Jesus Shows the Way
Jesus was a good man but he was not such a good god (according to Barbara Brown Taylor) if you compare him to all the gods that came before him. He was not big and strong and demanding that his followers feed his ego. He was like no other god before him - a suffering one.
So let's make a note of that right off the top: we have freedom which gives us liberty but it does not give us license to do whatever feels good. We have the freedom to choose but our choices are boundaried ones. And they cause suffering.
Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.
1 Corinthians 6:12 The Message
Here's why: we are conditioned to think, feel and act in ways that are contrary to what John the Baptist came preaching and Jesus modeled. John the Baptist preached repentance - not out of guilt or shame, but his was a liberation theology - you can be saved from your old life and receive a new one. This assumes of course that our old lives are unsatisfactory. And I see no reason to think that has changed much.
Our survival instincts, long bred within us cry out for the same characteristics ancient mankind attributed to their gods - strength and power and domination. But Jesus did not come to appeal to our lowest instincts, he came to call us to our highest potential - a whole brain experience. He came to transform the world by loving it, not controlling it. Which, interestingly enough, models the same thing God modeled. Here's the thing I will never understand about God. He chose to enter into a partnership with humanity by inviting us to be part of running the world. He did not make us start at the bottom of the pyramid and work our way up into a position of worthiness. Straight after creating Adam and Eve, he says - "Here, run the place." (Genesis 1 - 3 gives us a good look at God's big idea and the rocky launch his concept endured.)
Most of the time it seems that it is more natural for us to run the world based on preferences, on finding a pattern that our brain can accept - us and them. This is our survival instinct - and it looks different for different people. At our house we play team game tag, which basically means Pops and Christian and Norah against Meme. Pops has a great self-preservation instinct, he's always ahead of the kids. Others among us think our survival depends on finding our one true love - who completes us - or finding a group we can belong to who will keep us safe. However our instincts define survival, we are well practiced at it; this has unintended consequences.
What happens when our fears and insecurities cause us to over-react in a frenzy for survival? What happens when we see danger lurking around every corner? Stay tuned.
