An amazing morning of discussion at church

This morning was quite an interesting one for the Spanish congregation at theEpiscopal Church of St. Michael and All Angels in Tucson. The Scripture readings were focused on the nature of God and what Jesus taught in his travels around Palestine. The Epistle reading from Saint Paul mentioned the famous phrase of “being all things to all people” that Paul cultivated so that he could relate, as we say today, to the non-Jewish people around him that were converting to Christianity.

The discussion around the sermon on those issues led me to a realization, and it is no small idea that came to me today. I saw a relationship between what Jesus was doing in his day and what some Christians have done in our times. Some of us have lapsed from Christianity back into Pharisaic Judaism as we forget the difference between the Old and New Testaments.

I ended my last article with a remark about what a Teabagger or a Republican might think today if they came to the realization that the Republican Party does not operate in the interests of the American people. What would their friends—or Rush Limbaugh—think if they stood up and announced defiantly that they were voting for President Obama, or had voted for him come November?

You may have read that and put it down to a sarcastic joke, but that is not what it was. I was setting up for this article, in which I go back to my earlier question of how we can separate Christianity out from Judaism.

The Old Testament exercises a profound influence on Christianity; many Christians think of the Scriptures as though they were one interrelated history, which they are not. When the Old Testament comes to an end with the Book of Malachi, there is actually quite a time lapse before the writing of the Gospel According to Mark, which was the first Gospel to be written. The Old and New Testaments are separated by many generations.

The establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire also correlated between Jesus and Saint Paul, in that Jesus went from place to place preaching to the Jews, telling them that they did not understand the love of God and were not ready for the Coming of the Kingdom. Paul actually did the same thing, although much of his ministry was conducted outside of Palestine.

Paul told many Gentiles as well as Jews that they did not understand the love of God and were not prepared for the Coming of the Kingdom. Saint John the Baptist, followed by Jesus and then by Paul, fully expected that the Kingdom would come in his day.

By the way, that is one factor in my decision not to spend a full three hours watching Who Was Jesus?, which was recently presented on The Green Channel. They don’t know who Jesus was; their long program is nothing more than a re-hash of common and doubtful theories about Jesus ranging from The Passover Plot to why Jesus did what he did.

One particular misconception that occurs in Who was Jesus?, is that the writer(s) decided that Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem for his last Passover before the Crucifixion was for the purpose of a political confrontation between himself and the Temple authorities and the Roman Governor. However, other and more credible (in my opinion) theologians believe that Jesus went to Jerusalem because he believed that he ought to be there when the Coming of the Kingdom was realized, as he expected. Jesus wanted to be in Jerusalem when the Son of Man arrived—a person that Jesus believed in but did not think that he was.

Anyway, the paradigm of Christian preaching is that the Good News comes to us that God loves the world and has sent his emissary, his Messiah, to let us know that we must prepare for the coming of the perfect Kingdom of God’s love. Jesus did not preach a terror of God’s coming that we hear from modern-day evangelical un-Christians. He preached that humanity was longing for the arrival of the God of love who would, as Paul put it, wipe away the tears from their eyes.

And that was where the realization hit me today. I see how much of mainstream Christianity is now in the position of witnessing the love of God to lapsed un-Christians who have lost their roots. Evangelicals, especially the so-called Leviticans, have given up their longing for love and justice. They now long for revenge and punishment; in particular they want God to castigate and torture those of whom they do not approve.

That is a position that I am happy to take up. In the face of hatred and threats I am speaking of a God that we do not yet know. We do not yet understand that God loves us, because although some of that thought is framed in the Old Testament, the majority of it appears in the New Testament and it has been lost by those who do not realize the difference between the two.

In every instance in which the New Testament says other things from the Old Testament about the nature of God, the Old Testament must give way. When Jesus speaks of God as love, we must forget the God of punishment and torture. We must remember the Good Samaritan and the father of the Prodigal Son and forget the God of the conquering and murdering Israelites who claim that they put whole cities to death, including the animals.

Leviticans and Evangelicals have lost their way. They are trapped in the Old Testament. Theologians and spokespersons for Christianity have to witness the love of Christ to them. No matter what Paul said when he spoke as a Pharisee, we have to remember that he said, “Christ is the end of the Law,” and we have to forgive and love our enemies, not demonize them and seek to do them harm.

The more you hate a person or group, the stronger is your obligation to do good to them, to forgive them and to love them and wish their best. That is the message of Christianity to evangelicals and their spokespersons of hate and bigotry.

Even when great Christian institutions fall into this error, like the Church of England, we must witness to them that no one is worthy (as Paul said) and that we may not, in the name of Jesus, enact and pursue public policy with intent to harm anyone.

Evangelicals are lost and they need to hear the message of Christianity all over again.