Is Jesus Relevant?

The findings from Pew Research are clear: the importance of religion in the lives of Americans is shrinking. Yes, there are lots of problems with institutional religion.  In the face of cultural changes, I think it’s important to consider the relevance of the teachings of Jesus even as the importance of religion declines.

The following is a text version of this blog.

Lots of people have left Christian churches.  Can you blame them?  There have been sex scandals, financial scandals, and the misuse of religion to teach prejudice toward women, LGBTQ individuals, Muslims, Jews, and immigrants.  In many ways, they’ve taken what was supposed to be good news and turned it into very bad news that’s harmed many people. Among the Christian churches that haven’t done those things, many are just boring and irrelevant. 

Setting institutional religion aside, the question I want to ask today is this:  what relevance does the life and teaching of Jesus have today? 

I want to focus on what we know based on the four sets of stories about the life of Jesus preserved in what are called the gospels.  Each of them is different.  There are some similar stories, but each of the four narratives is nuanced.  Each was written for a different audience.  None of those audiences were people in the 21^st Century.  In general, the stories reflect the lives of people in the first century in countries occupied by the Roman Empire.  While Matthew’s gospel was written for a religious Jewish audience and Luke wrote for a largely Gentile Greek-speaking audience, what they portrayed is something that I find to be very similar across the narratives.

The gospels were written to people who experienced life as difficult.  There were two classes of people:  the rich and the poor.  These are stories written for those who are poor.  They knew hardship. 

As you read the stories, what you find is that Jesus is portrayed as someone who understood hardship in life.  He interacted with people who were on the margins:  workers and common people, beggars and handicapped people, prostitutes and the despised tax collectors who had the power to take as much as they wanted from people.  Jesus didn’t teach theory.  Instead, he told stories that conveyed life lessons.  Those stories were about everyday things:  shepherds and sheep, a woman who baked bread, and a father who had two ungrateful sons.  These were things people understood. 

What was it that he taught?  Love one another.  Be kind and do good.  If you see another person who is hurting, do something about it.  Don’t judge.  Do what you can to make the lives of others better.

The only thing that Jesus asked people to accept as a statement of faith was his belief that the realm of God, often translated in the Bible as the Kingdom of God, is here and now, within each person.  It’s not about the afterlife.  It’s right here, right now.  We’re building the realm of God through our actions.

In the end, I think institutional Christianity and centuries of theology have taken us away from the actual teaching of Jesus.  The focus on Jesus dying for our petty little sins and all the other things most Christians talk about aren’t really very important.  In writing about the stories of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, womanist theologian Delores Williams stated something very shocking for most Christians today.  Jesus didn’t overcome sin by dying on the cross.  Instead, Jesus overcame sin through the way he lived.  He was tempted to take power or hold onto privilege and special treatment, and he said no.  He kept his focus on being a compassionate presence toward others each day.  That’s true in all the stories we have recorded, from his birth all the way through his death. 

Jesus taught how to live.  What he taught was to love others, to be kind, to help each other as best we can, and recognize that the realm of God is right here and right now.  I think it’s the central message of Jesus that we need for our world in the 21^st Century.