. I heard sightings of him from as far afield as St. Kilda with the transgender folk to the graffiti gangs down the lane ways to some depressed farmer who lost everything in the bush fires.

 

How ridiculous. He'll be in a coffee shop somewhere nice, having a cake with some nice clergy types before coming back on Sunday to join us. After all we are his type of people. I'm sure I just worry too much.