Biblical context is the subject of this posting. The dictionary defines context as “the whole situation, background, or events relevant to a particular event, personality, etc.” The disgrace of most biblical understandings is the historical disregard for the whole context in favor of the minutia, which may or may not support a particular religious group think. Biblical thinkers argue minutia. This disgrace is validated in tens of thousands of books, by every religious structure from time immemorial to this very hour. Few have ever cared about the big picture, preferring their religious givens. The Bible, in my humble opinion, is not a religious textbook but seems to be a running account through history of the disparity of the power of religion and the power of raw spirituality, always in flux, intermingling and rocking back and forth.
Moses climbed the mountain and came down to us with a pure spiritual
message from God, written on stone tablets.
The people and by extension, we humans, vehemently rejected this pure message,
preferring to write our own sorted futures.
Reacting, Moses got angry at his people, breaking the first stone
tablets into a thousand pieces. Returning
to the mountain again Moses came down the second time with the revised religious
version, shared in the Bible as the Ten Commandants. The result being that there are now acceptable
or forgivable excuses to deviate from the pure message of God. “Thou shalt not” now becomes a discussable
directive and the Mosaic Law is available for human debate. The law in Moses’s time worked the same way
it works today, having money and being politically connected always tips the scales
of justice. Exceptions in the name of
God are now allowable, this new version turned Moses and we humans into
terrorists, igniting our dark side. As
long as it is acceptable or excusable or forgivable to kill in the name of God
and country, we qualify as a terrorist organization, at least, it would seem, according
to God.
When I first began to read and ask questions of the Bible, I
was perplexed because there seemed to be two different Bible characters named
Moses. The youthful Moses who killed in
defense of his own people and subsequently ran scared for his life, spending
the next 40 years hiding in the wilderness.
The second Moses, after his burning bush experience on the mountain top,
finds the courage to accept an impossible mission back to Egypt and his old enemies. God even took the voice of Moses from him but
the Pharaoh got the message anyway, “let my people go!” This impossible mission in human terms, was
accomplished by relying exclusively upon faith in the power of the Spirit of God. As a result, the history of the Spirit lead exodus
from Egypt says that might does NOT make right, the powerless were
victors. The Moses who came down from
the mountain the second time was again in a religious mode, this mode says that
might does make right. Moses and the
people of God then invaded their promised land, embarking on a scorched earth
campaign to kill every man, women and child that inhabited their prophetic inheritance. All this killing was for the sake of supposed
religious purity.
A second watershed moment occurred about 1500 years later
when a wondering itinerant Galilean spiritualist named Jesus was noticed by the
people. The faith of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, which long ago was perverted to become a mere religion, had again, in
this timeframe, as it does in every time frame, become irrelevant to the daily
lives of the people. This Jesus, who had
no religious affiliation, no formal religious or secular education beyond
family, spoke to the people listening with an otherworldly authority that
attracted a growing following. For him, earthly boundaries seemed irrelevant
and the unexpected became the expected, he gave orders to the spirit world, the
natural world, the weather and even the finality of death itself. Jesus spoke of the eternal kingdom of God beyond
death but much to our surprise he demonstrated that a piece of God’s eternal kingdom
and the consequent responsibilities are available to the living. According
to Jesus, this Kingdom reality can be trusted, win or lose. Once again, earthly might does NOT make right
when the Spirit moves.
An angel spoke this truth to the prophet Zechariah, “Not by
might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord Almighty.” How can we recognize
the almighty Spirit of God as opposed to human bullying? There seems to be a biblical pattern, the
Almighty God acts in the moment of weakness, desperation and dependence upon
His spiritual power and presence. It’s
not us. Much like a raging bull, all we have to do is get out of the way before
we get trampled. Getting out of the way
of the Spirit of God is about getting our individual personhood out of the
way. Noah got himself out of the way, accepted
the ridicule and built an ark. Moses
climbed the mountain to inspect a burning bush that surely must have been an
illusion and then went on a mission in the power of the Almighty. David walked with the Spirit as a young man,
accepting the arrows of King Saul without malice and then when he became king,
his ego with a religious bent got in the way.
You and I, all of us have similar stories to tell if we dared. Most of us never let go of our stuff and let
the Spirit move. Spirit aware life is,
somehow, exceedingly difficult for we manipulative humans insisting on looking good
to gain the praise of others. Getting
out of the way of the Spirit is so difficult that most of us will never know it,
religion or no religion. I am no
exception.
The Almighty Spirit chooses to act, or not to act, in certain
desperate and precise moments when someone makes themselves vulnerable. The
decision to act on our behalf is not ours, our only choice is to be vulnerable.
Religion is easy. Being vulnerable and allowing
the Spirit of God to call the shots, not so much. One might ask, why did the people revolt the
first time Moses came down the mountain?
Why did the people put the fulfillment of God’s promise on their own shoulders? Why did the people of Jerusalem praise Jesus riding
into town on a donkey and within three days abandoned him to a cruel death on the
cross? It would seem that some of the
people had false expectations or the wrong expectations and a lust for the power
to have their immediate needs met. When
their needs were ignored, the people and the religious folk turned on Jesus who
barely opened his mouth to defend himself, preferring to trust in the wisdom and
power of the Spirit of eternity.
Jesus had told us all that we needed to know about living
eternity wise in the Sermon on the Mount.
These are the most difficult words for we mortals to hear, far beyond
any religious ethic. Every religious
ethic is about hedging these absolute words of Jesus. Some are easier than others but some are exceedingly
impossible. We are to live defenseless
in this dangerous world. We are to live sharing
our stuff whenever asked by anyone. The
most impossible is to turn the other cheek, to accept ridicule without taking the
offense. May I suggest that Jesus uses the
simple and profound rational, if one truly believes in eternity, the priorities
of this world should not matter. We all
should be asking, what American can live this way? What human being has ever lived this way? Jesus is one human who lived out to his death this
God given mission or ethic. Spirituality
is above and beyond religion, it is about laying our earthy lives open to the
whatever in this life in order to welcome eternity.
Joachim Jeremias, a relatively modern biblical scholar
and theologian wrote a little book called “the sermon on the mount”. I like little books; most books are 80% fluff
and footnotes. This one asks the right
question, how are we as Jesus believers to take these most difficult, if not impossible
words? Shall we cut off the hand
that offends the Law? Shall we give our property to anyone who asks at any time? How are we to relate to our evil
enemies? Shall we not object when the
bullies of this world are inclined to push us around? If taken literally, these are nonstarters in
human terms so traditional Christianity has always had qualifiers to soften the
impact of these most harsh words of Jesus.
As Dr. Jeremias explains, some would say that the sermon on
the mount is a call to return to the legalism of the Old Testament perfectionist
rule book religion. Some would say, the
words of Jesus were given to us as an impossible goal that would at least
improve our lives as we reach toward that goal.
Some would say that Jesus spoke these words because life as the people
knew it was about to end. On page 12 of
the little book, the author states that all three understandings are about Old Testament
Law making the rule book religion our entrance into eternity. Summarizing the understandings, “The first
conception makes him (Jesus) a teacher of the law; the second a preacher of
repentance; the third an apocalypticist (an end time prophet).” Were any of these understandings a full reflection
of the words of Jesus?
Dr. Jeremias says no, replacing them with a fourth
understanding, the new religion of the Christ.
No longer does the Old Testament flexible Law hold sway for Jesus has
given us a new time of Jesus grace. The sermon on the mount is a teaching
moment for the new faith which was and is both the right words and the right deeds.
The author makes a solid argument by adding other words of Jesus and piecing them
with the sermon on the mount but should we not ask, is there a real difference
between a Jewish legal excuse and a Christian grace excuse? Is there any excuse for living in our world
but avoiding the harsh words of Jesus? While
everything seems to fit logically, the leap to another religion does not
explain all the harsh words. We are
still left with a quandy.
Explain your words Jesus.
How shall we resist the bullies of
this world who rob and kill us? Shall we
not have the right to personal property and be willing to give up our stuff should
anyone demand it of us? What if they
want our money, house or retirement account?
Are we to give them even more than they ask? How can we love or even be kind to those who
are our enemies and wish us dead? How
can we tolerate slander and the demeaning of our personhood? The Christian religion does not ask or expect
these hard choices to be laid upon us, why should you? Could it be that for all time we have been barking
up the wrong tree or howling at the moon?
Could it be that the harsh words were more about eternity, that
dimension beyond death? Maybe, Jesus,
you were making eternity sense not religious sense. Could it be that the long-foretold appearance
of Jesus was not so much as a religious icon but more importantly an eternity
prophet and evangelist?
The prophets have always been among us. Most of our prophets have been pied pipers leading us on to earthly conquest while ironically claiming to defend the name of the whomever. They tell us to kill in the name of their God and their prophetic understandings. Jesus was not that kind of prophet nor was Moses prior to smashing the stone tablets. These two pivotal biblical men who lived and died, just as you and I, were eternity watchers in this life. Jesus gave us a glimpse of eternity in the sermon on the mount and Moses saw a glimpse of eternity as he starred into the burning bush which was not consumed. The Bible doesn’t say what he saw but he left the mountain out of character with his past human compromises. One might ask, what did Moses see in the burning bush? He did see something, right? Does it not seem logical to assume that Moses saw a vision of eternity? Could it be that Moses shared this vision at the very beginning of his writings, known to us as the Garden of Eden? Both ends of eternity are illuminated for us in the words of these two biblical giants.
G.Goslaw