response to “toleration?”

…response from my dear friend on my former post. I love discussion, and thoughts so thank you my dear friend…

hi. I’m not sure this post says what you or the author really intended. As I read this, I realize that the author, we’ll call him Jim for simplicity, is attempting to clarify a point that he contradicts and cancels with his arguments.
Jim wants a counter argument to the Christian corner that keeps bringing up the old, “You think Christ was tolerant?! Ha! My Christ was so pissed and intolerant that he raged and threw the money-changers, sinners, homosexuals, thieves, liars, and bigots out of the temple.” I exaggerate a bit but that’s what Jim is fighting against.
Jim wants a Jesus of Justice, the “J-O-J”, a Jesus that cannot be not tolerant (using Jim’s double negs.) But he cannot be tolerant either, yeah. Confused yet? Jesus is the JOJ, he’s justice personified. Dangerous words wield. Christian theology has danced around the “j-word” for years. The Bible is pretty clear about Justice. In fact, it simply states, “The wages of sin is death.” Now in the original Greek this means “the wages of sin is death.” Applying this to Jim’s ideology and the JOJ now Jesus slaughters the money-changers in the temple, and his disciples and anyone else within smiting distance. Not pretty is it.
A Jesus of Justice is the one thing that everyone on this earth or wearing the seal of Christian should be afraid of. Justice in its very nature is blind. Our court systems are founded on that basic principle, you do the crime, you do the time. Justice. In fact God’s Justice is far blinder than human justice. Human justice has grey areas, compromises, loopholes. We love loopholes, ways we can get out. Godly Justice, true Justice has no loopholes. There’s no plea of self-defense, there’s no different degrees of murder or crime, there’s no “fifth” to plead or insanity. There is only guilty or not guilty and the punishment is always death. Godly Justice. Balance.
Jesus isn’t the JOJ or at least not Jim’s version of the JOJ. For those of you following that would be the JJOJ. Rather Jesus is the embodiment of the fulfillment of Justice. We’ll come back to this.
Jim also is promoting Jesus not only with Justice party but with the LUV party. I say LUV cuz that’s what we want from Christ, that’s what he preached, right? That’s what he was, right? That’s what everyone agrees on, right? Jim plays his trump, Agape. People like to throw down Agape, Eros, and Philos to try justify and support their claims and don’t realize they are handling something too hot to hold.
Jim I’m really not upset with you, I’m upset with the whole LUV card that some teachers, preachers, profs and shallow water Christians like to wield, guilt and persuade others with. “Jesus luuuuved everybody, and told us to luuuuve everybody too. That means we can’t get upset about people and their sin, or call them out on it cause Jesus wants us to luuuuuve em, he is without sin cast the first stone, right?” WRONG!! (Not to the biblical quote) but to the whole misguided twisting of the figure who was, and is, and shall forever be Jesus. So many people try fitting Jesus into a box, their box. They want Jesus to be like them, who they want him to be. For Heaven’s sake, let Christ be Christ for once! To quote my friend Frank, “Christ is Christ whether we believe it or not, whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not.” Which means he doesn’t change his opinion and who he is just because it’s inconvenient for us. Jesus loved everyone BUT (and here’s the biggest but that everyone who plays the LUV card forgets) Christ demanded, get that, demanded a Change. Come everybody we all wanted to change we’ve all heard the buzz-word in campaign slogans and rallying cries for years but when it comes into my comfort-zone, my lifestyle, my backyard NOOO WAY! When I was talking about change I was talking about you not me, I was talking about them, not us. Change refers to everyone except me. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Christ demanded that we change. Christ came to us, loved us, healed us, dwelt with us, came into us but it doesn’t stop there. When Christ is a part of us, there is a change if we let it. We don’t stay the same. Shallow-water Christians want to say sin isn’t sin, sin isn’t bad, we all sin. We should accept it and accept people who choose to openly live in sin daily and we shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt or sorrow for sin cause Jesus luvs us and that makes it all okay. Have you ever seen real Christians? Christ overflows from every pore. His word, his praises, his amazingness, his truth is always on their lips, in their hearts and in their actions. When they fall into sin they weep and swim deeply in remorse because the love that they feel from Christ overwhelms them and the comprehension that he still loves them even though they faltered, his love for them endures. When someone who walks with Christ sins, they desire all the more to sin less because of the love the God continues show. Understand? Christ love changes us, leads us away from sin. Christ love doesn’t make sin less bad. It doesn’t work that way.
When Jesus is the embodiment of fulfillment of Justice it means that he sat in the Courtroom at our trial, where we have been found guilty of sin and the punishment of that sin and the Justice God demands is death, Jesus steps forward and says, “I’ve paid it, my blood has p the cost.” That’s the difference. The JOJ or the JJOJ makes sin less bad because the JOL waters it down and makes it okay but when Christ, the embodiment of the fulfillment of Justice steps forward with Love and says “I’ll pay it, I’ve pad it, go and sin no more,” we then have the choice. Do we argue and say our sin was less bad, it really wasn’t even a sin more like an oops or yeah, it was genetic, biological, I couldn’t help it OR do we accept that we sinned, accept that we were wrong and let his sacrifice, his willingness, his love change us? Your choice, your change. But you can’t have one without the other, you can’t have Christ without a change in you, you can’t stay the same. That’s what I hear when I read Jim’s note. I hear someone trying to convince me and himself that Jesus doesn’t want a change (at least not where I think I’m right), trying to tie Jesus’ hands and say “Now be nice.” Jesus was throwing moneychangers out of the temple because of Justice which is like getting a spanking because of love? It doesn’t work. Jesus threw out the money-changers because he was pissed, he was intolerant with these men defiling His house, His home while he was standing there. It doesn’t sound nice but its true, Jesus didn’t tolerate sin, he doesn’t sigh and say “It’s okay.” He climbs on that cross and dies with your sin because of his INTOLERANCE of sin. He dies, he takes it, he delivers it to HELL, right into the devil’s hands and say’s, “No more! It’s paid. Justice served.” And he comes back to us and says over and over again, “Go, and sin no more.” He doesn’t say “sin is okay,” he doesn’t say “be tolerant,” he doesn’t say, “Luv everybody,” he says, “Go, and sin NO more!” Don’t be tolerant of your sin, get rid of it.

Toleration?

John 13:31-35

“At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

During the “questions and concerns” reflections of today’s sermon an authentic question was asked: how does our idea of love differ for that of the Greek- agape? Agape is God’s love; which is not at all comprehendible to us today. It is love out of words and deeds. Somehow toleration was brought up. Christ did not tolerate the stupidity of mankind; thus in the temple he flipped over tables and went crazy on those who were making a market out of the temple. However, I don’t think Jesus likes or who even use the word tolerate or not-tolerate.

If we look at the works and teachings of Christ, he is a hard-ass. Plain and simple he tells us exactly how idiotic we really are. To tolerate something means that we accept it how it is, we put up with whatever we dislike or agree with. This idea is really unsettling to me. By tolerating something we “love” because we are command to, not because we want to. Jesus did not flip over the tables in the temple because he was not tolerant of their behaviour, but because justice has to be served. My dad did not spank me because he wasn’t tolerant with me hitting my brother or swearing, but because justice had to be served in order for me to understand what love looks like under hard circumstances. If he had done it because he was not tolerant with my behaviour, then it would not have been done out of love and his actions would have been meaningless.

If I was to tolerate “sinners” then I would accept them as well as their sin. I would see the “sin” but love the “sinner”. But that isn’t what Christ is commanding us to do. He is not commanding us to be tolerant with people but to love them. He is asking us to take away whatever “sin” we attach to people and simply love. Not love the “sinner” and not the “sin”, but to flat out love. Not love because we are tolerant, but because justice and grace prevail.

I don’t think that it would be fair of me to say that I love someone because I have been told I have to. I don’t love my brother simply because he is my brother, just like I don’t love my friends only because they are my friends. In the same way I cannot love the poor because they are poor or love the drunk because he is drunk. If I did, that is toleration. I accept the fact that you are poor because I must love you; or I simply feed you because you are poor. However, if we are tolerant we overlook the person within. We feed the hungry in order for the hungry to have food, but the hungry is not just hungry for food, but for love. We can feed them physically, but it is the food made up of love and justice that matters.

Jesus told Peter he would deny him, and he got pissed at the Jews who made a mess in the temple, and the Pharisees who did not understand the law. He did not do this because he wasn’t tolerant of their behaviours or wrong doing, but because justice had to be served. Justice puts us to rights; in-toleration simply puts people to shame. Toleration is done out of necessity and because we have to, where justice is done because we love. There has to be a different between toleration and justice. We cannot say that Jesus was not tolerant with the Jews, we cannot say that Jesus is or is not tolerant; toleration cannot be used in the same sentence and Jesus.

Jesus got pissed at people because they needed to learn, and maybe even physically demonstrated his frustrations. In the same way my dad spanked me when I was a kid; I needed to learn. This is done for the sake of love and grace; justice is done for the sake of love and grace. Jesus was not a man of in-tolerance but a man of justice. That is how Jesus loved us and how we are commanded to love others. Love others justly.