Jesus Walks Among Us

 

Question the Gatekeepers

“These progressive voices offer less rigid and mor expansive approaches to Christian faith and make room for people who practice critical thinking and question the gatekeepers. They help us see that questioning the gatekeepers is exactly what Jesus was all about.”

Brian D. McLaren

          Good Easter morning to you. The cave stone is rolled back and Jesus walks among us. Stop and think about that for a minute—if Jesus is walking among us today, who do you think he is? The Pope? That homeless man who pushes the shopping cart around downtown? The archbishop of the episcopal church? A little child? You? How about all the above?

          Could the transgender person you know be Jesus, or that guy who works weekends as a Tina Turner drag queen? Or maybe the woman I saw down by the Sheridan Hotel Friday, plying her wares in the middle of the day? Yep, those too. Either God is with us, or God is not—and nobody but God gets to pick and choose who is and who isn’t in God’s inner circle. The minute someone tells you—even if that someone is wearing a priest’s collar and robe—that you must believe X,Y, and Z about Jesus or you are bound for eternal hellfire, turn and run away from them as fast as you can. That’s ego talking, not Jesus.

          Nadia Bolz-Weber says, “…every time we draw a line between us and others, Jesus is always on the other side of it.” This Easter morning, Jesus is standing with the misfits, the ostracized, the outcasts, as well as the church people singing praise songs. There is no abandonment for anyone—not with Jesus. Whether you are respectable in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of the well-off, or in the eyes of the church, God loves you like a baby—like God’s own baby, in whom God is well pleased. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane