We have finished two installments about Christology. We examined the need for low Christology in the first blog. In the second blog, we discussed building bridges to Christ. In this third installment on Christology, we will discuss low Christology in terms of Jesus' bucking of authority and how we use that in building bridges to Christ in an urban context. I know I said there would be only three, but God keeps working things in me around Christology. I have split the last couple of topics, because I wanted these blogs to be a quick read. In the next blog, we will discuss his fellowship with sinners and how that communicates in the urban context. Without further adieu lets jump into our topic.
In Reformed theology, we sometimes focus so much on the grace of God, that we can make Jesus seem passive and weak. We make it seem like he never challenged the leaders of his day on their hypocrisy. On the contrary, Jesus regularly bucked the authority of the religious elite of his day. To be sure Jesus was meek, but he not was not passive. Meek with respect to authority is defined as: showing patience and humility; gentle. We usually interpret Jesus' meekness as that people walked all over him. Reading scriptures with that picture of Jesus does not fit with the stories we find in scripture. I would argue that Jesus was meek when it came to "sinners" and "outcast", but not meek when it came to fighting against the religious elite that had lost sight of God's agenda. I am not advocating every Christian with a grievance toward their various authority structures imitate Jesus' manner in these particular stories and cause division, but I am arguing that our picture of Jesus meekness needs some adjusting.
We must have caution in misrepresenting meekness, when it comes to people in the inner city, because they have usually experienced authority in a paternalistic or oppressive way. In some cases, people have experienced both things simultaneously.Moreover, if you grow up without a father you have a fundamental distrust for authority, because the person that was supposed to represent it was not present. In addition, most people of color have experienced misuse of authority from the police. (Not just brown people from the hood either) Lastly, a lot of times churches have misused authority to make people from the inner city feel judged and not welcome. Sadly these actions resemble the actions of the Pharisees. Truth be told a lot of churches need to repent for the way they have treated those of us from hip-hop culture. For these reasons, we must have a level of cultural awareness when we talk about Jesus' meekness, because what people tend to do is to tune Jesus out. They tune him out, because if he is "meek", meaning he won't do anything to correct evil and injustice, then he can not help my situation. If Jesus stays silent while people in authority oppress me and do injustice to me, then he does not have anything to do with my life and my problems.
As a corollary, we must show people that Jesus bucked against oppressive and hypocritical structures of his day. For instance, in the Sermon On the Mount he calls the people praying, giving to the poor, etc that were doing those things for public recognition hypocrites. Everyone in the crowd knew that the "hypocrites" Jesus spoke of were the Pharisees and probably the Sadducees. (Matthew 6: 5-6; 15) In addition, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as a "brood of vipers" in Matthew 12: 34 after they accused him of casting out demons in the name of the devil. He also calls them a "brood of vipers", in Matthew 23 in response to them refusing his testimonies. Jesus is using strong language for that day, when he says "brood of vipers". Some commentators even liken his use of the phrase with curse words (the f-bomb). Jesus also calls out their hypocrisy in Matthew 15; Matthew 23, and in Luke 13:14-15. Lastly, when he was before Pontius Pilate, he told him if he wanted he could call an army to handle Pilate if wanted. (Matthew 26:53-54) This fact shows us that Jesus bucks Gentile authorities as well. Moreover, he said these things publicly, which means these interactions undermined their authority. He does not mince any words with his criticisms either.I do not want to take up space to cover all those passages that show Jesus' bucking of authority. I merely wanted to make the point that Jesus calls out the hypocrisy of the leaders to their face. This aspect of Jesus shows us that Jesus does not sit idly by while people misused authority, especially religious authority. In the urban context, it can build a bridge to the gospel.
The first bridge we must build in the church is one built on repentance. The church has misused it's authority, when it has come to the inner city. We must be real with people and admit that there are some shady pastors out there taking advantage of people. We must repent of their sins on their behalf. Usually we say to people in the urban context, "Well that's them, but our church does not do that". On the contrary, we should own the sins of our brothers and sisters and call it just that "sin". I think doing this repentance genuinely, will show our humility and increase our ability to connect with those in the urban context.
Secondly, we must not just stop at showing people that Jesus, bucked authority. The work is only half way done. We mus teach people in our context that Jesus spoke out against and bucked authority for the sake of others. He spoke out against authority, because he desired his kingdom to function as a place where people that do not have it all together can come to him. We must move on to teach people that Jesus ultimately bucked the two authorities that can truly get us: sin and death. Yet, he did it in the most counter intuitive way: he died on the cross to overturn authority based on injustice and might. He proved he had ultimate authority by God raising him from the dead. This raising from the dead proved he was equal to God and he was God. Scripture says that now all powers are subjected to him. (I Pet. 3:22) Jesus did not only speak out against authority and conquer it on the cross. He overcomes and embodies his authority through his people, who do deeds of eliminating poverty, injustice, and oppression in the earth: the church. The good news is that we can participate in his rule and reign with the authorities of this world not having ultimate say over our life. We do not have to right to participate in the rulership with money, good works, nice cars, or nice clothes, but by having faith in Jesus Christ alone. Now that's a savior worth following.
Image from: http://hiphopwired.com/2012/10/21/is-the-games-jesus-piece-album-cover-blasphemous/
