Here we've got early church copyright issues. This Jesus is ours, you can't have him. What he says is copyrighted to us, you can't repeat what he says and expect to get away with it, or get the same result. It is the start of church bureaucracy with the disciples expecting Jesus to affirm what they think and stop someone else using his name to expel demons.
Gandhi had a take on this saying that I like your Jesus but not his followers because Gandhi could sign up to what Jesus said and believed and envisioned but what he didn't see are very spiritual was the way we all ran around giving ourselves the monopoly on Jesus. Jesus wasn't, isn't, a product. Jesus is a way of living. That's all he seemed to be interested in. The way. The process. the verb.
This isn't Nike or Adidas or Coke or Pepsi being precious with strap lines and logos that are the only thing that identifies their producs=ts as being different from others. This is a cause that is trying to give away what it says and looks like and does in order that it does something to change society. Clearly Jesus was never going to be a CEO but his disciples again and again weren't getting the whole idea of following. They were the adverts themselves and they weren't making the best job of it. Hmmm....
Anyway, hymns (don't worry about copyright!) or a suggestion how we might read this passage, or some music that might go along with the theme that could be played during the service at some point?
at the very end of the service when the Bible is being carried out, we are encouraging one another by singing (JP65) "Go, tell it on the mountain" verses 1 & 5. The children are in church at this point and everybody can sing it, plus, over the course of several weeks it reinforces the message.
Posted by: Eileen Ross | September 25, 2012 at 12:42 PM
We have also been singing "Who spoke words of wisdom and life" (it's in "All the Assembly songs you'll ever need"). Chorus is easy for children, even P1 & P2, and in the verse there is a question and answer format, and the answers are the same in every verse, reinforcing the message as well as being accessible for children who can't read.
Posted by: Eileen Ross | September 25, 2012 at 12:45 PM
For some reason "What if God was one of us" (Martyn Joseph) is rattling about my head. May have to play that during service.
Posted by: Liz Crumlish | September 25, 2012 at 10:56 PM