The subversive political religion of Jesus

Mark 11:1-21

Big Ideas

• Jesus subverts the expectations of everyone
• In order to understand why, we have to look at the Old Testament
• Everyone had nationalistic, violent, xenophobic ideas of what the Messiah would do
• They expected the Messiah to violently expel the "pagans" from the Temple
• Instead, Jesus symbolically casts out those excluding outsiders
• The message is that Jesus cares about earthly things
• He is fixing politics and all the injustice we see. But he is doing it in a way that is upside-down of what we expect.

Questions

• Have you been told that Jesus isn't political?
• How about the idea that Jesus doesn't care about earthly things, just spiritual ones?
• If Jesus cares about politics and "earthly" issues, what does that change for how we should act as Christians?
• Based on Jesus' unexpected interaction, what's an injustice around you that you can address in a radical new way?