Where's the Real Scandal?
April 12, 2023 10:48 AM
We hear words like "scandal" and we often think of tabloid magazines and politicians. Unfortunately the more recent trend has been to find scandalous behavior in church leadership, Ravi Zaccharias and Bill Hybels being the more recent and large scale examples. The religious association with scandal is so universal at this time that Merriam-Webster dictionary online actually has a definition specifically for religion:
5. a: discredit brought upon religion by unseemly conduct in a religious person
b: conduct that causes or encourages a lapse of faith or of religious obedience in another (Scandal Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster)
For something to be a scandal it has to come from a position of power and responsibility. We expect people in authority to act responsibly, either by law or simply by assumed expectation. Missteps that are quickly acknowledged are quickly forgiven and deemed less "scandalous". The weight of scandal (what makes it juicy, perhaps)comes when the offender lies and covers and denies their wrongdoing. The eventual pile of muck and destruction leads to an exciting downfall as a false empire of security gets pulled down around the ears of the offender.
So with this baggage surrounding us as a church body, why are we starting a sermon series called "The Scandals of Jesus"? Was Jesus scandalous? Was he a lawbreaker? a drunkard? an illegitimate child? Was he a friend of the prostitutes, tax collectors and low-level laborers? The answer is yes...and no.
Jesus's actions in his day offended the religious leadership who had cultivated respect and power and levied enormous expectations on all "faithful" Jews, a long, long list of dos and don'ts. Sound familiar? I think the real scandal has been on behalf of the modern church that has cultivated the Good News to reach an upper echelon of citizens while dismissing the lower classes; we have glossed over the messy or difficult things Jesus has said to make him palatable and modern, ignoring the fact that Jesus ruffled feathers constantly! He got right up in people's faces about their false-hearted leadership and criticisms. But he didn't do it out of spite; he did it out of love for both those being persecuted and the persecutor. We as a church have, in essence, told our neighbors, "Get yourself cleaned up; look right, dress right, talk right...and then you can come be part of our group." This is Scandalous to the Gospel, which has forgiven each and every one of our mistakes on a daily basis.
If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. (Matthew 12:7)
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
-Collossians 3:11
Join us as we seek a truer understanding of our faith, ourselves and, most importantly, our savior.