Since Jesus is being used to support questionable socio-religious attitudes towards targeted populations

Since Jesus is being used to support questionable socio-religious attitudes towards targeted populations such as women, Indigenous Peoples, racialized people, LGBTs and immigrants from certain countries, let’s start with a common understanding of what he DID NOT stand for… and what he actually DID do in his interactions with marginalized people and with The System.

1)  Jesus DID NOT look down on people deemed unworthy or unholy. Backstory (Matt. 15): Jesus came specifically to fulfill God’s promise to the ancient Israelites that He would visit them in the form of a human being…basically giving them first dibs at the Kingdom. So when a Syrian woman approached him for her daughter’s healing one would expect him to deny her. His disciples certainly had no problem with that. They advised him to send her away.

Jesus didn’t. First he gave her the religious line. “I was sent only to the people of Israel! They are like a flock of lost sheep”.

But the woman had a quality even Jesus’ own people did not have: faith in him. So she persisted. “Dear woman”, he said, amazed. “You… really do have a lot of faith. You will be given what you want.” No discrimination. Not on basis of her hairstyle; dress; culture; religious practices; or place of birth. He focused on what was important—her need and her faith.

2)  Jesus DID NOT appeal to the state for help in fulfilling his mission.

He did what he was sent here to do: show what love looked like in a way humans could relate. No need for help from corrupt and unjust earthly systems. As a matter of fact when some religious people warned him one day that Herod was coming after him, he neither cowered nor tried to appease. You go tell that fox, he retorted, I will do what I need to do today and any other day I choose. Fox, I’m told was a metaphor for small-fry/insignificance. Later at his trial when Pilate tried to flex his political muscles Jesus reminded him that he would have no power unless it was given to him from God his Father.

3)  Jesus DID NOT abide by oppressive systems. Much like today, religion and politics had become deeply intertwined. The state tried to keep the Jews from rebelling against occupation and the Jews—the religious elite in particular—looked to the state to do their dirty work e.g. crucifying Jesus. The state was only too willing to oblige: Jesus had become a disruption to their cosy relationship with the religious elite.

Jesus was constantly at odds with oppression. In response to the endless dietary laws and rules that signified religious purity he remarked: ‘it’s not what goes into a person’s mouth that makes them unclean, it’s what comes out of their mouth…their heart’. In other words, stop focusing on people’s external qualities. Focus instead on the “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies” of which even they themselves were also guilty.

He pointed out that they were blocking the way to heaven when they themselves were not going to enter. “You travel over land and sea to win one follower”, he said, “(But) when you have done so, you make that person twice as fit for hell as you are (Matt 23:1)”. Why? Their walk did not match their talk. Instead, they laid “heavy burdens” on the people, blocking the spiritual and personal liberation he (Jesus) offered.

No wonder the they delivered him up to be killed by the state. It was the perfect quid pro quo!

Think about it.