Chapter 4: things are finally getting exciting!

We now embark on three crucial questions:

1. Did Jesus think of himself as the messiah?
2. How did Jesus understand his relationship with  God?
3. Did Jesus think he was divine?

Wright will presumably address numbers 2 and 3 in the upcoming chapters; the short answer to number 1 is yes. But what does that mean, exactly? First, the idea of a Messiah is not nearly so clear in the old testament as that of the coming king. Second, when Jesus said, "Who do you say that I am?" and Peter said, "You are the Christ," Peter probably wasn't saying he believed Jesus was the divine son of God, he was affirming his belief that Jesus was the promised savior of his people (but a very human savior).

My favorite part of this chapter--well, there are two things that I liked and this is one of them:

It is unlikely that the followers of a crucified would-be Messiah would regard such a person as the true Messiah. Jesus did not rebuild the Temple; he had not only not defeated the Romans, he had died at their hands... Israel was not rescued; pagan injustice still ruled the world. However, the belief that Jesus was the true Messiah is deeply and ineradicably embedded in the very earliest Christianity... The question presses: Why? The answer cannot simply be: Because of the resurrection. (76)

Wright's answer, I'm afraid, is not half so interesting as the question he poses. He writes that Jesus was only remembered as the Messiah because he was crucified as the Messiah, and his resurrection affirmed the status he had already claimed. I see the difference, but I'm not so convinced. It feels a little circular, doesn't it?

But his larger point is that Jesus made the claim that he was the Messiah while he was alive, that his claim was recognized by others and remembered after his death and resurrection. So yes, Jesus did understand himself to be the promised Messiah and coming King for Israel. Wright has much more to say about this, but I'm more interested in the 2nd surprising bit in this chapter:

Wright reminds his readers that Jesus was a thoughtful, intentional person. He writes,

..It is high time to abandon the reticence, masquerading as prudence but in fact consisting only of timidity, which has prevented scholars from allowing Jesus to be (what we would call) a thinking, reflective theologian... Why should we be forced to think of Jesus as an unreflecctive, instinctive simplistic person, who never thought through what he was doing in the way that several of his contemporaries and followers were well able to do? (75)

This is, I think, what I have been wrestling with throughout the entire book. First, can we treat Jesus's life the way we treat a novel, reading for intentionality, structure, and metaphor in the path he took through Galilee? Wright suggests that Jesus was the author of his own life, that he thought about where and when to do the things he did, that he planned what he would say to parallel or enhance his actions.

Second--and this might be more important--I think we talk about Jesus as if he just happened, as if his life were somehow a combination of direction from above and impluse decisions, as if he wandered from place to place and ended up in Jerusalem more because this was where his Father (you know, GOD) told him to go.

I am enamored with Wright's telling--I'm swept off my feet by the idea of an intelligent Jesus. Not that anyone would ever say he was dumb, but I had this picture in my head that was based on an (obviously idiotic) impression that people in simple times (if you don't have a toilet you're living in simple times) were simple people, with simple cares and simple thoughts. Jesus fell into this category, too, and I'm not sure we do much in our Sunday school classes to dismiss that impression. People do what God tells them to do and are rewarded, or they stupidly disobey and are punished. Things were much simpler back in Bible times, and from the way we talk to our elementary school kids, things are pretty simple now, too. Not sure how to address that problem, but I think I'm going to try to read the Bible with a little more imagination from now on.

Jesus and Symbols of His Kingdom (chapter 3, part 2)

"As Jesus subverted the symbols of land, family, Torah and Temple, so he acted in such a way as to replace these with symbols pointing to his own work and agenda" (68).

Well, we're still following along the same theme: throughout his life, Jesus puts a new twist on the symbols mentioned above, making them point to a new kingdom that is (1) all-inclusive, (2) all about forgiveness and love, and (3) starting now and also coming soon, if that makes any sense (perhaps i should say it was born in Jesus's day but was not fully realized and still hasn't been fully realized).

The most interesting aspect of this section yet another return to the story of the Jewish nation's exile (which was obviously still in effect because even though the Temple still stood, they were oppressed by Rome). The story of exile is the story of  sin followed by consequences (exile) and finally forgiveness and restoration. For Wright, Jesus's emphasis on forgiveness is yet another way to signal the end of the exile and the beginning of the Kingdom--sin caused the exile and forgiveness ushers in the restoration.

So, refusing to forgive means you personally are forestalling the restoration, or locking yourself out of the kingdom: "Not to forgive one another would be a way of denying that this great, long-awaited event was taking place; in other words, it would be to cut off the branch on which they were sitting" (70).

This way of thinking about Jesus's message is both exciting and disturbing for me. On one hand, the idea that forgiveness brings freedom opens the door for a long-awaited, glorious future is pretty exciting. But does that detract from valuing forgiveness for its own sake? It feels like Jesus is preaching for his own ends, not to make our lives better and teach us how to live. But perhaps this story of exile and restoration is so universal that everyone has a part in it, even if we aren't all Jewish.

Jesus and Symbols of Jewish Identity

Well I broke my New Year's Resolution to stop sleeping with my computer tonight, and I sort of got waylaid by back episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I'll be brief:

In the next section of chapter 3, Wright talks about Jesus defying symbols of Jewish identity. He broke the Sabbath, failed to keep kosher, told somebody he couldn't wait to bury his father--denied his own mother, for that matter, if we want to talk about family values--and desecrated the Temple. Again, Wright argues that he was deconstructing the current image of Jewish identity rather than arguing with the Pharisees about legalism and the "salvation by works" mentality that was revived during the Protestant Reformation.

In this portrait, Jesus was self-consciously living the life of a subversive revolutionary; Wright compares his actions to burning the flag. I'm trying to find other contemporary actions that could be comparable to turning the tables in the Temple--any ideas? Vandalizing a church (or a library) would be one example of taking apart something that I at least hold sacred, but I'm having trouble finding other parallels.

This is the Jesus I don't like very much. I've always been uncomfortable with Jesus saying he has come to turn parents against children and children against parents, but here I find Jesus the protester, Jesus the radical, come to undermine traditions and preaching against everything in the establishment. Much as I like pretending to live on the edge, I'm pretty happy with the status quo. I like loving my family! But he comes preaching unrest that leads to peace, hope and love. It's a little hard to take him seriously.

On a slightly different note, what is it like to live in a world that's so deeply symbolic? Did most of Jesus's contemporaries understand his actions the way Wright reads them, or only a few (the learned/religious leaders)? Or did the ordinary folks not see the underlying message that Wright finds (and that Jesus supposedly explains when he's in private with his disciples--haven't bothered to refer back to the gospels to confirm and can't really rely on memory for this one!)? Furthermore, how does symbolism fit into my life? When do I see hidden messages behind public meanings? Do any cultures exist now that are deeply symbolic in the way Wright indicates Jesus's Jewish world was immersed in symbols?

More on this later, perhaps--as I said, I sort of fell off the wagon and am typing this from my bed, it's time to sleep.

Wright on Symbols--in particular, the Pharisees's righteousness

ok, i'm getting a little bored here, I feel like I get the point already.

(This, by the way, is a nice articulation of the point:

...Jesus is to be located within the Judaism of his day in terms of his activity as a prophet announcing the kingdom of God... He understood by this the real return from exile, which was taking place in and through his revolutionary work, and that he saw this in turn in a doubly revolutionary sense, setting himself not only against Rome, and by implication against the Temple regime, but also against the normal revolutionaries. (54)

So, Jesus was like a pro-life feminist or something. Got it?

Anyway, next we learn that scholars such as one E.P. Sanders like to argue that the gospels were written by the early church and reflect their controversies. This is completely wrong, Wright tells us, for numerous reasons which you can read for yourselves if you care.

And then we learn that the Pharisees were so keen on the law, on preserving righteousness etc. because it was their way of maintaining their identity as a Jewish people (thereby perpetuating the possibility of a Jewish Kingdom in the future). Interesting, right? I think Wright is saying the law was more about identity than about salvation, and the real divide wasn't--as all good Christians have been taught to believe--the dichotomy between faith and works, between religion and true belief. Instead, Wright argues that the focus on "works" was part of a system of symbols of Jewish identity. In Wright's terms, "...the clash between the Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries... must be seen in terms of alternative political agendas generated by alternative eschatological beliefs and expectations" (58). Jesus was preaching that the Kingdom would not depend on maintaining the Jewish people but on becoming the light of the world.

...and that takes us back to where we started! only in slightly different terms. And with some new ideas about the pharisees, who might be slightly more sympathetic in this light than they were in 5th grade Sunday school.

There is still much more to learn about symbols--we have  "Jesus and the Symbols of Judaism" and "Jesus's symbols of the Kingdom" ahead of us, but those will have to wait for another day.

Detour: who do Jehovah's Witnesses say that He is?

I happened to mention my latest pursuit to a friend who happens to be a Jehovah's Witness, and he brought me "The Greatest Man who Ever Lived," a paraphrase of the gospels published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (presumably for evangelical purposes). Pretty interesting read, obviously, but a few lines from the introduction particularly caught my attention (italics in original):

Jesus never claimed to be God, but he acknowledged that he was the promised Messiah, or Christ. He also said he was "God's Son" not God. (John 4:25, 25; 10:36) Yet, the Bible does not say Jesus was a man like any other man. He was a very special person because he was created by God before all other things. (Colossians 1:15) For countless billions of years, before even the physical universe was created, Jesus lives as a spirit person in heaven and enjoyed intimate fellowship with his Father, Jehovah God, the Grand Creator. --Proverbs 8:22, 27-31. Then, about two thousand years ago, God transferred his Son's life to the womb of a woman, and Jesus came to be a human son of God, born in the normal manner through a woman. (Galaians 4:4)

Further research (ok, wikipedia) suggests that Jehovah's Witnesses think of Jesus as God's "only-begotten son" because he was God's first creation. Later, the text again emphasizes that Jesus was like God,  imitating him so perfectly on earth that to see Jesus is to see God, but that Jesus was lower than God, not God himself (they referenced some fairly familiar verse but I can't find the reference at the moment).

So, Jesus is both divine and human and at the same time not quite God.

Oh, in case you're curious, you can read the Jehovah's Witnesses translation of the Bible online: The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Again, Wikipedia has a bit to say on this translation, but I haven't read it, so I don't have anything to say on that at the moment!

Chapter 2, part 2 (more on "the Challenge of the Kingdom")

Well, things are beginning to sound very familiar over here, because Wright says basically the same thing every preacher says every Sunday: Jesus was calling people to a new way of living, a life of love. It is also a bit disconcerting, because Wright embeds Jesus's teaching in the political climate of his--His?--day. The rest of chapter 2 talks about 2 things: first, Jesus is inviting people to join the Kingdom of Heaven by repenting--of their desire for political revolution and a Jewish return to power in their own nation, i think--and believing that Jesus's way of love and peace is the true way to spread the Kingdom. Kind of sounds a lot like hippies, actually. Second, Wright says that when Jesus warns the people that if they do not change their ways they, too, will come to a disastrous end, he's saying that unless they forsake their original idea of a Jewish supremacy Jerusalem will be destroyed (as in fact it was,  not too long afterward).

Here's the interesting part: Wright claims that while Jesus came to save the world at large,  he focused on the Jews and basically ignored the rest of us (he points to Jesus's line about many coming from the east and the west as his one mention of the gentiles). He writes, "[Jesus] seems to have been conscious of a vocation to focus his own work quite sharply on Israel; once his decisive work was done, then the kingdom-invitation would go out much wider, but the time was not yet" (48). I think this line, more than anything else in here, has given my imagination a picture of Jesus who existed in one particular point in history. I tend to think of him outside of time, with a far-seeing gaze that looked ahead to my life even as he walked by the Red Sea, but the idea that he was truly focused on the Jews makes his work seem very specific, intentional and focused on the life he lived rather than the lives that would follow. As if he was aware of his part in a grand scheme but also not really cognizant of how that would play out or what it entailed.

Chapter 2: The Challenge of the Kingdom (part 1)

Well, it's time for bed and I only made it halfway through chapter 2, but I'm looking forward to the second half.
A few key points from Wright's argument:

1. The Kingdom of God is central to Jesus's teaching, and to understand what he was saying, we must understand the context. One element is that Jesus was bringing the God of Israel's kingdom.
2. It's a bit of a familiar line: Jesus brought the Kingdom, but it wasn't the Kingdom the Jews were expecting. He came to bring the Kingdom to earth then (and now) in the hearts of God's people, not in the ruling authorities. In various ways, the Jews were looking for the Kingdom on earth--a political upset--and Jesus was preaching something very different.
   
3. Jesus was primarily a "prophet of the kingdom" (as opposed to a teacher), "first enacting [through healing miracles, i think] and then explaining that kingdom [through parables]." His life demonstrated what the Kingdom of God actually meant, and his words expounded on the model he provided. So saith Wright.

What really delights me in all of this, however, is that Wright claims even the stories Jesus told were steeped in Jewish overtones, and that many of his parables are stories of the Jewish exile and resurgance, stories that show the expected conclusion--God's Kingdom coming on earth--was coming in a very unexpected way. The parable of the sower, for instance, tells of some grain that does not bear fruit, while other grain multiplies a hundred fold (or whatever it is). In the same way, in Wright's reading, Jesus is saying that many who thought they would be prominent in the Kingdom of Heaven will have no place there, while some seed may grow strong in unexpected places. A second example I can't resist sharing: Wright reads the parable of the prodigal son as the story of Israel's journey--complete with a grumpy brother (the pharisees) who can't recognize the victory. So, on top of the practical, "self-help" sort of application we might see in Jesus's parables, Wright sees 2 additional layers: a layer that was very relevant to 1st Century Jews, and a layer that ties back to Israel's epic narrative. A true storyteller! (it's like movies that are about so many things all at once! including, of course, making movies, which is always one theme of any movie worth talking about. but i digress...)

Another very interesting angle to all of this: I tend to assume Jesus was above politics, but Wright writes with the assumption that Jesus was politically savy. Here's a rather long passage I can't shorten:

[Jesus] was not so much like a wandering preacher preaching sermons, or a wandering philosopher offering maxims, as like a politician gathering support for a new and highly risky movement. That is why he chose to explain his actions in the quotation from Isaiah (bonus points if you can point to chapter and verse!--that's me, not Wright): some must look and look and never see, otherwise the secret police will be alerted (that's Wright). Again, we should not imagine that politics here could be split off from theology. Jesus was doing what he was doing in the belief that in this way Israel's God was indeed becoming King. (43)

 And what exactly was he doing? "Calling out a renewed people"--but that will have to wait for tomorrow.

All this summary is getting tangled and confusing, I'm afraid i'm not really doing justice to the text. You may have to read it yourself! What i've come away with so far is a picture of Jesus who was very aware that he was building a kindgom, starting a movement, living life in a dramatic new way that would begin something quite different than anything that had come before. Furthermore, his life and work were immersed in Judaism, and he was always aware of the story of redemption, of rebirth and rejuvination that was Israel's prophesized destiny. Wright's portrait is of a man who was contientious, aware of his actions and their implications.

Tomorrow: Jesus's call for a renewed people and, if we're lucky, a bit on "disaster and vindication." Cheers!

The Challenge of Jesus by N. T. Wright

After I asked my Uncle Jimmy about his experience of Jesus this summer, he pointed me to The Challenge of Jesus by N. T. Wright (OK, he gave me a copy for Christmas and dared me to read it through to the end--apparently getting all the way to the back cover requires determination).

The book is a compilation of lectures Wright gave at an InterVarsity conference a few years ago (yes, I read the introduction for once), and its tag-line is "Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is"--right up my alley these days.

Wright argues that we cannot separate our historical study of Jesus from our faith but that we must approach both, hand-in-hand, instead of letting the artificial division (introduced during the Enlightenment) hijack our search for Jesus, the man who walked the earth 2,000 years ago and changed eternity forever.

Chapter 1: The Challenge of Studying Jesus
my quick summary and reflections

The gist of this chapter is that Christians must pursue historical knowledge about Jesus Christ. We should not throw away our faith because of distressing historical evidence, but we cannot ignore history, either. While giving the Bible the credit it deserves, Wright argues that conventional interpretations are steeped in traditional and--possibly--erroneous assumptions about context and meaning. Knowing Jesus and his times will bring us to a deeper understanding of who Jesus was and what he meant by the Kingdom of Heaven.

"If Christianity is not rooted in things that actually happened in first-century Palestine, we might as well be Buddhists, Marxists or almost anything else. And if Jesus never existed, or if he was quite different from what the Gospels and the church's worship affirms him to have been, then we are indeed living in cloud-cuckoo-land. The skeptics can and must be answered, and when we do so we will not merely reaffirm the traditions of the church... We will be driven to reinterpret them, discovering depths of meaning within them that we never imagined."

Wright goes on for a while about eschatology (yes I had to look that up so you can, too), concluding that he--with Albert Schweitzer and presumably Jesus himself--understands that Jesus's life was a pivotal moment in history, a moment that changed eternity for humanity. He discusses other interpretations briefly, and if they turn out to be crucial to his argument I'll get into them later, but I think he's just addressing other points of view that don't seem all that relevant at the moment.

Can't really argue with him on anything yet, so I'll end with his conclusion. The chapter ends with five questions that will be addressed in the body of the book (along with a rather ominous indication that the road will require patience and perseverance, just like Uncle Jimmy said):

1. Where does Jesus belong with the Jewish world of his day?
2. What, in particular, was his preaching of the kingdom all about? What was he aiming to do?
3. Why did Jesus die? In particular, what was his own intention in going to Jerusalem that last fateful time? (this question is a question I have been asking myself, in various ways, for the last few months: what was Jesus thinking during all of this? What did he know? Looking forward to what Wright has to say about this one!)
4. Why did the church begin, and why did it take the shape it did? Specifically, of course, what happened at Easter? 
5. How does all this relate to the Christian task and vision today? How, in other words, does this historical and also deeply theological approach put fire into our hearts and power into our hands as we go about shaping our world? (I am particularly interested in his answers to this question because it seems inevitable that those who spend their time studying these things will not spend their time living them, and that any answer to this final question can have very little substance. We shall see!)
   

 So far I don't have much to say on this topic, so I'm not going to post additional personal reflections yet. The plan is to give you both an accurate summary and a piercingly intelligent analysis of most of what he says (why yes, I was an English composition teacher once! how did you guess?).

Cheers until chapter 2! ("The Challenge of the Kingdom"--by the way, I just checked the table of contents, and no, he does not stick to "the challenge of X" for his titles, we loose that for the most part after chapter 3)

The Beginning

A few months ago, I was hanging out with my friend Emily, who told me I had to read Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What. She was right, to a certain extent: anyone who has ever been exposed to the religious section in Borders should read the first chapter of this book. Miller calls it "Fine Wine: the Failure of Formulas." I don't remember what the "fine wine" is referring to, but the formulas part is about a book-writing conference he went to (he is, after all, an author) that taught him the formula for writing instant best-sellers for the self-help section.

EVERYONE should read this chapter because it is funny. Fortunately, you can read this chapter for free on Google Books! I think the idea is that you will be so enamored you will not be able to resist buying the book to read the rest, but I think the first chapter is the best part (although I can't be certain, I'm only 2/3 of the way through).The point of Searching for God Knows What is not be funny but to say essentially this: people read the Bible as a self-help book, but they should read it so they can fall in love with Jesus. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my new plan (disclaimer: when I say "fall in love with Jesus," this means "find out who he really is--or was").

And this is all relevant because... it got me thinking. Although I profess to be a Christian (and frequently give eligible young men the let's-just-be-friends talk because they're "non-believers"), Jesus himself doesn't play a big role in my day-to-day life. I don't think of him separately from God unless I'm talking theology--and that's usually pretty far from the heart of what I actually believe and experience. So, over the last few months I've been reading the New Testament as a character study rather than a self-help book, and I am now moving on to academic books on the subject of Jesus. Luckily for you, I've decided to document my reading (and anything else that seems relevant) on this blog, so you don't have to slog through it yourselves. Also it seems like a good discipline, to have to review and reflect on what I read, which might have been the inspiration in the first place.

As this is my first post on Breathe Out Loud, a few questions for my soon-to-be loyal readers:

1. Do you like the bold? I'm trying it out to draw your attention to the important parts because I know I'm long winded and I thought it might help the skimming.
2. What is your experience of Jesus?* How has Jesus--not God, but Jesus--been significant in your experience (as opposed to shaping your theological/philosophical worldview)? You don't have to post it, but I have been polling people and I'm curious to know.

*I know, I'm clearly making some assumptions about your faith here, but regardless of your story if you have thoughts about the J-man I'd love to hear them!