Behold, that first century Palestinian Jew was born in a funky manger. He had some funky working-class parents sometimes dealing with unemployment and underemployment. He walked on some funky and dusty roads, didn’t he? He brought together 12 funky folk. He didn’t go out 100 miles to the vanilla suburbs, did he? He picked them right from around where he came from. It’s so easy to forget the funk in Jesus’s life because our churches can become so easily deodorized. The funky gospel of funky Jesus can become so Americanized that it is reduced to marketplace spirituality, prosperity gospel, and Chamber of Commerce religion. No! We want to keep focused on the funk of Jesus, especially that funky blood at that funky cross. If you don’t find joy in serving others, if you don’t understand the joy in loving people, then come back to the cross. Get down in that funky blood and understand what it means to be at that funky tomb that was empty when that prostitute Mary Magdalene showed up and had a message for the world. You can’t be committed tot that kind of funky gospel if you’re not willing to pay the price. You need to be willing to bear a burden. You need to cut against the grain.
Cornel West
Hope on a Tightrope
