Rejected at Nad-zorah

It was Sabbath morning in Nad-zorah, and in the synagogue, the elder was nearly through speaking. “You must never lose hope for the Promised One to come,” he exhorted, “to banish oppression and reign in greatness. The time for his coming is near, and he will soon lead a mighty army to destroy our enemies and liberate our captive nation.”

After the elder finished speaking, Yeh-shuah stood up to read, as requested, from the Ancient Writings. The attendant handed him a scroll of the prophet Yeh-shah-yah. He began to read.

“The Spirit of Yehho-vaw is on me to bring good news to the poor. He sends me to comfort the sorrowful, to announce freedom for the captives, and restore sight to the blind, for this is the year of Yehho-vaw’s favor.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone’s attention was focused on him. “Today these words have come true,” he stated.

At first everyone was impressed, but then an old man broke the spell and whispered hoarsely, “Wait a minute! Does he think he’s the Promised One? I know him. He’s the son of Yosafe the carpenter. He’s a peasant, not a king, and certainly not MY king!”

“No prophet is recognized in his own country,” Yeh-shuah responded. “The great prophet Elee-yah, during the famine in Yissraw-ale, was sent to a widow in another country, even though there were many widows in this one. And though there were many lepers in Yissraw-ale during prophet Elee-sha’s time, only one was healed: Nah-ahman from Soo-ree-ah.”

When he said this, everyone in the synagogue became furious. “You gentile lover!” someone spat out. "Does he think were the poor, sad, blind captives he's going to save?" The congregation’s admiration turned to hatred as the meaning of his words struck home. “You’re nothing but an ignorant peasant!” they cried out, “And an illegitimate one at that! You can’t fool us into thinking you’re the Promised One. You’re just another imposter!”

The meeting broke up as some of the stronger men took hold of Yeh-shuah and roughly escorted him out of the synagogue. “Let’s get rid of him!” the people shouted. When they reached a high cliff beyond the outskirts of the city, they stopped. “Throw him off!” they shouted. A few rocks sailed through the air towards him, but missed their mark. A tall, muscular man squared his shoulders and walked over to him, intending to throw him over the edge. All of a sudden, Yeh-shuah was gone.

“Where’d he go?” the big man bellowed. Everyone looked around for Yeh-shuah, but he was nowhere to be seen. Baffled, the crowd soon broke up and everyone left for their homes.

“How could a peasant supply and lead an army that could conquer the world?” scoffed an elder as they walked along. Unspoken was another reason for their rejection of him: His life was pure, and they sensed their impurity. His sincerity revealed their insincerity and hypocrisy.

We've all seen Mr. Boombox, shirtless in his pickup truck, a window-rattling, beer drinking heathen, and his tanktop girlfriend, Ms. Tattoo. Then there's Mr. and Mrs. Stickler, who have worn suit and tie and best dresses to church for 50 years. Mr. and Mrs. Stickler don't permit any music in their church services except the old hymns.

Mr. Boombox and Ms. Tattoo need to hear a message about the Kingdom of God, but it's not "Come to our church and be like us." Our churches all have walls, walls to keep people out, walls to keep people in.

We can see the amazing results Jesus had in his church-without-walls. Jesus went to the people, then the people came to him. The churches of his day were filled with blood-sucking zombie administrators, pastors, and leaders, the walking dead who tried to kill everyone else around them with their miserable, joy-killing, rule-constipated religion.

Churches, then and now, are more like a disease, not the cure. Their filled with prisoners, convicts with their favorite rules that cut them off from others. Maybe that's all we have to share, just our particular set of rules, just an invation to join us in our prison.

Jesus was such a free spirit. The only rules he cared about came from God. He didn't invite people to join his church/prison, he invited people to join his father's Kingdom. He talked to pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers. Maybe a few listened, maybe a few joined the Kingdom as a result of his invitation.

Mr. Boombox and Ms. Tattoo may very well be closer to God than the prisoners of relgion if they choose the right as far they understand it, than those who go to church/prison, passing themselves off as Christians, but then go out and contradict their profession. Too bad it's so easy to be a hypocrite.

Following God takes a serious commitment to help others, constant feedback to discern our own faults, and a continual open-minded study of the Bible to unlock its mysteries.

Our standing before God doesn't depend on whether or not we attend church or on the enlightenment we have received from the Bible or the Red Books, but on what we have done with the greater responsibility of greater understanding of the requirements of the Kingdom of God.

Mr. Boombox and Ms. Tattoo, heathens, really, are actually in a better condition than those of us who have this great knowledge and profession, but do little or nothing with it, even disregarding it.

Maybe our two heathen friends would turn out to be hypocrites if they, too, joined a church and did all the church things that church people do. But up until that point, at least they haven't disobeyed God on what little they might understand of his requirements.

One of the prerequisites for entrance into God's Kingdom is a humble and teachable spirit. Pride and arrogance would create conflict and dissension in the commune/collective type of environment we can expect on the New Earth. Unlike on the Old Earth where bosses like to order people around and watch others do all the hard work, on the New Earth, the leaders will serve, working alongside everyone else, if necessary.

The religious leaders of Jesus' day thought they were so important and were so jealous for their ridiculous list of rules, lest any poor soul might ignore them, and their hope of future glory, but they were too blind to catch a glimpse of the power of the Kingdom of God. If they could have, they would have hung their heads in shame, sightless little garbage-eating earthworms that they really were.

What the earthworms/religious leaders really wanted from Jesus was recognition of their great knowlege and devotion. When he passed them by and spoke of a religion that welcomed all wormkind, they became angry and jealous that they, of all the earthworms on the planet, did not receive special attention.

To serve other earthworms and have any kind of mercy on them was far beneath their dignity and high calling. All the other worms of the world not like these religious leaders were only dirt under their feet, and therefore must be treated like dirt.

They were looking for some Master Worm who would conquer the whole world and give them positions in the worldwide government. Intruding on their dreams of greatness came Jesus' reproofs of their blatant, arrogant, selfishness.