What I Make of the Empty Tomb

What is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus?
The empty tomb tells us that Jesus is on the loose!

There are long range implications of the resurrection as empty tomb.
We continue to interpret the Easter hope.
We do not pass it along untouched.
To speak it anew means to pass on our own understanding of what it means and could mean in our lives and for the world.
Somehow, the resurrection of Christ has something to do with what is happening in our world.
Jesus is on the loose.

Lloyd Geering is an amazing octogenarian in New Zealand.
He is a Presbyterian minister and seminary professor who was tried for heresy 45 years ago. Wrestling with God tells his story.
He denied the literal virgin birth and resurrection, and defended his position in a two day trial in which he was acquitted.
He has said that Religion is not the supernatural but that which interprets and enhances life.
(He has written many good books – Christian Faith at the Crossroads is a good place to start.)

He tells us that all of human history is a road to freedom:
Judaism began the path of human freedom when they left Egypt and proclaimed that God had freed them.
This exodus became a parable of freedom both for Jews and later for Christians.

The meticulous observance of the Mosaic tradition led to a new kind of slavery: enslavement to the written word of the law.
At least that is how the early Christians saw it.
Resurrection was the new Exodus; a new liberation from the old religion and the rule of Rome.

Later Christians also gave themselves up to a new slavery, enslavement to the written word of the Bible and to written creeds and doctrines of belief.
But the Exodus tradition inspired many struggles for freedom.
The idea of freedom survived when the Jews lost to the Greeks.
It survived when they lost to the Romans and both Jews and Christians were dispersed from their holy land.
In the renaissance thinkers claimed the right to think for themselves.
In the Reformation people claimed the freedom of individuals to make and to choose their own religion.
The Enlightenment affirmed universal human rights.
People won freedom to govern themselves without absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings.

Human slavery was abolished.
Racial division and racism have been rejected, and women were emancipated so that they could aspire to any work, although oppression of racial minorities and women continues.
Now homosexuals claim their right to exist.
Now we see the disadvantaged, the wretched of the earth.
Can their right to life be next?

Now that the danger of nuclear weapons is universally recognized, can a world without nuclear weapons be possible?
The damage to the earth that we have done is now visible, can the liberation of the earth itself be far behind?

We argue about immigrants. Can it be that there will life without nations and borders?
Jesus is on the loose!
Who can imagine where the Exodus and the Resurrection will take us - or we will take the Exodus and the Resurrection - next?

Nothin’ Good Yet about It

The suffering and death of Jesus are significant because
this was the undeserved and gruesome death
of a great teacher of love and peace.
His suffering and death should symbolize to everyone
the undeserved and horrible suffering and death
that befalls anyone and everyone who is such a victim.
The suffering of Jesus was no greater than the suffering of every victim
of every crime and political execution and war.

Jesus didn’t have to suffer more than anyone else
for his death to have meaning for the rest of us.
Neither was the suffering of Jesus less painful than it would be for us,
because he was divine.
I do not think that Jesus wanted us to focus on his suffering,
but rather on his desire that we should all live as if God rules the world.

Jesus’ death was wrong.
This is a powerful statement because it means that the suffering
of all the millions of others who have been tortured,
raped, and slowly killed to suit someone’s desire
for power, control, and revenge that has occurred
in thousands of places and situations
that we could name or don't know –
their deaths were and are wrong, too.

Our traditions teach that Jesus died for our sins.
I see no way that his death atones in any way for my sins or yours.
His death, his spirituality, his religion, his God
were about active resistance to the uses of power against people.
Jesus died because of our sins,
because we want or consent to violence and killing.
There is atonement only if you and I cease to support a system
that does violence to people and kills them.

The teaching of Jesus that we would rather he hadn’t taught,
is to love our enemies.
The power of Jesus was his subversive way
of viewing the world, living in it, and dying.
The power in Jesus' death
was the great integrity by which he died for the values by which he lived.

When I ponder the death of Jesus,
I don’t see the end of sin as such
but a witness to the end of cruelty and torture,
the death penalty, war, killing,
and the end of violence itself.
If Jesus in any way died for my sin or sins, or yours,
he died so that no one else would have to die as he did.
If Jesus died for our sins,
and we wish to follow him,
we must renounce violence and stop the killing.

What Jesus Did Besides Teach

Jesus may have healed people. This is hard for us to understand unless you believe that he had supernatural powers and was different from you and me. I think I better understand how he may have healed the sick by the recent concept of “conversion syndrome.” This is a bit more sophisticated than what we used to call “psychosomatic illness.” A person’s emotional state, brought about by family, social, or cultural pressures, is released in physical dysfunctions or sickness. It may be that someone genuinely ill suffers that illness because of trauma embedded by a culture permeated by a purity code or abuse that repeatedly reinforces that their suffering is caused by their own sin. Someone like Jesus comes along and says authoritatively that their sin is forgiven – something that no one was expected ever to do – and they are suddenly liberated and healed. This was a pre-scientific world.

The notion that we are responsible for our own salvation or liberation may be seen even in the Moses and Passover story. While the narrative makes much of God’s actions in bringing about the escape from slavery of the Hebrew people, who makes it happen? Moses and the actions of the people. Moses believes God has done it because Moses cannot possibly do it. He wasn’t a good speaker so Aaron was appointed to help. Did Moses fail to express himself to Pharoah? No. Did God write the Ten Commandments or did Moses? We say that God did it to show the awe we have for an action so significant that we feel we must attribute it to a power beyond our own.

I ramble about these things to introduce the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper or the Holy Eucharist (thanksgiving). Jesus went about teaching but also invited people to eat with him, and asked people if he could eat with them. I think he used the traditional blessing of the food, something like “Blessed art Thou, O King of the Universe, for giving us bread from the grain of the field and wine from the grapes of the vine” as a way of illustrating their reliance on each other’s work, their responsibility to each other, and their reliance on God’s rule rather than Rome’s. Jesus then could teach, “We are not slaves to Rome, but free in our trust of God and in our belonging to each other.”

In this view the “last supper” is not the model for the sacrament, but rather his “table fellowship” with sinners. (Norman Perrin introduced this to me.) It was remembered because it was done repeatedly, not because it was “instituted” at a last meal. Was there a “last supper?” There is always a last supper. But do we know it is the last supper we or a friend or loved one will have? The story says so, but that is very likely hindsight: “Jesus was so great, he knew everything that was going to happen!” There was no “magical” last supper. They probably didn’t sit on the same side of a table. They probably didn’t have a table.

No one has fully explained the origin of the “words of institution.” Did Jesus actually say, “This is my body; this is my blood?” The metaphors are powerful and may come from Jesus himself, but only if he did know what was in store. Verhoeven thinks Jesus could not have escaped knowing his fate, this late in the drama of his life. Hal Taussig, writing In the Beginning Was the Meal: Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity lays a heavy foundation for understanding the words as meaning applied to the memory of the table fellowship post Easter experience.

Also, we have the story of Judas Iscariot. The Jesus Seminar concluded that there probably was not any such historical person. Paul Verhoeven objected, based on his childhood with the Nazis: “There may not have been a Judas, but there is ALWAYS a betrayer.” See his film, The Black Book, to better grasp this.

The ritual of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as Eucharist and remembrance of his table fellowship with sinners is the basic and best thing Christians do. It should be done every Sunday (The Disciples of Christ do this.) Sacraments are defined by many Protestants as an action instituted by Christ (churches don’t often say “Jesus.”) In that case baptism is not a sacrament because Jesus never baptized anyone. And why not have footwashing as a sacrament? (Church of the Brethren does.) Maybe the rest of us don’t because the fourth gospel is not considered as historical as the first three.

Here is what I have said in sermons about the sacrament:
When we eat together as a church,
the risen Christ is made known to us
and our eyes are opened to see him more clearly.
When we are gathered around the table,
we are drawn under the influence of Jesus.
Then we find ourselves in a similar relation to him
as had the first disciples who ate and drank with him.
All the words of his teachings, the stories of his suffering and death,
the promises of the fullness of life,
are given texture and flavor in this meal.

If we enter into the spirit of this table fellowship with Jesus,
we can find ourselves united with God.
If we allow ourselves to be haunted by the vision of the Kingdom of God
given to us by Jesus,
we can join God's mission for abundant life and justice for all.
If we allow ourselves to be taunted by his teachings
to be as gracious to others as God is to us.
then we are on the road to right worship and right living.

More of What Jesus Taught and Didn't

Earlier I posted the top ten sayings that the Jesus Seminar voted "Red" or definitely said by Jesus. The top 15 (of 75) Pink sayings that are probably authentic:
16. On anxieties, don't fret: Th 36, Lk 12:22–23, Mt 6:25
17. Lost Coin: Lk 15:8–9
18. Foxes have dens: Lk 9:58, Mt 8:20, Th 86
19. No respect at home: Th 31:1, Lk 4:24, Jn 4:44
Mt 13:57, Mk 6:4
20. Friend at midnight: Lk 11:5–8
21. Two masters: Lk 16:13a, Mt 6:24a; Th 47:2
22. Treasure: Mt 13:44, Th 109
23. Lost sheep: Lk 15:4–6, Mt 18:12–13, Th 107
24. What goes in: Mk 7:14–15, Th 14:5, Mt 15:10-11
25. Corrupt judge: Lk 18:2–5
26. Prodigal son: Lk 15:11–32
27. Leave the dead: Mt 8:22, Lk 9:59–60
28. Castration for Heaven: Mt 19:12a
29. By their fruit: Mt 7:16b, Th 45:1a, Lk 6:44b
30. The dinner party, The wedding celebration: Th 64:1–11, Lk 14:16-23, Mt22:2-13

Here is a picture of Jesus teaching. I chose it because of the "hoodie." The painting is totally unrealistic and un-historical. No synagogue would have been as fancy as this. The scroll looks accurate, but the robe is a bit much. He may have worn a prayer shawl. Also, Jesus did not glow.

I asked what is missing in these sayings, from what you might expect having worshiped in a Christian church.  Two things:

1. Jesus says nothing in these sayings or stories about himself and his relationship with God. The authentic and probably authentic words come from the “synoptic” gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke, with Thomas thrown in). They all “see with the same eye.” They represent at least five traditions of Jesus sayings. What throws us off is the Gospel of John, yet another tradition, in which Jesus is highly spiritualized. There he speaks in mystical language very different from the sayings or parables above. In John Jesus speaks about himself a lot, about his divinity, his closeness with the Father, and the Spirit he will send when he is gone. This is not the same Jesus who taught as the earlier gospels report. However, there are echoes of the historical Jesus and perhaps some actual history in John.

2. Jesus says nothing about the coming end of the world, or the Spirit, his resurrection, or his return in the red and pink sayings. He is a man who teaches by words and example. He isn’t much concerned about rules, but about the principles in the Hebrew Law and Prophets. He is mainly concerned about living more freely under the harsh Roman rule.

There are a number of familiar and favorite teachings that aren’t in the top 30 red and pink listings. This is probably because there was no secondary attestation, they were commonly taught in Jesus’s time or before, or they speak of things as if Jesus had already died, had been resurrected, or of things that occurred historically after the time of Jesus.

Palm Sunday - What Can I Say? Altizer Had Something to Say

I didn’t know what to say for Palm Sunday, but I was thinking
        –  Palms are about welcoming a king.
         –  Riding on the donkey is about a king showing his “humility,” (of which most kings didn’t have much).
         –  “Hosanna” is both a cry for help, a prayer, and an adoration, meaning “save us now” or something similar.
All of things make sense if we take Palm Sunday as a protest against Roman rule. Since this is what Jesus seems to have been about, the event makes sense.

Did it happen? Maybe. If it did, there probably were not the crowds described in the story. I think Jesus would have been pretty insignificant to the Romans and was arrested - probably not tried - and crucified for some act like overturning the tables in the Temple. If the Palm Sunday event happened as described, he would have been arrested on the spot. Or, as Paul Verhoeven suggests with considerable evidence, there had been a warrant out for Jesus’ arrest for some time, making a noisy entrance into town rather risky. We really don’t know much about any of it, but again, his staging of an ironic entrance, a shabby rabbi being welcomed as a king by a small group of followers, perhaps viewed by some others ("Who's this guy?"), makes some sense. If Jesus had crowds of followers, I think he would have made it into a chronicle of the times.

I remember that my first sermon was on palm Sunday in 1970, entitled, “The Triumphal Exit.” That sermon is long gone, I think. It must have been more of a Passion Week sermon, about the supreme importance of the death of Jesus rather than the seductive triumph of Jesus in his entry into Jerusalem.

I’ve been struggling recently with Thomas J. Altizer’s classic book, The New Gospel of Christian Atheism (1965). He speaks (at length in 1 chapter) of Hegel’s work, The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Did I mention that Altizer’s book is dense, hard to read and comprehend? Basically, Altizer is telling us that anything in the gospels or in the churches that is about earthly empires or triumph or power or victory is FALSE. So much for Palm Sunday.

In another chapter about the incarnation he says that this is the ultimate point of the true gospel: you and I are or can be Christ. Altizer out-Kiergegaards Kiergegaard. Be Christ in the world if you want to be Christian. That is the meaning of taking up your own cross.

It’s like Bob Funk told us. He realized as a young man that he couldn’t follow Jesus’ teachings. If you begin to understand them, you realize you aren’t a follower of Jesus unless you are willing to die for his vision of the Empire of God. It wouldn’t be enough just to study his teachings. And pretending it’s all about victory is simply silly. (Actually, it’s very destructive to follow someone who is about power and destroying what he think's is immoral and un-American.)

The meaning of the Palm Sunday narrative is the end of kingship and lordship and ruling over others. It is the beginning of the end of the despotic father God and all the godlings we have made in the image of that old unhelpful idea. Jesus wasn’t a godling.

Red Letter Sayings of Jesus

If we want to know who Jesus was, and what he wanted (WWJD), we need to think about what he taught. The Fellows of The Jesus Seminar analyzed the sayings of Jesus from 1986 to 1993.  Their work  was published in The Five Gospels (Polebridge Press and Scribner). 76 scholars participated PUBLICLY in proposing, discussing, and voting, red, pink, gray, or black to indicate that a saying was definitely by Jesus, probably, possibly, or not said by Jesus. Bob Funk, who led this effort, said that he had always been fascinated by "red letter editions" of the New Testament, so he created his own.
 
Many criteria were used, building on what scholars like Bultmann and Norman Perrin (Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus, 1967) had been doing for decades. (Bob always dreamed of updating Bultmann's great work shown here. Perrin shown right.) The scholars who did this work all would like to see it done again, by many more scholars. (All Biblical scholars, except the most extreme literalists, have their own opinions on what Jesus said and didn’t say. Most of them are too cowardly to give their opinions in public. Perrin avoided this problem by identifying themes such as "Kingdom of God" and then analyzing particular texts related to the theme.)

All of the sayings of Jesus voted “red” are given here -- the top 15 aphorisms and parables most likely to have been said by him:

Turn the other cheek                              Matthew 5:39
Give your coat and shirt                        Matthew 5:40
Congratulations to the poor                   Luke 6:20
Go a second mile                                Matthew 6:20
Love your enemies                                Luke 6:27b
Leaven                                                Luke 13:20-21
Emperor and God                                 Thomas 100:2b
Give to beggars                                     Matthew 5:42a
The Samaritan                                     Luke 10:30-35
Congratulations to those who hunger  Luke 6:21a
Congratulations to those who are sad  Luke 6:21b
The shrewd manager                             Luke 16:1-8a
The vineyard laborers                           Matthew 20:1-15
“Abba,” father                                      Luke ll:2b or Matthew 6:9b
The mustard seed                              Thomas 20:2-4

Sometimes the version in one gospel can be shown to be older than the saying in the others. The text of Thomas, not in our usual Bibles, is found on line. To understand the parables, one needs to strip them of the often moral or pious conclusions added later by others.

The original teachings were simple, and the references would be easily understood by first century Palestinian peasants. Turning the other cheek put a Roman soldier in a position to break a rule. Giving your shirt as well as your coat would leave you naked. Roman soldiers could not command anyone to carry something more than one mile. Leaven was disgusting and impure according to Jewish ritual law. The world obviously does not bless the poor, the hungry, or the sad. These teachings tend to turn upside down conventional thinking.

So what is a Christian? How would we recognize one? Are there any? Are there any churches worthy of his name? Next: What is missing from these teachings, and why?

Thinking about Jesus

As the week called “holy” approaches, I feel drawn to comment on the leader of those who call themselves “Christian.” There are many kinds of Christians. For years I have been a kind of Christian Atheist, fond of Jesus as an amazing human being, a teacher of wisdom who became a powerful symbol of many diverse things. For 40 years I have studied, meditated upon, and preached about and around Jesus, his teachings, and what has been made of him. The four gospels in the accepted canon and the many other gospels of the first and second centuries testify to the many ways there were and are to think of him. [see below about photo]

First of all, I do think there was a man Jesus as described in the gospels. This is a difficult statement to make. He wrote nothing and much of what was written about him was written years after his death, and much of that is suspect as history. Much of what he taught is pretty much straight Jewish teaching of the time (in the school of Hillel). If things had turned out a little differently, we (or Jews only) might be reading of Jesus in The Mishnah. Tomorrow I will share the top teachings of Jesus.

The first “history” about him is that he appeared at the River Jordan with John the Baptist, who  baptized him. This implies strongly that Jesus was first of all a disciple of John’s. The next historical incident is that Jesus assembled disciples around himself. From this act and his later teachings we can deduce that he broke away from John and had a new message that differed from John’s. John apparently had preached that “the world is ending soon. Repent, and be saved now!” Jesus seems to have decided that the world might continue, and that God wanted us to be saved in the present.

The code phrase here for being “saved” is “Kingdom of God.” Matthew changed this to “Kingdom of Heaven,” but that comports with Jesus asking that God’s “will be done on earth as in heaven.” I was shocked to learn about 15 years ago that the Greek word for “kingdom” was the same word used when we speak of “the Roman Empire.” This created for me the same kind of electrical shock that it must have had for folks in the first century when Jesus first used it. His “gospel” or good news was highly political: We need to live here and now as if God were in charge. The Romans are irrelevant. There are many books in recent years to explain this in detail.

Luke records that Jesus taught “The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” [or “within” or “in your midst.”] This appears also in Thomas 3:  Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you.”

Another way to understand “being saved” is to think of “being healed or made whole.” Many Jews speak of “healing the world.” Not so different.

Jesus was called “son of God.” This did not at first imply divinity. It was a term that meant “like God” or “son of Adam,” or “the Human one,” as Walter Wink described him. The Jesus Seminar scholars translated it: “this mother’s son.” He was also called “Messiah,” a Hebrew title which in Greek is “Christ.” This too, did not at first imply divinity, but merely a chosen leader. Those who are concerned about the divinity question must deal with Mark 10:18: “Why do you call me good? Only God is good.”

The most interesting book on Jesus I have read in recent years is by Paul Verhoeven, film director (Basic Instinct, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Black Book) and very serious Bible student. Because of his work in film, which is highly influenced by his childhood in the Nazi occupied Netherlands, he looks for the drama in Jesus’ life. He asks, “What in the gospels strikes us as genuine human activity and response?”  I hope to write a review some time on his 2010 book, Jesus of Nazareth.

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Photo of Jesus above: Starting with the assumption that Jesus resembled a typical peasant from 1st century CE Galilee, Richard Neave, a medical artist retired from the University of Manchester in England, and his team of researchers: "started with an Israeli skull dating back to the 1st century. They then used computer programs, clay, simulated skin and their knowledge about the Jewish people of the time to determine the shape of the face, and color of eyes and skin." The result was a person with a broad peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair and a prominent nose.