Volume 4, Issue 1, October 1995

JESUS, A SOCIAL REFORMER

Authorities seldom like to be challenged. When a crowd gathers outside Queens Park, barricades and riot police are brought out.

Jesus was watched carefully by both the civil and religious rulers of his day when he stood up for the poor, downtrodden and needy, and became popular with the people.

The cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem by Jesus is considered by many students of the Bible to be the immediate cause of Jesus' arrest and condemnation.

In this one act - when he upset the tables of the money changers and drove some of the salespeople out of the Temple courts - he summed up his challenge to the religious authorities, especially the chief priests and those in control of the Temple.

In this dramatic and revealing act, Jesus challenged the establishment, the power structure of his society at its most sensitive point, its religious practices. Jesus gave a prophetic witness, one symbolic act that stood for all the rest.

Jesus showed himself to the authorities as an angry crusader, a social reformer dangerous to them, a counter conscience for his society.

Why did Jesus take the side of the people, the poor, the disadvantaged, the abused and the sinners? He made it plain that it was not because they were all these things, nor because they were different, but because he saw all people as the children of God and equal in God's sight.

The Christian faith is more than personal religion. It is a witness made in and through the economic, social and political institutions of the world. Sometimes this means challenging the status quo and those in power.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.