Jesus Unmasked

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too.

“Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”

Couldn’t they just let the poor woman rest?

When we hear “service” in a context like this, a woman in a house full of men, we might think Peter’s mother-in-law is making dinner. But what if it’s much more than that?

Jesus came to serve. He came to show us that human community is mutual service, and that we live into our fullness as God’s image-bearers when we live not for ourselves, but others. Peter’s mother-in-law chooses to serve, not out of a sense of patriarchal duty, but because she is following Jesus. She is a disciple.

She is actually the first disciple we truly see following Jesus in his way of service.

This leads Adam and Lindsey to reflect on how, when it comes to following Jesus, women always get it first.

Jesus also cures the sick for free. This is important, because, just like today, the need for medical care often left people in Jesus’s time destitute. And even more so than today (though things haven’t changed nearly enough), poverty was a death sentence.

The point of Jesus curing for free is not that doctors don’t deserve compensation, of course. The point is that Jesus is creating a world where we serve one another, giving what we can and bringing out the best in each other by living into our best selves. This is the Beloved Community.

He casts out demons and commands them to be silent. What if that means Jesus is silencing all those forces that tell us we are not enough, or that make us seek to enhance ourselves at the expense of others? What if those demons are all the lies we swim in that prevent us from living into the fullness of Beloved Community?

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him?”

What in the world does this mean?

What kind of authority does Jesus have that is apparently lacking in the scribes? Why are the people so impressed even before he casts out an unclean spirit? And how should we understand what an “unclean spirit” is in our modern world?

The first words Jesus hears in Mark’s Gospel are, “You are my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What if Jesus’s authority comes from knowing that is enough? He is absolutely and unconditionally loved; therefore, he does not have to prove himself within a hierarchy or power structure. That kind of absolute security and understanding of one’s own worth must have been exceedingly rare in a world of violence, occupation, and fear.

Is it Jesus’s fearless confidence pouring out in love that healed the man, that drove the unclean spirit away? Unclean spirits may be internalized violence, trauma, the indescribable effects of living in a world of injustice and oppression. Could it be that Jesus’s self-assurance was contagious, casting out demons of insecurity and worthlessness? Was Jesus helping only this one man, or was he teaching and healing a whole community by restoring one member? If we are all interconnected, then we know what the answer must be.

Adam and Lindsey and friends discuss the authority of Love that has the power to cast out all the forces that not only divide us from each other, but deceive us into disbelieving our own value. We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Immediately. That’s how quickly these fishermen leave their nets and their families and everything they know to follow a poor Nazarean on what is essentially a suicide mission – a death to the world they knew and literal death to follow… to find abundant life beyond the death of oppression, exploitation, and violence.

Fishermen of Jesus’s time were lowly and marginalized, literally pushed off the land, their essential work heavily taxed by the Roman Empire so that they would be kept in poverty. When Jesus comes to them proclaiming good news and calling them to repent, he is not telling them they have done anything wrong, but rather showing, through his faith in them, that there is life beyond exploitation and oppression, and he wants them – those the world didn’t believe in – to usher in this new life. Repent – change your thinking – recognize your worth and your calling and the wonder that life can be when it serves the needs of all rather than the greed of the powerful.

He’s calling on them to go and feed and heal the world with him – literally and figuratively, caring for all humanity in their full humanity. “Fish for people” rather than an exploitive system; by caring for physical and material needs, fulfill the deeper spiritual need that we all have to be loved and cherished as children of the God who is Love.

In this special Inauguration Day episode, Adam and Lindsey talk about the call we all have to help heal and transform a world aching under the powers of greed and violence. No matter who leads our nation, the call to transformation is ever before us, and real change comes not from a ceremony or ritual, but from doing the work the Spirit calls us to do.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Can’t you just hear the skepticism and disgust in Nathanael’s question? How could the leader Israel has been longing for, the Messiah come from such a backward, middle-of-god-foresaken-nowhere place?

Nathanael certainly doesn’t hide behind diplomacy! Maybe that’s why Jesus declares that there is no deceit in him. And it doesn’t take much to turn Nathanael from skeptic to devoted disciple!

Jesus is doing the on-the-ground organizing necessary to build a movement that will change the world. The savior of the world, the one who will lead us all into a new life, a new way of relating to each other in compassion and cooperation, comes from the margins and gathers unlikely followers.

“You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” What a bizarre metaphor! What is Jesus talking about? The link between heaven and earth, bridge that collapses the distance between them, will not be a temple or a ritual, but Jesus’s own Self. But more than that, the disciples will become part of Jesus’s body. All who follow Jesus become the bridge, the means by which God’s will will be done on earth as in heaven. Jesus calls his followers with the astounding message that the distinction between heaven and earth will be dissolved within them as they live into their full humanity, their full expression of God’s essence of Love.

Lindsey and Adam explore this bizarre of Jesus calling us all to discipleship. As we we remember Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend, we recall that it takes not only a leader, but many, many dedicated people to change the world for the better.

e warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during Covid times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

The heavens are being ripped open, and God is descending upon us. Before our very eyes, the Ultimate Power tears through the skies. Do we tremble? Do we wish we could run away?

Or do we open our ears and our hearts and our souls to the message that breaks through our structures of chaos and violence and vengeance to declare the glorious truth: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased?”

The Ultimate Power bursts through a world order shaped by violence and reveals its divine Self to be Love. The message we hear, the message that commissions us on our lifelong journeys to , is that we are loved.

At the time of this recording, the United States was reeling from armed insurrectionists who had tried to assert the power of force to overturn the 2020 election. What if they – what if we – knew that true power was found not in violence but in love? What if we knew that all of our ultimate identities are unique expressions of Love, bound together to need and serve one another? What if our actions sprang from this ever-flowing river of Love.

Baptism is the immersion into a new life of Love. Adam and Lindsey kick off the new year with this commission from the Holy Spirit, to know we are loved and to let Love guide our actions as we go forward. As the nation and world unravel in chaos, Love is the ever-flowing water that quickens new life out of the ashes of destruction.

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during COVID times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“Jesus Unmasked” seeks to remove the masks of exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses that obscure the truth of Jesus’s unconditional love. Scripture passages are read from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jesus Unmasked” is a Raven Foundation production.

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during COVID times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“Jesus Unmasked” seeks to remove the masks of exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses that obscure the truth of Jesus’s unconditional love. Scripture passages are read from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jesus Unmasked” is a Raven Foundation production.

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during COVID times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” These are the first words of the first Gospel (historically, not in order of appearance), and it’s so easy to miss their subversive power. But make no mistake: these words are a political throwdown! In the time of the Roman Empire, the “gospel” was the message of a conquering army to those it had invaded: “Good news; you have been conquered.” The “Son of God” was the Emperor, and the “pax Romana” (peace of Rome) was enforced by killing dissenters.

“Jesus Unmasked” seeks to remove the masks of exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses that obscure the truth of Jesus’s unconditional love. Scripture passages are read from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jesus Unmasked” is a Raven Foundation production.

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during COVID times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

Some interpretations of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25: 31-46) are downright terrifying. It seems to condemn the “goats” – “accursed” nations – to eternal damnation. Terrible fear-based religious violence and persecution has come from the idea of eternal hell. So where’s the “good news?”

Translations and context make all the difference. The judgment in this parable is for the nations, not individuals, although individuals do shape the character of the nations in which they live. And the word translated as “eternal” is better translated as a “time” or “age.”

“Jesus Unmasked” seeks to remove the masks of exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses that obscure the truth of Jesus’s unconditional love. Scripture passages are read from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jesus Unmasked” is a Raven Foundation production.

“Jesus Unmasked” is now a FB live as well as a podcast! We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT / 3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

Adam and Lindsey unmask Jesus from exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses. But, during COVID times, Jesus would wear a mask! Loving others as Jesus loves us requires us to wear a mask too!

In a world where money equals power and upward mobility is the ultimate sign of success, those who seek another way, a message of hope to the poor and downtrodden, would hardly expect Jesus to reinforce a brutal status quo. Yet a surface reading of The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-30) might seem to suggest that.

“Jesus Unmasked” seeks to remove the masks of exclusive theology and violent cultural lenses that obscure the truth of Jesus’s unconditional love. Scripture passages are read from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jesus Unmasked” is a Raven Foundation production