Is. 53: 4-12 Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45
Hebrews 5:1-10 Mark 10:35-45
The trio of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are perhaps three of the most famous philosophers in history. Plato was so influential that the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead wrote that the Western philosophical tradition is but a footnote on Plato.
The Platonic influence began long before the rise of modern Europe. After Alexander the Great conquered the world, a form of the Greek language became the lingua franca for the world, especially for business and administration, a sort of "dumbed down" version of the classic Greek language of Plato and Aristotle.
It is difficult to separate the Greek philosophical approach to life from their language and so when the New Testament was written in common Greek language, the habits of Greek thinking became evident in how Jesus Christ was presented to the world.
In many ways, the Hebrew Scriptures present God in sometimes fickled human emotional terms. The God of the Hebrew Scripture gets angry, changes his minds about destroying people and the whole world, seeks to test Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, bargains with Abraham about destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is said to be a very jealous God, wanting the exclusive devotion of people.
The God of the Hebrew Scriptures was not as fickled as the gods and goddess of Greek mythology but certainly there were presentations of God found in the Hebraic religion that seemed to make God, all too human.
The life of Jesus was a different kind of human presentation about God. How so? By presenting God in the human form of Jesus. One does not have to present God as angry and jealous, if God actually appears in a human person like Jesus, who does very human things like getting angry in the temple, like rebuking religious leaders, like weeping at the grave of Lazarus, like eating, praying, resting and the message is, if God is to be better understood by human beings, then God has to appear in bi-lingual person of Jesus to speak the nature of God within human language and experience.
But the divine cannot be too compromised by appearing in the person of Jesus, and this is where the New Testament writer understood the inner, the divine, and the cosmic side of Jesus. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrew is an out and out Platonist. How so? Plato believed that the physical world was but the shadow of the Realm of the Forms. The realm of the forms for the Epistle to the Hebrews is also called the heavenly. In the shadow realm of the physical world, Jesus was not a priest. Jesus was not a conquering king using armies to set Palestine free. In fact, when the letter to the Hebrews was written Palestine was under attack by Roman armies and by the time the Gospel of Mark was written the physical Temple where the priests had presided was destroyed. So the shadow priesthood of the Temple priest was over and Jesus was this cosmic eternal priest after the pre-historic appearance of God to Abraham in the person of Melchizedek.
Sometimes we may not be aware of how pervasive Greek civilization and philosophy was in the formation of the presentation by the early church Jesus of Nazareth.
For St. Paul and for the majority of early Christians, Jesus was known first in an experience of the Risen Christ, through the Holy Spirit. So the Jesus of the writings of the New Testament is a Risen Christ experience, put in the shadow physical form a narrative of the life of Jesus. But the events in the narrative life of Jesus, actually were presentations of the heavenly ascended Christ. Each event of Jesus recounted had a inner spiritual teaching purpose.
The stories in the Gospels use the disciples as persons who were unenlightened about the spiritual significance of Jesus, and so they were presented as those who were bound to physical meanings.
The disciples understood the notion of a king in a very literal way. If Jesus is a king, then we want to be nobility in his kingly court when he takes over Palestine and begins to rule.
Jesus was not an earthly king; he was not an earthly priest, he was not an earthly shepherd; all of these were shadow metaphors for the spiritual meaning of the life of the Risen Christ. The life, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension were points of identity for the people who actually never saw Jesus. Paul, like most of the followers of Jesus, professed the mystical experience of identity of being crucified with Christ, being raised to new spiritual life with Christ, and ascending with Christ be be seated with Christ in heavenly places. These are not my words; they are the words of St. Paul. He wrote about the spiritual experience of the Risen Christ within the early Jesus Movement.
What do humans aspire to in the world? They often want to be great. They want to be first. "Jesus, if we follow you, why can't we be great and first? It is very human to want to be first and great. So, if you are king of the world, and we're your followers, shouldn't we share in your greatness as king of Palestine and the world?"
The teaching oracle of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark which were being presented during the time of a crushed homeland and destroyed temple were words about seeing things spiritually, and not literally.
We find this method to be difficult because we have been a part of what I call Empire Christianity. We have lived in the world, where Christians have had majority status and therefore lots of clout. When we have power and might, success and triumph, we are tempted to over-identify the kingdom of God with our being on the "winning side." We can see so many Christians acting as dominionist; those who believe they have a God-given right to dominate the environment and the world.
But this is not the Risen Christ; this is not words and the message of the life of Jesus as presented in the Gospel.
If we have the blessing of power, knowledge and success in our lives today, how can we adapt the Gospel to our lives which was written mainly for oppressed people?
I believe that only way to save us from the cruelties of Empire Christianity, is to be people who use power, wealth, and knowledge to help the poor and the marginalized people, some who have been marginalized by Empire Christianity.
I believe the Gospel words of Jesus Christ challenge us about how we have been living in Empire Christianity. If we are not helping the poor and the marginalized to full dignity in our society, then we have not had the spiritual awakening and the inner conversion to the Risen Christ, the one who was proclaimed by St. Paul and the early Christians.
The Gospel words of Jesus today are calling us to work to make the "last in society, first in dignity and honor." This is the high calling of Jesus, and our failures are frightening and the task is daunting. Let us be a part of converting Empire Christianity to the use of wealth, power, and education for the equal expression of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all of God's children in our world. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment