Christology

After a short blog break I wanted to get back to Liberation Theology, and specifically Christology. The cornerstone of Sergio’s lecture was based on Christology. The traditional Christology of the mainstream church is Jesus coming to earth as our savior/liberator of sin, out of love for us or to quench the wrath of God depending on your view. This is the Christology I grew up learning and before this lecture I knew of no other. Liberation Theology points to Jesus coming to earth to allign Himself with the poor. That He came to share in the suffering, oppression, and injustice of the poor in order to liberate them. And that now as Christians we are called to liberate the poor as Jesus began. He taught that Jesus did not come as a sacrifice for our sins because God did not need a sacrifice to forgive us.
I am all for liberating the poor, the oppressed, and fighting injustice! But my problem with this Christology lies in the basic gospel of Jesus. Jesus taught that we are sinners and that the punishment of sin is death. And so even if we completelty rid the world of poverty, oppression, and injustice, we are all still sinners and we still deserve death without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Poverty is a sin, but it is not the only sin. Prophecies throughout the bible point to a final sacrifice of the perfect lamb of God for all our sins once and for all. How can you read the bible and miss this? Yes, Jesus came for the poor, He spent His time with the poor and the oppressed, and the outcasts, but He came for the foremost purpose of dying so that we might live! I cannot, because of the urgings of the Spirit of God, ever get away from the gospel of grace which is death, forgiveness, and life.

Todo (Everything in espanol)

One of the days in Mexico City we received a lecture on liberation theology from a proffesor at the Lutheran Seminary on the outskirts of Mexico City. Sergio, the professor, was an excellent orator with a passionate, soothing tone. He spoke of the origins of Liberation Theology which made the ideas a lot easier to understand. The theology was born out of poverty. It was born in response to the conditions most of the world lives in. Some that he taught I agreed with, like his explanation of Hermeneutics. This is the discipline of interpreting scripture. The four steps described were: 1) see 2) judge 3) act 4) celebrate. This makes so much more sense than what many of us do which is see, judge, and celebrate. We so often forget about the acting. We see what is true in scripture, we judge that areas in our inner/outer lives need to change, we don’t act, and then we celebrate Jesus on Sunday. Where is our action to alleviate the suffering of the world. How can we see poverty, judge that it is sin, do nothing about it, then celebrate Jesus. Jesus is the one who called us to go to the suffering and give them a drink, food, and clothing. Now I know there are some reading this saying I do go and alleviate the suffering of the poor and oppressed, and don’t get me wrong, I think that is great. But join me in prayer to Jesus asking how much Lord? How much do you want of my life? And when we ask that of the Lord His response will always be, all of you. I don’t know what that looks like for each of us, and for everyone the Lord has a different plan and purpose. But the important part is that we be completely open to whatever the Lord has for us individually. As long as our hearts are completely surrendered to Him, that is exactly where He wants us to be. I know I don’t want to be like the rich young man who came to Jesus and had followed all of the commandments and asked Jesus what should I do Lord to obtain eternal life? Jesus knew this man’s motive, to give and do the least amount possible and still be saved. But this is not what God is after. He is after all of you. And as Jesus replied give all your money away and follow me, the rich young man went away sad for that was the one thing he was unwilling to part with. I am not telling you to go and give all your money away, but if Jesus told you to, would you do it joyfully or would you be sad for deep down you cherish your material security more than Jesus’ security?

Unity

I wrote this as a gift for our Mexico City mission team on the last day of the trip. I wrote it in response to the many different ideas we heard throughout our stay in Mexico City. Here it is:

We disagree. The body of Christ disagrees. Jesus told us we were a body. He told us this to explain that we all have different parts. The feet are used for walking, the hands are used for making things, the mind is made for thinking. The arm does not say that because the leg is different to get rid of it. The body would not fully work if it did. Instead it understands that every part has its use and is needed. We as a body of Christ need to do the same. We are all different, with many different ways of viewing theology and ministry, but despite our differences we are called to work together as one. Even if I differ in many ways from a brother or sister we can find our similarity in our Lord Jesus Christ and serve and worship together. Like a body needs all the different parts to function, so too does the church. We need our differences to be complete. Jesus Christ chose His church, so let us trust that He chose for a purpose. A body has enough challenges from outside itself, let us stop the internal was and unite for what our ultimate purpose is: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Reconcile

I just returned from Mexico City two days ago. I was there with a group of college students from UCLA on a “mission trip”. It was called a mission trip but was much more a learning trip. It wasn’t the traditional go and serve all day mission trip. Instead we went and were taught about topics such as history, politics, economics, and theology. We heard many different opinions on these topics and many were controversial to our American Christian worldview. A question was raised that I can’t get and don’t want to get out of my head. Are you more of a Christian or more of an American Christian? If you grew up in a conservative church in the states like me this might rattle you a bit. I don’t know what to do with this question yet but I know what I want. I want to be a Christian with nothing else attached to it. I want to follow Jesus and Jesus alone. And if doing so happens to be controversial to my political affiliation or nationality then so be it. I say this not to bash being American, because I love this country and am so greatful for the freedom that we have and I know that fredom has come at a cost. But rather I say this to make sure I am following the one. I want to follow Him wherever He leads me even if it is unpopular. Jesus spent most of His ministry caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the sinners. Do we have true compassion on the least of these as well or do we care more about the state of our economy?