DON’T “PUT ON” A FAKE JESUS
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Rodney Kennedy
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Text: Romans 13:8-14
In the movie, Twenty-Seven Dresses, a woman is a bridesmaid 27 times and she has all 27 outlandish dresses in her closet. Those 27 dresses made me think of all the fake Jesus’ in the land. The harmless Jesus of liberalism, the play-doh Jesus who can be manipulated to look like us, think like us, and be against whatever we are against, the close and personal Jesus of the charismatic movement, the commercial Jesus of the church growth movement, the military general of the rapture movement, sweet, sexy, sweaty Jesus of religious television, and the red, white, and blue American Jesus of many churches in the United States. There may be more fake Jesus’ in this country than there are Elvis Presley look-alikes.
When Paul says, “Put on Jesus,” he doesn’t mean any of the fake Jesus’ of American Christianity.
For example, the Jesus of nationalism is a fake Jesus. There are preachers who routinely preach that Christianity has a privileged position in America, that the founding fathers were born-again Christians, and that this country has always been a Christian nation. David Barton, who is not a historian, but plays one in churches across America, has parlayed a bachelor’s degree in Religious Education from Oral Roberts University into propaganda that masquerades as a holy history of America. For an alternative to Barton’s interpretation, read any actual American historian or read Alf Mapp’s book, Faiths of Our Fathers.
It’s my duty as a patriot to warn my country of disobedience to God’s will. When a great country becomes morally inferior, when it sacrifices virtue for expediency, prophets must rise or the nation sinks. Montesquieu said that the governing principle of democracy was virtue. That’s how we turned out a generation of politicians named Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine, and Hamilton. We don’t produce many leaders like that any more. As Plato observed, “What’s honored in a country will be cultivated there.” Well, in America we honor wealth over virtue. We honor athletes, movie stars, television personalities, and really rich people. We have entered what Herman Melville called the “Dark Ages of Democracy,” and “the arrest of hope’s advance.”
If you think otherwise, go home and read Amos, for example, and then come talk to me. Karl Menninger, in his book, Whatever Became of Sin, says that more preachers need to preach like Amos. “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth.” “They push the afflicted out of the way. They crush the needy, and abhor the one who speaks the truth; but are not grieved for the ruin of the country.” Well, here’s what happened to Amos. They ran him out of town: “Never again preach at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Bethel means “house of God.” Think how many houses of God have become temples of the Republican or the Democratic Party. America must recover from the illusion of being God’s “special people.”
Listen, the promise came to Abraham in Haran not to General Washington at Valley Forge. The call came to Moses in the burning bush not to George Bush in the White House. The law was given on Mount Sinai not Mount Rushmore. The covenant was between God and Israel not between God and the United States. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea not in Bethlehem, PA. The city Jesus wept over was not Small Town, USA, but Jerusalem. He was crucified in Jerusalem, Israel, not Joplin, Missouri. Israel is God’s country not Ohio or Texas. Jerusalem is the city of God, not Washington D.C. The Jews are God’s chosen people, not American Christians. Christianity was born in Jerusalem on Pentecost, not in Philadelphia on Independence Day. We are not putting on Jesus when we confuse Christian convictions with political opinions or mix up biblical principles with ideological prejudices. The mixture of theology and politics is lethal.
The church is its own politics! The hungry, the poor, the homeless, the oppressed. The global economy is supposed to “lift all boats,” but so far it is only lifting all yachts, and those sinking life rafts are not getting much. Don’t get me wrong. The economy has gone global, but the politics of the church is to make sure that the rights of the poor and the rights of nature are in the boat with the profits. Perhaps you mutter, “Socialist,” but communism has never come to a nation that took care of its poor, its aged, its youth, its sick, and its handicapped. I’m all for a small government as long as it has a big heart.
Dr. Samuel Proctor preaching at the Baptist Cooperative Fellowship in 1992 reminded his audience that the Nazi triumph in Germany occurred in one of the most enlightened, most theological, most intellectual, and most cultural centers of Europe. Germany was the theological home of Luther, Schleiermacher, Barth, and Bonhoeffer, the cultural home of great musicians, and the philosophical home and intellectual center of critical thought. And then Dr. Proctor screamed, “And along came a paper hanger! A paper hanger! A paper hanger!” And he sat down because he knew the audience could complete the story.
So take off the faux Jesus and put on the Jesus who is Lord of history and incarnate as Son of God. Putting on Christ means producing a cast of characters whose lives are characterized by love, forgiveness, compassion, and peace. Yet I struggle to name a church in this land that has put on Jesus – his peace, his nonviolence, his unlimited forgiveness, his inclusion of the poor, the oppressed, and the outcasts.
Did you know that a Baptist church, reaching out in its neighborhood to bring in the poor, is losing members? Why? Because the affluent members of that church were uncomfortable with all those poor people. And they have moved their membership to a church where all the members are as affluent as they are.
Back in the 1970’s Baptist churches in the South fell in love with the “Bus Ministry.” One of the churches I served as pastor during this time had five buses. We were bringing more than one hundred children, ages 5 to 16, to church every Sunday morning. These children came without parents.
Within two months, faithful, dedicated, lifelong Sunday School teachers started calling in sick or quitting. Church members started complaining about the children making so much noise. Finally, the deacons had a meeting. The chairman said, “Now none of us are against bringing children to church. After all, Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me,’ but we can’t afford these buses.” The easiest way for a church to deny Jesus is to turn an ethical issue into a financial decision. The motion: “The cost of insurance and gas for our church buses is beyond the restraints of our annual budget. Therefore, I move that the buses be sold.” The motion was seconded and passed without a dissenting vote. The following Sunday there was not a single badly-dressed, ill-mannered, loud-mouth child in Sunday School or worship. All the faithful Sunday School teachers returned and life as the First Baptist Church had always known it resumed on its quiet, uneventful, and idolatrous way.
I don’t expect us to suddenly start living up to the command of putting on Jesus. My hope is that in about a dozen years, at least half of you will feel guilty that we have not completed the transformation of our wardrobe to the robes of righteousness, equality, generosity, hospitality.
Let me tell you a story from my childhood. About twice a year, my mother would buy me new clothes. I loved the look, the feel, and the smell of new clothes. When I tried on a new suit, I wanted to wear it home right then. I’m sure I walked out of the Toggery Men’s Store on Main Street in Farmerville wearing my new clothes with the tags still on them. But hear me, I was so excited. I dream of some of us being so excited about putting on the new clothes of the righteousness and peace of Jesus, that we will bound out of this church wearing them this morning.
Our most reliable guide for putting on Jesus is Scripture: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves in with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body” Col 3:12-17.
Now do we see the difficult and demanding call to put on Jesus and be the church? In a world put off by a plethora of fake Jesus’ let us put on Jesus, crucified, buried, and raised from death – his peace, love, and forgiveness, and offer it freely to all.
Sources
Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans. The Anchor Bible, 33A.
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom.
Harvy J. Kaye, Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.
Alfred C. Krass, Five Lanterns at Sundown: Evangelism in a Chastened Mood.
Alf Mapp, Faiths of Our Fathers.
Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.
Martha C. Nussbaum, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality.
Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.