Researchers want to be at a big University. Military people of high rank want to be at the Pentagon. Politicians want to be in D. C. Religious leaders want to have “name recognition”. It is natural for those in leadership positions, and those who aspire to such positions, to want to be in places of power and influence. The places where decisions of consequence are made. They want to be identified with the leaders, influencers and decision makers.
Jesus chose a different approach. Rather than identify with the religious and political leaders, Jesus spent very little of his ministry in Jerusalem (the center of faith, religion and politics). When he was there he was often in conflict with the religious leaders.
No, Jesus spent much of his time in places like Galilee and Capernaum. These were places considered irreligious. Places with numbers of Gentiles. He even went to Samaria to the ones who were seen as people who had left the “true religion” of the Old Testament and were teaching a false religion. He seldom came to the places of power. The places where the leaders of the nation and religion gathered.
Few of his disciples came with religious training or leadership positions. Few had power or influence. Few would have been members of the local Rotary Club or the Ministerial Alliance.
He took his teachings outside the boundaries of institutional “correct” religion and places to the irreligious, religiously ignorant and to those who were not interested in religion at all. He went to people who were the least likely to go near a place of worship.
Instead of meetings in centers with public transportation, amenities and sound systems, Jesus often preached in the countryside. People had to come to him to hear his teachings. It took effort to hear him. They sweated under the sun and got hungry and thirsty. That means they had deep longings that were not being met by the Temple, Synagogue or other religious groups or gatherings. They sensed that Jesus offered something different from religion.
Rather than teaching from a distance only. He established relationships with “non-religious” people, people who were called sinners and those who were not accepted in the world of religion. He was condemned by the religious community for the type of people he was friends with. To those kinds of people, he made house calls. He made them friends before they became followers or changed. Their relationship with him brought change not through accepting a certain set of beliefs about him or becoming religious. Jesus never pushed religion or rules.
It was to these kinds of people that he said, “The Kingdom of God is near.”
What would our churches look like if we focused on the people Jesus focused on? If we chose his methods rather than our own? Would we be more comfortable with the Jerusalem crowd or the groups that followed Jesus? Who is near The Kingdom today that we don’t recognize?
There is a widespread interest in “spirituality” in the US. We discount it because it doesn’t follow “our path”. But it indicates that people are searching. Searching for inner peace. They have a hunger. They are looking. Maybe they represent the ones who went to the countryside to hear Jesus rather than to the Temple or Synagogue.
How many people do you know who are not Followers of Jesus or in your religious group? Often we are so busy with our church stuff, religious stuff and church friends that we do not have time for the non-religious. Jesus went out of his way to cultivate friendships with people like that. People rejected by the correct religious in-group.
People who through bad choices (the Samaritan woman who had 5 husbands and who was living with someone else at the time) had really screwed up their lives. The felon, the drug addict, the person covered in tattoos with orange spiked hair, The biker, the gay, the lesbian or cross-gender person. Those on the edge of our society. The person in a Hijab or who speaks another language. We often project anger at such people—after all they are not like us—rather than love. No wonder they don’t come to our churches. I know of some churches that pride themselves on making sure that such people would hear a sermon condemning them and looks equally condemning that communicated, “What are YOU doing HERE?”
Jesus drew people to him who were in parallel situations in his culture.
Maybe what we are offering is different from what Jesus offered? Maybe we are offering Church and Religion and not a satisfying relationship with Jesus within a loving and accepting group of sinners. Maybe that is all we have to offer?