I have been busy enjoying a visit from some dear, long-time friends this past week, hence my brief vacation from blogging. But I am back today with this excerpt from the book Why, O Lord? by Carlo Carretto.
The tremendous life-altering challenge of following the real, historical, Biblical Jesus rather than the convenient, sanitized, nationalized Jesus of American evangelicalism is a contemporary version of the New Testament call to discipleship that has confronted every generation (in its own, unique way) throughout church history.
It is no easier today than it was 2,000 years ago.
I have described what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah-no-one-expected (or much wanted) in my book, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture.
My new book, I Pledge Allegiance, describes the life-or-death struggle facing the American church right now in this age of Trump .
Carlo Carretto eloquently makes the same point in his book, and I believe it is well worth sharing. I do not know Mr. Carretto, but he writes like a man who knows the real Jesus:
“Goodness! How difficult it is to believe in the sort of Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth represents!
To believe that we win by losing our very selves!
To believe that love is everything.
To believe that power is a great danger, wealth slavery, comfortable life a misfortune.
It is not easy.
This is why you hear [people] in the street say, ‘If there was a God there would not be all this suffering.’
Two thousand years have gone, and there are still Christians whose doctrinal notions belong to those ancient days when the power and existence of God was revealed by displays of strength and the victory of armies. And especially by wealth and having more possessions.
The real secret had not then been received.
Nor is it received very easily even today.
Hence the blasphemy in general circulation denying the kingdom’s visibility, given the ordeal of suffering and death.
The old teaching that we, the Church, must be strong still feeds our determination to possess the land and dominate the world.
We must make ourselves felt. We must keep our enemies down. We must scowl. We must win, and to win we need money, money, money. And to have money we need banks, we need the means and we need clever bankers. How can we do good without means, without money? Let’s have a big meeting, and then any opposition will be shamed into silence. Well, we must defend our rights, the rights of the Church. We must defeat our enemies.
Enemies, always enemies on the Church’s horizon!
Yet Jesus has told us in no uncertain terms that we no longer have any enemies, since they are the same people we are supposed to love, and love specially.
Can it be that we have not understood?
Don’t we read the Gospel in our churches?
How long shall we wait before following the teaching of Jesus?”
Indeed…how long?
