PARITY IN PARADOX - JESUS' ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE IN THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

In my previous post I posited that the essence of Jesus' teaching is that the Kingdom of God is comprised of all creation and that we humans are the daughters and sons of God. The challenge for Jesus throughout his ministry was to demonstrate how God's Kingdom differed from what his audience was experiencing at the time he was proclaiming its presence.  

Kingdoms are hierarchical. At the top was a king or an emperor.  Kings ruled by word and the sword.  Their words were law and its enforcement the sword. They had armies to carry out the will of the king. Kings had the ability to reward friends and destroy enemies at will.  Such imagery is employed in scriptures to describe God's Kingdom also, including some of Jesus' parables about the kingdom to make a point about the seriousness of what Jesus was talking about, but at the core of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God is something much different than our understanding about the kingdoms in the world of our making.  As the writer of John's Gospel has Jesus perceptively putting it,  the Kingdom of God has nothing to do with the world of our making.  It is a cosmic kingdom that envelopes the whole of creation.

Going back to John the Baptizer, we are not given a full picture of what John taught but we have in the Gospel of Luke a sense of what John was talking about when he was calling people to repent:.

And the people asked him (John), saying, What shall we do (to repent) then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.  Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?  And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.  And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages. [Luke 3:7-14 KJV]

Does this sound familiar?

In this snippet of John's teaching about what he meant by repentance, we see a foreshadowing of what Jesus would follow through with in in his Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 and in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7.  The difference between John and Jesus is how they approached the same message.  For John, doing these things was an act of repentance preparing one for the coming of God's Kingdom; whereas for Jesus, acting in a particular ethical way was participating in the Kingdom of God by living into being the children God intends us to be.  One could  say that Jesus was also calling people to repent by acting in a particular ethical way except that Jesus rarely uses the word. Instead,  Jesus calls us to conduct our lives in a way that reflects the righteousness (the presence) of God in our lives.  For Jesus, the Kingdom of God was to be sought in this life,  "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness..."  and (paraphrasing)  God's Kingdom becomes apparent in our lifetimes. [See Matt. 6]

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The Kingdom of God is reachable within our lifetimes or why else seek something that is not attainable in this life?  Jesus then gives a huge clue as to how this kingdom is realized.  To seek the Kingdom of God is to seek the righteousness of God, a seemingly impossible task, but again Jesus is not teasing his audience with an impossible task, but something attainable.  

Righteousness is term that is thrown around a good deal in religious circles, but what does it mean when our scriptures talk about it?  In particular, what does Jesus mean when he is talking about seeking the righteousness of God?   

If one looks up righteousness in a dictionary, one will find a simple definition like being morally correct, but if one looks at the synonyms one can use to convey righteousness one will encounter twenty or more to choose from.  What struck me in looking through the list of synonyms for righteousness were two words, integrity and justice.  In Godspeak, justice means mercy and integrity means to be true to who we are, to the person God intended one to be - a child of God.

In Luke 6:36, Jesus says righteousness is accomplished by following his dictum, "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." [οἰκτίρμονες in Greek]. Luke associates the righteousness of God with God's compassion and mercy.  In other words, to seek the righteousness of God is to become compassionate and merciful towards all, which is how God enacts justice. 

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What I see in the collections of Jesus' sayings known as the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain is Jesus' ethical perspective of the Kingdom of God.  Ethics and morality are often used interchangeably, but I would like to make a slight distinction between the two terms.  

Jesus' moral compass is set to loving that which God loves - the whole of creation -  and in that love we find parity and paradox.  In human terms this means loving ourselves as the God who brought us to life loves each of us, to love those around us as we love ourselves, to extend that love to those who do not return our love, to love those who we may see as an enemy or who see us as their enemy with that same measure of love, and to love all that God has brought into being, for in doing so we fully love God.  Morality then is to love God in the fullness of loving that which God loves.  Ethics is how we engage and follow Jesus' moral compass.   Jesus demonstrated unconditional love to every person he met and because of his heightened sense of what being moral meant, he was often accused by those who practiced conditional love as being immoral.

Jesus' ethical perspective of God's Kingdom expanded on John's call to repent by meeting the needs of others in sharing one's abundance and not taking advantage or doing harm to our fellow human being, as noted above.  Jesus noticeably never uses the word repentance in any of these sermons.  Instead What Jesus meant the Kingdom of God is at hand is that it is present in the here in now and in his teachings he laid out a plan for realizing the Kingdom of God in one's lifetime.  

Both the writers of Luke's and Matthew's gospels shared a common source for these sayings.  Whereas Luke's account of these sayings is spread throughout his gospel, Matthew's account is a more detailed, direct, and expansive account of Jesus's ethical teachings and perspective of the Kingdom of God  covering three whole chapters.  Luke's presentation of Jesus' ethical teaching on the Kingdom of God are briefly outlined in his Sermon on the Plain, but more fully talked about in his parables which are only found in Luke, like the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.

Both Luke and Matthew present this ethical perspective by starting with defining who makes up and are included in the Kingdom of God in what we know as the Beatitudes.  This list of the blessed is counterintuitive to what the world of our making considers blessed or fortunate.  I can only imagine that when Jesus gave these teachings there were probably those who were listening and who felt blessed enough that might have been scratching their heads, over how are the poor or the hungry blessed?  What blessing can be found in sorrow?   How is anyone blessed when one is hated?  What foolishness is this?   

At the same time there were the poor who would have heard that the kingdom of God belongs to them, the hungry who heard they would be filled, the suffering and sorrowful  who heard they would find happiness and joy, and those who were hated and felt outcast who would find great reward in the Kingdom of God; all whose hearts were filled with hope and gratitude.  In the Kingdom of God paradox and parity abounds where our sense of sight and sound give way to insight and meaning.  Things are not as they appear and understand them to be in the world of our making. In God's eyes all creation is equally good.  

As mentioned above, Jesus brilliantly conveys this sense of ethical paradox and parity through his use of parables not found in the other Synoptic Gospels.   The parable of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are parables that display the ethics of Jesus' redemptive justice.   Redemptive justice is foundational in Jesus' teaching, “Don't judge and you won't be judged. Don't condemn, and you won't be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven." ( Luke 6:37)  Restorative justice differs from redemptive justice in that restorative justice is premised on reconciliation; the willingness of the offender to admit to being the offender, whereas redemptive justice as practiced by Jesus begins with forgiveness that shines a light on who the person is, a child of God who is deeply loved by God and whose embrace breaks the hidden chains that enthrall us.  

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus depicts a man, presumably a Jew who is was brutally beaten up by robbers and left to die.  A priest and a Levite see the man and pass him by, but a Samaritan saw the man and immediately checked on him, treated his wounds and put him on his donkey and took him to an inn where he stayed overnight treating the man and then giving the innkeeper money for his and the wounded man's stay and telling the innkeeper to take care of the man and he would repay him for any costs.  [See Luke 10]

This parable was the result of a question asked by a scribe regarding who is considered one's neighbor and Jesus takes the law regarding one's neighbor beyond one's immediate neighborhood broadens it to a global neighborhood.  The ethics of neighborliness is an ethics of a justice question - what's the right way to treat one's neighbor?  As some would point out, the priest and the levite might have avoided the man because he was bloody and they didn't want to be considered impure because they came in contact with his blood.  That might have been a factor that led them to pass by, but being in a road that was notorious for robbers they might have also considered that the man was a robber himself who probably got what he deserved and therefore they felt justified by leaving him to his just deserts.   

The Samaritan  saw the man's suffering and whether the man deserved it or not did not enter into his calculus.  The injured man could have been robbed because he made a show of his wealth, or was a Jew who "had it coming" because Samaritan and Jews were traditional enemies. The Samaritan could have entertained such thoughts, but he didn't.  He set aside judgment and saw a human being like himself in need of help and so he helps in ways that exceeded any expectations to ensure the man's well-being.  Such an unmitigated act of compassion and kindness goes beyond restoration, it becomes redemptive, and it is resurrectional. 

Then there is the the parable of the Prodigal Son.  This is perhaps the most poignant ethical story in the Holy Bible.  It does not appear to be a story of ethics, but ultimately it is.  It begins with a moral premise in the form of the prodigal son's immoral behavior and what appears to be the father's lack of moral responsibility towards ensuring his son's ability to handle wealth.  What parent would give his obviously immature son his inheritance before his time with absolutely no restriction on how he would use it?  What parent would be so foolish?   Of course, if one thinks about that question as one reads the story, one understands exactly who such a foolish father is, God.

Naturally, this story does not make a whole lot of sense in the world of our making and that is precisely the point Jesus is trying to make in the story because in a very broad sense, the world of our making is exemplified by the prodigal son and his older brother, two different sides of the same coin.  Our attention is initially drawn to the younger son who takes the portion of his inheritance and runs off to live the life of his dreams and so he does until he wakes up in a nightmare of his making. With no skill to fall back on he finds himself taking on the most servile of jobs, slopping pigs and living on the slop he feeds them.  It is a wake up moment that leads him back home to his father, knowing he is unworthy to be his son and willing to be one of his father's servants who his father treated well.  

The story gets interesting when the prodigal son returns to his father and we learn that the father has been on the lookout for him ever since he took off, waiting for this very moment. The father has not been waiting for this moment so that he can rub the fact that his youngest made a mistake, he is waiting to embrace him and tell him how much he is loved and redeems him as his son as the son who was lost but is now found. This father proves to very wise after all, knowing that life experiences are better teachers than anything he could have said that might have made his son resent him.  

Meanwhile his old brother is less than excited about his younger sibling's return. In fact, he is jealous at the extravagant display of his father's love poured out on his younger brother.  He complains to his father, "Why haven't you thrown a party for me like this? I've been loyal to you all along and didn't go out and waste my life like he did."  The father's reply is simple,  "Don't be angry. Your brother was lost and has returned.  That is reason for great joy and you should be happy, besides everything I have is yours.  You lack nothing."

In this story, Jesus sense of God's paradox and parity is on full display.  God loves the seemingly unloveable.   The father loves the son who takes advantage of his goodness and wastes it and he loves the son who doesn't understand his love at all, who feels entitled to being more loved than is his wastrel  younger sibling because he didn't cause waves and stayed close to home.  In the apparent imbalance of the father's reaction to his younger son is found the balance of his love for both his sons.  This is the love of God for all his children.  There is parity in paradox.  

Realizing the Kingdom of God is a matter of engaged ethical behavior that seeks to find parity in the paradox of God's love of all by loving that which God loves.  Ultimately, the knowledge of good and evil that we continue to judge ourselves and others ultimately gives way to the wisdom of God's love for all.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

 

 

 

THE WISDOM FROM ON HIGH - A Homily

I presented this homily on December 19, 2021 at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota.  It is probably one of the shortest homilies I ever gave.

 O come thou wisdom from on high, who orders all things mightily, to us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go.   Amen.

The Gospel according to Luke wonderfully depicts God’s holy wisdom at work in our world.  In Luke’s telling of Jesus’ story; from the moment of his conception to his death, from Mary saying to Gabriel, “Be it unto me as you have said” to Jesus’s dying words, “In to your hands I commend my spirit,” we are shown the pathway of God’s wisdom.

In Luke, this pathway begins with the story of two unexpecting, expectant mothers, Elizabeth, considered incapable of having children and Mary who wasn’t anticipating having a child when Gabriel appeared to her.   Like the parabolic thief in the night, the loving essence of God, God’s Spirit, came into the world of our making, to a remote village in Galilee to overshadow one our world wouldn’t notice; to Mary whose great faith and purity of heart was so favored by God that she was entrusted with bearing the hope of our world in her womb. 

Paradox is a sign of God’s wisdom at work in our world, and Mary’s story presents us with a paradox.  Mary, a child made in the image of God, like us, was chosen to bear in her womb the incarnate love of God made our image; who became one with us by becoming one of us.  As such, Mary became the living ark of God’s new covenant in the person of Jesus, who would show us the path of knowledge; God’s loving wisdom working for us through him.

In today’s Gospel reading, Luke brings the stories of these two expectant mothers full circle in a joyous reunion where Mary praises God with her whole being in the words of the Magnificat.  In it, Mary rejoices at God’s wisdom working within herself and then traces it back through the generations to Abraham; recalling how God chooses to reveal God’s wisdom through those so often ignored; the hungry, the poor, and the vulnerable, and so a humble young girl was chosen to bear God’s son, our brother Jesus, who was, himself, born in a humble stable at Bethlehem. 

 

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Mary is called the Theotokos, the God-bearer.  From this term comes the Western concept of Mary being the Mother of God.  That Mary holds such an exalted title is not surprising.  Having born in her womb the one whose image we bear and the one who bears our image, Mary becomes our Mother also, the new Eve of God’s new creation, which came to fruition in the resurrection of Jesus, the new Adam.  

The story of Mary’s willingness to participate in bringing about God’s new creation presents a model for us who desire to follow the knowledgable path of God’s wisdom; to be in ourselves the humble bearers of God’s love in our world.  With Mary’s story in our hearts and minds, let us open ourselves to the daily visitation of God’s wisdom in the words of the familiar Christmas hymn:

“O holy child of Bethlehem descend to us we pray. Cast out our sins and enter in.  Be born in us today….   O come to us, abide with us our Lord Immanuel.”  Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE ESSENTIAL TEACHING OF JESUS

The Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke offer us the clearest picture of what Jesus actually may have said and taught.  If one would take each of the Gospels separately and take out what they record Jesus as actually saying, one would find that he said very little, given the religion that resulted from his time on earth. The largest collection of Jesus' sayings or teachings, of course, is found in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and his Sermon on the Plain in Luke.  Apart from them, there are Jesus' parables, his teaching stories, which vary in each of the Synoptic Gospels.  Then there are his casual conversations with his disciples, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the people he met.  

There was no stenographer taking notes as Jesus spoke, no scribe sitting nearby scribbling every word down on papyrus as Jesus taught or during every conversation he had.  What we have in the Synoptic Gospels is, at best,  a collection of what people recalled Jesus saying and teaching, which were sifted through by those who wrote the Synoptic Gospels to form the linear story of Jesus ministry from birth to resurrection.   When one adds the Gospel of John to the Synoptic Gospels, a dramatic shift results from the teachings of Jesus to teachings about Jesus.  The result of this shift has placed the teachings of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels on the back burner by having Jesus  answer his "Who-am-I" question with a multitude of "I am" answers in the Gospel of John. 

The Gospel of John and the letters of Paul are what have defined Christianity and the Christian understanding of who Jesus is throughout the centuries of Church history, frequently at the expense of what Jesus taught.  Volumes have been written about Jesus and what being the Son of God means, and while there are a multitude of sermons  and books written on what Jesus taught in the Synoptic Gospels, rarely are these sermons and books written outside of the theological context of Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection.  

The question that crosses one's mind is what was it like to hear these teachings of Jesus without the theological meanings assigned to his birth, death, and resurrection. What would his audience and disciples have heard and what did they make of his teachings at the time he gave them?  

Jesus picks up the prophetic proclamation of John the Baptizer regarding the coming of the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus says the Kingdom of God is at hand, he was talking about something that already is  present, whereas John was talking about preparing for the coming of the Kingdom of God.  In fact, it is the presence (in the present tense) of the Kingdom of God that forms the basis of Jesus teachings.  The challenge for Jesus was how to open people to what, for Jesus, was its pervasive presence when everything about their life experiences said otherwise.  

As Jesus began to consciously live into becoming the son God called him to be, the purpose of God calling him to be his son in whom he was already pleased began to take shape.  Knowing himself to be God's son was not just a personal revelation for Jesus.  To be God's son was to be God's child and if Jesus was a child of God, was not everyone a child of God also?  Weren't the scriptures he knew premised on the idea that every person on the earth is the offspring of God's intimate involvement in shaping and breathing to life our common first parents, Adam and Eve?  

Jesus found his ministry and his role in life as a son of God compelling him to exemplify the presence of God's Kingdom to his Jewish brethren, to help them understand that they too are children of a loving Father, God; that the kingdom of God was more akin to being the family of God here on earth and this kingdom, this family, is present if we only open our eyes to it and live into becoming the children God intended us to be.  Jesus mission becomes a ministry of reclamation and redeeming this lost notion of everyone's worth in the eyes of God. "Consider the birds of the air.  Consider the lilies," Jesus says in Matthew 6.  If God cares for them, how much more does God care for you?  Jesus takes on an apocalyptic role as the Son of Man not to reveal the end time, but to pull back the curtain on the present time and the reality of our worth as the children of God.  This is the essential message of the Kingdom of God. 

When Jesus' biological family became concerned about Jesus going mad and someone approaches him to tell him that his mother and brothers were outside the house he was in, he asks his audience, "Who is my mother and my brother?" He then points to his disciples and those who are listening to him and says, "These are my mother and brothers.  Whoever does God's will (lives into being a child of God) are my sister, brother, and mother." [Mark 3:38]  

Immediately before the story of Jesus' transfiguration, Jesus tells his disciples, "Some are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God." [See Mark 9:1 and Luke 9:27].  Sometimes understood as Jesus talking about the Second Coming, Jesus is simply indicating that the Kingdom of God is present and that those who seek it will find it in doing the will of God.  This is Jesus' understanding of the Kingdom, an understanding that was not shared by his disciples or those who followed him.  Most continued to follow Jesus because they thought he might be the Messiah they were looking for, which as I have mention in my previous post was a disturbing thought for Jesus because it became clear they did not understand him and his ministry.  

Jesus' method of delivering this message of the Kingdom was to demonstrate it.  Jesus touched lepers and those considered unclean, which would have rendered him unclean in the sight of the religious leaders of his day.  The loving and caring touch of a human hand is a potent source of healing.  Faith combined with love is, in itself, one of the best medicines to heal the spirit, mind, and body.  Jesus was a healer, but as the gospels point out, he couldn't heal everyone.  He found it especially hard to heal those from his hometown of Nazareth; those who were skeptical of his preaching and had little faith in someone they thought they knew but no longer recognized.  

Jesus ate with everybody, the rich, the poor, the religious, and people of ill repute, and his reasoning was simple.  Jesus demonstrated to his audience that value of every human being from the smallest child to the foreigner regardless of their gender and position in society.  All of them were his siblings.  All were parented by the same loving God Jesus saw as his Father and the Father of all.    

The Kingdom of God is nothing more and nothing less than the whole creation that sprang from God's desire to be, and this desire to be is experienced in that Love which will not let us go.  Every parable that Jesus gave is rooted in Jesus' concept of the Kingdom of God which Jesus used to reveal the presence of the Kingdom as the basis and foundation of life.  Jesus is depicted in the Synoptic Gospels as being surprised by the commonality of faith among people who did not share his religious upbringing; that faith in a loving power beyond ourselves is the spiritual thread that binds us to one another, a faith the crosses political and religious boundaries, a faith found in a Samaritan leper, a Roman centurion, and a Syro-Phoenecian  woman.

The essential teaching of Jesus is that the Kingdom of God is present, that we and every part of creation is it; that in particular, every human is loved child of God and like Jesus we are called to live into being the children of God that God intends us to be.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

  

 

JESUS , THE RABBI

The Gospels give us scant information about Jesus before his journey to Jordan to be baptized by John the Baptizer, but the information that we do have which is derived from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke give us some clues that Jesus perhaps was more educated and not as impoverished as we have been led to believe.   What I am about to say is pure speculation based on very scant information, but it is speculation that I feel is worth some consideration. 

If we are to understand how Jesus was able to attract a following and debated with Jewish scholars, we need to move beyond the idea that Jesus knew everything simply because he was God's only-begotten son from all eternity.   That idea would not have had any weight with those to whom Jesus was preaching to, but something about Jesus did attract not only the sick and poor, but the scribes (Jewish legal experts) and the Pharisees to Jesus.  Jesus was a human being just like us, and just like us the knowledge that Jesus possessed had been handed down him by those who taught him.  

According to the Gospels, Jesus was frequently called "Rabbi" when addressed by scribes and Pharisees.  The Gospels portray Jesus as being able to read and write, something most of his disciples would not have been able to do.  Reading and writing means that Jesus has some formal education.   After all he was invited to read from the prophet Isaiah at his hometown synagogue.  The leaders of the synagogue knew that he was educated; that he may have been trained, had been in training as a scribe, or even ordained as a rabbi. To suggest that he simply knew how to read and write because he was the Son of God borders on absurdity.  

The term rabbi is often portrayed by Christian preachers as a respectful term given to anyone who was a teacher of some kind.  While there may be some truth in that, the likelihood is that Jesus being recognized as a rabbi is simply due to his being one, as evidenced by the fact that in the Gospels he was addressed  as such throughout his ministry by the scribes and Pharisees who knew him or knew of him.  What also supports this speculation is Jesus' use of parables as a primary teaching tool to engage his audience in thinking about his message.  Storytelling is an art form that most rabbis utilized then and now.  Jesus was a master story-teller.

An educated Jesus begs the question, who his teachers were.   In particular, where did he obtain his particular understanding of the Torah and the Prophets?  

The Synoptic Gospels significantly records that Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum at the start of his prophetic ministry.   Unlike Nazareth which was rather remote, Capernaum was a thriving community that boasted two synagogues and was located on various trade routes.  Capernaum became Jesus' home-base for his prophetic ministry and its attraction may be due to Jesus' familiarity with it.

Having two synagogues, Capernaum was likely an educational center where Jesus could have received  at least some rabbinical training.  Trade routes converged in Capernaum, which exposed its residents to the outside world and new ideas like all cosmopolitan environments.  Jesus choice of living in such an environment lends itself to the notion that Jesus was a seeker of knowledge who was open to the universal and perennial wisdom found throughout the world that can be traced in some of his teachings; as in Luke 11:34 where Jesus talks about the singular eye filling the whole body with light, a concept associated with  the Far East and not found elsewhere in the scriptures.

Regarding Jesus' early education, one is drawn to the intriguing story found in Matthew of Joseph taking his family to Egypt to protect Jesus from King Herod.   While this story is not corroborated by the other Gospels, there is a strong possibility that the story is correct since trouble was brewing in Galilee around the time of Jesus' birth as a zealot by the name of Judas of Gamala who was encouraging people not to pay Roman taxes. There was a significant Jewish population living in Egypt, particularly in the city of Alexandria.  Had Jospeh taken his family to Egypt,  they would have likely settled in Alexandria where there was a notable Jewish community.   

Regarding their return to Galilee, the only information is given that when they heard Herod had died and was replaced by one of his sons they decided to move back.  How long they stayed in Egypt is unknown.  Jesus could have been approaching his teenage years by the time the family returned.  If so,  a young Jesus could have been encountered or have been taught by someone like the Jewish philosopher Philo or one of his students.  Many scholars have noted the similarities between the teachings of these two men. If nothing else, Jesus might have been familiar with Philo's views  or influenced by sages (wise men) who traveled the trade routes from the East passing through Capernaum.

We know from the Gospel of Luke that by the time Jesus was twelve and on the cusp of being declared a son of the law in his bar mitzvah at age thirteen, he was taken to the Temple by his parent.  The Jewish Talmud records a tradition that during the Second Temple period (the time in which this story took place) it was customary for families to take their first born sons to the Temple, particularly on the Feast of Passover, to do their first fast recalling of the 10th plague of the Exodus story in which the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain.  After such a fast, the firstborn son would be taken to the Temple to be blessed by the sages. [See Exodus 13].  Jesus is depicted in Luke as being able to converse with the Temple sages regarding the scriptures during this visit. It is also a story that depicts an inquisitive Jesus capable of being disobedient to his parents by staying in the Temple after his parents headed back home to continue his conversation (his education) with these sages (teachers).  

If Jesus was a rabbi, he appears more drawn to the prophets than to the Torah.  It is not that Jesus was disinterested in the Torah, but rather that Jesus interpreted the Torah through the prophets or with a prophetic vision.  As such, when Jesus took to the road, he did so more as a prophet while maintaining a rabbinical teaching style.  He identifies himself in the Gospels as the Son of Man, the title God conferred on Ezekiel and Daniel.  In doing so he identifies himself as an exemplar, a teacher of a particular way of life.  

Jesus was not teaching something new.  Everything that Jesus taught was a reflection of what can be found in the law and the prophets of the Old Testament.  Jesus was no scriptural literalist, however.  While he honored the scriptures as any practicing Jew does, he stopped short of insisting that the scriptures were the inviolable Word of God; that everything in Scripture had to be taken literally.   For instance, in the collection of Jesus' teachings compiled as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously says, "You've heard and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say...." [See Exodus 21:23 and Matthew 5:38].    He offended the Pharisees by plucking grain from the fields on the and healing someone on the Sabbath, taking to task their rigid, literalist view of the Torah. 

Jesus had an astute knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures that allowed him to argue his perception of the world based on them.   Jesus went a step further than sticking with a rabbinical, open-to-debate style.  Jesus practiced his understanding of the scriptures in order to expose the hypocrisy he saw evident in many of the religious practices of his day.  The Gospels note that the scribes and the Pharisees "marveled" at his assertive teaching style, or to put it the words of Gospels, "as one who spoke with authority, an authority most rabbis wouldn't have attempted to display publicly..

In my next post, I offer an overview of Jesus' message.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm 

 

  

   

JESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES

 As Jesus' fame spread, he attracted a following.  The Gospels describes three types of followers; those who were interested in what he was doing and what he had to say, those who sought healing, and those he personally invited or called to be his disciples.  The Gospels give these callings a mystical hue. Generally speaking,  Jesus simple says to whoever he is calling, "Come, follow me" and they immediately drop what they're doing and start following him.   

There is a tendency within Christianity today to think of any church member as being a disciple of Jesus; a concept derived from Jesus commissioning his disciple to make disciples of all nations at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.  Discipleship is a term that needs to be understood. 

Looking at the time, the place, and the culture in which Jesus called his disciples tells us that Jesus was  a product of the time, place, and culture in which he grew up and lived.  All of Jesus' "called" disciples are men.  Jesus was no misogynist.  He honored women and women were his most ardent followers.  They were the people who didn't abandon him when he was crucified and they were the first people to experience the empty tomb and receive the message that Jesus was resurrected.  They were also directed to "Tell his disciples that he is risen."  What is clear in the Gospels, however, is that these devoted women were not considered disciples at the time the Gospels were written.   

This is admittedly dangerous turf to tread on today.  I'm not saying that women are not worthy to be called disciples, but rather that Jesus apparently did not think of them as such during his ministry and that his not doing so reflects the time, the place, and the culture in which he and the devoted women who followed him lived.  In the patriarchal, male-dominated society  women would have been put at risk if told they were told to preach and heal people.  While Jesus was a product of a patriarchal upbringing, he did not feel bound by it in his personal relationships to women.  He spoke to them in public and allowed them to speak to him in public.  That in itself would raise some men's eyebrows and it indeed did even amongst his disciple's inner circle.    

The fact is we know little about the twelve named disciples he called.  We are familiar with Peter, James, John, Judas and Thomas.  We know Matthew was a tax collector before becoming a disciple.  We know a little about Phillip, but very little else.  We know Peter was married and his brother Andrew was a disciple, but other than that we know virtually nothing of the other six disciples who made up Jesus' core disciples, apart from their names. 

In Luke 10 we are informed that Jesus may have had seventy-two other disciples beside the core twelves disciples we are familiar with.  Who these disciples were is unknown.  What we know is that Jesus is said to have sent them out like he did the twelve disciples to put into practice what he taught them.  In this sense, disciples were more than devoted followers, they were students learning to do what Jesus did and Jesus sends them out as his apprentices to practice what they have learned, some returning with mixed results.  

In the John 6, there is a story that seems adapted from stories in the Synoptic Gospels in which the religious leaders of his community challenge Jesus about his teaching.  In this story Jesus is telling his audience that he is the Bread of Life and that unless people will eat his body and drink his blood they  will not have eternal life in them.  It is at this point that John writes many of Jesus' disciples left him because they felt Jesus had gone too far in comparing himself to bread from heaven and talking about eating human flesh and blood.   Only the core twelve disciples stick with him.  Like many stories in the Gospel of John that reflect events found in the Synoptic Gospels, the premise of disciples leaving because Jesus talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood is spurious and reflects a rationale attributed to Jews, during the time the Gospel of John was written,  for rejecting Christianity. 

Jesus lived in a time in which messianic fervor was high and was viewed with suspicion by both Jewish and Roman authorities. but amongst the general public there was a hope that some day soon the Messiah would defeat the Romans, and reestablish the Kingdom of Israel.  One cannot help but wonder that when John the Baptizer and Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God if people equated it with the reestablishment of a Davidic Kingdom of Israel.  

This thought may have crossed Jesus' mind.   What strongly hints at it is when in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus takes the twelve on a journey outside of  Galilee to ask them, "Who do people say that I am?"  Jesus is wondering if the question that continued to haunt him could be answered by the perceptions of how others saw him.  More importantly, since picking up on John the Baptizer's theme of talking about the Kingdom of God being at hand, was people making a connection between what he was preaching and who he is.

That Jesus waited until he was away from a predominantly Jewish audience to ask his disciples this question underscores the concern Jesus had regarding that question.  The disciples responded by saying some thought  he was a prophet or one of the prophets, or the recently executed John the Baptizer, some even thought he was Elijah, the forerunner to the Messiah, but the disciples had not heard people speak of him as the Messiah.  This may have come as some relief to Jesus because people were not following him for who they thought he was but rather because of what he did and taught regarding the Kingdom of God, which Jesus consistently presented as an antithesis to any kingdom on earth.    

Then Jesus asks his disciples who they thought he was.  This question might have struck them as a bit odd, as somewhat begging for an answer Jesus was looking for.   It's very likely that Peter thought he knew the answer that Jesus was looking for: "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God." Apart from Matthew's telling of this story, Mark's and Luke's description of Jesus' reaction to Peter's answer comes across as something Jesus was less than excited about because he quickly warns them to tell no one.  

Theologically, this story poses a quandary because if Jesus believed he was the Messiah why didn't he want people to know.  None of the Synoptic Gospels attempt to explain Jesus' reticence in taking on this title or why he didn't want his disciples talking about it.  We don't have a straight answer for that unspoken question.  Theologians can come up with reasons why he didn't want that information out there, but these Gospels don't offer one.  It is only in the theological Gospel of John that Jesus has no qualms about Jesus being the Messiah because by the time the Gospel of John was written, Christians claimed Jesus to be the Messiah.  

In all three Synoptic Gospel accounts, it is after Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah that Jesus begins talking about his death.  Theologically speaking, Jesus talking about his death is presented as an indication of the  sort of messiah Jesus is.  Pragmatically speaking, Jesus is simply  reminding his disciples what happens to those who claim to be a messiah, which is to say that those with messianic aspirations will end up being crucified by the Romans.  There is no mystery about that.  It had happened before and it would likely happen again.  In other words, Jesus is saying if he is perceived to be the Messiah that Peter claims him to be, he will be seen as a threat and end up being crucified.

While the Synoptic Gospels do not have Jesus clearly denying that he is the Messiah, it becomes evident that he is not the Messiah that his audience and his disciples were waiting for.  Peter was ready for a fight.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, James and John approached Jesus with a request that one of them sit on his right hand and the other on his left hand once Jesus' kingdom is established, which infuriated the other disciples. The Gospel of John tackles the issues of Judas' betrayal by portraying Judas as being disenchanted with Jesus' lack-luster commitment to the here and now concerns of the poor as evidenced by Jesus allowing a woman to anoint his feet with expensive oil. 

All of the Gospels tend to portray Jesus' core disciples as having difficulty understanding what Jesus was saying about the Kingdom of God.  It isn't that they were ignorant about what he was saying, but more likely, that the difficulty they had in "understanding" Jesus was due to the time, place, and situation that they found themselves in.  If they were trying to see in Jesus the Messiah that they wanted to see, they had difficulty in seeing that Messiah from what Jesus was saying. 

That Jesus healed illnesses and did things that challenged the religious authorities of the time was something they could see the Messiah doing, but his teachings did not contain the rhetoric they expected the Messiah they are looking would use.  It was not that they didn't understand Jesus' parables as much as it was trying to filter from them something concrete to rally the troops around; the troops they suspected Jesus would need if he was to take on the Romans and cleanse the Temple of what they saw as a paid off priestly cast doing the bidding of Rome.  

It isn't until after Jesus' crucifixion and the disciples' resurrection experience of Jesus that their understanding of Jesus undergoes a profound change and his message about the Kingdom of God finally begins to sink in.  It is after Jesus' physical departure that the followers of Jesus experienced a spiritual awakening in which the teachings of Jesus enlivened and emboldened them.  In time, the Kingdom of God that Jesus had talked about became more vivid and took on cosmic proportions than the reestablished Davidic Kingdom of Israel they had once hoped for.  As such, the teachings of Jesus that they found difficult to accept before Jesus' death would propel them to proclaim the good news of the emergence of God's Kingdom throughout the world. 

My next post will examine the teachings of Jesus.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm   

  

 

  

JESUS, THE SON OF MAN

SON OF MAN

בֶּן־ אָדָם֙

SON OF THE EARTH

"Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked.  “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?  Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him.  But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith." Matthew 13:54-58 KJV

In this post, we turn from Jesus' "Who-am-I" question to the question people in his hometown of Nazareth were asking.   Who is this person? Where did his get his wisdom and miraculous powers?  Isn't this the carpenter's son?  Isn't his mother's name, Mary and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?  Aren't all his sisters with us?  When and where  did this man get all this information and the ability to heal? 

These are indeed good questions and they reveal something about Jesus that we indoctrinated Christians tend to dismiss:  Few if anyone in his hometown really knew who Jesus was as a person.  It's as if they even forgot his name.  He's not recognizable because they apparently could not remember anything about him growing up. They associate him with Jospeh's occupation, a carpenter - perhaps referencing an early memory of Jesus helping Joseph out.  They know the name of his mother and his brothers and the fact that he as a number of sisters living in their community, but they are unable to remember his name or unwilling to say it.  There is a strong lack of familiarity surrounding Jesus amongst the people who should have known him as one of their own.   

The encounter with his hometown people is suggestive.  There apparently was nothing impressive about Jesus growing up that stuck in their minds.  Did Jesus leave his hometown at the earliest time he could and live elsewhere, to study with some biblical scholars or rabbis, perhaps?  That he knew the scriptures as well as he did also rendered his home town folk unable to recognize him, as if to say that no one from their community would have been able to give him that sort of instruction or knowledge.  His fame as a miracle worker was known to them but, if anything, that made him more unrecognizable.  In fact they appear suspicious of him.  "What had he been up to?  Where had he been since they last saw him?" 

Jesus response to their bewilderment is revealing.  "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home." 

Jesus had changed.  He had taken on the role and the identity of prophet. 

Even in Jesus' day prophets were something to be wary of.  The implication is that the people of Nazareth were so wary of him that Jesus could not do many miracles because of their lack of faith.  

I chose this particular story about Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark because it gives us window into how Jesus' contemporaries; particularly, those he grew up around perceived him.  There is nothing remarkable about Jesus in the minds of those who knew him prior to his entry into his ministry.  His wilderness journey in which he struggled with being called a son of God in a vision was transformative and transfiguring to the point people who should have easily recognized him couldn't or refused to do so. 

In this passage, however, we find an answer to Jesus' question, "Who am I?"   In this passage Jesus clearly identifies himself as a prophet.  Prophets could also be understood as sons of God, although a prophet would never usurp that understanding to promote oneself.  Any outright claim to being God's son would have been met with outrage.   Instead Jesus chooses an ancient prophetic title, "Son of Man."  

Only two prophet were called son of man.  Ezekiel was regularly addressed by God as son of man  (96 times).  What I found disturbing is that in researching this term, some English translations translate the original Hebrew בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (ben adam) as "mortal" instead of "son of Adam" or "son of man" or "son of the soil."  I understand the temptation to do so because we humans are mortal, but it misses the etiological meaning of ben adam.

It's important to understand the etiology of this term "Son of Man" in order to get at what Jesus meant by applying it to himself.  The etiology of the English word man or human is also linked to the idea of humus or earth, which renders a good translation  בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (ben adam) as "son of the earth."  It is worth keeping that definition of  in the back of our minds while discussing Jesus as the son of man.  

Another term that is translated as "son of man" is found in the Aramaic phrass in Daniel 7:13 "like the son of man," כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ [ kebar enawsh].   כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ connotes in Daniel's vision someone "like" the son of mankind appeared to him.  In Daniel 8:17 God calls Daniel in Hebrew  בֶּן־ אָדָם֙ (son of Adam, son of man, or son of the earth) rather than the Aramaic בַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ (son of mankind).  

It is likely that the term son of Mankind ( כְּבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ  the eschatological figure described in Daniel 7:13 influenced an understanding of Jesus as the "son of man" the eschatological term since it was found in Aramaic in Daniel, the language of Jesus.  Jesus could have used the Aramaic בַ֥ר אָדָם֙ [bar adam (son of Adam, son of man, or son of the earth) just as easily.  

The New Testament Gospels we have come from Koine Greek.  As such, they translated בַ֥ר אָדָם֙ orבַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ as ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου, the son of man.  There is some argument that the Hebrew or Aramaic translation of son of man found Ezekiel and Daniel is missing the definite article that preceds  the Greek use of this term in the New Testament.  As such the argurment is that lacking a definite article when using this term in the Hebrew and Aramaic texts there is no connection between Jesus' use of this term and its use in Ezekiel and Daniel. There is a simple reason, however, for this.   In Daniel and Ezekiel the term lacks the definite article because it is a term God uses to address Ezekiel and Daniel.  In the New Testament Gospels,  Jesus applies this term to himself; frequently using it as a third person reference to himself. 

It is likely Jesus used this term in much the way God identified both Ezekiel and Daniel.  It is literally a humble title, given its connection to earth from which the human soul is made of. (See Genesis 2:7 and my Reflection on Agape and Nefesh).  What is clear from Jesus' use of this term is that Jesus understood himself to be a prophet.

Why Jesus chose "Son of Man" as a reference to himself is precisely due to its revelatory connotation.  Jesus was interpreting or revealing the signs of his time to the people of his time.  If there is a prophet Jesus was channeling during his ministry, it would have been Ezekiel.   

Ezekiel prophesied to Jews exiled in Babylonia, giving them hope that God would restore their land to them.   As were many people living within the Roman Empire, the Jews living in Judea and Galilee became exiles in their own land.  It was to these exiles in place that Jesus became their exemplar, God' messenger offering them hope and a way through the trials they were experiencing.   

Jesus didn't engage in bizarre behavior like Ezekiel.  He would, however, engage in behaviors and story-telling that challenged those following him and, in particular, the religious authorities who challenged him in return.  Jesus touched untouchables.  He partied with questionable characters.  He broke Sabbath laws with aplomb.  By doing so he drew attention to himself as the Son of Man, their and our exemplar, in order to draw attention to what we are doing to ourselves.  Jesus became the exemplar of what it means to be human; that is, to be created in the image of God and to be a child of God.

As our exemplar, Jesus also cryptically applied "the Son of Man" to mean all of us.  There are two examples of this in the Synoptic Gospels.   The first is found in the Gospel of Mark 2:1-12.  

This is the story of Jesus healing a paralytic.  Jesus returns home to Capernaum and his fame as a healer and prophet has spread throughout the area.  A paralyzed man is brought to him on a mat and lowered through the roof of the place where Jesus was preaching to be healed by Jesus.  Jesus is impressed by their faith.  

Jesus uses this event as a teaching moment.  Infirmity of any sort was largely considered a punishment for some sin either committed by the person or a member of the person's family.  For someone to be blind, crippled, or paralyzed from birth cast suspicion of sin and guilt upon the person's family; in that, someone had sinned and the person's infirmities exposed it as God's punishment of it.  

In this case, the man's palsy or paralysis was attributed to something the man had done. It is quite obvious that in many of these situations, the afflicted might be left wondering, what sin did I commit that would result in such a punishment.  In this story, Jesus' response to this man is, "Son your sins are forgiven."  Note that Jesus calls him "Son."  There is really only one way for a Jew of Jesus' day to interpret the meaning of "son" in this context, which is that he was a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; a member of the  tribe of Judah. Jesus immediately identifies this man as his sibling and a sibling  to everyone in the room.  

Jesus' declaration that the man's sins were forgiven must have raised some eyebrows on the faces of the the religious leaders who were present.  Jesus picks up on their questioning looks and confronts them with, " Is it is easier to say to this man your sins are forgiven or to say take up your mat and walk."  Without waiting for a reply Jesus said, "So that you know the son of man has power to forgive sins on earth,'  Jesus then turns to the man and says, "Take up your mat and walk home."   

"That you may know the son of man has power to forgive sins on earth" is Jesus' way of saying to everyone in the room, "You have the power to forgive sins" and by doing so telling them they can heal the many ills they are afflicted with and can refrain from attributing sin to every ill that comes their way.  

The other story in the Synoptic Gospels that gives strong credence that Jesus' use of  'son of man" was applied to mean every human comes on the heels of the paralytic story in Mark 2:23-28 and is also found in the other two Gospels of Matthew 12:1-7  and Luke 6:1-6.   What differentiates the account of this story in Matthew and Luke from the account given in Mark is Jesus' revealing statement of using the term son of man to mean all of humanity.  Matthew's and Luke's version follows that of Marks until the last two sentences in Mark.   Here is Marks account from the King James Version:

"And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.  And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?  And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?  How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?  And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:  Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."

As our exemplar, Jesus is properly understood as the Son of Man, a man with a clear prophetic vision of the ignored obvious.  By the time the Gospels of Luke and Matthew were written, we can see that the notion of the "son of man" being used by Jesus to indicated his role as our exemplar and a prophet became something more than Mark's understanding of that term.  "Son of Man" became an exclusive title ascribed to Jesus, as the eschatological figure described in Daniel and in the Book of Revelation.

Mark being the earliest Gospel account of Jesus' life and ministry has value in that it shows Jesus use of that term having a purely human connotation.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

JESUS' JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS

The story of Jesus' journey into the wilderness after his baptism by John the Baptizer is foundational to the whole story of Jesus.  That journey was transformative for Jesus.  It is what I have described in other posts as a pause in Jesus' life that would transfigure his perception of himself and the world in which he found himself.  In this series of posts on humanity of Jesus,  I am attempting to offer an understanding of Jesus' life  story from a strictly human point of view.  I feel the importance of doing so is that over the centuries we have lost sight of and lost touch with Jesus being a person just like us.

What is portrayed as a demonic voice or visions in Jesus' wilderness experience  I am purposely portraying as interior conversations. This is not to discredit the Gospels or the understandings of their presentation, but rather to orient our understanding of them in human terms.  The very human Jesus of Nazareth has much to teach us about ourselves and our life journeys if we avoid distancing him as being something other than one of us.

Like us, Jesus experienced both right and wrong in his life. Contrary to what some of the New Testament writers would have us believe about Jesus, he wasn't, in human terms, perfect.  He was not only subject to sin but he perceived himself a sinner as, most notably, he was one of many who heeded John the Baptizer's call to repent and prepare for the kingdom of God.  It was heeding that call which led Jesus to experience a vision as he emerged from the water of his baptism in the Jordan river, a vision in which he was told that he was God's son, in whom God was well-pleased.   

We can only imagine the sense of awe, if not panic, Jesus was likely to have experienced.  What did this mean?  Was it real?  Inevitably it would lead to the question that haunted Jesus throughout his ministry, a question hopelessly expressed on the cross in those painful words,  'My God, my God why have you forsaken me?  When Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan he found himself on a journey of discovery that began with the most fundamental question most of us have or will face in our lifetimes:

WHO AM I?

That spirit driven question drove Jesus into the wilderness seeking an answer to what it meant to be declared God's son.  The destination of the wilderness is more than a geographical place.  It implies a state of mind.    

In strictly human terms, Jesus likely questioned his sanity.  He questioned the voice of God declaring him to be God's son and finds that he can't get it out of his head or get rid of the gut wrenching feeling it caused him to have.   The Synoptic Gospels do not depict Jesus questioning that vision in any direct manner.  They do so rather indirectly by introducing another voice into the narrative, that of the devil or Satan.

We are led to believe in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' journey into the wilderness that God wanted to test Jesus without giving us a specific reason for God wanting to do so, as if God wanted to see if he would stand up against the temptations that would be coming his way.  Perhaps the wilderness journey was needed to temper Jesus' expectations of what he was going to face in his ministry through a series of trials. We can't read God's mind, but from a human point of view, we can understand Jesus needing to find an answer to the meaning of God calling him son.  

Questions that crossed Jesus might have sounded like these:  "Is  God calling me  to be the Messiah that everyone was looking for?  Am I the one who would re-establish the Kingdom of God on earth?  If so, why me?  What is so special about me?  Why is God pleased me above all the others who gathered at the Jordan?"  

In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew Jesus is presented with three  temptations.  The Gospel of Matthew has Jesus initially presented with two temptations specifically aimed at answering the question, "Are you really God's son?"   They come in the form of turning stones into bread and testing to see if God would send his angels to protect Jesus should he jump from the highest pinnacle of the Temple.  In other words,  "If you're the 'Son of God.' Prove it."  

If Jesus had wanted to know if he truly was God's specifically declared Son, all he would have had to do was follow through with any one of them.  Had he turned stone into bread or experienced angels saving him from harm after jumping from the Temple highest pinnacle, he would have had all the proof he needed.  Jesus would have proven himself to be some potential super hero with super powers, but Jesus didn't take the bait and we are left wondering why?  A clue to that is found in the reasons Jesus called to mind, "Man does not live by bread alone" and "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."  

As enticing as these temptations were, it would appear that Jesus figured out that proving that he had super powers would have not answered the most fundamental question that brought him to the wilderness.   The question as to who he was would have remained.  

What strongly supports this assumption is the final temptation according to Matthew.  Playing on the prospect of Jesus' doubts and fears as to where God was leading him, Matthew depicts the devil taking a different approach and offers Jesus a familiar, more sure-fire temptation.  Paraphrasing Matthew's account;

Then Jesus heard a voice.  "You seem to be afraid of proving whether you're who God says you are.  Perhaps you're afraid of God or you really don't think you're the Son of God, which of course leaves you nowhere but in this wilderness of doubt.  You still seem so uncertain about yourself.  Nothing is more annoying than that nagging feeling of uncertainty.  I can fix that. 

I suspect you are torn about this whole son of God thing because you would really like that to mean you are, at some level, God.  Do you want to be like God?  I know this has crossed your mind.  The urge to exercise God-like power is there.  I can sense it.  

You can... you know.... be a god.  Just look around this wilderness.  Just look at the mental anguish this whole son of God thing is causing you.  Why labor for an ambiguous kingdom that has yet to take shape (and probably never will) when you can have your own kingdom on earth, right here, right now. 

I know you want to do good.  Think of all the good you could do if someone good like you ruled the world.

You know I can make that happen.  I have the ability to grant you that.  You can rule the world if you acknowledge me as your father.  Make me your God and I will make you a god on earth.  Can I have an Amen to that?"  

As alluring as this proposition was, Jesus resists the temptation to temporal power.  On the surface these temptations as described in Matthew and Luke probably don't seem so tempting to us.   After all, we did not experience the vision that Jesus did.   We know we can't make bread out of stones or leap from a tall building expecting to be saved by God's angels.  We know how ridiculous it is to think that anyone of us could rule the world with god-like powers if we worshipped Satan or some demonic presence, but Jesus struggled with such demonic thoughts.  Unlike Jesus, we don't live in a world were a majority of people thought it possible for mortals, on rare occasion, to acquire god-like powers like those attributed to emperor of Rome, who he could possibly through some demonic manipulation have replaced.   

Each of these three temptations appear aimed at general human needs; the need for sustenance, assurance, and empowerment.  One could spend some time delving into each these, but the point of Jesus' refusal to take the bait on being certain as to what it meant to have been identified as the son of God was to let go of the need for certainty in order to move on with his life and ministry.  

In resisting the lure of these temptations, Jesus proved to himself what Abraham proved throughout his life; his faithfulness to God and his trust in God's faithfulness. Like Abraham, Jesus comes to understand through this trial that he didn't need to know for certain where God was leading him, but rather to accept that faith in God alone is sufficient for sustenance, assurance, and empowerment he was seeking; the same faith that led him to the Jordan, the faith that led him into the wilderness, and the faith that would lead him to where God willed him to be.  

Jesus didn't receive a direct answer to the question,"Who am I?"  Jesus found his desire to know quelled; to be content with the ambiguity and uncertainty of being declared God's beloved son.  That question of who Jesus was would morph into a life-long journey of discovery that could could only be answered by Jesus living into into becoming the son God called him to be.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus refrains from ever referring to himself as the son of God, let alone the capital "S" Son of God.  He never refers to himself as a messiah.  Instead, Jesus chose a different identity as he enters his ministry, a human identity by referring to himself as the "Son of Man." 

In my next post, we will take a closer look at Jesus' choice of this identity.

Until next time, stay faithful 

 

JESUS' JOURNEY TO THE JORDAN RIVER

Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph and Mary was and remains a human being, just like his parents, just like his brothers and sisters, and just like us.  In fact, Jesus' teachings demonstrates a humanity that is derived from his experience as a human and an observer of humanity during the time in which he lived. 

If Christianity is to experience a Copernican revolution, it must be oriented to the fact that Jesus is purely and simply one of us, a human being, nothing more and nothing less.  It is important to set aside the notion of Jesus as the Christ or as a messiah in order to see the man for who he truly is, a human. 

It is important for us to embrace the fact that Jesus came into the world just like us, a baby brought about by a sexual relationship between his parents Joseph and Mary, and that he left this world just like we will and everyone else before us has, he died.  Jesus is solely a human.   

Saying this  may strike one as an attempt to denigrate Jesus, to lower his importance, to dethrone him, as it were, from the right hand of God the Father. 

On the contrary, my saying this is to protect his integrity as a human, as one of us;  to guard his human-ness, his humanity against the religious excesses of making him into something he wasn't and isn't, as a means to underscore his unique understanding of the human condition and highlight the teachings he offered the people of his day and the people of every age on how to get through the chaos we create and continue to perpetuate.  

It is essential to protect Jesus human' nature against the divination that came into being after his death which has largely dispensed with or relinquished his teachings, the very heart and soul of his gospel message.  It is through the life of Jesus that we understand what it is to be human and the potential goodness embedded in being the human God created us and intends us to be.

Having already addressed Jesus' crucifixion, the story of his resurrection, and introducing the concept of original grace into the conversation in my last three posts, it is important to take a fresh look at Jesus' life and more importantly to review his life's work and ministry with fresh, unbiased eyes.

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Jesus' personal history is spotty at best.  The only linear history we have of Jesus' life comes from the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Luke, and Matthew. There are no other outside sources close to the time Jesus lived in Palestine that can be used to corroborate their stories or refute them, even though they disagree with each other over specific events and the descriptions of their occurrences.   

What these three gospels agree on is that Jesus' ministry begins at his baptism by John the Baptizer in the Jordan River after which he experienced a vision in which he saw the Spirit of God descending "like" a dove and hearing the words, "You are my beloved, my son, in whom I am well-please."  That experience is the agreed starting point of Jesus' story.  

That Jesus may have been born in Bethlehem, that his family may have spent time in Egypt, and that he was taken to the Temple when he was twelve are possibilities.  The stories surrounding such events, however, are speculative or have been given interpretive meanings.  We must set such speculative interpretations aside because they immediately depict Jesus as someone other than a normal human being. 

Given the polytheistic mindset of people living around the Mediterranean in the first century of the Common Era, the divine nature of Jesus was considered possible, if not plausible.  One only has to study the various opinions and debates about Jesus' nature in the three centuries that followed his time on earth to understand the weird compromised conclusion of the Council of Nicea that Jesus was both "True Man" and "True God."  

The purpose of this post is to set aside speculations and the compromising position Jesus was put in by various Church councils.  Even in our modern and secular mindset, we know that a divine nature ascribed to Jesus would outweigh his human nature.  Even should no one believe in this dualistic nature of ascribed to Jesus, they would understand that divinity is weightier than a human.  We only have to look at the Gospel of John and the Epistles to establish that fact.   In this and the posts that will follow, we will look at Jesus' story from the perspective of his being nothing more and nothing less than one of us, a human being.

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The question that is never satisfactorily answered in the Synoptic Gospels is why Jesus took it upon himself to seek baptism by John in the Jordan River.  The answer these gospels default to is the usual one of his doing something in order to fulfill the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament.  If one gives that proposition serious consideration, it becomes clear that it is a very weak explanation for why Jesus did or didn't do anything.  The gospel writers read back into Jesus' life experiences a prophetic identity that  negates any human explanation why Jesus did what he did or didn't do at times.  This is not to say that Jesus wasn't influenced by the prophets, but rather to say he didn't do things simply to "fulfill" a prophetic identity or purpose.

If we remove the explanations of Jesus fulfilling the scriptures, we are left to seek a human reason that would have prompted Jesus to go to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  Then the obvious answer is he was doing what everyone else was doing by going to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  Like everyone else trekking to the Jordan, he was seeking a life changing experience that would prepare him for the emergence of God's kingdom on earth that John was proclaiming.  That Jesus was heeding John's call to repent reveals how Jesus viewed himself prior to doing so.  

The reason why Jesus came to the Jordan River was because he saw himself as a sinner in need of repentance in order to prepare himself for this coming kingdom.  This of course flies in the face of a theology premised on Jesus being sinless, as some of the epistles claim.  Given the premise of why others were trekking to the Jordan, however, one can sufficiently conclude that Jesus was taking a journey to Jordan for the same reasons others were doing so.

Jesus didn't see himself as sinless or possessing some immunity from sinning or the effects of sin.  

We followers of Jesus need to stop there and let that understanding of Jesus sink in.  We don't need to speculate as to what kind of sins he might have committed that led him to the Jordan.  We only need to know that he felt sinful and in need of repentance in order to do so.  Why else would Jesus publicly seek and display repentance of his sinfulness to those who were also gathered at the Jordan to be baptized?  Jesus was there as a contrite penitent, offering himself for service in God's kingdom for whatever role God would prepare him for in that emerging kingdom.  What we can assume is that Jesus had no idea what this event would lead to.

While one can only speculate what was going through Jesus' mind when he entered the Jordan River to be baptized, we are told that upon emerging from that experience he saw his relationship with God in a totally new light.  He has a vision that changed his perception of God; a vision that begins to change his perception of the world, a vision in which he hears God's call to be the child God intended him to be.  He hears the voice of God calling him his beloved, his son, in whom God is very pleased with.  In Mark's and Matthew's Gospels, it is clear that only Jesus hears this voice.  Luke leaves it open as to whether others heard it.  

Given what happens next, we know that this experience was disturbing and overwhelming for him; so much so, that it would drive him into the wilderness.  Jesus had to flee the environment he was in, to be alone in order to ponder a question that would haunt him throughout his ministry, "Who am I?" 

In my next post we will take a look into Jesus' journey into the wilderness and his struggle with that question.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm 

  

  

ORIGINAL GRACE

If Christianity is to experience a Copernican revolution, it must start by looking at the beginning of the human story as recorded in its scriptures. Christianity is largely centered on the idea that humanity is drowning in sin as a result of our first parents disobeying God's command to avoid eating from the tree of knowledge in order to be like God, knowing both good and evil.  

Both the Creation and the Fall from Grace myths are important in understanding human anguish as a byproduct of a pursuit to become gods unto ourselves; that is, to be more than who we are which has resulted in our proclivity towards selfishness, to be less than what God intended us to be.  Selfishness is the essence of sin, which is the cause of our perpetuating the collective state of anguish traced throughout human history.  The Fall from Grace myth, however, can only be understood against the backdrop of God's original grace, the creative and redemptive principle seen throughout the human story described in Scriptures.  

Grace is what brought us into being and it is to grace we will return, as the well-known hymn "Amazing grace" proclaims.  Grace is the alpha and omega of creation, the signet ring of God.  

None of us asked to be alive, yet alone asked to be alive at this particular time and place. None of us had a personal say in our being.  We may think our parents did, but then again, they didn't have any say in their being and so on throughout the generations leading up to us.  That we exist is simply a matter of grace.  The conditions under which we exist or were brought into this world, however, is or can be an entirely different matter.

It is from the writings of the apostle Paul and later from Augustine and others that the doctrine of original sin has been garnered; that sin has been passed down to us like some spiritual genetic code inherited from our parents going back to the time of our mythical first parents, Adam and Eve. The doctrine of original sin has dictated that unless we are saved from our sins, we will be eternally doomed because of them.  It is the premise, the backdrop, upon which Jesus' story is largely understood; that his sole purpose for existence was to pay the price of our sins so that those who "believe" in this version of his story will be saved from eternal damnation and be rewarded with a blissful life throughout eternity.

As demonstrated in the last two posts, there is another way of understanding Jesus' story.  What makes Jesus such a remarkable person is his insight into human nature at a time and in a place experiencing great anguish.  He did not see sin as something that dooms us to eternal damnation but rather he saw sin as something being perpetuated in the here and now, a rock we heap on others and ourselves which immobilizes us from participating in the God's creative and restoring grace.  

Sin does not doom us to eternal damnation.  Sin distorts the present, turning it into a living hell of our own making, a rock we heap upon ourselves and others;  a rock that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for ourselves and others to crawl out from under.   It begs the question Jesus was trying to get people to ask themselves in his own day,  "Why do we insist on beating ourselves and each other up?" "Why do we insist on throwing stones?"

Perhaps the most damaging teaching found within Christianity is the doctrine of original sin.  It prevents those who desire to follow Jesus to freely and fully do so.  It has turned Jesus into a paragon of perfection that none of us are able to emulate or fully follow, because none of us are or can be the true God and true Man Jesus is defined as being in our ancient creeds and alluded to as being in some of the epistles of the New Testament.  The doctrine of original sin has turned Jesus into a god to be worshiped instead of a son of God, a very human brother, who taught that we, like him, are children of God, his siblings created by the same grace that brought him into being and the grace that enables us to accomplish what he has done. 

"Go and do likewise" is the essence and at the heart of Jesus' gospel message.  Why?  Because it will liberate us from the rocks we heap upon ourselves and one another.  It will help restore us to God's original intent and allow us to rewrite our stories, our collective history, in the light of God's original grace.   It is through Jesus' teachings and the examples that we, with the help of God, can save humanity from self-destruction, a paradigm premised on acting from the perspective of grace and the potential it holds rather than a perspective that defines this life as doomed to abject failure and sinfulness.  

In case we think humility is best accomplished by acknowledging our sinful nature, the totality of scripture suggests the opposite; that humility is a byproduct of recognizing our existence as dependent on and a result of God's grace. 

Original grace needs to replace the doomed perspective of original sin which perpetuates the idea that hope for renewal and restoration can only be realized in a "next" life.  Like this life, the next life is in God's hands, but the conditions of this life weigh heavily in our hands because we are responsible for them and by God's grace we can do something about them.  God works through and with whatever we offer God.  We can within the framework of God's grace work toward realizing God's ever-present grace in the life we are now living into by following Jesus' example and embrace God's original grace that creation proclaims.  In grace, we can make this a better world for ourselves and our posterity.

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm 

 

 

JESUS AND RESURRECTION

The story of Jesus' resurrection is a direct outcome of Jesus' crucifixion.  There would be no resurrection without the crucifixion story in which Jesus forgives those who crucified him and by extension the whole  of humanity ("forgive them for they do not know what they are doing"); ergo, the first creed of the Christianity is somewhat erroneously expressed by Paul as, "Christ died for all."  Paul should have said, "Christ forgave all."  Jesus "dying" for all is about sacrifice.  Jesus "forgiving" all is about mercy and is life-giving, which forms the basis of Jesus' resurrection.  

As mentioned in my last post, Jesus was not all that keen on sacrifice, but he was on mercy.  Jesus subscribed to the idea that God did not want sacrifice, but rather acts of mercy, which are acts of grace, and grace does not come with a price tag attached to it.  Resurrection is an experience that results from mercy; being concerned and making room for the other - emptying one's self to make room for the SELF we share and the BEING-NESS of God we express.  

No one can explain the resurrection story of Jesus in factual terms. It really is beyond comprehension and while the Gospels try to make it a tangible historical event (occurring at a certain time and place), after two thousand years the story of Jesus' resurrection takes on a mythic hue that conveys a universal truth about the grace and mercy of God.  What makes the incredible resurrection of Jesus credible is that resurrection is something we can experience in the here and now.  People who engage in kenosis, the letting go of self as mercy (not sacrifice) to make room for the other; to be compassionate and loving as Jesus was compassionate and loving find themselves being resurrected while resurrecting others.  

The stories in the Gospel in which Jesus raised someone considered dead is about Jesus demonstrating mercy.  Jesus has mercy on the mother in Nain whose son had died and raises him.  Jesus has mercy on Jarius whose daughter was perceived to be dead and raises her up.  In John's Gospel, Jesus has mercy on Mary and Martha and raises their brother Lazarus from the dead.  Every healing story of Jesus involves resurrection, someone released from some form of death-like imprisonment, blindness, lameness, convulsive disorders, madness (possession), leprosy or social isolation and is raised to new life as an act of mercy (loving-kindness) and grace.  

Jesus' parables about the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan are resurrection stories based on mercy and grace (not sacrifice).  There was no ritual price being paid.

Jesus ended his life by fully living into his sonship of God by demonstrating the ultimate act of mercy in forgiving those who were torturing him to death.  Jesus did not fight death in order to live, rather in mercy he laid down his life in a final act of mercy, so that others might live and do likewise.  Having done so, God raised Jesus up to a new life, a new type of life; one that we cannot comprehend   To be honest, Jesus' compassion, mercy, and grace is a tough act to follow, but there are those who do - those who put their own self-interests aside in order to redeem and save others.   This requires an inner strength, a resolve that understands the fulfillment of one's life-journey is ultimately connected to the life-journey of all of God's children - all of God's creation. 

The truth of Jesus' resurrection is not revealed in its being treated as a factual event which occurred some two thousand years ago, but rather that Jesus' resurrection involves an ongoing process in which all are involved and expressed in terms of the Risen and the Rising Christ. The resurrection story of Jesus serves as a reset of creation's compass, a re-orientation to the original intent of God's creative purpose.  As such, the stories of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were recorded to serve as humanity's North Star; that what is true about and for Jesus is true about and for us; that in Jesus' story we are reintroduced to who we are and the purpose of each life is being lived into. 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

JESUS AND SACRIFICE

This post is a continuation on Christianity's need for a Copernican revolution.  At the center of all Christian teaching is one person, Jesus of Nazareth.  Who Jesus was and is or wasn't and isn't is what this and other posts will explore.  In this post, the concept of Jesus as a sacrifice and its impact on Western thinking and how the early Church's theology of Jesus' being a sacrifice shaped our understanding of Jesus will be briefly explored. 

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The central thesis of all Christian theology is that God, out of love for the world, "sent"  his Son, Jesus to become for us a sacrifice that would save us from our sins and that all who believe this will be saved and  resurrected like Jesus on the "last day." This is the doctrine upon which the Christianity has been premised for more than two thousand years.   From this premise other teachings about Jesus were derived like his virgin birth, his physical resurrection, his ascension into heaven, that he is the Messiah (the Christ), that he is both fully human and fully divine, that he is the second person of the Holy Trinity, and so on.   These teachings form the soteriology (the salvation theology) of Christianity. 

The question being raised in this post is whether any of the above is accurate or true?  Specifically, was the whole meaning and purpose of Jesus' life was to be a sacrifice to pay the price of our sins or is there another way to understand Jesus?

Many books and articles have been written seeking to explain the "real" Jesus.  The questions they raise are valid because we don't know a great deal about the historical Jesus apart from documents written decades after his crucifixion and explained him in terms of a theology premised on the notion that he died as the Son of God to save us from our sins and then resurrected.

The concept of human sacrifice in some form or another appears embedded in the human psyche as a necessary price to be paid to fend off some personal or cultural threat of evil or misfortune.  This particular concept of sacrifice is as old as religion itself.  Today, the concept of sacrifice is largely understood in a humanitarian sense, as a price paid in response to some evil or disaster caused by human failure or a natural catastrophe.  It is as if sacrifice is treated as the primary form of currency in a cosmic or divine economy that we humans are bound to pay.  While we don't practice deliberate animal or human sacrifice to fend off misfortune or as an atoning response for human failure, we tend to imbue the tragic deaths of those fighting wars, the victims of war, and, in particular, the heroic individuals who lose their lives in the act of trying to save other lives as being sacrifices; the price we pay to fend off greater misfortune or as a response to human failure on a grand scale.  

THE PERSISTENCE OF SACRIFICE  IN THE 21st CENTURY

I am working on this post on the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attack of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the Capital in Washington, DC.  Sacrifice was front and center as a result of that attack.  Sacrifice is what motivated the terrorist who were willing to die and willing to take the lives of their victims for what they believed was a righteous cause to end the evils they attributed to Western culture.  In response to that attack, there were many in the United States who lost (sacrificed) their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others; such as the firemen, police, first responders and many civilians who tried to save the lives of those who were victims of that attack.  

Those who perpetrated those attacks are rightfully considered by most people in the world as misguided, radicalized terrorists who had no regard for their own lives or the lives of their victims. Still, for others, their act was a sacrifice to preserve a particular way of life.   On the other hand, those who died saving others from the effect of their attack did so because of their commitment to save the lives of others.  Ironically their heroic acts, are also considered sacrificial acts. Their acts are often spoken in terms of the price we, as a nation, have to pay in order to ensure our way of life, our freedom, liberty, and democracy.  

What I want to underscore here, however, is that sacrifice, as the price paid to save another person's life is not what such heroes did.  They did something far more extraordinary.  Their selfless act of putting their lives on the line in order to preserve the lives of others was a sublime act of grace. Those who lost their lives; in such situations as those responding to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,  did not do so as a sacrifice, but rather as an act of immense caring concern and loving-kindness to those in immediate need; what, in the scriptures, is called mercy.  Their actions gave testimony to their direct participation in the life-giving kenotic activity of God expending self in order to expand SELF; giving witness to the interconenctive bond of life we all share. Mercy, as we shall see supersedes any sense of sacrifice and mercy is always an act of grace.

                                      CHRISTIANITY'S ASSOCIATION WITH SACRIFICE

Western culture is largely influenced by Christianity. The Western idea of sacrifice is clearly attached to the idea of a Christ-like understanding of sacrifice; as in, the purpose of Jesus' life was to die (be sacrificed) as a ransom (to pay the price) to save us (past, present, and future) from our sins or the effects  thereof (i.e. eternal damnation).   Broadly speaking, the Christian notion of Jesus' death as a sacrifice is viewed by Christians both as means of appeasing the wrath of God to fend off eternal damnation and as a deeply forgiving response to Jesus' willingness to pay the cost of our collective human failures (sin).  

While appeasing the "righteous" wrath of God for our failures is in keeping with the ancient religious purpose of blood sacrifices, its renders the Christian and Jewish concept of a loving God as a capricious god whose wrath could only be appeased by the willing blood sacrifice of someone worthy enough, spotless enough, and sinless enough to pay the price exacted by such a god.  The problem with this understanding is that by the time Jesus shows up on the historical landscape, the prophets and the psalmists of Israel had already discerned that God had no taste for blood sacrifices or burnt offerings of any kind; that what God really wants from us is our contrite hearts, humility, and exhibiting deep care for those in need.  This is the God that Jesus called his Father.

Jesus never portrayed God as being anything other than loving, patient, and immensely forgiving.  Jesus never talked about God in terms of demanding a sacrifice for our sins, much less a blood sacrifice.  That Jesus "knew" he would die was not prophetic foresight, but rather an expression of his awareness of the perilous conditions of the time in which he lived and the danger of preaching something that challenged the religious authorities and the tenuous status quo of his day.  Even though the notion that God did not demand burnt offerings (blood sacrifices) had been around for a long time in Judaism, sacrifice remained a central feature of Temple worship in Judaism. Human sacrifice, however, was never an option in Judaism.  The very notion of human sacrifice was considered abhorrent to God.  In fact, if one reads the speeches of Peter in Act 2 and 3, the earliest account of a disciple of Jesus talking about Jesus' death and resurrection to their fellow Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Pentecost and when speaking before the High Priest at his defense for speaking about Jesus, Jesus' death is never cast terms of being a sacrifice for sins.  So how did Jesus' crucifixion come to be considered a sacrifice?  

The simple answer is that Jesus' followers felt compelled to give Jesus' tragic death a meaning and a purpose, beyond simply having him suffer the persecutions and death of other prophets.  In order to do so they scoured the Hebrew scriptures in order to find language that gave it a meaning and purpose,  which they found mostly in the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, and in the Prophets.  In particular they saw in the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, God's willingness to sacrifice his son; with Jesus becoming the substituted ram, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, according to John's Gospel.  But is that what God required?   God didn't require that of Abraham.  In fact, the interpretation that Judaism provides for that event is wasn't about Abraham sacrificing Isaac, but rather a test of Abraham's faithfulness, to demonstrate God's faithfulness to what God promised Abraham, and to eradicate the idea of human sacrifice as a necessary means to appease God.  

The notion that Jesus' death was a sacrifice to cover the sins of the world was not apparent in the earliest (pre-Pauline) days of Christianity as noted in Peter's preaching on his way to the Temple.  In fact there appears an association between the Temple and the Church of Jerusalem in the early apostolic period before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.  Temple worship was practiced by those associated with the Church at Jerusalem, whose members considered themselves practicing Jews who followed Jesus and Jewish tradition.  While this association is largely ignored in the New Testament we find strong evidence of this association in Acts 21 where the apostle Paul is directed by the elders of the Church in Jerusalem to undergo ritual purification in the Temple for misguiding Jews about not needing to circumcise Jewish male infants.  He and those with him were to undergo some sort of atoning ritual and sacrifice for his perceived misconduct.  Paul and his followers are depicted as heading to offer a sacrifice and undergoing a period of ritual purification.  Their attempt to do so led to Paul being arrested by the Romans.  

If Jesus' crucifixion was considered a sacrifice "once for all" as Paul claims, or as the Letter to the Hebrews (10:26)  points out "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left."  If that is what all early Christians believed, what led Paul to agree to participate in a ritual purification rite and offering an atoning sacrifice in the Temple in Acts 21?  

What we see are rather diverse accounts of early Christian thought on Jesus' death being defined as a sacrifice.  The death of Jesus was disorientating to the early Jewish Christians.  If the tragedy of Jesus' death was mitigated by being understood as the ultimate sacrifice that atoned for the sins of the world,  why sacrifice at all?   Why go to the Temple?  

That the early Christian community within Jerusalem continued with Temple worship suggests that the earliest (pre-Pauline) followers of Jesus did not view Jesus' death as a sacrifice, but rather a grave injustice against God that was corrected by God resurrecting Jesus.  Ironically, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  Judaism largely abandoned the need for blood sacrifices and burnt offering and substituted other rituals.  Ironically, the idea of Jesus being a blood sacrifice for the sins of the world, became the centerpiece of its theology and its liturgical and worship traditions.   

If habits die hard, traditions die harder.  The tradition of Holy Communion as a re-enactment or remembrance of the Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is engrained into the Christian mindset.  It has given rise to the idea of sacrifice in the form of people being killed in war or for a righteous cause is a necessary price to pay fend off evil is an unquestioned factor used to justify war and mitigate the loss of loved one's who die as a result of trying to save the lives of others just like Jesus did.

JESUS ON SACRIFICE

Jesus' references to sacrifice in the Gospels is sparse.  At no time does he talk about his death in terms of it being a sacrifice. He mentions sacrifice twice in the Gospels: He tells a man healed of leprosy to show himself to the priest and offer the prescribed sacrifice as testimony of his being healed in order for the healed leper to return to society (Mark 1:44) and in his referencing  Hosea 6:6  twice in Mathew 9 and 12, where the prophet quotes God as saying, " I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  

What appears to be interpreted as Jesus referencing self-sacrifice are his comments about talking up one's cross and following him Mathew 10 & 16, Mark 8, and  Luke 9  and " No greater love is this, than a man lays down his life for his friends." John15:13.  These statements have all been interpreted in the light of Jesus' crucifixion as implying sacrifice, but Jesus is not implying that we sacrifice.  Jesus is talking about kenosis (acts of grace) putting aside one's self or emptying one's self in order to make room for the other, to participate God's life-giving kenotic act of creation, and orientating ourselves to God's original intent of creating us for the purpose of returning God's love by caring for (showing mercy) and loving that which God loves, all of creation.  

Heroic acts in which a person puts aside one's self in order to save others are not sacrifices but rather redemptive, kenotic acts - acts of grace.  They are not a payment or a price paid to appease, to fend off, or a response to someone or something as an act of atonement.  They are simply freely given (debt-free).  They exemplify the very definition of grace itself.  

Jesus' death was not a sacrifice required by God.  If Jesus crucifixion is to be viewed as a sacrifice, it was because the religious authorities and the Roman officials were convinced that it was better for one man to die (be sacrificed) as a means of fending off the risk of an open rebellion during the Feast of Passover. (See John 11:49)

The truth is that Jesus' crucifixion was a cruel injustice committed against a righteous man, who did not seek death or who personally viewed that his death was paying the price God demanded to forgive our sins, but who, according to the Gospel of Luke, in the midst of dying committed an act of mercy by forgiving those who caused his suffering and death, turning his death into a kenotic act and a redemptive act of sublime grace; precisely what God requires of all of us, to show mercy and not to engage in the bartering act of sacrifice.  As a testimony to Jesus' righteous mercy, God, according to the all the Gospels, resurrected him.  

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm