Jesus Was a Radical, and You Should Be Too

Jesus Was a Radical, and You Should Be Too
Eyon Biddle Sr., Advocacy & Engagement Facilitator, Milwaukee Field Director (CHP)

Beautiful people,

Lent is a significant season in the Christian faith, marked by 40 days of reflection and preparation leading to Easter Sunday. During this time, we examine our lives, relationship with God, and place in the world. It is a time of self-reflection, prayer, and repentance, where we seek forgiveness and renew our commitment to living a Christ-like life. We take this time to reflect on our actions, thoughts, and words and strive to make positive changes in our lives. As we walk this journey, we are reminded of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. We are encouraged to follow in his footsteps by embodying love, light, peace, community, and liberation.

Our political time of day causes us to be honest about where we are as a society and identify how we feel about ourselves and the world around us, to reexamine our faith as we reflect on what is happening to God’s people in His earthly kingdom. Is His will truly being done? Is our leadership meeting the times? Have we turned into a religious community that weaponizes God to serve our interests, hoping He grants us personal wishes like a genie? How can we settle for being a good Christian when we witness numerous levels of oppression, brutality, and unfairness that God’s children confront daily? Why are we not striving to be righteous Christians in the face of rising anti-black racism, queerphobia, islamophobia, and anti-semitism?

Suppose we stop and put aside the multitude of our adult duties, stressors, and entertaining distractions. In that case, we must admit that we exist in a challenging time of significant loss, despair, and disillusionment. Our society is rapidly falling into an unfeeling, fascist, harsh place that does not respect the value of human life. Many people are coping with exhaustion and stress from their jobs and home life responsibilities, trying to meet the ever-increasing demands of their work while maintaining a semblance of family life, desperately trying to summon the energy and make the necessary time for personal wellness and hobbies. Collectively, we feel the tightness of our purse strings as we navigate the rising costs of bare essentials due to corporate greed.

Christians, being the followers of Christ, should strive to live according to his teachings. If we fail to do so, our influence will wane, not because of hatred towards us, but because we are unwilling and/or unable to embody the values Christ stood for during his time on earth.

As a young boy forced to read his Children’s Bible, I clearly saw Jesus’s life, purpose, and mission. Jesus. Was. A. Radical. His mission and life seemed relatively simple: do no harm, love people, hold yourselves and others accountable, and fight for what is right. As I said earlier, Christ’s time on earth embodied abundant love, light, peace, community, organizing, and liberation. Jesus’s version of love was a righteous fight against injustice, false teachers and prophets, feeding those who were hungry, or keeping a party going with more wine. He commanded us to love ourselves abundantly and, in turn, love our neighbors with the same abundance, and then let that radicalize us to take bold action in the name of Christ in everything we do.

Jesus is love and liberation. Everywhere we work, we show up as the church, from mutual aid food networks, neighborhood watches, and legislative hearings. We work with each other; we build community together, and we get free together.

I challenge you all to take this time during Lent to radicalize yourselves so that your leadership and faith can meet the demands of the times, and these times demand bold, radical action from those who follow Jesus, a bold and radical God.

This Lent, the Wisconsin Council of Churches’ Advocacy Team invites you into a season of Deep Listening, and we offer you four tools or actions to do this.

1. 1. Give Something Up – As our world is increasingly busy, we are all exhausted. Spend some time in this season and ask – are there areas of work that are not giving you life and instead depleting you? We challenge you to stop and take a step back. Sometimes we are so busy that we can’t listen so we invite you to create some space in your life by giving up something. If you need permission, here it is (and feel free to blame us!).
   2. Praying the Headlines – Karl Barth said that we should “preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other”. One way to live into this practice by Praying the Headlines. You can do this on your own by praying over a newspaper or online news site. Or you can tune into the WCC’s social media (Facebook and Instagram at @wichurches) on Thursdays during Lent for curated content and a time of prayer.
   3. Have a 1:1 conversation (click here for a guide from the WCC) with someone in your community to learn about needs in your context OR with our WCC advocacy staff (Eyon or Breanna).
   4. Dwelling in the Word (see the interview with Deaconness Johnna Georgia below) to learn about this practice.