Jesus flipped scripts.

He told a reverse-conspiracy narrative, where God is plotting for the ultimate good of all, urging faith, hope and love instead of fear.
He named the power of money and challenged people not to be ruled by it.
He reached out to the other, included the other, gave the other a spotlight and voice.
He started with compassion and fairness and spoke of things like liberty vs. oppression and purity vs. degradation.
He would tell a story and provide his hearers with a simple step to take within their current capacity to understand.
He provided people to immersive and transcendent experiences.
He praised child-likeness and helped people admit they have a lot to learn, then built their confidence as they learned.
He created a welcoming community with a clear on-ramp.
He dealt with oversimplified understandings with questions that expanded the framework, parables that confounded expectations, and teaching that elevated deep values over shallow rules.
He used false statements as invitations to repeat his true statements.*
He challenged the world by telling a bigger story.
He helped people see.

One of the things that bothers me about the current administration is that it’s using an old, tired script. It’s been tried around the world since the world began. It won’t win. 

That’s why Jesus came. To show us a better way.

*brianmclaren.net

Photo by Taylor Flower on Unsplash