story, so…Previously on The Galilean… Jesus, the Galilean, has spent the majority of the last few years out and about mostly in rural Israel. He’s been telling people… but more importantly SHOWING people, his WAY of living in the world… a way through which they might experience the abundant life God created them to live… a life filled with love, meaning, purpose, and peace for all people.
NEVER did Jesus teach or show that The Jesus Way of living had ANYTHING to do with demonizing other people for the way they looked or dressed or who they loved. NEVER did Jesus use force, or insist, or threaten people to live his way. Some chose to follow and Jesus welcomed them. Others didn’t and Jesus let them go in peace. The Jesus Way of living was offered, never insisted upon or imposed.
That was VERY different than the way the authoritarians of Jesus’ day got people to live their way. They used force, weapons of war, intimidation, and violence to MAKE the people adopt their values and fall in line with their way of living. That, they believed, was the way to peace. The Pax Romana… the Roman peace… a peace that came by way of intimidation, force, fear and violence up to and including death for anyone who didn’t do life their way.
In last Sunday’s Episode… Palm Sunday… these two very different propositions for living in the world entered into Jerusalem for Passover at exactly the same time. The town wasn’t big enough for the both of them. LITERALLY! It’s a small town. Gillette Stadium and it’s parking lots cover more acreage than Jerusalem back then! So on Palm Sunday Jesus entered the city on one side at the VERY SAME TIME the Roman governor entered the city on the other side. This was not an accident. Jesus set up this VERY political confrontation so the people could clearly see the choice they had. They could simply look and see the difference… then decide how they wanted to live and choose the WAY they wanted to walk into their future.
Both parades reflected the propositions for life they represented. Pilate rode in on a giant white war horse, both rider and horse decked out in armor, a legion of that era’s most elite and well trained soldiers with the most advanced weapons of war the world had ever seen at his side. This parade was a proposition for a way of life lived through violence, force, uniformity, exclusion, and fear. On the other side of the city Jesus rode in… on a momma donkey with it’s foal tagging along behind. No armor. No weapons. This parade was a proposition for a Way of living centered around compassion, kindness, generosity, inclusion, and self giving love. That was Palm Sunday. By Good Friday, Jesus, and with him, his proposition for a WAY of living centered around compassion, kindness, generosity, inclusion, grace and love were hanging dead on a cross. The way of violence, force, uniformity, exclusion, fear and death had gotten it’s way. Or did it?
In today’s episode, the apparent victory of violence, force, uniformity, exclusion, fear and death has unexpectedly been called into question. The Jesus Way, you see, along with Jesus himself, didn’t stay dead and buried where they had put them on Friday. He has risen from the dead and with him, his proposition for a WAY of life through love has been raised to new life as well. His WAY of living… the Way that embraces compassion, kindness, generosity, inclusion, grace and love that so many thought was dead… is once again alive!
In Jesus’ life, he modeled and offered this very different WAY of living to ALL people. Jesus rose to continue to offer that Way to ALL people… to offer this alternative WAY to the authoritarian's way… to you. Not force you into it. Not threaten you with it. Not, God forbid, to hate, ostracize, or kill you for it, but simply to offer it as an alternative to the ways of intimidation, force, and violence.
So here we are. You’re caught up with the story and it’s Easter Sunday 2023. You and I look out the window and remarkably enough still see those same two propositions for the way we're going to live this life still paraded before us every day. One parade still uses the same old script of intimidation, demonization, exclusion, and violence. The mode of transportation, the weapons of war, and the faces may have changed but the proposition and the tactics are very much the same. So as we, on Easter Sunday 2023 look out the window and see THAT parading by we are asked THE question for Easter Sunday… How's that working? How’s that working for you? How’s that working for us?
If the ways of hate, violence, demonization, and intolerance of anything different aren’t working for you… (It ain’t working for me, I can tell you that!) then there is Good News for you today. Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! And with him, his proposition for The Jesus Way of living is risen as well. Even though our news continues, thousands of years later, to be jam packed with people wanting the way of love, kindness, radical inclusion, compassion, generosity, peace and life to once and for all stay dead and buried in the tomb… The Jesus Way, it seems, just won't be kept down in the grave. So here it is again… the Jesus Way of living... alive and well! Ready to be picked up and lived by anyone who wants to give it a go and to that fact all I can say is Thanks be to God! Amen.
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