A NEW WAY OF LIFE ..... to my Christian and New Spirituality Friends Around the World .....
There is a big difference between the outlook of the Christian Church as derived from Jesus Christ and the way your country is administrated through politics, jurisdictions, bureaucratic frameworks, economics and pragmatics as with other Western Cultures around the world. These are largely derived from a Christianised framework developed over centuries.
My central thesis in what I write here is that Jesus in what He taught and stood for, never intended to make a ‘Jesus Framework’ that would take over existing administration systems in the Jewish Culture. At the time Israel was administered by the Roman Empire ..... from Rome.
Jesus never taught a system of ethics as with the Dharma of Buddhism or teaching or the way but rather He was the Way, the Truth and the Life and ethics and a whole attitude to life which flows from that understanding. It was an Inside – Outside Life vs. an Outside – In Life. He came to teach a new Kingdom Order that was not left of centre or right of centre. His approach was a third alternative to these two.
Jesus set out a basic ground of verbal teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:17-42), for His new Kingdom Order where he taught His disciples principles like:
Message Bible: Luke 6:17-42:
You're Blessed
17 -21 Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed!
Then he spoke:
You're blessed when you've lost it all. God's kingdom is there for the finding. You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal. You're blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning.
22 -23" Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.
Give Away Your Life
24But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you'll ever get.
25And it's trouble ahead if you're satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it's trouble ahead if you think life's all fun and games. There's suffering to be met, and you're going to meet it.
26"There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.
27 -30 "To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with
the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, gift-wrap your best coat and make a present of it.
If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
31 -34 "Here is a simple rule of thumb for behaviour: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable,
do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that.
If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that's charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
35 -36 "I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You'll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives
toward us, generously and graciously, even when we're at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
37 -38 "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity."
39 -40 He quoted a proverb: "'Can a blind man guide a blind man?' Wouldn't they both end up in the ditch? An apprentice doesn't lecture the master. The point is to be careful who you follow as your teacher.
41 -42 "It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbour's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you, ' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbour.
…… not strong qualities to take over the world. The Politics of Jesus are contained in the Kingdom of God values.
See the Blog Site: http://aninsideoutchange.blogspot.com/ Spirituality from Jesus Christ: An Inside - Out Change and not an Out - Inside-Change ....... An Inner New Spiritual Birth .....
________________________________________
The Roman culture was such that physical life didn’t matter at all:
• The Romans would go to take over whole countries and just take them over: England, North Africa, Spain, Europe etc. …. Whether they liked or not …… possibly burn their cities to the ground and take their people back to Rome as slaves as happened in Jerusalem in AD 70.
• If certain slaves showed promise, they could go through the gladiator school and provide live sport for thousands in the watching stands ….. to the death with other gladiators or wild animals …. The rewards were great for successful gladiator
• In later centuries, they executed Christians without mercy when they wouldn’t acknowledge Caesar as God and fed them to the lions in a public spectacle in the Sporting Arenas or burned them as pitched soaked night-time garden candles in the Emperor’s garden.
• Along the highways leading into Rome as the Capital of the Empire, there would be a mile of people who had been crucified leading right to the city walls. This said to people: ‘do not mess with this Empire or this is what happen to you’.
• Roman culture had a variation on wholesale abortion …. Babies would come to full term …. then if mothers didn’t want them, they would left by the roadside for wild animals or vultures to eat or they would die of exposure or they throw them in the river to drown …. Maybe 1 in 3 occurred this way especially they were girl babies
• Homosexuality was common …. Older men often had young boys as sex slaves
I explore this early Roman Culture at this Blog Site ......
Jesus Christ: where do find one record of Him ever bagging the Roman Empire and its hideous practices? Did he ever speak against slavery and any other practice that we would find offensive?
He kept His eye on the goal of the Kingdom of God ...... an eye for the final goal. What He finally taught, overthrew the Roman Empire entirely.
A Spirituality from Jesus Christ began in the first century which was set in the context of the Roman Empire. In the first century, life in the Roman Empire began to change. People who had been influenced by Jesus Christ who later became known as Christians began arriving in Rome. They spread from 120 people meeting together in an upper room in Jerusalem and spread to the four corners of the then known world. Their influence took over the Roman Empire, went to Turkey and Egypt and the Apostle Thomas even went to India.
The major difference that the teaching of Jesus Christ through his followers made in sequential centuries, is astonishing. In the book: ‘How Christianity Changed The World’, Alvin Schmidt looks in detail at how the secondary consequences of first century Christians coming to Rome made in such areas as:
• The great value given to every human life …. Rich or poor, slave or freeman, gladiator or citizen, both men and woman, the disabled and the babies (infanticide was totally acceptable)
• The elevation of Sexual Morality and the value of Marriage
• Woman Received Freedom
• Dignity Charity and Compassion replaced the Greco-Roman cultural ethos of uncompassion for the sick and dying and anyone who couldn’t offer the Emperor something
• The advent of Hospitals and Health Care
• The imprint on the value of Education for everyone, not just the sons of the privileged citizens
• Labour and Economic Freedom dignified
• Science and its commencement
• Slavery being abolished
• The stamp on Art and Architecture
• The Sound of Music
The values that produced these aspects have affected our Western world for the last 2,000 years ….. we take them as normal standards. However, it came at great cost as there were severe persecutions of Christians in the second and third centuries by the Roman Emperors. The values and practices of these people turned the Roman Culture upside down …. Woman equal to men? …. Slaves equal with all people?
There are stories of how these 1st century Christians actually turned the Roman Culture upside down:
Plagues: In some of the Roman towns, plagues would occur and so the whole town population would leave the town and go out into the countryside. They would leave the sick, old people, the handicapped and the children behind. These people would die not from the plague but from neglect. Often Christians would go into these towns and look after these people. Some of the Christians would die from the plague. When the plague was over, the families would come back and wonder why their relatives had become Christians.
Finding abandoned babies: Christian woman going through the snowy forests in the middle of winter to find abandoned babies ….. taking them back as part of their own family
________________________________________
Jesus’s Politics of the Centre
• Change the heart of a person and a culture which flows out of that change and you will change the culture forever.
• Change the root of life and the fruit will be different (parable of the fig tree)
• If you keep picking off the bad fruit off a fruit tree, it still will keep producing bad fruit
• Change the nature of the tree by cutting down that tree …. Replace with a good tree and you will get good fruit
• Jesus never taught a system of ethics as with the Dharma of Buddhism or teaching or the way but rather He was the Way, the Truth and the Life and ethics and a whole attitude to life which flows from that understanding.
• Change the inner life first then the way of life will change eg. Zacchaeus the tax collector
• Good fruit comes when you change the roots of life.
________________________________________
Stories and Principles… a sample:
• You are Salt and Light of the earth
• If a Roman Soldier asks you to take his pack one mile (as was the legal requirement), go with him two miles
• If someone smites on the cheek, turn the other one to him also
• If someone wants your outer tunic (which kept the cold out), give him your under tunic as well
• Murder and adultery begin in the heart …. Not in the act itself
• You are to love your enemies
• Don’t do your charitable deeds before men where everyone sees them , do them only before God ….. He only sees them
• Do not worry …. Your Heavenly Father will provide
• Do not judge others
• Go through the narrow way vs. the broad way
• You will know people by their fruits
• Giving a cup of cold water in my name
• Parable of the Sower
• Parable of the Wheat and Tares
• Parable of the a tiny mustard seed in the culture
• Parable of the leaven
• Parable of the Pearl of Great Price
• Parable of the Dragnet
________________________________________
THE REBEL MAN
Jesus had a problem with the contemporary Jewish Church of his day. The Christian church today is very similar. Jesus would get a similar reaction to one he received from the Jewish Church. The Jewish Church had graded people into two categories:
• Those within the framework of the church who lived and believed closely and acted closely with the whole Jewish religious system ...... they were acceptable people of God
• Those outside the framework of the church who lived / believed and acted outside the whole Jewish religious system ...... they were NOT acceptable people of God
Jesus was loved by the people but he was seen as a real rebel to the people who ran the church or were very closely involved in it. It is an issue of Christ as being in the form of Community or as a Corporation. It is ultimately about Identity versus Destiny issue ie. who is valuable to God?... as determined by God above or by the Church as an organisation?
By Community, I mean a Religious Community with attributes such as being personal, being social, being personally known and connected to other people and being committed to those people in a definite way. In the final end, it being there for the common good of everyone else. In the end this expression of the Religious Community emphasises the Infinite - Personal God, as the God who is more personal, tangible and amongst us. (Immanent).
By Corporation, I mean a Religious Corporation with attributes such as religious intuitionalism, hierarchy, traditional worship, set forms of worship, beauty offered to God and a sense of permanence. The expression of a Religious Corporation attempts to express the Christian viewpoint of God into visible, ritualistic forms that have a long-term permanence about them. In the end, this expression of the Religious Corporation emphasises the Infinite - Personal God, the God who is more infinite, intangible and beyond us (transcendent).
Before Jesus died on the Cross, He set up his followers as a Community. Two thousand years later, we largely experience Jesus life and teaching in a Corporation sense. Should our fellowship be in the form of Corporation or that of a Community? I look at these issues in these Blog Sites:
• The Form of our Fellowship ..... see http://shouldourfellowshipbeintheform.blogspot.com/
• Christ Or Church? .... see http://christorchurch.blogspot.com/
• House Churches Are More Satisfying .... see http://housechurcheskap.blogspot.com/
• Christ Church and Community .... see http://christchurchandcommunity.blogspot.com/
• The Christian Church Sequence .... see http://thechristianchurchsequence.blogspot.com/
________________________________________
Results of what Jesus taught:
• The Church leaders of the day conspired with the pagan Roman rulers to silence Him in a mock trial.
• He was given a criminal’s death on a cross.
• His followers were hounded throughout the Empire to be put to death …. They hid in the burial caves or catacombs near Rome ….. but turned the world upside down in the final end.
• They spread Christianity to utter most parts of the world and we are still talking about Jesus 2000 years later …. All the Roman Caesars are dead and largely forgotten about.
Implications for us in 2009:
• Should we think about saving the world and speaking against politics, republican vs. monarchistics issues, aboriginal injustices, the freedom of homosexuals, abortion issues etc. etc.
• What is the central issue with Jesus and His followers? How should we think Christianly about our world?
________________________________________
In conclusion, we live between the past and the future. This is the results of Jesus life, death and resurrection of the past and the future cosmic recreation of this whole Earth … with all its new systems. We called as the followers of Jesus to be salt and light of this new way of being.
Jesus never taught a system of ethics as with the Dharma of Buddhism or teaching or the way but rather He was the Way, the Truth and the Life and ethics and a whole attitude to life which flows from that understanding. It was an Inside – Outside Life vs. an Outside – In Life. He came to teach a new Kingdom Order that was not left of centre or right of centre. His approach was a third alternative to these two.
Jesus set out a basic ground of verbal teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:17- 42),
________________________________________
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment