Servants of the Family of God

Perhaps now we are getting somewhere.  The overriding logic of humanity's salvation is that of master and servant, rather than that of father and child.  The master-servant connection is the basis of the religion that Jesus founded.

The father-child connection, however, is the imagery most amenable to co-opting and marketing by the denominations.  Make a person view religion through the lens of the family, and that person's family life will be held as hostage by the denominations, against the possibility that the person will think for himself or herself.  (And that does not even consider at this moment Jesus' earth-shattering negative views of family life.)

I am thinking most intently now about the evangelical organizations that claim that a person does not need Christianity for a religion, but rather for a relationship.  We must, it is said, have God as our Father, and Jesus as our Brother.  This is an unsupportable take on what we need for salvation.  What we need for salvation is to do what Jesus told us to do.

This is displayed most clearly at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, which is the only Synoptic Gospel that ends without an obvious artifice.  No snake-handling or poison-drinking as in "Mark," and no loitering about in Jerusalem to star in an up-coming sequel, as in Luke-Acts.  In Matthew, Jesus says that his disciples should look for him in Galilee and--lo and behold--they find him in Galilee.

"And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted" (Matthew 28:17, KJV).  These are "the eleven disciples," not some motley crowd, and the part about "some doubted" sure makes it sound like this was their first encounter with Jesus post-Resurrection (unlike the accounts in the other two Synoptics.)  I am saying this because I think it supports the contention that the post-Resurrection part of Matthew is free of the shortcomings that haunt Mark and Luke.

What then does Jesus say to the eleven in Matthew, even to the eleven that in lighter moments he calls "brethren"?

"Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (28:18-20).

The "power" that Jesus describes himself as possessing is shown as an element of mastery, not as a legacy of a family of believers; the baptism that he describes reflects a family relationship within the Godhead, not as touching a family of believers; and the disciples are to assume a leadership role as compared to converts, just as the disciples are to yield in submission to Jesus as their master.  Any of these elements might be--and are--discussed endlessly within the context of a parent-child conceptualization of salvation, but it would be ridiculous to view the parent-child relationship as normative.

We are saved if we do what we are told.  We are children of God if we do what we are told.  It would seem only prudent for us to do what we are told, and for us to "man-up" and "woman-up", accepting that the grace necessary for our salvation can reside--without violence to God's nature--in his merciful appraisal of our efforts.