{"id":26659,"date":"2026-03-16T04:26:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T08:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26659"},"modified":"2026-03-16T05:36:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:36:59","slug":"26659","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26659","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Restless-Audrey Assad\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UuhYZrn4flo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus Did Not Play by the Rules<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday, March 15, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-ghjwkt-tlkriywur-y\/\">READ ON CAC.ORG<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr identifies how Jesus challenged the strict laws of his day that governed what was \u201chonorable\u201d and what was not:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Jesus\u2019s time, the very architecture of the temple revealed in stone what Jesus was trying to reform. The actual design of the building seemed to protect degrees of worthiness, as immature religion often does. At the center stood the Holy of Holies, which only the high priest could enter on one day a year. This was surrounded by the court of the priests and the Levites, which only they could enter. Outside that was the court for ritually pure Jewish men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jewish women had access only to the outermost court of the temple, although during their childbearing years, their entrance to that court would be limited because of religious beliefs about blood and ritual purity (see Leviticus 15:19\u201330). Outside the entrance to this court, a sign warned any non-Jewish people that to enter would be punishable by death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the temple, we find structured in stone something all religions invariably do: <strong>create insiders and outsider<\/strong>s. Jews defined all non-Jews as \u201cgentiles\u201d; some Catholics still speak of \u201cnon-Catholics.\u201d Almost everybody seems to <strong>need some kind of sinner or heretic against which to compare themselves<\/strong>. Judaism is an archetypal religion, and illustrates a pattern that is replicated in almost all religions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On some level, we all create \u201cmeritocracies\u201d or worthiness systems and invariably base them on some kind of purity code\u2014racial, national, sexual, moral, or cultural. This material makes up much of Leviticus and Numbers, and also is the compulsion of almost every Christian denomination after the Reformation. The pattern never changes because <strong>it\u2019s the pattern of the fearful and over-defended ego.<\/strong><br><br>Jesus was a radical reformer of religion, in large part because <strong>he showed no interest in maintaining purity systems or closed systems of any kind. They only appeal to the ego and lead no one to God.<\/strong> Jesus actively undercut these systems, even against his own followers when they wanted to persecute others (see Luke 9:49\u201356). He showed no interest in the various debt and purity codes of ancient Israel, which are the religious forms of power and exclusion. In fact, Jesus often openly flouted many of the accepted purity codes of his own religion, especially the Sabbath prohibitions, rules about washing hands and cups, and the many restrictions that made various people \u201cimpure.\u201d Jesus\u2019s attempts at reform comprise half of the Gospel text directly or indirectly (see Matthew 15:1\u201314).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I sometimes jokingly say that Jesus appears to relax from Saturday night until Friday at sunset, and then goes out of his way to do most of his work on the Sabbath! It\u2019s fairly obvious that he is provoking the religious system that puts customs and human laws before people<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Divine Identity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday, March 16, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard describes how the early church followed Jesus\u2019s practice of honoring universal human dignity:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a telling phrase used in the Acts of the Apostles to describe this new Jewish sect that is upsetting the old-world order in Thessalonica. Christians there were dragged before the city council and referred to as \u201c<strong><em>the people who have been turning the whole world upside down<\/em>\u2026<\/strong>. They have broken Caesar\u2019s edicts\u201d (Acts 17:6\u20137). No one is called before the city council for mere inner beliefs or new attitudes unless they are also upsetting the social order. Almost all of Jesus\u2019s healing and nature miracles were a rearranging of social relationships and therefore of social order. By eating with the underclass, touching the untouchables, healing on the Sabbath, and collaborating with upstarts like John the Baptist down at the river, he turns the traditions of his society upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus refuses to abide by the honor-and-shame system that dominated the Mediterranean culture of his time. He refuses to live up to what is considered honorable and refuses to shame what people consider shameful. This does not gain him many friends. It\u2019s perhaps the thing that most bothers the priests and the elders. In response to his ignoring the debt codes and purity codes, they decide to kill him (see Mark 3:6, 11:18; Matthew 12:14; Luke 19:47; John 11:53). [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an honor-and-shame system, a person\u2019s status, self-image, and meaning are primarily achieved through how others see them. The system around Jesus didn\u2019t ask individuals to think in terms of \u201cWho am I really before God?\u201d (as Jesus did), or \u201cWhat do I feel about myself?\u201d (as our culture might), but rather, \u201cHow does my village see me?\u201d Many cultures to this day are built on some kind of honor-and-shame system. A person\u2019s meaning is almost entirely tied up in how their family and friends see them. It\u2019s a highly effective means of social control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In New Testament times, shame and honor were in fact moral values that people felt compelled to follow. If a situation called for retaliation, one&nbsp;<em>must&nbsp;<\/em>retaliate. Not to retaliate would have been considered immoral, because it would have meant abandoning the honor of the individual, their family, and maybe their entire village. For Jesus to say, \u201cDo not retaliate,\u201d was to subvert the whole honor-and-shame system. It is one of the strongest arguments people can make that Jesus taught nonviolence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once challenged to live outside their cultural systems, Jesus\u2019s listeners were given a new place to find their identity: in God.\u00a0<em><strong>Who we are in God is who we are<\/strong><\/em>. That\u2019s <strong>the end of ups and downs<\/strong>. Our value no longer depends upon whether our family or village likes us, whether we\u2019re good-looking, wealthy, or obedient to the laws. Jesus\u2019s message is incredibly subversive in an honor-and-shame society. Yet, as he takes away their old foundations, he offers a new, more solid one:<strong> neither shame-based nor guilt-based, but based in who they\u2014and we\u2014are in God. [2]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>================= <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For personal reflection:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rohr says Jesus offers a new identity foundation \u2014 not shame-based, not guilt-based, but grounded in who we are before God. Sit quietly with this question: &#8220;Who am I really before God?&#8221; What comes up \u2014 relief, emptiness, unfamiliarity, something else?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For group discussion:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The early church was dragged before city councils not for new beliefs, but for disrupting social order \u2014 Jesus&#8217;s movement was visibly, practically subversive of honor-and-shame systems. Where do you see his followers today genuinely turning things upside down in that way \u2014 and where do you see us (including ourselves) quietly reinforcing the same systems he was dismantling?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus Did Not Play by the Rules Sunday, March 15, 2026 READ ON CAC.ORG Father Richard Rohr identifies how Jesus challenged the strict laws of his day that governed what was \u201chonorable\u201d and what was not: In Jesus\u2019s time, the very architecture of the temple revealed in stone what Jesus was trying to reform. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26659"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26659"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26666,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26659\/revisions\/26666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}