Meeting Jesus Again Images of Jesus and Images of the Christian Life

I institute this book stimulating.   The title gives a clue to the content.   We accept already met Jesus,  formed opinions about him over the years and modified them.   This had been Borg's feel.   He moved outside of the faith movements for a while.   Now he offers out of feel a new way to come across Jesus once more for the first time.

Marcus tells his personal story to illustrate the process he has been through in meeting Jesus,  and refining the insights.   The move is from babyhood,  to adolescence,  College,  Seminary and beyond.   At Seminary he discovered the contrast between the Johannine images of Jesus with the synoptic to be so keen that i of them had to be not-historical.   Both could not be accurate characteristics of Jesus every bit a historical figure.

He learnt of two consensus positions:

Beginning,  that we can't know very much most at all nearly the Jesus of history.

2d,  from the little nosotros can know nearly Jesus,  he was an  'eschatological prophet'  who expected and proclaimed the end of the present earth and the coming of the Kingdom of God in the very near future.   As a 22 year old seminarian he institute this exciting.

Now  -  beyond belief to relationship.   Finally to complete his story,  Borg says he met Jesus once more.   Until his late thirties he saw the Christian life as being primarily believing.   At present he sees the Christian life equally entering into a relationship with that to which the Christian tradition points,  which may be spoken of as God,  the risen living Christ,  or the Spirit.

Borg suggests it is useful to move beyond thinking of the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith,  to thinking of the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus.   I constitute this a helpful suggestion.   And so he turns to look at the pre-Easter Jesus  ....

What manner of Homo?

Marcus acknowledges his interest from 1985 with the Jesus Seminar scholars in determining the historical accurateness of the sayings of Jesus.   He seeks to separate of the voices,  to run into an image of the pre-Easter Jesus. "The first (and nearly important) source is the earlier layers of Matthew,  Mark and Luke  ...  which contained sayings of Jesus,  typical actions and a skeletal framework of his developed life."

"The 2nd source is the before layer of the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas,  found in upper Egypt in 1945."

"Missing from our listing of sources is the Gospel of John .....   Though it is a powerful and true testimony to the customs's experience of the postal service-Easter Jesus,  it does non very closely reflect the pre-Easter Jesus."

"Jesus was deeply Jewish.   Information technology is important to emphasize this obvious fact."

"It is articulate  'The Jews'  did not reject Jesus.   Rather the few Jewish persons involved in the events leading up to his execution were a small only powerful elite whose power derived from the Romans.   Instead of representing Jews,  they might fairly be described equally collaborating in the oppression of the Jewish people."

Marcus goes on to deal with the birth of Jesus,  his socialization and early adulthood,  before providing an developed sketch.

On the negative side he says:

"Jesus' self-understanding was in all likelihood nonmessianic .... His bulletin was not nearly believing in him.   Rather,  the pre-Easter Jesus consistently pointed away from himself to God.   His bulletin was theocentric,  not christocentric  -  centered in God,  not centered in a messianic annunciation virtually himself."

In a like style it was noneschatological. Jesus was not expecting the supernatural coming of the Kingdom of God.

On the positive side  -  four things to note.   The historical Jesus was:

• a spirit person.
• a instructor of wisdom
• a social prophet
• a movement founder

Implications for the Church?

"The image of the pre-Easter Jesus as one who experienced God is quite different from common understandings of Jesus."

In answer to the question  "Practise yous believe Jesus was God"  Marcus suggests the answer is  "No,  the pre-Easter Jesus was not God."

"The sketch of Jesus as a spirit person suggests that Jesus was not simply a person who believed strongly in God,  but one who knew God."

Jesus,  Compassion,  and Politics

"Two key words enable us to glimpse what was most central to Jesus: Spirit and Pity."

"Compassion is a peculiarly important word in the gospels.   The stories told about Jesus speak of him as having compassion and of his being moved with pity.   The word also represents the summation of his teaching about both God and ethics.   For Jesus,  pity was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God."

Marcus provides an interesting exposition of  'The Purity Organization of the Jewish Social Globe'  followed by an explanation of Jesus' attack upon the Purity System.

"The purity system was to create a world with sharp social boundaries between pure and impure,  righteous and sinner,  whole and not whole,  male person and female,  rich and poor,  Jew and Gentile."

"At the centre of the purity system were the temple and the priesthood."

"In the bulletin and activity of Jesus,  we run into an culling social vision,  a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity,  only by the ethos and politics of compassion."

"Many of the sayings of Jesus indicted the purity arrangement  ...  Jesus spoke of purity as on the inside and not on the outside."

"The critique of the purity system is the theme of one of Jesus most familiar parables,  the story of the Skilful Samaritan.   Most oftentimes interpreted as a message well-nigh being a helpful neighbour,  it in fact had a much more pointed meaning in the commencement-century Jewish social world.   It was a critique of a way of life ordered effectually purity  ... Thus this honey and ofttimes domesticated parable was originally a pointed attack on the purity organisation and an advocacy of some other fashion:  compassion."

"Nosotros see the challenge to the purity system not just in Jesus' teaching but in many of his activities.   The stories of his healings shatter the purity boundaries of his social world."

"One of his most feature activities was an open and inclusive table.   'Table Fellowship'  -  sharing a meal with somebody  -  had a significance in Jesus' social world that is difficult for us to imagine."

Finally,  Marcus Borg faces us with the Spirit and Pity of Jesus.   A virtually telling and inevitable implication is directed to the strongly negative attitude toward homosexuality on the part of some Christians.   He sees this as a purity issue.   He concludes  "It seems to me that the shattering of purity boundaries by both Jesus and Paul should apply to the purity code's perception of homosexuality.   Homosexual behavior should therefore exist evaluated past the same criteria every bit heterosexual behavior.   It also seems to me that the passage in which Paul negates the other central polarities of his world also means,  'In Christ, there is neither directly nor gay.'   Granted,  that Paul didn't say that,  only the logic of 'life in the Spirit' and the ethos of compassion imply it."

Jesus and Wisdom - Teacher of alternative wisdom

"Wisdom is one of the most important concepts for agreement of what the New Testament says about Jesus.   It is central for ii reasons.   One the one hand,  Jesus was a teacher of wisdom.   This is the strongest consensus amidst today'southward Jesus scholars.   Whatever else can be said about the pre-Easter Jesus,  he was a instructor of wisdom  -  a sage,  as teachers of wisdom are called.   On the other hand,  the New Testament also presents Jesus every bit the embodiment or incarnation of divine wisdom."

Marcus Borg shows the 'how' of Jesus' wisdom teaching:  aphorisms and parables.

"Strikingly,  the most certain matter we know nearly Jesus is that he was a story teller and speaker of great i liners."

Non that he would accept used them all at once,  as we sometimes imagine.

"Sometimes it is the content of the one liner that is fresh and absorbing ... The maxim is striking,  enigmatic and evocative ... the image is humorous,  only with a seize with teeth to it too."

"Thus as a wisdom teacher Jesus used aphorisms and parables to invite his hearers to come across in a radically new style."

Borg identifies a problem betwixt 'conventional' and 'subversive and alternative' wisdom.

Conventional Wisdom

"Conventional wisdom is the dominant consciousness of any civilisation.   It is a civilization's most taken-for-granted understandings about the fashion things are,  (its world view,  or image of reality) and well-nigh the way to live  (its ethos, or way of life).   It is 'what everybody knows'  -  the world that everybody is socialized into through the process of growing up."

Conventional wisdom:

• Provides guidance about how to alive  -  it embodies the fundamental values of a culture
• Is intrinsically based upon the dynamics of rewards and punishments  -  'you reap what you sow'
• Has both social and psychological consequences:
  Socially,  it creates a earth of hierarchies and boundaries
  Psychologically,  it becomes the footing for identity and self esteem.

In curt,  whether in religious or secular form,  conventional wisdom creates a world in which we alive.

"Life in this world tin can exist and ofttimes is grim.   It is a life of bondage to the dominant culture,  in which we get automatic cultural persons,  responding automatically to the dictates of culture.   Information technology is a life of express vision and incomprehension,  in which we see what our culture conditions us to see and pay attention to what our civilization says is worth paying attention to.   It is a world of Judgement:  I approximate myself and others past how well I and they measure up.   It is a earth of comparisons:  I may exist aware that I am not the virtually bonny person in the world,  but because I am more attractive that some,  I am 'okay'."

"There is an image of God that goes with the world of conventional wisdom.   When conventional wisdom appears in religious grade, God is imaged primarily as lawgiver and judge ..."

"When this happens in the Christian tradition,  it leads to an epitome of the Christian life as a life of requirements.   Indeed,  this happens and so frequently that information technology is the most common course of Christianity  ...   It is very mutual for Christians  (and some scholars)  to identify Judaism with a organized religion of law and an image of God as wrathful and judgmental,  in contrast to Christianity,  which is seen as a religion of grace,  with an image of God as forgiving and loving.   There are two things wrong with this identification.   First,  information technology is historically inaccurate and radically unfair to Judaism.   There were voices of culling wisdom inside Judaism  ...  Second information technology misses my point almost conventional wisdom completely.   Conventional wisdom is not to be identified with any detail tradition;  it is pervasive in all traditions.   To emphasize the betoken again,  the conflict between conventional wisdom and alternative wisdom is not a conflict betwixt Judaism and Christianity,  but a disharmonize within both traditions."

Subversive and alternative wisdom

"As a teacher of wisdom,  Jesus undermined the world of conventional wisdom and spoke of an alternative.   The two are intrinsically linked:  the first must be deconstructed in order for the second to appear.   Jesus set about this chore in a number of means."

"Jesus used the language of paradox and reversal to shatter the conventional wisdom of his time."

He spoke of conventional wisdom as the broad way that that led to destruction and  "directly attacked the central values of his social world's conventional wisdom:  family,  honour,  purity and religiosity.   All were sanctified by tradition,  and their importance was part of the taken-for-granted globe.   It was against these values that some of his most radical sayings were directed."

Jesus,  the wisdom of God

"The second of import role played by wisdom in the early Christian movement's imagining of Jesus is Christological.   The early layers of the movement'south developing traditions portray Jesus non only as a teacher of wisdom,  but also as intimately related to 'the wisdom of God'."

Marcus Borg identifies the contributions of the church building councils at Nicea (A.D. 325) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451).   "As a result the most familiar Christology to people both inside and outside of the Church is one that images Jesus' relationship to God as Son of the Father.   This Son of God Christology is the core of the pop prototype of Jesus."

"Simply this had not yet happened in the new Testament period.   There was as nevertheless no official Christology.   Rather,  the New Testament contains a variety of Christological images,  which office every bit metaphors for imaging the significance of Jesus and his human relationship to God.   They had not yet been crystallized into doctrines  ..."

Marcus Borg usefully examines Wisdom in the Jewish tradition earlier he turns to the synoptic gospels to make a link with Jesus as a kid of Sophia  (Wisdom)  and John the Baptizer.   The next pace is to see wisdom every bit a central category for the Apostle Paul,  and finally inside the Gospel of John to see wisdom every bit logos within the prologue.

A complementarity of Christological images:

"Our exploration of the role of Sophia every bit Wisdom in the Jewish tradition and in the New Testament discloses a number of things.   It enables usa to encounter a nice symmetry between Jesus as a teacher of wisdom and the early motion'due south image of him as one intimately related to Sophia.   As the voice of alternative wisdom,  Jesus is also the vox of Sophia.

"It enables us to glimpse what may be the earliest Christology of the Christian motility.   The use of Sophia language to speak most Jesus goes dorsum to the primeval layers of the developing tradition."

This points non only to the centrality of Sophia language in the formation of the early on Christian movement,  but also to a gender complementarity of Christologies.   For early Christianity,  Jesus was the Son of the Father and the incarnation of Sophia,  the kid of the intimate Abba,  and the child of Sophia.   This awareness is very helpful for us in an age of growing sensitivity to the result of inclusive language.

"Information technology also points to the impossibility of literalizing Christological language.   The multiplicity of images for speaking of Jesus' relationship to God  (as logos, Sophia,  Son  -  to proper noun but a few)  should get in clear that none of them is to be taken literally.   They are metaphorical."

Images of Jesus and Images of the Christian Life

Finally Borg seeks to augment his framework for thinking about the images of Jesus and the images of the Christian life to include the Bible as a whole,  especially the Erstwhile Attestation.

"In the last two decades,  a move known as story theology has called attending to the narratival character of the Bible,  or to say the same thing,  the centrality of 'story' in Jewish and Christian Scriptures."

The Macro-Stories of Scripture:

• The Exodus Story. "Most basically,  it is a story of bondage,  liberation,  a journey,  and a destination  ...  Thus,  as an epiphany of the man condition and the solution,  the story of the exodus images the religious life as a journey from the life of bondage to life in the presence of God.   Though we find ourselves in chains to Pharaoh,  information technology proclaims,  in that location is a way out.   Through signs and wonders,  through the great and mighty hand of God,  God tin liberate united states of america,  indeed wills our liberation and yearns for our liberation,  from life in bondage to culture to life as a journey with God."
• The story of Exile and Render.   "Like the exodus story,  the story of exile and render is grounded in historical experience  ... It images the religious life equally a journey to the identify where God is present,  a homecoming,  a journey of return."
• The Priestly Story. "This story is not grounded in a particular historical event,  just in an establishment of ancient State of israel  -  namely,  the temple,  priesthood,  and sacrifice.   The Priestly story leads to a quite different image of the religious life.   It is not primarily a story of chains,  exile and journey,  just a story of sin,  guilt,  cede,  and forgiveness.   Fundamental to it are notions of impurity,  defilement,  and uncleanness,  or that primal sense of 'being stained' ... Within this story we are primary sinners who have broken God'southward laws,  and who therefore stand guilty earlier God,  the lawgiver and judge."

"All three of these stories shape the message of Jesus,  the New Attestation,  and subsequent Christian theology."

• One of the oldest traditions sees the central work of Christ to be triumphing over 'the powers' that hold humans in bondage,  including sin, death and the devil  ... Like the exodus story,  this image sees the human being predicament equally bondage and the work of Christ equally liberation.
• Another image pictures the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin that makes God's forgiveness possible.
• "A third agreement of Christ'south death and resurrection can,  with some modification,  be correlated with the exile story  ...  The emphasis is not upon Jesus accomplishing something that objectively changes the relationship between God and u.s.,  but upon Jesus revealing something that is true."

"What is revealed is more i thing.   Sometimes the accent is upon revealing what God is like  (for example,  love or pity).   Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus as 'the lite' who beckons us home from the darkness of exile.   Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus death and resurrection equally the apotheosis of the way of return,  a disclosure of the internal spiritual process that brings us into an experimental relationship with the Spirit of God.   Within this style of seeing Jesus,  he is the incarnation of the path of return from exile."

"Yet, though all three stories were important to Jesus,  the early on movement,  and subsequent Christian theology 1 of them  -  the priestly story  -  has dominated the pop understanding of Jesus and the Christian life to the present 24-hour interval.   It is,  of course,  the core element in the popular image of Jesus as the dying savior whose death is a sacrifice for our sins,  thereby marking our forgiveness by God possible.   To say 'Jesus died for our sins' is to interpret his significance within the framework of the priestly story."

Borg notices the effect of the confession of sins in Christian worship.   He goes on to say "When the priestly story becomes the dominant story or the only story for imaging Jesus and the Christian life,  information technology has serious limitations.   Indeed,  limitations is besides weak it term.   When it dominates Christian thinking,  it produces severe distortions in our agreement of the Christian life."

Marcus lists six distortions:

• It leads to a static understanding of the Christian life,  making it a repeated cycle of sin,  guilt and forgiveness.
• It leads to a passive understanding of the Christian life.   Passivity about the Christian life itself,  rather than seeing life as a process of spiritual transformation,  and passivity toward civilization.
• It tends to lead to an understanding of the Christian life as primarily a faith of the afterlife.
• It images God primarily equally lawgiver and judge.
• It is difficult to believe that God'due south just son came to this planet to offer his life every bit a sacrifice for the sins of the world and God would not forgive usa without that having happened.
• Some people do not feel much guilt.   They may accept strong feelings of chains,  alienation or estrangement.   For these people,  the priestly story has nothing to say.

Jesus and the Christian Life every bit Journeying:

"The story of Jesus,  and our understanding of the Christian life,  are much richer and fuller when nosotros see them in the context of all three stories,  and not simply in the context of the priestly story.   All iii stories informed and shaped Jesus own perception of the religious life and therefor his message and activity."

"The conventional wisdom that he subverted had characteristics of both bondage and exile,  Egypt and Babylon."

"The emphasis both in Jesus' teaching and in the gospels themselves upon a 'way' or 'path' also points to an understanding of the religious life as a journey.   Jesus teaches a 'mode' and the gospels are almost 'the manner'."

"Jesus' human relationship to the priestly story is somewhat different.   Hither he subverts the story itself.   His subversion of the purity system undercuts the priestly story's image of the human condition equally 'stained' or impure.   He forgives sins apart from the institution of temple,  priest,  and sacrifice,  thereby negating their necessity."

What pic of discipleship exercise nosotros get?   "I invite you to hear what is said as resonating both with what it meant for his outset followers to be in relationship to the pre-Easter Jesus and what it means to followers in every generation to be in human relationship to the post-Easter Jesus."

Discipleship means:

• existence on the route with Jesus - in his company,  or his presence
• eating at his table and experiencing his banquet
• becoming a office of the alternative journey
• becoming empathetic  -  nosotros have a transformist understanding of the Christian life

"Thus nosotros accept what I would call a transformist understanding of the Christian life,  an image of the Christian life richer and fuller than the fideistic and moralistic images I have described  ... (chapter ane)  It is a vision of the Christian life every bit a journey of transformation,  exemplified by the story of discipleship every bit well as by the exodus and exile stories.   It leads from life nether the lordship of culture to the life of companionship with God."

"It is an image of the Christian life as not primarily believing or existence good but as relationship with God.   That relationship does not leave us unchanged,  only transforms the states into more and more than compassionate beings 'in the likeness of Christ'."

"Assertive in Jesus in the sense of giving one's eye to Jesus is the movement from secondhand faith to firsthand faith,  from having heard about Jesus with the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with the Spirit of Christ.   For ultimately,  Jesus is not simply a figure of the by,  only a figure of the present.   Meeting that Jesus  -  the living Jesus who comes to us even now  -  volition exist similar meeting Jesus again for the first time."

Norman J. Westward

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Source: https://www.dunedinmethodist.org.nz/archive/mind/metg.htm

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