By Fr. Shay Cullen
Jesus of Nazareth tells his story. “I have a story to tell. I came on earth as a man, fully human with all the feelings, emotions, desires and challenges of growing up in a land where there were great injustices, hardship, and poverty in the middle of great wealth. I saw the suffering of the poor and how they were rejected, excluded and declared of no value to society, that was the great injustice in society in my day, Many poor, a few rich owned everything. It is the same in the world today.
I declared my mission in the Synagogue at Nazareth and with the Prophet Elijah I declared Good News for the poor, liberation for the captives, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed and I came to save the people.
I declared children to be the most important of all, those that accept and protect a child, accept me. Today most are blind to child abuse, but I saw it and I said abusers must be brought to justice with a millstone around their neck.
I choose not to look away, not to be part of that unjust structure that oppressed the wretched of the earth, rejected and exploited women and I stood with the poor and against those with an evil heart. I taught that all people are equally children of God, all have human rights and I wanted all to be one in a New Community with God and God is love.
So it is today in many nations where the ungodly rule and oppress the poor, kill and maim and steal the nation’s wealth. My true followers challenge evil rulers with the truth and are imprisoned and killed as happened to me. There were the five thousand men that came to the big rally in a remote place and I showed them by example how to share food so all would eat. If there is equality, justice, respect and dignity for all I taught, there would be no hunger but peace and happiness in a nation.
They believed and wanted to make me king in Jerusalem. That was not my mission. I said no to taking political power as my disciples and followers wanted. They believed I was the Messiah. I never said I was. I called for a radical change of mind and heart in a nation so the majority will choose to do good and transform society with just leaders and do justice, bring equality and compassion for all and care for each other like the Good Samaritan.
I wanted everyone to see God’s love through me, to repent and reject evil and believe my words and act on them. Everyone today is challenged to do this and see that poverty is man-made, suffering and evil come from those that choose to do evil. We must oppose it with goodness and truth, that is faith. I want the nations to change and believe the Good News that all could be saved and liberated from evil, oppression, injustice and hardship if they repented and choose goodness and truth. That is faith.
I have been telling you about my life and mission. I called on all the religious leaders in Jerusalem to have a change of heart and not condemn and exclude the poor and the sick as sinners. I challenged you and the leaders today to accept a New Community of compassion and love of neighbor to help bring justice to the poor. In my day the leaders rejected this ideal, they rejected me and my words and today many people and leaders reject me too. Some wage merciless war on ordinary people, bombing and killing my followers and friends. I say help the victims.
When I went to Jerusalem and saw the trading and cheating in the Temple courtyard it was a desecration of the House of God and a corrupt trading system benefiting the Chief Priests and rulers like it is today in the modern world. Little has changed, did my mission fail, no it is ongoing you have to carry it forward.
I was really angry when I saw what was going on in the Temple. “The house of God is a house of prayer”, I shouted, but you have made it a den of thieves”. It was righteous anger, when we see wrong-doing we must never be silent and do nothing to change it for good. I decided to act and challenge the corrupt system and challenge the leaders who were growing rich by allowing the money changers and traders to turn the temple courtyard into a marketplace. So I got a length of rope made whip out of it and laid into the traders, I and my disciples drove out the animals, released the doves. I threw over the tables of the money changers. Their coins spilled and scattered across the courtyard. The poor rushed to get them, a gift from God they said. There was bedlam, shouting and screaming as the traders rushed to catch their escaping sheep and goats. Then I barred other traders from crossing the courtyard, a sanction on them. My followers wrote about it in their Gospels. It was a turning point for me and my followers.
The chief priests and the traders were really angry with me, they plotted how to kill me and my followers but the people were in full support of my actions to cleanse the temple. The poor believed my message for a New Community where social justice would be the priority. The authorities had branded me a rebel, a subversive and an outlaw and they were sending assassins to kill me and my disciples.
I knew what I was doing when I challenged their hypocrisy and fake worship. My public action was a demonstration for honesty and justice and against the corrupt political and economic system. Much as it is today. The rulers plotted to have me arrested and jailed. Like the arrest and kill my followers the human rights workers today, environmentalists saving the planet. they are killed while the mining companies with corrupt politicians are cutting the forests and robbing the nation causing more poverty. It has to stop and only good leaders of integrity can stop it.
Before they arrested me I had a meal of friendship with my friends and disciples to remember me and all I had taught them. Today you must continue the work to bring truth, light, justice, equality and human dignity to the world. The corrupt authorities branded me a subversive, a threat to their power and I was jailed, tortured condemned and I was executed on the cross.
However, it was not over, the power of eternal goodness and love lifted me up and I live today, with you. You can choose to be my true follower and friend and fulfill my mission to do justice and good for the poor and the needy. You can follow my life story at https://www.facebook.com/JesusOfNazarethStories/. Visit me there. Jesus
