August 23, 2015: I Think You Can – Michael Hidalgo

Jesus has just finished delivering his Sermon on the Mount, essentially claiming that the way people have seen the world, God and themselves is backwards and upside down. The Sermon has been called the “Real State of the Universe/Reality” address. Consider the progression. He begins with the Beatitudes (who is actually blessed), and then walks through almost every conceivable hot button topic that could prick someone’s soul. 

From self-righteousness, to violence, to sexuality and marriage, to commitments and revenge, to worry and possessions and judgments, Jesus has just finished unearthing the hidden reality that many in his day would probably walk around feeling, but unable to name. For those who heard Jesus there was likely a sense that the world doesn’t look the same as it did an hour ago and a feeling of “anything could happen” now. 

In the midst of this new world map he has just created for everyone he walks into town and is confronted with one from the outside, one who could be stoned for approaching a rabbi this way depending on who was watching, one who he just claimed is blessed who asks him in a statement “If you’re willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus says a new reality is present, but will he live in it, even at his own expense? Other accounts say that Jesus then (because he was unclean) spent the night outside the town in lonely places.