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Reflections: Theological Memoirs #9: Jesus

Reflection Number 9: Jesus

 
This is the Ninth in a series of articles that examine nine “scientific facts” that require a new theological response.
 
Read First Article: What we can Know about the Universe
Read Second Article: Homo Sapiens, God, and the Evolving Universe
Read Third Article: From the Very Big to the Very Small
Read Fourth Article: Undeserved Suffering
Read Fifth Article: The World We Create
Read Sixth Article: A Zone by Any Other Name…
Read Seventh Article: How Other Persons Affect Us
Read Eighth Article: Who Am I?
 
Tall. Long, light brown hair. Blue eyes. A calming gaze with an outstretched teaching arm. More likely than not, this is how westerners imagine Jesus. Contrast that with the reality. Jesus, like most men of his time, probably weighed about 110 pounds, stood little over 5 feet tall, and would not have lived much past 40. Popular Mechanics recently offered us an image of a swarthy Jesus with curly Afro type hair and a facial appearance that to me seems much like a Neanderthal. Google it and have a look. That, most likely, is the real Jesus. Whatever doctrinal belief you may hold about the man, he was a man, and that’s what he looked like. Personally, it brings a smile to my face to understand that when I talk to or about Jesus, it’s this little Jewish guy that I have in mind.

If that’s what he looked like, what did he do? Or not do? To begin with, I cannot believe that he performed miracles. It’s that old problem of evil. If Jesus or god can perform miracles, then why don’t they do it all the time and alleviate undeserved suffering? Not to mention that miracles contradict “laws” of nature. I know, quantum mechanics and all that preclude any talk of laws of nature. But still, water into wine? walking on water? Besides, the biblical writers never intended those stories to be taken literally. They were metaphors. There is, however, one type of so-called miracle that could very well have happened- the healings. Homo sapiens are psychosomatic beings, and Jesus being the type of person he was could very well have led people from disease to health.

What else did Jesus not do? I cannot believe that god was infinitely angry and wanted some sort of blood sacrifice to satisfy him, and Jesus was the guy. Contrary to what most people think, the institutional church has never had a doctrine that says “Jesus died for my sins”. The first theologian to formulate a theory about how Jesus satisfied god was a medieval man named Anselm. Man, because of sin, owed a debt to god. Since god is infinite, the sacrifice had to be infinite. Since Jesus was not only man, but also god, and since his death was innocent, his death, voila, pays the price. There’s a logic to the theory, but it’s artificial and unconvincing.

Many are convinced that not Anselm but the apostle Paul was the first to believe that Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins. Maybe. Paul was trained in the law, and often seems to think in terms of punishment, but the theologian John Cobb has written an interesting article claiming that when Paul speaks of Jesus’ sacrifice, he is thinking of one who “sacrifices” himself in order to show the way to others, not to satisfy an angry god. Be that as it may, we also need to remember that the writers of the Bible were fallible as well as faithful, and could very well have speculated in the wrong direction. We spoke of speculation in a previous reflection.

So let’s do away with the idea that Jesus was a miracle worker who died for our sins. Who was he, then, and what was he like? and how do we know?

Other than the fact that Jesus was a real person, we don’t know anything with 100% certainty. But we do know quite a bit with a degree of certainty less than that. Born in Nazareth (not Bethlehem), he had a mother and father, Mary and Joseph, and siblings, the most prominent of whom was James, who became a powerful figure in the early church. He was an itinerant teacher in Galilee who attracted crowds and who gathered about him a group of disciples who claimed that they found in him a presence they had not experienced ever before. He was a day laborer who perhaps trekked off to Sepphoris, a city four miles from Nazareth where politicians engaged in projects of self aggrandizement and needed cheap labor. Labor, and money. The Romans and the local leaders continually increased the tax burden on the poor, who lived in perpetual fear of starvation and/or debt. The peripatetic Jesus did not live in happy times.

What we know about the man is gathered from the New Testament gospels, and another gospel that did not make it into the Bible but is viewed by scholars as being of equal value, the gospel of Thomas. None of our sources are pure history, if there ever was such a thing. Stories about Jesus as well as some of his words were gathered orally, gradually transformed into written documents, which, in turn, were utilized in gatherings of the newly formed congregations. Nowhere is there even an attempt to transmit simple fact. It is always “interpreted fact”. The gospel writers were persons of faith writing for a community of faith, and so when we go to them looking for facts, we are bound to come up short-handed.

There are scholars who have spent their lives studying these documents as well as the culture and times of Jesus of Nazareth. One might expect that a consensus image of Jesus would emerge, but that is not the case. Was Jesus a revolutionary Zealot, seeking to overthrow the Romans and their lackeys? A wandering Jewish teacher who was styled after the Greek Cynic philosophers? A preacher who was convinced the end of time was at hand? or convinced that the Kingdom of god was already here? After the intense research of the last twenty years, utilizing new archaeological and historical/sociological findings, I had hoped that we would finally learn who the real Jesus was. Not so. The plot seems only to thicken.

And so I wonder: can we work backwards? Can we look at ourselves and project backwards what Jesus must have been like? Whoa! you say. That’s the biggest danger ever: creating Jesus in our own image. That’s what Ludwig Feuerbach warned against over 100 years ago. “If birds had a god, it would be the perfect winged creature”. God is nothing but a creation of a human mind longing for perfection, he warned. Indeed, the image of the tall, blond and blue-eyed Jesus was and is some westerners’ idea of perfection. The path of working backwards is treacherous.

But what if there are universals that apply to all homo sapiens and not just to a select few? We have already analyzed various of these universals- creation of personal worlds, experience of moments, the need for meaning and for community. Whether or not there are such characteristics that apply to all homo sapiens is a question fiercely debated. Some say that everything about us is socially conditioned, some say not. I come down on the side of believing that there are some universals. I am also convinced that we must be extremely careful as we try to describe what they might be, and that is what I have tried to do with respect to worlds, moments, community, and the search for meaning. So as I apply these concepts to Jesus, I feel justified in so doing.

There is another presupposition at work here, and that arises out of the evolutionary reality with which we must contend. Later discovery may prove this wrong, but I am here presupposing that we and Jesus are equally homo sapiens, and that we share universal characteristics. This is a question that theology has never asked (to the best of my knowledge), but one that we must recognize. Sometime down the path of evolution, we and Jesus will not be the same species. For the time being, however, I believe we are.

So let us apply these four universal human characteristics to Jesus. Beginning with the creation of personal worlds, what do we find? We have argued earlier that we all create our own little world, seeing our version of reality through the sun glasses we inevitably wear. We are egocentric, parochial,- use whatever word you want. The question now is: was Jesus this way? Of course he was limited in his knowledge simply because he lived two thousand years ago. And he lived in Galilee, not China or North America. So his knowledge was limited. But was his view of reality closed in upon itself? I think not, and this is why Jesus was able to impact others. He lived an open and loving life. He had no self-created world. Others could interact with him and see in him a reflection of who they really were and what they could therefore become. He had the power to liberate others because he himself was free.

If we incorporate our concept of the moment here, we can see that Jesus could become a moment for others. He refused to be contained in their world, thereby challenging them to open up and see reality as it really was. The sick could sense in him a wholeness that made them whole. And in a certain sense, we are all sick.

The concept of the moment can also be applied to Jesus himself. Because he had no limiting worldview, his life was a continual moment. Every occasion for him was an encounter with the cosmic thou. Every person was a being to love. Every tree and rock was an incarnation of the heavenly father. Jesus was the person we strive to be.

And, like us, Jesus was a communal being. He was always reaching out to others, challenging, helping, healing, gathering. This does not deny his and our need for solitude and meditation and reflection, but these are not ends in themselves. It seems to me that Jesus gathered disciples for at least two reasons. One was that the new community he created could be a microcosm of a fulfilling life, a place of love, caring and sharing. The other reason was that he wanted company, folks with whom he could share his life and in turn receive support from them.

Lastly, we can say that Jesus’ life was one of meaning and not emptiness. Every image we have is one of fullness and purpose.

I cannot conclude definitively that this is the man Jesus was, but it seems to make good sense. Furthermore, this is a person with whom we can all identify. He’s one of us, a little better, no doubt, but one of us just the same. We might ask how he got the power to live without a world, without the egocentricity that seems to plague us all. I don’t know the answer to that. Here we go beyond what I consider fact and dive into the depths of speculation. Was he the Word of god incarnate? Perhaps. The disciples and those who followed them asked that very question. They called him Word, son of god, savior…they knew he was special in their lives, but didn’t know how or why- without speculating. The really good news is that we don’t have to answer that question. All we need do is to live the new life of love available to all.

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