The Gospel is Not Meant to be Room Temperature
Awhile back I was reading a book about Jesus written by the theologian Ernst Käsemann. He writes, “People and institutions do not like to be kept continually on the alert, and they have constantly devised screens to protect themselves from too much heat. In fact, they have even managed to reduce Jesus’ red-hot message, which promised to kindle a fire throughout the world, to room temperature.”
Perhaps the biggest "cooling" of Jesus' message throughout history is forcing it into stagnant religious systems. It has been happening since the 4th century when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. This was a period of history when church leaders became formal priests, Sunday became the designated Sabbath again, church buildings were recognised as holy buildings, and society was cordoned off in terms of "us" and “them” – church areas and the rest of the normal world.
How differently was the reality that Jesus brought to life. He shared God's shalom with sinners, strangers, the marginalized, women, and children, all ‘discarded’ to some degree or another. This Kingdom became realized within restored relationships with God and others and not through rigid involvement within a formal religious cult. The new story that Jesus told does not know separate religious systems far removed from real life with official staff and strangely disconnected rituals from the stuff of everyday life.
Jesus knew that God's Kingdom wanted to break into real life, here and now. Within this Kingdom, God deployed a new movement of full-time followers of Jesus to establish the reality of their Father's Kingdom in every corner of the globe through their wise words, acts of love, and loyal relationships. Within the Jesus movement it has always been about the love that is experienced amongst one another and the outwardly expression of God's mission in the world. Here it is always momentum, not staid moments, that matter.
Too many followers of Jesus internalise the message of God’s Kingdom and then carelessly let it cool down from burning hot to room temperature. It happens when "smart" religious people think they are busy writing a post-mortem on the Bible as a static document, or when people lifelessly go from one stagnant religious event to the next. The Gospel functions at room temperature when it has no healing effect on the world around it.
To follow Jesus in the right manner is to have burning and wise hearts that daily touch the world in need. Just hear how Peter Rollins puts it: “Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines, guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy, as believing the right way, as bringing love to the world around us... That will cost us everything.” (How (Not) to Speak of God, 2006).