A Privilege Gone Wrong

Yesterday I made a comment that has raised some critical thoughts.  I said: “The Jesus this Gramma knows was a radical.  A system breaker!  A rule changer!  An attitude adjuster!”  

I stand by my claim! 

All one has to do is read the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) to begin to understand that Jesus thought outside the proverbial Jewish box.  He was a “Jew!”  But he was not the fall-in-line kind of Jewish faithful. He was a free thinker who was willing to speak what he knew was true, or not true. He certainly did not follow all the traditions and rituals of the Jewish faith.  

Jesus had something else, something far more crucial, to attend to than man made ideas of what God wanted and how God wanted people to be.  

Jesus was God after all!

He was clear on the problems that had developed over the centuries.

He had a crystal-clear understanding of what was needed.  And, what needed to changed.  Especially in the realm of  Religious Leadership! That blatantly unquestioned realm of authority had become a system of corruptions and injustice.  That created some false assumptions of status and privilege. 

One such story comes from Mark 12:

38 As he taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40 They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”(Mk. 12)

A fairly clear statement of how the system has been debased by the human ego.  

We have witnessed this profoundly unfortunate debasement in our own society today.  Pastors and Priest who have clearly taken advantage of their sacred call by the  misuse their sexual desires.  It is not the same misuse of power that Jesus was speaking about.  But non-the-less misuse!  

Both kinds raping the integrity and worth of one of God’s own.

Throughout the Gospels Jesus speaks against any kind of injustice, unkindness, arrogance and meaning spirited action.