Jesus' Church.

"'Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"  Matthew 21;31 (NRSV)

This is what Jesus said to the religious authorities of his day.

This is because they were part of the domination system of the time.

And they served the purposes of the Romans.

And this is what has happened in Jesus' own Church.

When Christianity became part of the State under Constantine it began to serve the purposes of the domination system.

And so the Church began to preach punishment and judgement as a deterrent to sin.

This is the carrot and stick approach of the ruling elite.

And it is these abuses of power that people react to in our modern world.

People who reject God are reacting against this false image of God as a punisher and judge.

They are not reacting against the forgiveness and love of Jesus and God.

And so they will go into the Kingdom of God before the religious.

[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.] 

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