How did we get here?

How did the Christian church go from following someone
who taught us to love our neighbors and expect persecution…

to a church that oppresses its neighbors and enacts persecution?

It isn’t just the mean ole’ United States…
Jesus’s own disciples rejected this servant messiah from the get-go.
They did not want to be persecuted or to see their messiah hanging on the cross.

They were expecting an imperialistic military warrior to save them.

(And can you blame them?)

It wasn‘t until Pentecost that the disciples, by the Holy Spirit, adopted this Jesus-inspired Christian way of being
and went on
to be persecuted.

Maybe the original sin of the Christian church in the United States
is the notion that we are a Christian empire.

After all, this exacerbates so many of our other sins and justifies all the horrid things this nation has done in the name of Christ.

In Lent, we are free to repent from this sin
and to move forward in the confidence of love in Christ
which we yearn to extend to ourselves, our neighbors
and the world.

Amen.

*Inspired by Native American theologian Mark Charles.