What Jesus?

In my last post, pre-election, I posed the question to my fellow Christians, “do we follow the same Jesus?” In the agony and self-reflection that ensued post-election, and after listening to this sermon from Pastor Mike in California, I am able to answer my own question.

No, we do not follow the same Jesus.

Many of us see a eurocentric Jesus – a man interpreted through the lens of European or White American values. We see a Jesus who is, as Pastor Mike puts it, “the chaplain of American Imperialism.”  And, I would add, the chaplain of American capitalism.

This Jesus allows us to be comfortable with our present day, justifies our need to protect what is ours and makes the militarization of the world rational. This Jesus helps us to believe there are nations that are better and best than others, that hyper-moralism is “Christian” and permits us to dismiss the weight of the past as just that – the past.

This is not the Jesus I see, despite being well-versed and raised in it.

The Jesus I follow is a “dark skinned Palestinian Jewish carpenter who was born in the hood to an out-of-wedlock teenage mother; who was wrongfully arrested and convicted and executed by the state…the Jesus who is a liberator of both the body and the soul, the Jesus who is a healer of the mind and of every little nagging injury you have, the Jesus who is an exorcist who casts the devil out of people and systems, the Jesus who is a prophet, the Jesus who is the Son of God, the Jesus who is the risen resurrected Christ.” (-Pastor Michael McBride)

When I make a decision about where to work, I look to this Jesus. When I make a decision about how to act towards others, I look to this Jesus.
When I make a decision about how to vote, I see this Jesus – the dark skinned man who was beaten, jailed and killed by the governing authorities. (John 18) Does that sound familiar?
I see the Jesus who kept company with and spoke to women in a world where females were sub-seperate and sub-par humans. (John 4, female disciples here). I see the Jesus who wept for the dead and those who grieved, even as he raised them. (John 11) Does this sound like the Western Christianity we know today?
I see a Jesus who, when faced with an affront to His Lord, got angry and did something about it (John 2)

This Jesus, left his power and his privilege in heaven to join us on earth. What then, is my response if I call myself a Christian – a follower of this Christ Jesus?

I will show you. Watch me.