Counter-Cultural Jesus
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Part of the mission of Jesus was to turn the world upside down. He came to tear down power structures and reshape values. Political, religous, and social systems had run wild in his day. People were valued for what they could do and how much money they had and for which religious party they favored. Religious leaders cared less about the spiritual life than they cared about holding on to their positions of power and prestige. The regular folks weren’t even in the picture. Jesus was intent on saying “That’s not how things work in MY community.”
Jesus’ closest followers had a hard time grasping this. Jesus had to call them down and explain this to them very clearly (Mark 10.42-45, New Living Translation of the Bible):
So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Unfortunately, in our culture, we share those same values that Jesus confronted in his day. We value people because of what they offer us rather than because of who they are. We respect people because they’re powerful in business or because they have money. For some of us, this is accidental. We try not to. For others, there’s no question, it never occurs to us to think otherwise.
At The Well, we work hard to respect people for who they are. Our leaders work as hard as everyone else. There’s no task that any of us is “too good” to do. We are committed to these upside down values and to this idea of servant leaders. And we invite you to hold us accountable for this - call us on it when we fail.
Peace,
Matt