Upended

I've been thinking a lot about this recently. When Jesus started his ministry, He upended a lot (nearly all?) of what the religious leaders believed was true. They had spent their lives studying the Scriptures and truly believed they were doing what God wanted. They believed so deeply that it was nearly impossible for them to hear Jesus' teachings, much less accept Him as Messiah. So much contemporary commentary paints them as being in love with power to the extent that they couldn't accept Jesus because He eroded that power. And while that was probably a piece of it — desiring power seems to be a pretty universal human foible — I'm sure there were quite a few Pharisees and Sadducees who truly believed what they were doing and teaching was what was right in the eyes of God. And they believed so much in that rightness that they planned to do away with Jesus. He threatened what they believed, they saw Him as an afront to God, and He had to go.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem hailed by the populace as the King of Kings. They believed that not only had the Messiah finally come, but that He was the redeemer who was finally going to take the Roman's foot off the neck of the Jews. Salvation had come, and the occupying army was going to get theirs. Everything was going to be great!

Until it wasn't. 

Instead of leading a revolt against Rome, Jesus was crucified like so many enemies of Rome. Jesus's disciples, who thought they understood who Jesus was, had the rug pulled out from underneath them. What had just happened? This wasn't the way it was supposed to end. 

Which brings us to Saturday. The day that leaves everyone in the story wondering what just happened. The religious leaders feel sure that they were justified and are only concerned that Jesus's disciples will try to fool everyone that Jesus didn't really die. The disciples are in hiding, fearing for their lives and grieving not only the loss of a friend but of everything they believed. The Romans just wanted things to calm down and so posted guards at the tomb so that the populace wouldn't continue to be stirred up by either a revolutionary or a rival to Caesar. No one yet knows how the story is going to end, although they are all sure that it already has. 

And how many of us have felt as though we have been living in one long Saturday waiting to see how things turn out? Covid and the political unrest of the last two years have not been easy for some of us. We have watched people that we thought we knew show us that we didn't know them at all. We have left churches because of either outright racism or tacit silence in the face of injustice. We have watched church leaders show how extremely un-Christ like they actually were. There has been very little justice and mercy and peacemaking and loving your neighbor as yourself. One thing there has been in abundance, though, is fear.  All too often, we have seen the people acting the most Christ-like who were not actually Christians, while Christians are lashing out and promoting division.

We have had the rug pulled out from underneath us.

And I wonder, since Jesus is in the business of upending strongly-held beliefs in order to show His truth more clearly, what needs to be upended? What have we been holding onto with such vehemence that is actually from us and not from God? So many people have been so wrong so many times, how do we tease out what is what? What parables would Jesus tell us if He were here right now? Instead of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, would it be the Parable of the Good Gay Guy? I can make a good case for why they would be equivalent. 

I don't think we can go wrong, though, if we work on being peacemakers, if we seek justice for all and not just those who look like ourselves, if we are merciful, if we love others... everyone... as much as we love ourselves. And maybe in order to do that, we have to accept the fact that Jesus loves us regardless. We don't have to earn His love; we never did.