The Meaning of Jesus - What did Jesus do and teach? Sunday, March 4, 2007 – Rev. David Tinney Text: Mark 8:27-33 Theme: There were a lot of messiahs in first-century Palestine, so what made Jesus so special and did he understand his vocation as “the Messiah?” This is the second week in the sermon series on “The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions” and if you were here last week I asked the question “How do we know Jesus?” I wanted each of us to explore “how” we know what we know about our Lord. This Sunday I would like us to explore “what” we know. Together we will examine some our assumptions and understandings about Jesus’ ministry and mission and determine whether or not he knew he was the Messiah. I explained last week that this series is based a book and an adult education study written by two authors who present very different theological perspectives of Jesus’ mission and ministry. Most of the time these two authors are writing from opposite ends of a theological continuum, but in what I am about to present this morning they seem to be on the same page. “Seem” is the operative word here for they are both setting the foundation for a major split. I would also like to remind you that there are two adult education classes taught on Wednesday morning and evening that tackle the material before I preach it on Sunday. You should be very pleased that this is the order. They soften the Sunday sermon. I celebrate that there are nearly fifty members in these two classes and they have discovered that the reading and the concepts are extremely hard to understand. But they have stayed with it. Some have remarked that they haven’t challenged their gray matter this hard since college. Not only are they learning new theological concepts but they are building their vocabularies. This week for instance they added soteriology, antinomianism, epistemology, xenophobic nationalism, retrojection, eschatological, hermeneutical, and one of my favorites nonspatiotemperal world. Not only has the class had to dust off their Bibles but also their dictionaries or their internet connections to Wikepedia. We still have a few seats open in the class, if you would still like to join after hearing some of the words and concepts. Aside from increasing our vocabularies with words we will probably never use in any other conversation, the class has helped us to examine some of our assumptions about Jesus and perhaps gain some appreciation for what a remarkable leader Jesus really was. Both Borg and Wright emphasized that Jesus’ ministry was short. But no matter how many times you hear that it doesn’t truly settle in until you realize how short it was and how great its impact was on the rest of history. If we were to only consult the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke – the ones that see things about the same way) then Jesus’ ministry lasted one year! When we add the gospel of John to the mix it extends it to three years. That is still not a long time. Think about your own careers and jobs. If you were a manager hired to turn around a company or to create a systemic change within a business that has been doing things the same way for twenty years, do you think you could do it in one year? Or even three years? But in one to three years Jesus made a change in a system that had been entrenched in old patterns and behaviors for generations upon generations. Modern businesses ought to be looking at his techniques on how to bring about corporate change. Another thing we often take for granted as we hear our stories of Jesus proclaimed is that first-century Palestine was just waiting for a messiah and that Jesus was the first to fill the bill. The first part of that statement is true. At the turn of the millennia resistance to Roman oppression was hitting an all-time high and there was a feeling among the Jews that any moment God would send a deliverer to lead a nationalistic revolution. Tom Wright describes this climate of anticipation as “a world on tiptoe with expectation.”1 Not only were the Jews hyper-vigilant but there were dozens of aspiring messiahs willing to step forward and lead the revolution. From the period after the Maccabean Dynasty when Herod the Great climbed to power in Rome in 37 BC to several decades after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD there was a constant stream of rebel leaders claiming to be the long awaited messiah. But here is what I find interesting as we look back on history and on Jesus’ ministry. Of all the would-be-messiahs only one proposed to take on the powers of oppression non-violently. According to Tom Wright, when Jesus assumed his vocation of messiah his kingdom message was not what his contemporaries expected and ended up being “doubly revolutionary.”2 He took on the evil represented in the Roman oppression but also the evil represented in the Temple and culture of the Jews and those revolutionary forces that wanted to use violence. Jesus’ idea of revolution really meant that Israel would break free of their Roman oppressors and then live into the vocation that God had intended for the nation from the very beginning – that of being the “light to all the other nations.” One of the things we fail to realize some two thousand years later, is that Jesus’ message cut deeply into the political, military, economic, and religious powers of the day, as well as exposing Israel’s fear and reluctance of sharing God’s message of justice, compassion, mercy, and grace. So Jesus was unpopular on many fronts. One last thing we often fail to appreciate – Jesus was involved in one of the greatest reversals of power in all of history. “Within three hundred years [of his death and resurrection] Jesus became lord of the very empire that had executed him.”3 If you look at Jesus and his ministry and mission strictly from an historical perspective it just doesn’t make sense. He is an anomaly of history. He led a small movement of uneducated men, within a small country that was dominated by the greatest political and military force of the day, and prevailed. He preached a message that very few understood and those who did understand found offensive. He was at odds with the political, economic, and religious leaders of his day and was executed as a common criminal. He died the leader of a failed movement – and yet something happened that changed the world and all of history forever. Who was this man and what did he do to bring about this kind of historic transformation. Marcus Borg says that he was primarily a Jewish mystic, a profoundly spiritual man deeply connected with God like no one before or after him. Tom Wright the other author of this book, believes in some of Borg’s description of being a mystic, BUT says this connection comes from being the divine son of God, who was there in the beginning and knew his role of Messiah. I will explain more of that later. The two authors do agree that Jesus was a person who had a firsthand experience with God. Jesus had such intimate access to the power of the sacred that he saw the world differently and was able to use this power to heal, teach, lead, and be a prophetic witness to the world. I particularly liked how both authors saw this connection to the sacred play out in the areas of teaching and being a social prophet. Borg writes, “Teachers of wisdom fall into two categories: teachers of conventional wisdom, and teachers of a subversive and alternative wisdom. The former hand on and sometimes elaborate the received tradition or conventions of a community or group. The latter speak of an alternative path – a way – that leads beyond convention.”4 Jesus was definitely an alternative wisdom teacher inviting hearers into a different understanding themselves, God, and life itself. He was the ultimate out-of-the-box thinker. He didn’t just build upon the traditions of the past; he redefined them and created a moral code that was revolutionary. The Sermon on the Mount represents the greatest collection of alternative wisdom teachings perhaps ever assembled in one place. Borg states that Jesus’ wisdom teachings led his listeners to a different way of seeing the world, a new way of centering, and eventually a new way of living. Allow me to take that statement apart to show you why alternative wisdom can be so threatening. A simple definition of conventional wisdom would be: whatever everyone knows to be true or the cultural consensus of how we should act or what we should honor. In Jesus’ day conventional wisdom agreed that the life of a person who was successful centered on family, honor, wealth, and religious tradition.5 But Jesus called for a radical re-centering and asked his followers to put God as the center of their lives and de-prioritize those things that used hold top billing. He asks the same of us today. Jesus called for an alternative way of living that threatened his contemporaries. He presented a new social vision based on boundary-busting inclusion and a new social ethic grounded in compassion, forgiveness, and grace. His wisdom teachings spilled over to his radical social critique of the social-political-religious order and he became a passionate advocate of justice for the marginalized. He clashed constantly with those who held religious power condemning them for not caring for their flock and destroying the sacredness of the Temple. I tried this week to put this kind of radical mystic, wisdom teacher, healer, and social prophet into today’s context and there is simply no one that comes close or would dare to come close. We are talking first of all about someone so grounded in God, so connected to the sacred that she or he would be able to see a new vision for humankind – one that would be grounded in grace, founded in forgiveness, and incorporating inclusivity. But listen to the talk of most of those religious leaders of our day who claim this kind of connection with God. They preach judgment, exclusivity, one-way-or-the-highway theology, and they are deeply concerned about increasing the numbers of their ranks and the power of their politics. The social prophet of today has been muzzled. His or her critique of our culture would sting in ways that you and I would quickly resent. * If Jesus were to be the social prophet in our culture today he would quickly condemn the war and all the resources that are being allocated to destruction of others, * He would speak up for the poor and weak who are still being marginalized and oppressed by economic and political systems that don’t care. * He would condemn religions that use fear and judgment as a way to polarize and bring hatred and division rather than unity and compassion. * He would condemn religious misuse of scripture and law to marginalize and denigrate those who are female, elderly, handicapped, young, or from different ethnic or sexual orientation. * He would question each of us about how we are living out our faith and how we are using the gifts and resources God has given each one of us to carry on his ministry. You get the picture. His critique would be hard to listen to today and we, like those of the first-century might want him removed so we would not have to listen to his annoying presence. I believe that Jesus knew he was the Messiah. I believe he knew it from the moment he was first aware of his mission and ministry. But it was different from anything anyone ever expected. He was not called to liberate the Jews from their Roman oppressors but to liberate the Jews - and for that matter every man and every woman in the world - from the power of evil. It is a revolution but not one where weapons are fired and or governments toppled. It is a revolution of our hearts – one heart at a time. His invitation has never been a call to arms and military and political power. It has always been a call to inner conversion – a transformation of the heart that will led changing the world through powers of compassion, mercy, justice, and forgiveness. Jesus was and is the long awaited Messiah, calling each of us in this room to be citizens of a new and different kingdom. Are you ready to answer his call? 1 Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, “The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions,” HarperCollins, San Francisco, CA 1999, p. 33. 2 Borg/Wright, p.36 3 Borg/Wright, p.59 4 Borg/Wright, p.68 5 Borg/Wright, p.70 --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ The meaning of Jesus – sermon 2 Page 1