Friday, April 14, 2017

A TERRIBLE FRIDAY

No 'Good Friday', please.

     For me, it's a real perversion to call today 'Good Friday'. We remember Jesus of Nazareth getting excecuted by the Romans, for being very guilty of the charges against him: advising people to not pay the Roman tax, for starting a riot, and for claiming to be king, the Messiah. All were crimes against Caesar.
   These actions were taken because Jesus was following the law of Love, of Shalom, the basis of Jewish understanding. Although he had not claimed the throne, his followers had. He was guilty. He was killed for his convictions. Where's the GOODNESS in that? As of this day, he was a failure on all counts. The lessons learned: LOVE has a very high price indeed; You can't fight the system; Might is right; and so on.
    Please don't try to change this lesson by the old Pauline and  Augustinian claim that Jesus died for our sins. It doesn't 'wash' anymore. That might have made sense to first century Greeks who believed in sacrifice and unloving gods, but for me that old doctrine, however orthodox, just doesn't help at all. This doctrine makes a monster out of God. We shouldn't wonder why most 'Christians' stay home from worship today. Any kind of 'loving' God will forgive their 'children' without having to kill off the best of them as some example. And besides, I'm still far from perfect. Just ask Judy, or any of my friends. Or am I supposedly only now 'forgiven' from the that old sin of 'The Apple'? Who knows?
   So, today we have a very bad Friday. Let's learn from it. Love and Justice are costly. Following Jesus in any way does and will have a price. As he urged many times, even as he was asking others to follow, before we chose, look closely at the cost and weigh carefully what you value most in life. If you want to be popular and 'successful', don't even think of trying to follow. Stick with going to church and feeling good. Or keep on by yourselves.  It's much easier and hasn't the perils of following Jesus.

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