Marginal Christianity

The Entry (Mt.21:1-10) Jesus’ strategy now takes a quantum leap forward. The conflict brewing throughout his ministry with the Jewish religious leadership reaches full boil. He provokes it with a piece of strategic   messianic street theater we’ve come to call, rather ironically, the Triumphal Entry.   But strategy is hand in glove with scriptural fulfilment here. No surprise in that with Matthew. Jesus moves according to the Father’s will. The essential props come first. Jesus sends out two disciples to fetch his ride. And this ride resonates not only with the explicit text Matthew provides but implicitly with other Old Testament texts that speak to Jesus’ identity. The props Jesus wants are a donkey and a colt (v.2). The prophecy from Zech.9:9 foretells this: a royal arrival for the people, a king humble riding on a donkey and a colt. Now donkeys are not highly thought of in our time and place but in that time they were royal steeds (cf. Judg.10:4; 12:14; 1 Sam....

Royal Priests I’m not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. But I know who you are and what you are to do with your life. Let me say that again: I know who you are and what you are to do with your life. And if you’ll give me 10 minutes I tell you. That’s all, 10 minutes. I’m not selling anything or asking you to support anything. I want only 10 minutes of your time. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, fine. Go on your merry way. But if you’ve spent any time wondering who you really are and whether you’re doing something that aligns with who you truly are, take a listen. It might be the most important thing you ever hear. Not because I’m saying it – heavens no! But because of what is said. It’s nothing I thought up on my own, I’m not that smart. Nor did I receive it directly from God. I’m not that holy. I got this from a variety of folks who in the last 30 years or so have taught us to read the Bible better than we ever did before. I borrowed freely from them and that’s w...

Jesus: A Counter-Temple Movement (9:2-8) Back home again (9:1), Jesus encounters a paralytic carried on a bed by some friends to him. This man and his body are imprisoned by guilt and shame. We call them psychosomatic illnesses. Body and mind are intricately and inextricably connected. These afflictions are as real and debilitating as any nerve or muscular damage. Jesus knows this and upon seeing this scene immediately offers him forgiveness for his sins, the source for his guilt and shame. The heresy detectors present, the scribes, immediately go into high gear. “Who but God can forgive  sins? And where is that forgiveness dispensed but in the temple?” they say to one another (v.3). “This is blasphemy,” they cry. Jesus knows their thoughts and declares them evil (v.4). They are committing what Jesus will later call the “unforgiveable sin,” blasphemy against the Spirit (Mt.12:31-32). Nevertheless, they challenge his claim to act in God’s stead, forming in hims...

In the beginning God built a temple. And that tells the whole story. The whole story. To miss this story is to miss the whole point of God’s work. God built a temple because, well, that’s where gods live, right? And God wants to live on the earth he created with us. Still does. And will. On a mountain God planted his garden temple/palace to live with his human creatures (Ez.28:13-16). In that garden God walked in communion and fellowship with Adam and Eve. And they’re just us, you know. All humanity. What’s more, God made them (and us) priests in this garden temple. Royal priests because they (we) are children of God the Great King. This is that “image of God” thing. What God started there he intends to spread the length and breadth and height and depth of the whole creation. Remember the river from Eden that branched into four to water the rest of the then uninhabited earth. Why water it if people weren’t going to live there. Yep, God wants this whole world full of his royal...

3. Did You Know You Are a Royal Priest? I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet but I know who you are, all of you, and what you are to be doing in the world. It’s true. I do. Not because of my wisdom or insight, mind you, but because the Bible teaches it though we’ve often forgot or ignored it. Yes, it’s right there in Genesis 1-2 if we read them in the light of their cultural context. When people of nations surrounding Israel wrote up their creation stories they did not do so provide what we would consider a “scientific” record of their origins. They did so to announce to readers whose they were, who they were, and what they were to do in the world. Gen.1-2 do the same thing. -First, their creation story narrates God’s building a temple for him to dwell on his creation in (as do those of the surrounding nations). And where else would God dwell but a temple (which also is a palace, a dwelling for the Great King)? So Israel’s God is present amid his creation (remember ...