the decline of jesus

In honour of National Coming Out Day, I offer the following:

The Jesus I know, the Jesus I see in the Bible, identifies with the least of these. In His time here on earth, that would have been women, lepers, tax collectors and people classified as "sinners" by the religious people. In our modern 21st century culture, lgbt people are often the least of these... and Jesus would identify with them, walk with them, become one of them.

If someone is offended by this, perhaps he or she hasn't grasped how radical Jesus was in his day. Radical to the point of offending religious people. Perhaps they do not understand how Jesus broke social stigmas continually... and yet today, some Christians seem more interested in maintaining a religious status quo than following in Jesus' steps.

Become one of them?? Hmmm. Reminds me of the Apostle Paul saying that

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

I Corinthians 9:19-22 NIV

Hugh Hollowell speaking about My Jesus is a 23-year-old lesbian:


The Jesus I Know from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.



Some words of clarification: After reading this post, someone suggested that it would be helpful if I clarified some things about the cartoon and the commentary. So here goes:

Remember that this is social commentary. So I'm mixing together the following here:

• an idea -- Jesus was gay -- which floats around in a few places in society (for the record, I don't believe this)
• the passage about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, where Jesus says, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (verse 40)
• Jesus being called a drunkard and a glutton, and being called a friend of sinners
• Jesus giving up his power and his rights and becoming nothing
• the idea that we need to identify with those who are poor and oppressed and powerless, and not be afraid to be mistaken for one of them
• our contemporary culture where lgbt people are oppressed and at the margins.

So the result is the cartoon,with the idea that we see Jesus in the least of these ...