HOW TO MEET JESUS

 How does a person meet Jesus?  As a Christian, I tend to think that I own the market on selling Jesus.  Indeed, different Christian denominations tend to have proprietary ways to ensure that the outsider is included in salvation: a person must affirm a traditional creed, or come to the altar and recite the Sinner’s Prayer,” or be baptized, or speak in tongues, or pass a catechism, etc.  It is easy to fall into thinking that outsiders cannot come to know Jesus and the grace of God apart from a particular method.  We tend to pass over texts in which, after stating that God does not show partiality (Rom 2:11), Paul argues that even Gentiles who do not have the Law sometimes do that which shows the Law is written in their hearts, the means by which they will be assessed by God (2:13-16).  They may regarded as circumcised (sign of God’s covenant people) of heart, a characteristic for which they receive praise from God (2:26-29).

More directly, Jesus tells us how people encounter him.  When people have practiced righteousness toward their neighbors, it is Jesus they have fed, clothed, and visited (Matt 25:31-40).  Jesus tells us how all of the law and commandments (by which the community of faith obediently responds to relationship with God) are fulfilled by loving God and loving one’s neighbor (Matt 22:37-39).

So, by loving one’s neighbor, one encounters Jesus?  Yes, Jesus says that.  Remarkedly, I have never heard that proclaimed at an evangelistic meeting.  However, loving one’s neighbor is one way of seeking God, even if the person does not know she/he is seeking God.  Of course, I agree that Christians should encourage other ways of seeking and knowing Jesus: worship, prayer, meditating on Scripture, etc.  However, I should never disparage the person who is meeting Jesus by loving their neighbor.

Lord, bless those who are coming to know you by loving their neighbors.  Help me not to hinder them but rather to help enrich their knowledge of you.  Amen.

MINIMALISTIC THEOLOGY AND THE IMAGE OF GOD

 I said something a couple of days ago that would certainly get me shunned in some Christian circles.
Backdrop:
I had been thinking again about being made in the image of God.  (See “Created in the Image of God: Forgotten Aspects,” 2/1/2024.)  So, that was on my mind.  The main thought is that all people, male and female, are to be God’s representatives/regents, bringing order into chaos as God did in creation and continues to do.
Story:
I was working side-by-side with a wonderful, gnarly old guy with a braided gray beard named Tom at a rescue supply center.  (We have been hit hard by Helene in western NC.)  Tom works at the center regularly as a volunteer to help families who need food.  It quickly became clear that Tom had had too many bad experiences with religion in general and Christians in particular.  So, he had a “question” for me – more like throwing down the gauntlet.  Our conversation bobbed and weaved around the general issues of theodicy: Why would a good God make a world that has disasters as well as evil people, including Christians?  Why then believe there is a God?  I spoke about God being relational and the need to seek God, about God entering human suffering in Jesus, etc.  He was not ready for any of that.  At one point I mentioned that the commandments are summed up by, “Love God with your whole heart… and your neighbor as yourself.”  His reply was that he could not love a God he did not believe in, but he did love his neighbors.  I put my hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Whether or not you believe in God, when you love your neighbor, you are being God’s representative and that makes you my brother.”  He nodded.  There was peace.
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Lord, thank you for people like Tom who is serving as your representatives even when they do not know it.  Please forgive me and the Church for our failure to attract people like Tom to Jesus.  Please draw him and all estranged people, people made in your image, into your Presence.  Amen.