Blogging Towards Sunday, September 7th
Jesus for President
Jesus' Acceptance Speech & Laying Out His Vision
Luke 4:18-21 & Matthew 5:1-12

I'm starting the Jesus for President Series at the church I serve. I'm taking inspiration from the book of the same name as I work my way through the Sermon on the Mount (the main teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5-7) This first selection comes in two parts: the equivalent of Jesus' acceptance speech of nomination for President in his hometown of Nazareth as told in Luke 4 and then what we often call the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. The latter is a sort of preamble, or introductory statement preceding the main teaching and vision of Jesus in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. The preamble, or introductory statement, of the US constitution defines the essence of our nation's vision of itself and expresses the sort of citizenry it hopes to embody. In a similar way the Sermon on the Mount is the "constitution" of the Church of Jesus the Christ and the Beatitudes are its "preamble." [Credit for this comparison]

Jesus lived in a time of great social and political turmoil. His native land had been taken over by the Roman Empire. Some patriots advocated violent revolution to overthrow the foreign occupiers. Some patriots advocated compliance, adaptation and what some might call being "sell-outs." Other patriots advocated a more fundamentalist, in the sense of returning to the bedrock values/fundamentals of the past in order to survive in the changing times. Some patriots advocated total separation from all foreigners in order to stay pure and true. In the midst of these policy platforms of violent uprising, fundamentalist flight into the past, and ethnic purity Jesus preaches a different way, one that calls for a nonviolent reversal of the way the world operates, for the peace of God to come about in the world not by force but through active relational resistance. Here's a page I scanned from the book Jesus for President that lays out the context of his day.


So if the Beatitudes are the Preamble to our Constitution as the Church: the community of those that follow Jesus, How are we doing? Are we - as the church - as individual followers - are WE living up to the call Jesus gives us? Are we enacting the policies that he advanced in Nazareth and on the Mount? Or have we muddled things and compromised Jesus' platform for nonviolent transformation as ordinary radicals living the Way?