I believe it was the homiletics professor and minister John Killinger who once said that “Jesus is God’s answer to a bad reputation.” I have often thought of the truth of that pithy statement, especially when I consider the way God is used and abused in our world.
I can think of all the “It’s God’s will” statements people use in the face of others’ tragedy. “It’s God’s will that a certain husband and father die.” “It’s God’s will that millions of people suffer and die from malnutrition.” “It’s God’s will that she suffer from such a debilitating disease.” “It’s God’s will that the world be wounded by wars, earthquakes, floods, and famines.” I even remember a woman in my childhood church saying that it was God’s will that six million Jews (men, women, and children) died in the Holocaust as a punishment for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. To all such nonsense Jesus plainly said that “God makes the sun rise on evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” In my opinion, that is the most radical statement ever made about God. Countless sermons over two millennia which present a vengeful, judgmental, “I’ll get you for that” God are invalidated if we took seriously Jesus’ teachings. If a tenth of the tragedies which strike humanity were the will of God, then God would be the most brutal criminal in the history of the world. Hitler and Stalin would be boy scouts compared to such a cruel and fickle God. Thank goodness Jesus dismisses such perverted thinking and shows us a God whose love is unconditional and indiscriminate.
And then I can think of all those who view God as a Cosmic Party Pooper—those who are “afraid that somewhere and somehow someone is having a good time.” Such people prefer the stale, boring, monotonous, and negative choice of underliving to the risky trail of embracing their potential for abundant life. To such people Jesus said, “I have come that you might live more abundantly.” And the Gospels tell us that he did just that. Our Lord and Savior could party! He enjoyed being with all kinds of people, many of whom lacked a “good reputation.” He compared his presence with his disciples to that of a bridegroom at a wedding banquet. Anyone who has ever been to a Jewish wedding banquet knows what kind of festal joy is experienced at such a gathering.
And then I think of all those who use God as a prop for their greed, pride, and prejudices. “It’s God’s will that the races be segregated.” “God hates fags.” “Accept your lot in this life—the lot God has willed for you, and one day you will enjoy the bliss of heaven.” “The Bible says, ‘The poor you will have with you always,” so the way things are must be the way God wants them.” Against such absurdity Jesus proclaimed God’s Upside Down Rule of compassionate, liberating, and everlasting love. In this Peaceable Realm God’s way is always one of sharing, compassion, peace, forgiveness, joy, patience, mercy, and justice. In this Blessed Community “all things are made new” by God’s presence and transforming will.
On and on we could go, but I think it is imperative that today we realize how different the One Jesus called Abba is from the God many Christians claim to worship and obey. The God of Jesus never measures the “success” of a society by its GNP or the size of its army or the “walls” that are built to keep others out. The God Jesus reveals measures a society by how the most vulnerable fare and are treated—children, the poor, the immigrant, the physically and mentally challenged, the different, and those marginalized. I see nothing about the message and actions of the Religious Right that have any correspondence to the teachings and deeds of the one they claim as Lord. Jesus said that we would know people by their fruits. The poisonous fruits of the Religious Right have nothing in common with the Sermon on the Mount or the example of Jesus. Their theology and actions are guided by a sometimes intentional and other times misled distortion of the entire message of the New Testament.
I think it’s interesting to view Jesus as God’s answer to a bad reputation. In what ways can he correct our inadequate and wrong-headed/wrong-hearted perceptions of God? I do not know what it will take to bring the Religious Right to its senses and to genuine repentance. What I need is to be aware of any distortion I may have of the God of Jesus of Nazareth. We must confront and challenge the distortions of the gospel so prevalent in our time and place. Church history is replete with examples of the results of such distortions (the Inquisition, the Crusades, Pogroms, the persecution and abuse of women, the brutal conquest of the Western Hemisphere justified by kings and the church as an attempt to “save” the heathen, slavery, homophobia, and a series of wars with both sides claiming the sanction of the God of Jesus Christ). To be silent before such distortions of God’s nature would be tragic and irresponsible. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (quoting Edmund Burke) reminded us, “For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good people to do nothing.” But we must be careful that we do not in our own way contribute to the bad reputation God suffers from those who claim to follow God’s Son. I believe that those of the Religious Right are tragically wrong. But I also believe that God loves each of them just as much as God loves me or anyone else. Even after two thousand years of Christianity all of us have a lot to learn from this One who would show us the loving, compassionate, and smiling face of God.
