A Sermon Series
THE MESSAGE OF JESUS and the Scriptures has been co-opted by some, misunderstood by others, and ignored by many due to the baggage it has sometimes carried. Peeling back these layers, we will uncover the raw, radical, and revolutionary teachings of Christ that are life giving and needed today in our faith journey.
January 8th What is Salvation?
January 15th Kingdom of God: Heaven or Earth?
January 29th Sacrifice: What Jesus did...What we do
February 5th Body and Blood: The Meaning of Communion
February 12th Righteousness or Justice?
February 19th Two Kinds of Christianity: Heaven and Hell vs. Transformational
Discussion Group to follow fellowship time.
♣Christianity’s Original Message: Why do we need to dig at all? Why do we need to investigate to see the original message? With the passage of time words change meanings, and translations are needed across languages that may easily miss the original intention. In addition, our western culture has adopted a literalization when it comes to Christian language. A bumper sticker captures this approach well: “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” The belief in inerrancy and infallibility is a fear-based modern reaction (like fundamentalism) and the resultant literal approach to understanding Scripture has covered over the original message of Jesus and the Bible.
Early Christianity was stifled by those who were fearful of the radical egalitarian vision of Jesus. His criticism of religion’s rules, control mechanisms, exclusivistic claims, clergy controlling access to the divine, and purity code which oppressed people rather than liberated them, was too threatening for the male leadership. Mary Magdalene’s leadership, (indeed Apostleship!) was squelched, women were marginalized once again, and a system (religion) was created that wound up being the embodiment of what Jesus was struggling against. Very quickly the new church adopted the same control of access to God, and a system of sacraments that dispensed grace and “salvation” to the insiders who behaved according to their expectations. Once the church gained political power with Constantine’s “conversion” in 313 C.E., it consolidated its power base and excluded those (the majority) who differed in their approach to Christ or the Christian path. Since then, layers of medieval, Calvinistic, and substitutionary atonement theologies have crusted over the Christian message with the “heaven and hell” framework, original sin (“total human depravity”), and exclusive practices and claims. Removing these layers reveals a fresh and powerful Christian message that our age is ripe for (and dying without): a transformational spiritual path that affirms God’s love, creation’s goodness, personal and corporate wholeness (holiness) and justice grounded in God’s grace.
Sermons at First United Methodist Church
