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neptune loves the little guy

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Continued from these are just work practices:

So, John is waist deep in the river, people are coming to him participating in some water immersion ritual in which they return renewed and committed to a “Godly” life. His beard is dripping with river water, his honey diet honed twelve pack has him ripped like a marble statue. What might the Roman soldiers standing nearby be asking?

Is this Neptune?

They were probably there to keep any thoughts of rebellion down to a bare minimum, but they had to see the effects of John’s ministry. When you watch people descend from the hills, seemingly from nowhere, and gravitate towards this man who appeared to come from the water it must have been a pretty powerful image. It’s possible that the Roman soldiers were just making sure they showed respect to their favorite water deity, but all the more likely they were being swayed by John’s preaching. If Neptune crawls from the water, that’s something you never necessarily thought you’d see, but when he starts creating these vivid mental pictures in his preaching, that might create an existential dilemma for you if your job is to remain detached, objective and ready to separate sinew from bone should it become necessary.

But the soldiers step forward and ask the question, “What about us?”

I believe that there’s is the most courageous, for they are aware that the answer could completely up end their sense of being and reality ✝. Which, of course, it does. What is interesting here is that, if only for a moment, those Roman soldiers who spoke up are living in a realm where Religion is more important than Politic, or the fire of the Savior King is stronger than the sword of Caesar. That they break their silence demonstrates what powerful ministry was happening through the baptism of repentance.

Transformation is any life is a powerful witness in the world. It makes us ask questions: How did that happen?Where did it come from?

John’s response is roughly, “Don’t use your power to fill your pockets. Be content.” You could look at it another way, “Stand up for the little guy instead of standing on top of him.” Looking through the rubric of the Isaiah prophecy that begins this whole scene, Luke 3:4-6, these soldier are poor mountains. They are at the top of the food chain, powerful, strong and capable of unleashing the fury of Rome upon any who, well, were there. So there is a strong/weak power differential, which John points out.

A life that bears the fruit of repentance [Lk 3:8], uses power to benefit the weak instead of punishing them with it. The mountain is made low.

In our world, we see that differential everywhere don’t we? We live that differential. There are those that we look upon as much less powerful than ourselves, huh? If you are reading this, you are in a literate, post technological caste that most of the world doesn’t exist within. You complain when there’s no free wi-fi. They complain when there’s no potable water. That’s a big difference.

The Kingdom creates a way for wifi to translate to transformation for places that can’t access clean water. Look at water.org. The Kingdom creates a way for wifi to become an agent of transformation for third world small business. Look at keva.org.

For the soldiers, this Kingdom view of living not only radically reoriented their understanding of ‘courage and being’, a military man by definition, but invited them into a pattern of trust and relationship with the community around them. Were they to bear fruit worthy of repentance, their God would become real, their courage would become real and their lives would become real as well.

Or perhaps they just thought, “Man, that Neptune sure loves the little guy!”

✝ “The ethical question of the nature of courage leads inescapably to the ontological question of the nature of being. And the procedure can be reversed. The ontological question of the nature of being can be asked as the ethical question of the nature of courage. Courage can show us what being is, and being can show us what courage is.” Tillich – The Courage to Be

Last post is on the way: Jesus and Subversive Equality

The post neptune loves the little guy appeared first on prophetsandpopstars.


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