What was Jesus' intent?

Friends, I must confess that this trip through Jerusalem, exploring The Last Week:  What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem, has not been so immediately enlightening as I hoped.  It is not that the book has failed, it is that all my years of wimping out on Greek and Hebrew study because I was a "pastoral counselling" student has come back to haunt me.

Now I find that I'm faced with a relatively scholarly book that is written for the popular market, and each place I read a translation of Scripture, I am picking up my NRSV translation and finding it wanting.  The book is based on a more up-to-date reading based on both archaeology and reading of original language text, and focuses more on the book of Mark, as the earliest accounting of the story.  Even Mark was writing 70 years after the events, and writing knowing of the destruction of the Temple that occurred in his own era.  So the story is a delicate teasing out of history, to discern the "true" history of the time.

I like what I find, I'm just not sure whether to trust it.  It's hard to give up one's lifelong held version of Jesus' life, even if it is in favor of a version that more suits my life today.  I want to believe what I am reading:  that Jesus was an activist, and that many of his movements, even in this last week, were planned fulfillment of the prophecies, meant to call attention to important lessons for the people, about following their true leader, rather than the Romans.

I've just spent an amazing amount of my life being in dialogue with the 'suffering servant' interpretation of Jesus, and it has not always been pretty.  The salvific model of Jesus life, leading up to his death and resurrection on the cross, has not really had much meaning for me.  I must admit, however, that since it is the Cross that was the focus of my Christian upbringing, this book calls me to see how much time I have spent rebelling from the beliefs of my childhood, a fact that perhaps deserves a little more attention.

So Borg and Crossan have caught my eye, in a way I didn't expect.  They have put the part of me that believes in the work of Jesus' life, in direct conversation with the part of me that was raised to believe (and rejected) his death.  I'm know this is not by accident.  I'm tired of pretending to stand for something, to be polite in certain circles, and I'm ready to have this dialogue.

In my reading of this Last Week, I am at Tuesday night, and so far, my first surface reading has uncovered the powerful messages of Jesus as a countercultural leader, on his Pam Sunday entry into Jerusalem as the peaceful presence counter to Herod's military domination. On Monday, I view his work as a challenger of the status quo, as the Temple has been degraded to a pitiful amalgamation of Roman and Jewish allegiances that serve no one but the rich.  Here he fulfills the prophecy that the Temple shall become as a "den of robbers."  On Tuesday he continues to grapple with both the Priests and the Romans in the temple, calling attention to their own inconsistencies, and deliberately putting himself into more confrontations that fulfill the Jewish prophecies.  Borg and Crossan tell us however, that Mark struggles here to inject meaning that has more relevance for the later destruction of the Temple, so I am left to tease out that which is appropriate to Jesus' life that week.

It is a much more difficult task than I expected.  I can only tell you today that I am halfway through this week, and I do not know how Jesus' life, seen from this perspective, will end.  It is a much more exciting and active week than I have previously thought.  Without viewing the week through the Cross, I am free to see more of the message Jesus may have intended his peope to see, the spiritual message of listening to the Light, to the Divine, rather than falling prey to the fierce, fearsome violence surrounding the Jerusalem that was under domination of the Romans.

I'll continue to read and write, but I can tell you already that this new perspective, while familiar to my innate understanding, will take more than just this week to digest.

Jesus saved my Life

This morning, reading Friend Johan's latest blog, Meeting Jesus Halfway, (http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2010/03/meeting-jesus-halfway.html), I had one of the glorious revelatory "duh" moments. I thought I might share it with you here.

I have been railing and fighting the fundamentalists for much of my life. At one time I allowed them to force me from my church home. I went flying out into the desert, willing to face life alone rather than live with these "fools" who tried to tell me that in order to live in the spirit of Jesus the Christ, I too had to face the cross, to sacrifice myself and be reborn. I who had known a personal relationship with the God/Jesus of my understanding for my whole life, was told by Christian scholars that my theology was too simplistic, that it would not stand the tests of ministry, but not to worry, my seminary experience, while devilishly torturous, would raise my understanding to a scholarly level. The result: I left the pursuit of denominational ordination in another religion.

Years passed and I wandered in the desert. I still heard the voice of God saying, "You are a minister." But now when I heard it, all I wanted to say was, "Go away, leave me alone, Shut Up." Better to be alone than to worship the false idols of Christians, a God who could kill, albeit massacre people, in the name of salvation. A God whose leaders judged whether one's faith was suitable based on the letter of the law their own prophet had eschewed, rather than the proof of a life lived. I had no need for it.

There was only one problem: The still small voice would not go away. I busied my life doing good deeds, proving that I was a far better person than "those hypocrites." It doesn't take salvation to make a good person, I declared. I studied buddhist meditation, teachings of Judaism, read the Koran, explored native american rituals, always seeking. On the few occasions I became quiet, the voice would return, counseling quiet peace.

In that process of seeking, I came to a Quaker meeting. There on a rainy Sunday, I heard others rise and speak what they were hearing when they became quiet, and their accountings were remarkably similar to my own. In this very liberal part of the Quaker world, there were even people like me, who had felt abused in the name of Jesus, and didn't even care to say his name. My new Friends said to us, "Are you seeking a relationship with the God of your understanding?" "Yes..." "Then you are welcome to join us."

Gradually, I had the courage to listen again. There it was! The source of my guidance all the years before had not left me. Once again, I heard the clear yet simple direction of that inner leading, and I came to be convinced I was a Friend, that the voice was my Friend. It was one of the most peaceful and yet celebratory experiences of my life.

Sadly, it would take me many years to understand that this was the Jesus of which Johan speaks. I was too injured by the "Christians" who had tried to teach me the "right" way. Yet curiously, as the Light nurtured me and grew within me, I began to have less vehemence against those people, and more understanding that they like me were also seeking, yet were so fearful, that they could not stray from the Letter of the Law. What a sad existence, I thought.

The fallout of the abusive relationship I had with Christians has affected my relationship with the inner Christ all my life. I often do not trust him. I am afraid that if I follow he will lead me someplace where I might be abused or massacred. Because I do not trust him always, I do not trust you. So, just when I am at the edge of the most amazing spiritual revelation, I have been known to turn and run, not to be heard from for years.

It is only because of the love and nurturing of Quaker spiritual community that I have slowly come to understand that the voice of God, the inner Light, the living Christ, the unspeakable, call it what you will, is alive and accessible to me. I could not do it alone. Then I walked in the desert.

I could not do it following the Law. Then I feared certain death and destruction if I fell from the path.

Only in the quiet communion of like Friends, was I able to find the nurture to recover from the abuse of the Law.

I do not have to be a Christian to know Christ. I do not have to be a Buddhist, to know the Buddha. I do not have to be a Muslim to know Allah. I need to be me, and I need to listen.

If you think you are surely on the Path, and the Path calls you to tell another that they are Wrong, that they will surely perish if they go this way or that, that you have the Answer for them and you fear for their soul if they do not follow it, then you have surely lost your way. Stop and listen to that still small voice.

Jesus saved my life.