As Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate asked if He was a king. Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36). And yet, since Emperor Constantine (who ruined the church), Christians have been using Jesus to get worldly power. Christians who use Jesus to control politics and people are breaking the commandment to not take God’s name in vain every day, and they don’t even see the problem. I pointed out a couple of weeks ago in a sermon that every person on the planet counts the years based on the birth of Jesus. You can change BC and AD to BCE and CE all you want, but they all end and start on the same date – the birth of Jesus. That is privilege.
Here we sit with all of this privilege, yet we refuse to admit it, much less analyze why it is wrong. Jesus died alone and disgraced, yet we use Him against people all the time. We use Him to insult and abuse anyone who isn’t heterosexual. We use Him to control women’s bodies. The way Christians use these two issues – two things Jesus never mentioned, by the way – is proof enough that we don’t really understand the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If we are to become the church, we have to release ourselves of our desire to have the things that Satan offered and that Jesus refused. You can’t serve two masters, Jesus told His disciples. You can’t have another god before me, God told Israel. And yet, we break those rules all the time.
What we are seeing now in America has been in process for many years, but it seems to have gotten to the point of insanity. We have fake Christians tossing around fake commandments that show that they worship a fake god. We see innocent people being abused because the abusers are practicing a fake religion. Jesus was murdered because He confronted the idolatry of Rome. Jesus was murdered for political reasons. As you hear or read the passages in church today and tomorrow, remember that the Gospel writers were rewriting history to protect themselves. Instead of blaming the real culprits – Pontius Pilate and the Roman Empire – they blamed their competitors – the religion their Savior came from and tried to change. To become the church, we have to start telling the truth. More to come tomorrow…
Prayer – Holy God, give us the courage to tell the truth and confront those who work to dismantle Your work. Amen.
Today’s art is a statue of Emperor Constantine at York.