Communion This Sunday

Matthew tells us that Jesus amazed people by talking as “one having authority, not as the teachers of the law.”

Jesus didn’t quote scripture before he spoke.

He even contradicted scripture at times: “It was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you…”

Jesus would say “amen, amen” before he spoke, not after. (That’s the “verily, verily” of the old King James version.)

He was declaring what was coming to be true before he said it—and with reference to no authority beyond himself.

And Jesus said things no one had ever said before.

Things like: “Love your enemies.”

Search all the ancient writers for that idea. You won’t find it. It is certainly not in the Old Testament.

“Love people that do not love you,” he said. “Love those who persecute you.”

He pushed an entirely new concept of God—a God who “is kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.”

People had never heard anything like that before—and most of them didn’t like it.

Most people don’t like it today. Most Christians don’t like it.

That’s why people cling to biblical inerrancy. This allows them to lift the old images of God over the God we know through the teachings of Jesus.

It’s like Jesus said: “When people have tasted the new wine, they say the old is better.”

Jesus is not all that popular. Many Christians pay little attention to him.

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Sermon on the Sunday after this one: What Jesus Said about the Gay Issue.

Did he talk about it?

Yes, of course.