I am forever reading material on the new and emerging church and this week I came across a book - Shaped by God's Heart by Milfred Minatrea - with a chapter named ‘Be Real and not Real Religious.’ I skipped a whole bunch of other chapters to take a look at that one, because being real is so important to me and to my ministry.
Ever since I was a little kid – a while ago now – Jesus has fascinated me. Not the religious one that is too often portrayed; but the REAL one with whom we can be quite uncomfortable if we really let him settle at our place. This Jesus is the one who makes mud poultices for blind men. It is this Jesus who honours a woman of dubious reputation among his ‘religious’ peers. He reaches out to touch lepers and tells disturbing stories about the most despised people being fit for the kingdom of God. Let's get this quite clear; religious people were disturbed by him!
Why did I spend so many of my early adult years distant from the church if Jesus fascinated me? Because as far as I could see the churches and Christians that I did bump into, had sanitised Jesus into something very different to the one in the Bible.
Why don’t men don’t take a greater interest in church? My theory is that we present a Jesus figure they are uncomfortable with. Jesus was a carpenter for heavens sake! I reckon he was a bloke’s bloke. He hung around with fishermen, tax collectors and a mixture of other men and women you might find at the Pub on any night of the week. How many songs do we hear about Jesus in this context? Not many. They are usually love songs full of syrup and dripping with words that the average bloke wouldn’t even say to his wife on a good day!
Jesus was REAL not real religious. Real is dangerous. That’s one of the reasons they killed him.
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