Reverence for Personality

I have recently been reading through a book entitled, The Christ of the Mount, written by an early 20th century missionary by the name of E. Stanley Jones. This book has an entire section dedicated to the "Reverence for Personality," something Jones claims Jesus was all about. In fact, he makes the claim that for Jesus, "There was nothing sacred save personality--neither vessels, nor rites, nor ceremonies, nor places." To me, this sounds like a message worth listening to! Jones goes on to speak of seven saying of Jesus that are the most formative utterances ever spoken in religion in "reference to the emancipation of man [humanity]." I would like to mention only one of them here, if you would like to know what the other six are you will have to read the book for yourself, sorry! The one that I would like to mention is this, "The Sabbath was made for man [humanity] not man [humanity] for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Jones goes on to say that "all rites, ceremonies, religious institutions, etc. will be judged by one question: What do they do to, and for, the personality of man [humanity]?" Do these previously mentioned things build up and enrich individuals and corporate humanity or do they break down and destroy us? I have personally witnessed the religious institution of the church do some devastating things to persons. However, I have also witnessed the church, the physical gathering of Jesus' followers, miraculously become very hands and loving embrace of their creator to others. I believe this was Jesus' goal for all of creation. He was raising a message of hope and promise out from the ashes of a dead religious system of his day. The message, which fulfilled what that earlier system was attempted to bring about, "A living relationship with God and humanity, humanity with humanity, and humanity with the rest of creation." The Christian church today needs to revisit this message of Christ and allow it to clean away the barnacles, which have desensitized us to the very needs of one another. I believe there is hope for the church today! I believe the church is capable returning to its roots and breaking away from the dehumanizing practices and prejudices it has accumulated. However, this will take lots of work by all of us and a willingness to love people and see the good in them once again! Are we up for the challenge?