Last night, in response to a
comment on Blog for America, I posted a diary asking
"Was Jesus Political?" I've got some thoughts on that issue myself (complete with links, of course) that I would like to share. Yes, Jesus' message would have had powerful political implications in first century, Roman occupied Judea. His message was a direct contradiction to the status quo.
Dr. Glenna Jackson, a member of the
Jesus Seminar, was a speaker at a recent "Soup and Study" program at my church. She described
the way the scholars voted on whether or not different verses in the Gospels were historically reliable. She said that most of the sayings that were classified as red (or, there was high agreement that it was authentic Jesus) were the those that would have sounded particularly subversive to the powers that be in his time. The Sermon on the Mount, for example:
Congratulations, you poor!
God's domain belongs to you.
Congratulations, you hungry!
You will have a feast.
Congratulations you who weep now!
You will laugh.
That was directly counter to teaching that material wealth was a sign of God's favor.
Jesus also promoted, both with his actions and in his parables, something that has been referred to as "open commensalitly" I attend a church that calls itself an "Open Table" church, and this is at the center of what we are supposed to be about. Of course, being human, we must continually strive to live up to our vision, and sometimes fall short. But it's also what the United Church of Christ ads (that some stations refused to show because they might offend our "Christian" president) were about. Radical welcome. "Jesus didn't turn anyone away, and neither do we", is what the ads say. See? The "radical welcome" of Jesus was seen as threatening enough to be censored in the 21st century So why should it be hard to believe that Jesus was a politically significant figure in the first century?
The web site of The Center for Progressive Christianity further explains the significance of the Open Table:
John Dominic Crossan writes that Jesus's open table fellowship is a core teaching component and symbol of his life. He notes that Jesus's practice of "open commensality (rules of tabling and eating) is the symbol and embodiment of radical egalitarianism, of an absolute equality of people that denies the validity of any discrimination between them and negates the necessity of any hierarchy among them." (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p.27, 1994)
Most modern scholars believe that this unique table fellowship was the precursor of what became the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist. Borg writes, "ultimately, the meals of Jesus are the ancestor of the Christian Eucharist." (p.56)
Progressive Christians then assume that we are following the instructions and model of Jesus when we practice open communion. We are acting out of a long tradition and a fundamental expression of God's love, the heart of the original Jesus movement.
To be continued...
I have decided, rather than trying to make this an omnibus posting that would take me all night, I will just make this part one. Originally, I had entitled this diary "Yeshua ben Yosef: Enemy Combatant". But I think I'll save that for the next installment, which will focus on why Jesus was considered such a threat that he had to be executed.