Acknowledging Jesus

Gospel:  Matthew 10: 16-23

 Whenever we hear this phrase "acknowledging Jesus" why is it that we think it means standing on a street corner yelling at others to believe in Jesus? Why do we think it means that we should be in other people's faces yelling at them to believe in Jesus? Why have we come to equate this passage with various pieces of the culture wars, as if these issues were at the core of being Christian?

Another set of questions: why do we not think of acknowledging Jesus as seeing him in the presence and being of other people? Why do we not see acknowledging Jesus as extending mercy to others in the same way that it has been extended to us? Why have we chosen to be the persecutors instead of being the persecuted? In what Gospel did Jesus act in such a way?

We have spent entirely too long thinking in terms of us possessing the truth when in fact the opposite is true: truth possesses us.  It is folly to think a finite being can possess an infinite object, and yet this is the model of western Christianity that has led to its demise.  If we instead reorient our thinking to us being possessed by the truth, then our entire outlook and way of life changes.  We become mercy and love for others; we recognize our place in the universe as creatures and not creators, redeemed and not redeemers - invited to share in creation and redemption but not their source and origin.