First, over dinner at The Outback, my brother and I got into a discussion about why people find it necessary to “put a face to God,” especially when that face is a bearded, bolt-tossing apparition designed to combine majesty and terrifying power -- and to “put the fear of God” into trembling mortals. Which led, of course, to how we, personally, “see” God. “Spirit,” “Light” and “Love,” were postulated, as was “Nature.” Nature? Well, one definition of the word is, “ the summary of everything (that has to do with biological and geographical states and events on earth).” Fair enough. After all, the stirring hymn “How Great Thou Art” equates the beauties of nature with the presence of the God to whom the lyricist’s soul “sings.”
The conversation was fresh in my mind when, a half-hour later, I joined eight other UCCLMers for Wednesday night Bible Study. The scheduled topic was “Maccabees 1 and 2” but Félix detoured us back to the previous topic, “Jesus and the Idea of the Messiah.” “Maccabees” was put on hold.
Starting from the bald (and bold) supposition that the Jesus we follow didn’t and doesn’t fit the vision (any vision) of what the Messiah would or should be, we explored first what those who knew him expected of a Messiah – and didn’t get -- and how those who wrote about him reinvented the role to deed us a Messiah we “don’t get.”
What did Jesus’ early followers expect?
A warrior king who would defeat their enemies, kick out the incumbents and establish a lineage of kings from the House of David.
What about those who told his story?
A savior (the literal translation of “Messiah”) who, dropping down from Heaven one fine day, would return to establish God’s kingdom on earth. That one’s real popular now, too!
As for Jesus, his life and words suggest he saw himself not as Messiah but as (God’s) Messenger, bringing knowledge, liberation and power to us – a role different from and beyond that of a (or “the”) Messiah. He called himself the “son of man” (lowly servant) yet addressed God familiarly and lovingly as “Abba” (“Daddy”). In a day when wandering, self-proclaimed and often buffoonish “Messiahs” were everywhere, he was more…much more.
The message he carried – and lived -- was of rebellion on one hand (hanging out with all the “wrong” people, turning society and the law upside down), love and service on the other. He gathered people, restoring them to community. Why he even forgave their sins, restoring them to community whole. Who did he think he was, for heaven’s sake!
The discussion grew intense – and lively, especially when we approached (however timorously) and finally faced up to the question, “Where does this leave us as Christians?”
We agreed early on that it placed a heavy burden on us, that of living “the message” -- doing as Jesus did, loving others, loving ourselves, walking the “way.” According to the Bible, Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” (scholars doubt it, at least in those words), a claim used and much abused in excluding others. Might not, the question arose, the “Way” be living the truth he lived?
Jesus didn’t find the burden easy, either, questioning even unto Gethsemane the martyrdom he expected and accepted. We delved into the Bible’s “temptation” stories, seeing not a literal Satan but Jesus struggling to define himself, to know who and what he was and how he would use his knowledge and power.
“Sin” got into the discussion – not the old bugaboos of thinking “bad” thoughts and doing “bad” things but “doing injustice” and “denying our responsibility to others.” This led, not surprisingly, to the concept of a savior (Messiah) who died to save our souls (from our sins). “Salvation,” we learned, is a synonym for “restoration” (in the here and now), which suggests strongly that Jesus didn’t come to “save souls” but to save lives by turning them around. Not as a sacrificial lamb came he, but as a shepherd who valued each and every sheep. This led, interestingly, to the question, “Can anything save us but ourselves…by following those teachings and turning our lives around?” Heretical? If so, we were, as my favorite t-shirt proclaims, “heretics in good company” (including that champion challenger of the status quo, one Jesus of Nazareth).
(As an aside -- speaking of salvation, we listened (with incredulity) to the story of a local preacher who destroyed the magic and beauty of his church’s Christmas pageant with an altar call, coercing response with the specter of going to hell if you had the misfortune of dying in a car accident on the way home.)
Where was all this going?
Looking first at Bible’s target audience (the people of a specific community – not ours -- at a specific time – not now), and the growth of historical, cultural and linguistic knowledge, we found ourselves speaking of universal truths (what’s left when the wheat of the Bible is separated from the chaff), of our firm belief that that God didn’t stop speaking way back when and of Christianity as one path among many to God – the one we chose (and struggle to follow and live).
Each us saw that path differently but there was agreement when Félix said, “If it works for you, good,” (“I might disagree but as your pastor I would never take your belief away.”)
Works for me!
Back to the Maccabees…seems there were four brothers, each claiming messiahship! But that’s another article
