“I’ve never fully understood how Christianity became quite so tame and respectable, given its origins among drunkards, prostitutes, and tax collectors….

Jesus could have hung out in the high-end religious scene of his day, but instead he scoffed at all that, choosing instead to laugh at the powerful, befriend whores, kiss sinners, and eat with all the wrong people.

He spent his time with people for whom life was not easy. And there, amid those who were suffering, he was the embodiment of perfect love.” 
? Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People

Ponder:

How do you respond to Nadia’s comments? How respectable is the Jesus you follow?
How would you describe “perfect love”?

Luke 15:11b-32

So he told them this parable:

“There was a man who had two sons.

The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.

A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.

He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;

I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe–the best one–and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.

But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'”

Ponder:

• Jesus was a storyteller;
• what’s your favourite parable Jesus told?
• what’s the parable that disturbs you the most?
• can you rewrite a parable in your own words?

Australian Indigenous poet, singer, songwriter Kev Carmody wrote this poem a long time ago, it resurfaced for a tribute album in 2007 and was covered by an Australian band The Herd. This recording is of Kev reading the piece as he wrote it, the words are as powerful now as they were back when he wrote them.

Kev Carmody – Comrade Jesus Christ

Lyrics:

He was born in Asia Minor 
A colonized Jewish man 
His father the village carpenter 
Worked wood in his occupied land
He was apprenticed to his father’s trade
His country paid it’s dues 
To the colonial Roman conquerors
He was a working-class Jew

Though conceived three months out of wedlock 
The stigma never stuck
He began a three year public life
But he never made a buck
Because he spoke out against injustice 
Saw that capitalism bled the poor
He attacked self-righteous hypocrites 
And he condemned the lawyers’ law

But they’ve commercialised his birthday now 
The very people he defied
And they’ve sanctified their system
And claim he’s on their side!
But if he appeared tomorrow
He’d still pay the highest cost
Being a ‘radical agitator’ 
They’d still nail him to a cross

You see
He’d stand with the down trodden masses
Identify with the weak and oppressed
He’d condemn the hypocrites in church pews
And the affluent, arrogant West
He’d oppose Stalinist totalitarianism
The exploitation of millions by one
And ‘peace’ through mutual terror
And diplomacy from the barrel of a gun

He’d fight with Joe Hill and Waleca
Mandala and Friere
Try to free the third world’s millions
From hunger and despair
He’d stand with the peasants 
At the pock-marked walls 
They’d haul him in on bail
He’d condemn all forms of apartheid
And he’d rot in their stinking jails.

He’d denounce all dictatorships 
And Mammon’s greed 
And the exploitation of others for gain
He’d oppose the nuclear madness 
And the waging of wars in his name 
He’d mix with prostitutes and sinners
Challenge all to cast the first stone 
A compassionate agitator
One of the greatest the world has known

He’d condemn all corrupt law and order 
Tear man made hierarchies down 
He’d see status and titles as dominance
And the politics of greed he’d hound
He’d fight against 
The leagues of the Ku Klux Klan
And the radical, racist right
One of the greatest humanitarian socialists
Was comrade, 
Jesus Christ.

Ponder:
What were the hardest lyrics for you to hear/read?
Where in the reading did you agree the most?
Can you imagine what this Jesus might look like?
Does this Jesus seem familiar?

If you’d like to hear the cover of the song by The Herd, you can hear it here.

We’ve asked a number of people from GUC to ponder the question “Who do you say I am?” Every week we’ll put up a different person’s personal reflection. Perhaps it’ll inspire you to write your own, if you do please consider passing it on to us, we’ll start a GUC collection…

From my earliest memories, Jesus was an important part of my life. More than anything he was a friend – a friend, at a time in my life when I was often lonely and not good at making friends. I sang “Jesus loves me” in Sunday School and had complete confidence that this was so. At night, I could talk to Jesus in a way that I couldn’t talk to other people.

As I grew older my simple faith in Jesus was slowly replaced by questions, doubts and an intellectual curiosity about the world that tended to dismiss religion. For a time, I wasn’t sure that Jesus did have a place in my life anymore.

I don’t think, though, that Jesus every really left me. Instead, I needed to rebuild my own faith as an adult, in a way that could satisfy my questions, doubts and intellect, rather than rely on the faith that had been handed down to me by my parents.

Going through this process helped me to rediscover Jesus. For me, now, I see Jesus as the purest expression of God’s love at work in the world. His Gospel vision points the way to a world where there does not need to be divisions between rich and poor, men and women, people with and without disabilities, or people from different ethnic backgrounds – a world where love can be the watchword.

I see Jesus at work in the world today in interactions between people – in communities rallying to support refugees, in young people working together to plant trees and help the environment, in carers working for little pay to support people with disabilities, in friends supporting each other through times of crisis, or in volunteers at the food pantry spending time with people with little money and perhaps little hope. I also see Jesus in the faces of children who haven’t yet learnt to hide their real selves. Jesus continues to be, for me, the perfect example of love – and, yes, I still see Jesus as my friend.

Ngaire

Author: Willis Wheatley

Ponder:
Have you ever imagined Jesus Laughing?
What emotions do you usually associate with Jesus?
How does this image make you feel?

Carry this image in your mind (or on your phone) over the day, return to it and pay attention to how the way you relate to the image changes throughout the day.