I Like Jesus Better Every Day
Reynolds Price (Professor of English, Duke University) on Charlie Rose Friday evening quoted Jesus as saying that the tax collectors and prostitutes would get into heaven before the High Priest. It was an intriquing moment. Charlie reacted as if he had never heard that line before. His comment is the title line about liking Jesus better as a result of knowing that he had said that.

Which I think is one of the problems we face when sharing the Way of Jesus- people have more mis-conceptions about him than the truth. People have been blinded to the real Jesus and his Way by too many of us who claim to be his followers who keep messing it up. Price took some liberties in his discussion about Jesus, but he was right in some of his insights that Jesus doesn't seem to have cared all that much about sex and sexual relations- moral or immoral. What little there is seems to be right in line with what one would expect.

But then again he certainly broke many stereotypes- hanging around the prostitutes, allowing a woman to touch him with her hair, being alone at the Well with the Samaritan woman, having women travelling with he and the disciples- women who appear to be a major source of resources for his ministry. It would appear that Jesus - and the early communities out of which the Gospels grew - had little concern about sexual conduct and laws about it.

Now the last time I blogged on sex like this, I got a big jump in hits to my site. (SO, here's another not so subtle attempt at increased hits.) And I got some insights from some about why just saying that Jesus had nothing to say about it isn't a good enough reason to ignore the problems. Yes, I agree with that. But I don't want us to lose the fact that sex was not the issue that he thought needed the strongest teaching. It had to do with justice and treatment of the poor and the use of financial resources. It had to do with leading people away from God by making God hard to get to. It had to do with forgiveness (even 70 times 7).

WE are the ones who are absorbed in sex. We live in a sex-drenched world. Yes, that may be why it is important to face these issues and come to a God-directed way of seeing them. But let us NOT ignore the things that Jesus saw as important essential! Where is our treasure? Where is our heart? Where do we put our energies? (Yes, some of that DOES apply to the sexual morals!) How do we treat the poor and homeless and prisoners and orphans and widows and naked and hungry and Samaritan outcasts and ...

No, none of us can take the high road, I know that. We all have the areas where Jesus can turn to us as the rooster crows. So, with a little bit of honesty and compassion and non-judgmentalism, may we all look more closely at ourselves and bow in humble confession of our own shortcomings and realize that as caught Charlie Rose's attention, the righteous, good-religious-people may find themselves stading in line at the gates of Heaven behind the prostitutes and sinners.