They were at the rally to protest their misguided belief that the election was stolen from their candidate, the former president who they saw as someone who helped protect and defend their view that Christianity in the U.S. There’s been a lot of talk lately about forming a commission to examine more closely what happened at the Capitol Insurrection on January 6,Īnd a case could be made that many of the professing Christians who were at that rally could be classified as Christian Nationalists. You may have heard that phrase quite a bit in the news and on social media in recent months. Churches that hold “Freedom Sundays” in conjunction with the 4 th of July often believe in a version of Christianity that’s called Christian Nationalism.
These churches put God and country together because they believe that the United States was founded as a Christian country and needs to stay that way. No flags, no pledge of allegiance, no Battle Hymn of the Republic. If you came here hoping for this kind of service, I’m sorry, but you came to the wrong place. Their sanctuaries are filled with American flags, and the sound of patriotic hymns fills the air. Today, on this 4 th of July, scores of churches across the country are holding “Freedom Sundays” to celebrate God and country. Two thousand years later, a similar kind of scene is playing out right here on our shores, in these United States of America. Maybe we could say that Jesus’ hometown people, like many others in his religious community, were hoping for more of a John Wayne type of Jesus, a strongman, a powerful stick-it-to-‘em leader, rather than the historical, biblical, Sermon-on-the-Mount “blessed are the poor”, show-love-to-all-people kind of Jesus. They were looking for someone who better represented them and their agenda, someone who favored them over others, someone who would fight for their rights and status in society. You see, Jesus didn’t meet their expectations, their criteria of the kind of Savior they wanted. He had told a couple of stories of foreigners, outsiders, people of other faiths who were used by God and held up as greater examples of faith than his own Jewish people. We looked at Luke’s version of this scene in the synagogue a while back and it gave us some more details about why they were upset with Jesus. This is not the prophet, the Messiah, the Savior that the people of Nazareth were waiting for and hoping for. Isn’t this Joseph and Mary’s boy, you know, that carpenter’s son?”Īnd to all these questions, Jesus made this statement that has been quoted over and over again when people are rejected by their own people: “prophets are not without honor except in their hometown and by their own kin”.Īnd the scripture says that Jesus’ people took offense at him, other versions say that they were very unhappy with him, repulsed by him, deeply offended by him, The Message version asks the question “Who does he think he is?” The bottom line is that Jesus’hometown and relations refused to put their faith and trust in him. “What are these miracles that he is doing?” they wondered. “Where did he get all these ideas and this wisdom?”, they asked.
#HOLY POST JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE FULL#
Here we see that Jesus’ hometown crowd is full of confusion and skepticism about who he was, what he was teaching and the healings that he was performing. And in this scene we see a stark contrast to the previous scenes regarding faith and belief. Today’s scripture picks up after that story of healing and finds Jesus entering into his hometown of Nazareth. Thank you, Hija, for that wonderful message about the power of faith.
Then, by looking at the eastern understanding of faith as “energy”, the energy, the power, that flowed from Jesus to her.Īnd then, this linking of faith in Jesus with faith in herself how she had enough self-love to want to be healed and how she had enough belief in herself that she could do something that would bring about healing in her body and in her life.
I love how Hija unpacked this woman’s faith and examined it from different angles:įirst, the angle of having the faith that by touching Jesus’ garment, she could actually be healed. Hija Yu shared her sermon from last week with me, and in her message she spoke about how a woman’s faith led her to be healed by Jesus. Main Bible Passage: Mark 6:1-6, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 What should we make of the Christian Nationalism that we see in some parts of the Church? How does the desire for John Wayne-type heroes conflict with the way of Jesus and the identity and calling of the Church?