As noted in the first post of this series on a Call For A True Christian Reformation, the teachings about Jesus of Nazareth are preeminent in shaping Christianity; in that, they carry more weight than the teachings of Jesus do. In these first posts, I am broadly addressing the core teaching of Christianity as found in the New Testament, which are the basis upon which all orthodox Christian doctrines are derived. Christian doctrine is largely shaped by the teachings about Jesus which are found primarily in the Epistles and the Gospel of John. The Synoptic Gospels also contain teachings about Jesus, but the importance of the Synoptic Gospels lies in the fact that they are the primary and most reliable source for finding the teachings of Jesus.
The teachings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels consist of sayings, parables, conversations, and most importantly how he carried out his ministry. What one must keep in mind is that there was no one taking notes when Jesus was talking. What we have in the synoptic gospels is recall of what Jesus said pieced together to form a linear narrative about his ministry. Recall is imprecise, at best, but it is all we have from possible second or third-hand sources.
Modern research on recall shows that people directly involved in conversations and traumatic events forget details of an event or a conversation very quickly; in a matter of days or months. Since most of these gospels were written at least one to two decades after Jesus's death, they drew from other written sources that predate them. Biblical scholars point to a common source they labeled as "Q." What is lost to us completely is who or what informed this source, this "Quelle".
One of the fallacies that a true Christian reformation must cope with is the concept of the Holy Bible as the inerrant Word of God. I consider this view an "acceptable heresy" within orthodoxy, but a heresy nevertheless. One cannot understand scripture, if one holds this view. It is likely that Jesus didn't say many of the things recorded in any of the Synoptic Gospels exactly as they are written and I am convinced that most of of what he is quoted as saying in the Gospel of John is the theological perspective of its authors put in Jesus's voice. It is also important to understand that scriptural inspiration is not magical or any more mystical than the works of Shakespeare or Mark Twain.
What strikes me as the easiest things for his disciples and followers to have remembered, however, are the stories of what Jesus did and the parables he told. Like jokes and anecdotes, it easier to remember something that connects with us on an emotional or experiential level; something that says a lot with a few words or makes us think. The "sayings" of Jesus are memorable, including, the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John (the point of having Jesus say them). Putting the Gospel of John aside for the moment, I want to take a broad look at the sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.
THE SAYINGS OF JESUS
Jesus is noted as having given two sermons in the Synoptic Gospels; the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Both of these sermons contain similar content and could be considered one basic sermon. What is more likely is that these sermons are a collection of various sayings of Jesus that his disciples recalled and were placed in a sermon format to preserve them.
The Sermon on the Mount is the lengthier of the two collections and may have been expanded on, as I consider the Gospel of Matthew to be a later Gospel than the Gospel of Luke. The author(s) of the Gospel of Luke spreads some of the teachings of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount throughout its narrative, presenting them as dialogues Jesus had with his disciples or with scribes and others who asked him questions. These teachings of Jesus are largely based on the Hebrew Scriptures found in the Torah, the Psalms and the Prophets. Jesus revamps them in a short memorable form. What they largely deal with is how we should understand ourselves, our neighbors, and our religious practices.
The sayings of Jesus expose Jesus to be well educated in the Hebrew Scriptures. What they reveal is a masterful application of his knowledge of the Prophets and the Psalms. What these collection of sayings also expose is Jesus as the reformer he was.
Perhaps describing Jesus as a reformer seems like an attempt to bring Jesus too far down to earth. People don't seem to have a problem with call Jesus a prophet. I suspect that is because the term prophet has a divine, mystical aura around it. The truth is that prophets are and were reformers; especially the minor prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus strikes me as being more of a reformer than a prophet.
The sayings in his sermons utilize the Hebrew Scriptures to form a new script based on seeing life as a gift, both in the natural world around us and in the human world we have created. This is a perspective that has been largely lost to Christianity in the past eighteen hundred years. Jesus was teaching perennial truths found in the Hebrew Scriptures; shaping them in new and meaningful ways and deepening their meanings and application.
For example, if you are to love your neighbor you need to love yourself because if you don't have love for your self, it will be hard for you to love others and almost impossible for them to love you. Jesus, however, expands this foundational teaching found in the Hebrew Scriptures to define one's neighbor as every other human being; including one's enemies. Furthermore, Jesus teaches that one cannot love God without loving what God loves, which is everything that God created, including who we are as individuals.
Where Jesus the reformer comes into plain sight, however, is when he addresses the hypocrisy of the religious establishment of his day. If we are to take Jesus' teachings on hypocrisy seriously, then we must apply them to our own religious establishments within Christianity and ask where the hypocrisy resides, because if it was true in Jesus' experience, it is true in our experiences. Jesus' harshest words are directed at those who are in authority or think they are in control their religion.
All religious institutions, at some point, tend towards legalism and gate keeping. This largely is the result of what I have described as the differentiating paradigm of religion. Jesus had none of that. He didn't attack the religion itself and we need to be careful when talking about reform that we don't confuse Christian institutionalism with basic Christianity.
We also need to understand that in the New Testament, itself, there are sown the seeds of hypocrisy that naturally occur as a religion evolves. These seeds mostly reside in the teaching about Jesus.
THE PARABLES OF JESUS
The parables of Jesus are only found in the Synoptic Gospels and are the finest example of Jesus's teaching method to help people grasp the message of reformation that he was trying to initiate, a reformation aimed at changing perception (of seeing things for what they truly are) and a reformation of the heart (caring about and loving the things that God cares for and loves). These remarkable short stories frequently turn reality as we know and the reality we've created and keep perpetuating upside down. Robert Capon, an Episcopalian priest wrote a series of books on Jesus's parables in which he identified these teachings as "Parables of the Kingdom," "Parables of Grace," and "Parables of Judgment." They provide a good introductory course into what Jesus was addressing in his use of them.
The beauty of these parables is that they offer us characters we can relate to. If there are more than one character like the Story of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, the listener can consider each character as representing a characteristic each of us possess. Some of Jesus' parables may strike us as strange, like a shepherd who leaves his flock to find a stray, a woman who obsesses over a lost coin, an unjust steward who is rewarded for reducing the debts owed his master to find favor with those who owe his master a debt, or the owner of a vineyard who pays the same daily wage to someone who worked for him from sun up to those who showed up as the last hour and only worked a short time. Such parables point to the depth of God's unconditional love and grace for all.
Jesus frequently talks about money or wealth in his parable to illustrate that the value of the things we value possess little value in the eyes of God. Jesus referred to money as unrighteous mammon. Mammon consists of those things that have no intrinsic spiritual value to a person. Unrighteous mammon is simply Jesus' way to underscore this truth. Jesus wasn't against wealth, but was concerned how it was used. What he seems to be mostly against was placing undue value on it; as in treating its acquisition as an end rather than a means.
As Jesus saw it, money was meant to be spent on righteous causes. Hoarding money was anathema to Jesus as illustrated in his parable about a master giving his servants varying amounts of coins while was away. Perhaps one of the best illustrations on Jesus view of money is the story of a woman anointing Jesus's head in the Gospel of Mark with expensive nard ointment, an event recorded in the Gospel John as anointing Jesus's feet that caused Judas Iscariot to criticize Jesus for allowing it to be spent in such a wasteful manner.
Jesus's parables also address religious hypocrisy in the form of treating religious notoriety as being favored by God. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector or the Rich man and Lazarus reveal Jesus as the reformer without having addressing the form of religion or the possession of wealth. Rather, Jesus points out it is how we practice life and worship as a sincere form of humility, of knowing whose we are that matters.
Jesus addresses the core, the heart of who we are and what we are to be about. It is there that true reformation must take place. Perspective is everything when it comes to reformation. How do we approach prayer? How do we understand the material gifts, the personal talents, and the personal abilities we have?
For example, in both the Gospel of Mark and Luke is told the story of Jesus sitting with his disciples near the Temple's treasury are watching people give their money to the temple, how the rich indeed were giving much, but then a poor widow approaches with a small mite and throws it into the treasury. Jesus observes and tells his disciples that this poor widow gave more than the wealthiest because they gave only a portion of what they possessed, but this poor woman gave all that she had. Jesus drew his parabolic teaching method from his observations of life in general. That, in itself, is a teaching Jesus gives us - to be observant; to look beyond that which glitters and notice the ignored and find the parabolic teachings being presented in the daily events of life.
THE CONVERSATIONS OF JESUS
All of the Gospels contain conversations that Jesus had with his disciples, with scribes, with Pharisees, and with the curious. What is important for us is to pay attention to the context in which these conversations take place. It is also important to set aside what one has been taught about these conversations and take them in with fresh eyes and ears.
Most Christians have been taught to see those who are asking questions or entering into conversations with Jesus; in particular, to see the scribes and Pharisees as trying to trick Jesus. In fact, the Gospels themselves will at times provide editorial comments telling us this is what is going on. Don't go there. Try to take the questions seriously, as asked with sincerity. The reason I say this is because if one doesn't take such questions seriously, it tends to taint the answer Jesus' gives as being similarly insincere and containing a touch of cynicism. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus answers questions directly. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tends to answer the questions people should have asked.
For example, in both Mark 10 and Matthew 19 the Pharisees ask Jesus a question about divorce. Both of these Gospels editorialize the intent of the Pharisees in asking this question as test. Perhaps, but they have a biblical ground for asking it; namely, Deuteronomy 24. If they were testing Jesus to see to what extent Jesus knew the law, it would have been a no-brainer for Jesus, but was that their intent? I don't think so. Both the Pharisees and the scribes were interested in legal application. They knew Jesus knew that it was legal to divorce a wife for cause; in fact, Jesus references cause as a reason in his answer, but they seem to be asking a clarifying question regarding the root of the law, which Jesus bases his answer on.
In his answer, Jesus the reformer brings them back to the basics. He quotes Genesis 2 in saying that when a man and a women are joined in marriage they become one flesh; in essence, one person. Jesus's only reason for permitting a divorce is for infidelity. What is interesting in the telling of this story in Mark and Matthew is that there is a slight but very important difference in their versions of what Jesus is telling the Pharisees. In Matthew, Jesus only addresses the fact that only a man was permitted to divorce his wife, but in Mark, Jesus finishes his comments by saying that a wife can divorce her husband for the same cause of infidelity.
I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on that obscure fact; that from Jesus's perspective, infidelity works both ways and he gave women the right to divorce their husbands for cause. In this case, Mark depicts Jesus making a fundamental change in how divorce should be viewed. This would have been perceived as scandalous by most, but neither Mark or Matthew tell us what kind of response the Pharisees had to what Jesus said.
What this conversation does not do, however, is define marriage. Marriage is never defined in scripture. Scripture merely provides legal (in the religious sense) or ethical parameters for the human practice of marriage. In Jesus' day polygamy was widely practiced. There is no one man and one woman definition that can be derived from anything said in scripture. In the New Testament, the closest thing to defining marital parameters as a one man and one woman relationship is in the 1 Timothy 3, a bishop should be married to one wife. This is sometimes defined as being married only once. Jesus, however, never defines marriage but rather answers the questions addressed to him.
Jesus takes a similar approach regarding questions about the end times. He does not bring up the topic; rather, he addresses the topic because it is brought up by his disciples or others. Again, as with marriage, Jesus shows himself to be a reformer. Apocalyptic themes were popular at a time when Judea was under foreign occupation and rule. Those were tough times and people were intrigued by the idea that God would directly intervene and end the persistent state of occupation that Judah encountered ever since its re-establishment as a kingdom.
Jesus turns this theme on its head and takes it beyond the realm of what we would call nationalism today and makes it personal, makes it judgmental; as in, what one does today will have a personal effect on what will occur at the end of time. He brings the whole topic down to present relationships; as in, how we treat others will be the standard of God's judgement. To worry about tomorrow requires that we are concerned with how we treat today.
THE EXAMPLES OF JESUS
Jesus also taught by example. This is perhaps the most important type of teaching. The injunction "Follow me," the invitation given by Jesus to his disciples was meant to do more than drop everything and tag along beside Jesus, but rather became an invitation to emulate Jesus's actions. Jesus reaches out to the fringe of society; to the least, to the ill, to the pariah of his day. Jesus was accessible to whoever approached to a Roman Centurion, a Syro-Phonecian woman, and to little children. Jesus touched the untouchable and was touched by the unclean. Jesus broke Sabbath laws to address the hypocrisy of religious hoop jumping. Jesus accepted the unacceptable of his culture and forgave the unforgivable by his religion. Jesus prayed and taught us to pray by example. Jesus lived life in the light of God as "Our Father," not just his Father. Jesus exemplified what being truly human meant.
Most importantly, Jesus gave of himself until there was no more self to give. Jesus lived into being the Son that God proclaimed to him to be at his baptism. Living into who we are eventually leads to living out who we are, as Jesus exemplified.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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