So, Jesus flipped tables—not in the spirit of retribution but as a revelation of reconciling love. Jesus flipped tables in the authority of, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” Jesus flipped tables in the power of “God in Christ, reconciling…oppressed and oppressor.” 1 Jesus was outraged by injustice, so He flipped tables in the justice of a “Love (that) keeps no record of wrongs.”

As a relational fella, all I can tell ya is, the more confident I become in reconciling love, the less hard stuff wrestling I do with the Book.

What if “the wages of sin is death” is announcing the inherent consequences of sinful actions and what they will produce in this life, as opposed to saying if we sin, we deserve torment?

Sadly, much of the church is full of behavior-focused, sin-counting, Older Brothers—slaving servants waxing eloquent on the master’s thoughts and plans while participating in dualism, nationalism, liberalism, moralism, wokeism, and a thousand other obligations outside of friendship.

‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that You are the Holy One of God.’”

I’m describing equality as Jesus revealed it. It’s not “equals” based on measurements; it has nothing to do with finite thinking or microscopes. I’m writing about an equality revealed by Greater Love laying down His life for His friends. Self-giving, other-centered love is the birthplace of true equality and is discovered in union.

But the Brian Simmons Passion Translation of that verse is my favorite, and I think it’s infinitely more accurate—not based on my academic prowess but on what I know about love.

It reads, “I have never called you ‘servants’… But I call you my most intimate friends….”

Exclusion is often the fruit of a retributive, or penal substitutionary atonement, view of the cross—as though the Father looked away, as though Jesus only died to save some, as though Greater Love didn’t reconcile all creation, as though what was lost in Adam wasn’t fully restored in Christ, as though at the cross there was a delineation between Jew or Gentile, black or white, lost or found, sinner or saint, gay or straight, republican or democrat, capitalist or socialist, Christian or Muslim…woman and ministry—as though there is still a veil that separates some from His all-inclusive, measurelessly reconciling love.

You see, as I’ve left every Jesus that isn’t reconciling. I’ve also left every idea of church that isn’t built upon the Cornerstone of Greater Love. I’ve left every aspect of the church that practices us or them, in or out, for or against; and when I find I haven’t, I repent…

I was heartsick and disturbed by the theological certainty he placed in the punishing nature of God—a certainty that was clearly crushing him. He was tormented over whether he’d “evangelized” enough. He wondered aloud if a prayer said in the horror of a violent car crash would be enough.

“What am I still lacking?” That was the cruel and punishing road my pastor friend traveled. He seemed to believe God counted his dad’s sins against him—and his dad had come up lacking.

My pastor friend’s pain was real, traumatizing, and tragically unnecessary.

You see, what he described to me wasn’t Christian hope. It was fatalism.