You may not have heard

I’ve heard some strange things in the last few years, and … I think some of you may not have heard the story of Jesus—or maybe you heard a different story than I did?

He was born into a community where a bunch of people thought that they could tell everyone else the right way to live based on a bunch of things they had read, and he showed them that sitting with children was probably more important.

In the story I heard, it seems like that community probably thought that the economy was pretty important, but he told them that flowers were doing okay without it.

There was this other time where a bunch of people got together to enforce the ‘law of God’, and then he just scribbled some stuff on the ground and made them all feel ridiculous for being so judgmental.

One interesting thing that I heard—he came from a people who wandered in from a distant land. On account of that, these people believed very strongly in the value of hospitality for the stranger. I think he even told a story or two about that idea, and some people thought the stories were so good that they wrote them down.

I think that some of you may have heard a different story than me, though, because you seem to think he would cheer when people get kicked out of their homes because they were breaking the rules and it was bad for the economy. That story seems way worse. I’m glad I didn’t read it.

In the one I heard, he told people that loving their neighbor was the most important thing, and they should probably do it like he was doing it. And then he showed them what that looked like—he sat with people that were breaking the rules and fed them; he tried to help them when they asked him too; and he stood next to people that were being harassed and gave them comfort and stood in the way a couple times, peacefully. And then he tried to take as much blame as he could away from them and put it onto himself. It’s a pretty interesting story.