When Jesus was 12

He confounded the religious elite of His day

by answering questions about the Torah,

and from the Prophets,

with depth and scope and undeniable mastery.

Jesus even answered questions

with wisdom superlatively beyond His years

that religious leaders were unsure about.

 

For years he walked the dusty streets,

as a dual son,

Son of God

and Son of Man,

meeting the best and the worst of society.

Jesus visited the temple

and rubbed shoulders with those

who acknowledged or worshiped His Father –

some with their lips only

and others with their hearts as well.

 

Jesus reached the age of 30

and began His ministry.

Once again He confused and confounded

the religious elite of His time

with His enigmatic words and actions.

 

During His ministry

Jesus showed great compassion,

to the poor, lame, hungry, unclean

and demonized – Israeli and foreign.

 

And yet Jesus was very harsh

with most religious leaders,

calling them white washed sepulchers,

sons of the Devil, viperous, and blind guides.

Whenever possible He actively sought

to break the traditions of the elders.

Yet Jesus lived, breathed, and exemplified,

with great precision,

the scriptures and very nature of God.

 

When it came time to choose His disciples,

Jesus did not use the tried and true techniques

of the elite religious leaders.

 

Jesus did not choose the brightest students

and place them on an advanced education track

for the chosen few,

to memorize The Torah, The Prophets

and The Talmud.

 

Jesus did not have the best of the best,

following long years of intensive study,

follow Him around for yet longer years,

and then pick one to mentor at His side

for a still longer time.

 

Jesus did not say,

as the religious teachers of His time,

“Now you have achieved your goal:

Go be a Jewish Guru!

Enjoy your own following and one protégé.”

 

What did Jesus do instead?

He went to the highways and byways!

He found those who were deemed misfits.

Unworthy of going on to higher religious learning.

And He asked them! Right away!

 

Jesus chose ignorant fisherman

who had been sent home

to work for their relatives,

rather than go onto higher learning.

 

He chose a tax collector

who was socially anathema –

considered contagiously unclean,

to all but prostitutes and other tax collectors.

 

When He had chosen

the twelve Apostles of the Jewish Nation,

none of them would have been

considered “worthy material.”

After that, Jesus went once again,

to the highways and byways,

and said, “Come follow me.”

 

To the poor.

To the social outcasts,

both ignorant and well-tutored.

To foreigners and prostitutes.

To the unloved and the unlovely.

 

When the religious elite

and those who had

the first right of redemption

ignored or scorned Him,

what did His Father say?

 

God said, “Go to the highways and byways

and compel them to come in,

that My House may be filled.

For I say unto you, That none of those men

which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”

 

Jesus warned the Chosen

that their vineyard would be taken away

and given to another nation

who would harvest its fruits.

 

Once more Jesus went to the highways and byways

seeking half gentiles and gentiles.

Later he sent his disciples, not only to the Jews, but to all nations.

 

Two thousand years later

and in a foreign land I call home,

My Lord took me out of the places

considered to be modern temples of Jehovah –

places where saints and religious pretenders

blended like water and oil.

 

I became as one born

in the wrong time,

never truly fitting in,

until He took me along the path less trod.

 

He led me along the highways and the byways.

I became a stranger in a strange land,

but I also found others who loved Jesus.

Others unique and out of sync

with contemporary religious tradition.

 

He said, like His father

about Abraham of old,

“I will be your great treasure

and I will be your friend.”

 

Was I worthy of such an honor:

No, yet he chose me,

before I was in my mother’s womb.

 

I became another peculiar person

who lived on earth,

but whose true place of citizenship

was in the heavenly realms. . .

 

Like a coin has two sides,

Highways and byways Christians,

can be seen in two lights:

 

as ones misunderstood,

outcasts to many,

and not what most Christians

– traditional or untraditional –

would consider to be “good Christian material”

 

or as ones who have a right heart

despite a variety of issues or odd ways,

chosen by God to be ambassadors of Christ,

who step to the rhythm of a different tune,

who confound the wise of this world:

Christian, religious or pagan.

 

WTO– 7.15.09

 

From Waysides along the Journey 1