Jesus? You've GOT to be kidding!

My friend Lesley Crawley (formerly Lesley Fellows) has a provocative post at her blog that speculates on how Jesus would do if he were to be put though the selection process for ordination.

He is just too challenging. Yes, he got all those followers but then lost them again… the miracles were good but the teaching was too hard and inscrutable…. Plus he didn’t get on with his religious colleagues etc.

While What Would Jesus Do? has become a bit of a cliché in some circles, perhaps a better question would be How Would We Respond To Jesus? 

Much of modern piety - especially on the religious right - has turned Jesus into a grand irrelevance.  Yes, yes, follow him by all means - but pay no mind to that silly stuff in Matthew 25 about giving food to the hungry or visiting the prisoner.  The Gospel is about your personal prosperity.

As Lesley says in her close:

I feel I wish to make more space for Jesus in the church. I wonder whether we all do.