Seeing Through Jesus' Lens: A Call to Justice

what I'm worried about within Christendom is that we believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, and we miss his entire life. His entire life is left out of the creeds. What about what Jesus said? What about what Jesus taught? What about how Jesus lived and what he did? Jesus lived a whole life between born of a virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate, didn't he? Could it be possible that Jesus' life matters and not just his death? Could it be possible that Jesus' teachings matters and not just his resurrection? [00:43:30] (48 seconds)  #JesusWholeLife

And so if it's not aligned with what Jesus taught, how is it different than just having opinions? It's a crisis in our church, a crisis that can hurt people with a version of the faith, a version of Christianity that kind of waves the flag of Jesus while ignoring Jesus' teachings. And so a Jesus worldview, they suggest, is a little bit different. Instead of dogma and doctrine, let's let's try to form and shape our lives around what Jesus found important, what Jesus taught, and how Jesus asked his followers to live. And to do so requires a bit of honesty, perhaps a bit of humility, [00:41:58] (46 seconds)  #LiveLikeJesus

Go now into a world desperate for a different way of seeing. Take with you the lens of Jesus, his mercy for the poor, his welcome for the stranger, his love for the ones everyone else has written off. You will not always see clearly, none of us do, but keep returning to the source, keep trying on the lens, and when the world hands you its version of reality, its fear, its contempt, its scarcity, you are free to hand it back because you have seen something better. And so go, see the world the way Jesus saw it, love the world the way Jesus loved it, and in this world, may we be like Jesus. [00:58:25] (45 seconds)  #JesusLens

Jesus is quite clearly articulating his mission in this world. And what did he say? Good news to who? The poor. Release to who? The captives. Sites to who? The blind. And freedom for the oppressed. And then he cites to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. There's an old testament law called the year of jubilee. Every seven years, debts were to be canceled, slaves were to be set free. It was an economic reset of the whole system to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. So what's not on Jesus' list in his mission statement that he's reading there to his hometown crowd? [00:48:00] (51 seconds)  #JesusForThePoor

Because if you read a little further in this text, you'll see that at first, the people in the synagogue were fascinated by what Jesus had to say, but then quite suddenly, they grew angry. And they ran him off to the edge of town where there was a cliff, and they planned to throw him off. They wanted to throw him off a cliff, they didn't. They wanted to throw him off a cliff for saying the things that he had said. This Jesus world view apparently was too wide, too inclusive, too generous for them. Sometimes I think things never change. The same Jesus who stood up and announced his mission to his hometown crowd that day still cares about the poor. [00:52:50] (48 seconds)  #InclusiveJesus

that these phrases are kind of thrown around. So the question that the Jesus Worldview Initiative is asking, is Jesus actually in our worldview? And it's interesting, they cite a 2023, poll by the Barna Institute, one of the world's leading Christian research companies or polling organizations. And the Barna Institute issued I guess, a report about people and their aligning with what they dubbed to be the biblical worldview, and they recognized the Jesus Worldview Initiative recognizes that in this poll, there was zero mention of aligning to Jesus' teachings. Zero mention of aligning our lives with Jesus' teaching. It was all about other things. [00:40:57] (56 seconds)  #JesusMissingFromWorldview

And to be fair, I mean, there was no judgment in the Garmin wanting to recalculate, there was zero judgment, it wasn't impatient, just over and over again. Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating, shut up. Luckily, they're not as annoying these days. This Jesus world view is about recalculating. It's not a guilt trip, not finger wagging only this way perhaps, just a gentle invitation to to recalibrate, recalculate, to see if there are ways that our views and our opinions and our ideologies could be tweaked to be a little more aligned with the way Jesus would want us to see the world. [00:51:53] (49 seconds)  #GentleRecalibration

Jesus isn't announcing some distant dream, some heavenly vision. No, it was right here, right now. I am here with you, he's saying. Follow me. Do you remember in the early days of GPS, you had to go buy a, like a Garmin or there's another one or two, what are the other brand names? I can't remember the brand names. Garmin, I think I had an early version of Garmin, and it was, helpful, but really annoying, especially if you wanted to go a little different direction than the Garmin wanted you to go. What would the Garmin say to you? Recalculating. [00:51:15] (38 seconds)  #FaithGPS