matrix theology

Religion often gets in the way of Jesus.
That’s a pretty outrageous statement – so you might want to go back and read it if you just shook your head and moved on.

Religion often gets in the way of Jesus.

What do I mean by that statement?

Religion is any set of rules you have to follow or liturgy you have to follow in order to satisfy some kind of expectations that put you on good terms with God. I don’t think religion is wrong; in fact, for some people it is necessary to develop certain spiritual disciplines in order to sust..ain their relationship with God.

But sometimes the motions of walking can get in the way of the destination.

The religious side of your spiritual journey can sometimes warp your image of Jesus. In essence, sometimes Christianity obscures Christ. We sometimes view Jesus as a theological construct or some kind of redemptive God and miss the greater, more amazing person.

Jesus did not come to start a religion.
Most people think Jesus started this thing called “Christianity.” As a point of fact, Jesus was not a Christian. His followers were not even called Christians until many years later, and the term Christian appears only three times in the Bible – of which only one (1 Peter 4:16) might be considered a positive reference, and even that one seems to have negative connotations.

Jesus’ followers referred to themselves as being in “The Way.” (Acts 9:2, 19:9) They never spoke of a religion or rituals, only of a person – Jesus of Nazareth. Let me present a novel way of viewing Jesus that I believe formed their faith and lives.

The Way of Jesus
First of all, Jesus’ followers looked to him for an example of selfless life. It must have gone against his training as a rabbi to sit with tax collectors, peasant fishermen, whores, diseased outcasts, and “sinners.” Everything in his human nature must have been repulsed by the filth that surrounded him every day.

And yet, Jesus gave himself to these people. He did not just descend to them from on high. He lived among them – he became one of them.

He chose for his followers a group of Galileans. The Galileans were not Jews. They were ethnically mixed, basically one level above Samaritans in the Jewish way of thinking. They had been forced to convert to Judaism by Herod Magnus before Jesus was born, but they were not integrated into the Jewish world.

One of his followers was a zealot, another was a tax collector. At least four were fishermen. They had emotional problems; some of them had pride issues. One of them was a traitor just waiting for an opportunity. They were insignificants; they were unclean.

They were, to Jesus, the perfect men for the job.

The man who would take this rabble and love them into the Kingdom and then hand them its keys was some kind of amazing. He was more than just a rabbi. He was a man who allowed love to define him. And in doing so, he reflected God more perfectly than any other person they could even think of.

Second, they saw in Jesus’ death the death of their sins. His death had tremendous significance because it marked the end of the reign of sin in their lives. Of course, sin had never owned them; but they labored under its burdens and consequences and pain.

This is important because we were not created to feel guilt or pain or hatred. Our human natures were designed to experience the joy of fellowship with God and each other. We do not have the capacity to endure the weight of sin. That is why Jesus’ death became so important to the early church. It was why Paul says that being “immersed into Jesus Christ” means that we are “immersed into his death.” (Romans 6:3) New life only comes because death comes.

These ancient believers knew that Jesus had come for death and life, but death first. We cannot marry religion to new life. It is because of religion (TORAH) that we know death (Romans 7:5). The new life is a fresh, vibrant walk in the spirit of Torah, and not in its letter (2 Corinthians 3:6). It is freedom because we pass from death into life.

Third, Jesus’ resurrection meant that he was living. Jesus is moving, active and alive. His metaphors of living (flowing) water and abundant (bubbling) life were applicable because he did not just die. He also lived.

The ancient followers of The Way often greeted each other with the statement: “Jesus is risen.” To which they would reply, “He is risen indeed!” Jesus was not just a resurrected God; he was the living Jesus, who was walking among them and relating directly to them. And remember that this was before the New Testament had been committed to ink on parchment.

With the presence of the resurrected, living Jesus came access to the fulness of God’s creation (Psalm 24:1). Thus, the apostles were free to access truth where it was – whether in the creation (Romans 1), the writings of Cretan poets (Titus 1:12), Greek religion (Acts 17), Jesus myths (Jude 9, 14) or the Roman Domitian games (from which the imagery of Revelation 5 is borrowed). All things are God’s and as redeemed followers of the living Jesus, all things were also theirs.

Rather than being bound by religion, they were freed from it – whether Jewish or Roman or even (today) Christian. Their focus was Jesus first.

So, what of the church?
So, why does the Bible still provide for this thing called church? I believe that the church was instituted as gatherings of people who were striving to live like Jesus. As people sought out the living Jesus, they were drawn together by Jesus’ Spirit into these ekklesiA – these special communities of Jesus followers. The purpose of the gatherings is laid out all over Acts and the epistles, but the purpose was primarily to invest in each other and others.

These followers of Jesus, these pilgrims on The Way, came together for the same reason that Red Sox fans come together – because they were fans, Jesus fans. They came together to praise him and to worship God and to share in the rich faith heritage of the Tanach, even as they were composing the story of their own faith journeys that became our New Testament.

Far from being a place of religion, the church is supposed to be a gathering of followers – of the Jesus people – that allows them opportunities to use the things God has given them, to share the fellowship (koinonia or “commonality) of others on the same journey.

Of Course, That’s Too Simple
The religious people of our era (which I hesitate to call Pharisees out of kindness, but that’s what they really are) see the church as some kind of monolithic keeper of the “truth” about Jesus, but are often so divorced from his teachings that they would scarcely welcome him into their gatherings, never mind accept him into their membership. I venture to say that Jesus would rather not spend time with them anyway.

He would much rather be in the places where the people who needed him were. He would be in the gutters and slums; he would be elbows deep in the mess that is reality rather than living in the ideals of the religious who separate their spiritual lives from their real lives and in the process codify hypocrisy.

These people would say that loosing people from the code, from the rules, from the isolating influence of such restricting structures would open people up to heresy and false teaching and worldliness. Of course, they are right.

But is the power of the Holy Spirit so weak that it can be stopped by the efforts of man, or even of Satan?

Did Jesus intend for his followers to isolate themselves, to withdraw emotionally from the world they live in? Jesus prayed exactly the opposite of that (John 17:15).

The Faithful in the Most Unlikely Places
I believe the people who are truly faithful to Jesus’ teachings are those who define their faith by actions, not by religious terminology or doctrinal correctness. They may even be “irreligious.” Although they attend church, they find their church to be inadequate to meet their spiritual longings, so they act outside of the church to do the things they believe Jesus would do.

(This is not to say that some of the religious are not faithful to Jesus. There are faithful just about everywhere – including most, if not all, denominations of Christianity.)

Now, imagine churches where the faithful are able to act in the church because the church is the gathering of the truly active, faithful followers of Jesus rather than a theologically defined social club? Such churches would be truly amazing – and yet thoroughly irreligious.

They would be beautiful.

They would be Jesus people.