After a long break due to computer difficulties, we return to "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.
There are a number of representative actions that summarized Jesus' radical criticism of the order of the day:
His readiness to forgive sin...His ability to heal and his readiness to do it on the Sabbath...His willingness to eat with the outcast...His attitude toward the temple.
All these actions, together with Jesus' other violations of social convention, are a heavy criticism of the "righteousness of the law." The law had become in his day a way for the managers of society, religious even more than civil, to effectively control not only morality but the political-economic valuing that lay behind the morality.
Nothing is more powerful than the blending of religious language about "righteousness" with the powers of a civil power. Jesus was facing off with those who could and did control life and wanted to make sure that their control of life would be blessed by the religious laws that would then be used to sanction the rule of the controlling power of the day. We must be aware that there is just such a movement around us today that is set on making secure ties between political-economic values of our country and a limited, self-focused & self-centered morality that plans to fashion a new way to rule...a way that is well known in scripture...a way against which Jesus stood up and did not accept. Too many "people of faith" are as afraid of the grace and love of God's Reign today as the religious leaders who stood against Jesus in scripture.
Connection: Pay attention to the how smoothly religious language is being used for the benefit of the powers that be. Usually it is not for the benefit of all...usually it is for the benefit of some and there is a hint of things being quite conditional in the air...and that is never Good News.
Lord of New Life, pull us into your love and as we rise within your gracious arms remind us of the vision of your Reign that cannot be owned or directed by any power that tries to claim this day. Amen.
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