+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:

Deuteronomy 30:1-10, 2 Corinthians 10:1-18, Luke 18:31-43

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Luke 18:31, 34

One strand (maybe more?) of modern biblical scholarship says that Jesus would not have said such things as this about his death in the future tense. Some accuse these scholars of lack of faith in Jesus’ prophetic abilities. Personally, I think they are being charitable to Jesus’ apostles. This has always been one of the things that bothered me about the Gospels: how dense can the Apostles be? The script is like a bad, scary movie:

Jesus: I’m going to go up the hill here where I will be killed.

Music: Dunt Dunt DUHHHHHHHHHH!

Peter: Did he say something?
John: Maybe, but the music was too loud.

Audience: No no! Don’t go up the hill! DON’T GO UP THE HILL! ARGH! He went up the hill!

I don’t know what to make of these stories other than as exercises in community midrash. 40 or 50 years after the death of Jesus and after the experience of the Resurrection, the community says, “Knowing what we know now, how could the Apostles have missed the point so many times?”

And I have to ask myself that too: knowing what we know now, that this itinerant preacher from Nazareth was, in fact, the Son of the Virgin, the incarnate second person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father, the Creator of the Word, a Lamb led to Slaughter, Fully God and Fully Man, Eternally Present with His Father on the Thrown of Glory while, at the same time, present here on earth, without Passion, without sin… how could the Apostles have missed it?

And so I’m left in doubt.

The Jesus of modern scholarship - the political preaching, the Messianic expectations all revved up, the Roman squashing and crucifixion, the communities vague ideas of, Wow, if we just have a meal like Jesus used to, it’s almost like he’s really alive again, right here with us. This leaves me dryer than a hog waller in the middle of a six year drought.

And so I’m left in doubt.

I confess to liking a middle road:

The Jesus of Modern Scholarship slightly misunderstood: talking about a mystical Kingdom of God, but misunderstood by his Apostles (who wanted a *real* kingdom, Damn it!) and in this misunderstanding the Romans got involved. This Jesus *did* work miracles. And when (oopsie!) he got killed, God raised him: the tomb was empty. The reason the Apostles Never Got It was because God was working it out as it happened - free will coming into play. This Jesus didn’t have to die on a cross, but he did. God made it all up as it went along, and in the end, making the best out of the worst, God saved us. This Jesus could be any of the things in the first, traditional option: but he needn’t be. Of course, this Jesus is partly a construct of my own, based mostly on the portrayal in Zeffirelli’s 1977 miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth. So I’m making it up as I go along.

And so I’m left in doubt.

The two remaining options are rejection and submission. I can openly reject Jesus as needed at all in my cosmology, or I can just say, “Sure, whatever the church teaches…” (One then returns to the questions of where one finds church.) Jesus the hoaxing magician of Judea is relatively meaningless - to us or to them, really. Jesus the All Powerful, All Knowing, God-Man without any human qualities is meaningless - to us or them, really, and just as Gnostic as they come. (The Orthodox hymn referring to Jesus’ “passionless passion” seem to be to about the least human Good Friday possible.)

Paul says (on a wholly-other topic)

Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5

St John Chrysostom goes so far as to say that St Paul knew how icky the idea of “captive” was that he turned it around into “obey Christ”, as if this phrase turns the entire passage upwards, “from slavery unto liberty, from death unto life, from destruction to salvation.” But some Christians (regardless of their theological tradition) will go so far as to say that my doubts (regarding the teachings in their tradition) indicate that my thoughts have not been taken “captive to obey Christ”.

When I raised this line of reasoning a few years ago - on the topic of the Trinity - I came to the conclusion that what we think, how we conceive of the being we worship, is very important. My friend, Leesy, wrote to me noting that I had come very close to saying our theology creates the God we worship. Her point (I think, looking back through time) was that either God is those things, believe them or not, or God is not those things, believe them or not. I had no answer then. And so here I am now, in the same mode, albeit a little more honestly: instead of projecting my doubts outward, I’ll just be honest about them.

Of course the Jesus that makes sense to me couldn’t have founded an Infallible Church - either with or without a Pope and he’s also rather a bit more inclusive. This brings me to the point of wondering how the Jesus we conceive in our hearts might lead to the Church we choose and, most importantly, vice versa. If you want a Jesus-like-this, you’re going to need to assume a Church-like-this-and-not-that. This realisation, that my assumptions about Jesus makes the Church which makes theological assertions which reinforce my assumptions about Jesus and the Church, was, eventually the breakdown for me.

My usual point of departure for doubts is to let God speak for himself. As I say, if half of what we want to believe of God is true, that he is a person who loves us, then just ask and he will reveal himself. And I just don’t know, now.