Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. This is the yoke from which we are being set free. And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatemala, Liberia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated. Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics—they too need to be liberated from the empire’s yoke of slavery. Their liberation is tangled up with our own. The new yoke isn’t easy. (It’s a cross, for heaven’s sake.) But we carry it together, and it is good and leads us to rest, especially for the weariest traveler. Jesus for President, Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw, page 113
Nearly every page of Jesus for President has presented a new challenge for my faith. Never before have I been exposed to the incredible richness of the political and economical language of the Scriptures. What politics there were to be found were always relegated to the Hebrews, with Christian politics painted with the broad brush of obey the law and pay your taxes. Oh, and vote Republican.
But what if our being strangers in a strange land, a peculiar people… a holy nation… has practical importance to our everyday life? What if we have been not only set free from our sins by the Lamb’s sacrifice but have also been offered release from the yoke of this world’s overbearing politics and economics?
What if we aren’t called to change the world through legislating our morality but instead should change the world by infecting it, spreading the Kingdom of God like leaven spreads through dough?
I’m about a third of the way through Jesus for President, and those are some of the questions which have been presented, which are challenging my faith.
I strongly suspect that there will be more.
nice!
My thoughts: Messianic Jews expected a conquerer. Yahshau said himself and I’m paraphrasing- think not that I could ask God for help and he’d sent a legion of angels to conquer? My kingdom is not of the world. if it was of the world he would not have died on the cross, of course. And do we know better than christ? Are we not to follow his example? christians who believe in the kingdom of heaven by means of neo-conservatism.. I don’t believe
To paraphrase oscar wilde with my own twist- to throw in some humor: I like people more than politics and I like people without politics the most.
I imagine Yahshua’s kindgom is of beautiful heavenly worlds of great wealth beyong human imagination. In my fathers house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place.
Besides- are we greater than God? I think everything has to be this way for God must be the perfection of all virtues. Is generosity not a virtue? That’s why he, as Most Generous, gave the gift of life, the greatest gift, to other souls, namely us. The next virtue to play is wisdom, and as Most Wise, he realized he must give us freedom of will or he only creates zombies and slaves and a race of robots. right? that’s also why he rarely exercises his power but just lets things be and let’s us go about our business of what we desire. at the same time though he created a law of cause and effet- as ye sow ye reap- which we cannot escape from and are bound by. what we do onto others we do onto ourselves, right? Am I making any false assumptions? Is my logic flawed in any way in all of this? If I am blind to the truth, help me to see!
So… not being greater than God, we, as the saints have done, must
1. renounce the world of material things and flesh. Not easy but necessary! and
2. Not try to legislate morality because we are not greater than God and he gives us freedom of will, but as I always say, there is no real freedom from the law, only freedom through the law. God’s law, woven into the fabric of our being. Not one jot or tittle shall pass away. But to not try to govern others, only to govern our lower sinful selves with the help of the Holy Spirit. Yes?