Cracked 5 … March 22nd, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Other Ways the Jews Could Have Killed Off Jesus

A. Offered him tenure at Jerusalem University, teaching a class, “The Perpetual Power of the Parable.”

 

B. Hooked him up with a real “nice local girl.”

 

C. Egged on their attorneys to harangue him with nuisance lawsuits–like, “withholding livelihood from a blind beggar” and “serving lunch to 5,000 without a food handler’s permit.”

 

D. Put him in charge of Children’s Ministry.

 

E. Thrust upon him the role of being campaign manager for Donaldus Trumpus during Emperor Primaries.

 

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Jesonian: Reasonable (Part 9) Leavening … January 31st, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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When I looked at the parable again, it just made me laugh.

Jesus often had a dry sense of humor–and in this particular story, he refers to the society in which we live as “the lump.”

Could it be personified any better? Just a big pile of dough, laying there with no prospect of becoming anything in particular, susceptible to being manipulated.

Even though we are tempted to become part of the dough, Jesus suggested we become the leaven–the yeast–the ingredient that quietly slips inside the lump, ends up affecting it by expanding it and making it into bread.

It is the reasonable expectation of all people who are followers of Jesus–thus Jesonian: to contribute to the world around them by adding their yeast into the mix to produce the bread of life.

The problem is that many Christians, instead of using emotional leavening in their outreach, end up with spiritual “littering. ”

• They waste their witness.
• They cast aside the power of the Gospel.
• And they limit the scope of how they can affect their brothers and sisters by offering tracts and little bits of scripture.

This spiritual “littering” occurs in three distinct ways:

1. A generic God.

Yes, in an attempt to become all things to all men, we talk about God instead of Jesus. It seems safer. It appears to be less offensive.

But since Jesus did not come to start a religion and is not in competition with those who did, the way to gain emotional ground with others–to leaven the lump of their lives–is to share the compassion, the heart, the tolerance and the mind of Jesus.

God is an idea. Jesus is a feeling.

2. We also spiritually litter offering an invitation to come to our church.

May I give you a clue? The people who are inclined to go to church at this point are already there.

So the next step for creating a spiritual awakening in this country will not be church attendance. It may lead to that eventually, but to leaven the lump–to put your yeast of emotion into people’s lives–you have to participate in social interaction where they live.

The Internet, dinner invitations, parties, or even going to a movie with a friend is much more effective than the spiritual littering of inviting them to your congregation.

3. And the final step of spiritual littering is feeling the need to make a stand on social issues or moral questions so as to separate our “sheepishness” from those who are more “goat-like.”

We achieve nothing with this.

Whether we are vigilant or vindictive in our assertions makes no difference because we are still accused of being judgmental.

The emotional leavening that Jesus wants us to bring to life is good cheer.

Rather than looking at the tribulation of the world and having a disagreement with it, he tells us to leave the world to him and instead, pursue a life of good cheer.

It’s just a fact–people like to be around happy people.

This does not mean we are free of difficulty, but it means we come into trial in good cheer, survive it, and come out the other end also cheered by the good.

We have too much spiritual littering going on in our society today which renders the Gospel weak because it is at the mercy of people’s perception of the church.

Jesus said the world is a lump.

Put your emotional leavening into it, and let the yeast expand the experience of those around you.

Share Jesus, eat with them … and be of good cheer.

 

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Populie 2: Everybody’s a Winner … February 5, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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When popular opinion yearns to promote an idea pleasing to the masses, that generates “warm and fuzzy feelings, ” then politics, religion and entertainment get behind the notion, propelling it forward, even if it’s necessary to create a lie or two in order to maintain the enthusiasm.

Thus, Populie.

And one of the most interesting presentations of this phenomenon is the abiding, insistent and seemingly heavenly energized commandment that “everybody’s a winner.”

• Politics loves it because it makes the electorate feel content in itself.
• Religion embraces it because everything can be drenched in the grace of God, and congregations don’t have to be challenged to excellence.
• Entertainment imbues its plots with the precept because it allows them to always have the delightful Hollywood ending.

I call it “emotional marijuana.”

Put up the smoke screen of equality based upon “just what we’re doing and nothing more,” in order for everybody to munch Fritos while watching reruns of Star Trek.

But let me take you on a brief journey. May we call it a Tale of Two Stories? They are found in the Good Book. Listed twice, some people think they are the same parable being perceived by different authors. But I don’t think so.

The first rendition is a revelation about a king who goes off to a far country and leaves money behind for his servants. Each one receives–well, let us say $1,000. He gives them no instructions; merely entrusts his finance to their good care. But upon returning, they discover that he had thoroughly anticipated that they would take the funds, invest it wisely and bring back dividend.

The second story is similar–but this traveling monarch selects to give $5000 to one fellow, $2000 to another and $1000 to the remaining servant, based upon their abilities.

So here’s what I derive from these two delightful tellings:

Everyone is born with life. No one is better than anyone else.

Then culture comes along–circumstances, abuse, blessing, passion, discipline, parenting, neglect, and all other factors involved in the process of human beings growing to adulthood. It is in this phase that we develop both our abilities and our predilections.

So the truth of the matter is, if we don’t teach people to be adequately competitive, energetically involved, avidly pursuing betterment, they will make the same error as the folks in these parables from the Good Book, who hide their lives and talents due to fear of failure.

So we have a two-step process which needs to be promoted if we want to improve the planet:

1. We need to admit that No One is better than anyone else. By birth, our Creator made us equal by giving us life.
2. Then we must understand that without inserting a voracious desire to be successful and to use that benefit to enrich our own lives as well as the lives of others, we stall people–not only in their finance, but in their emotional, mental and spiritual ascension to the best that earthly life can offer.

The Populie is, “Everybody’s a winner–even when they lose.”

The truth is, “Everybody’s a loser if they don’t at least attempt to win.”

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