Conversations With My Sister, Part 2

My sisters and I all attended Catholic School. Even though we are no longer practicing Christians, we have maintained a lively interest in things spiritual. Like most seekers, we have dabbled in many different philosophies and practices. We're lucky to live in a time when there is such a surfeit of options.

Of course, we've found most of them to be unsatisfactory, shallow, fantasy-based, silly, selfish, dopey, downright dangerous, or just anti-intellectual.

My younger sister has always maintained a great respect for Jesus. And in conversations with me, has felt great disappointment that I have not. Like so many others who are not Christians, but respect and admire Jesus, she believes he was a great teacher, who brought important truths to mankind.

But I never could figure out exactly what those truths were supposed to be. Most people focus on his "Be nice to each other", the "Love" thing. That's nice and all, but he was hardly the first guy to think of it. And the idea that he "died for my sins", or that such a thing was demanded by a "loving God" is just too weird for me to wrap my head around. For that you gotta have "faith".

I've read the New Testament, but in the end...I just didn't get it. I, What was the Jesus' deal? Even when I ignored the plot-line, and just focused on the dialogue, I didn't end up with a coherent message that seemed applicable to me, my life or my world. When I listened, this is what I heard:

• Don't fight.
• The meek are better than the courageous.
• Rich people are bad.
• Give away everything you have to the "poor" (who some how have a right to everything you own.)
• Don't stand your ground against attack, exploitation, crime or bad government.
• Don't fight back.
  
• Be childish and dependent.
• Don't plan for the future.
• Be peaceful, passive and submissive.
  
• Being mournful, miserable, poor and downtrodden is better than being strong, smart, industrious, self-reliant and prosperous.
• Pride is bad.
• Being smart and clever is bad.
• Being strong is bad.
• Self-defense is bad.
• Loyalty to family is bad.

Something is wrong here. Is it me? Is it the text? I mean, I don't believe ANY of that stuff. The message seems to be: Warriors, and smart, tough productive people need not apply. And if Christians did what Jesus seems to be saying, they'd all be dead, slaughtered like passive sheep. It's counter-productive; slavery; self immolation; suicide. It can't be right. What the hell's going on?

Then it finally dawned on me:

1. Jesus was talking to a very specific audience: Miserable, poor, downtrodden, lowest caste Jews, criminals, whores and outcasts.
2. Jesus was also preaching to a bunch of rabble-rousers, constantly hatching plots and fomenting Jewish Nationalist rebellions against an overwhelmingly powerful ruler, Rome, who had the strength and will to crush the Jews if necessary. (Which in the end, of course, they did.)
   

Epiphany.

Which caused me to seriously rethink the whole Jesus thing.

If Jesus was talking to poor, exploited, downtrodden Jews of the First Century, what he said was incredibly liberating. He told them they had a Father God who loved them, and they didn't need the approval or the intersession of the arrogant and uppity priestly class to have a relationship with Him, to be loved by Him. He told them that each of them was precious to God. That was seriously Good News!

He told them they were as good as Rich People...(maybe even better, because wealth can make you less spiritual!), he told them they had a direct conduit to God.

Can you imagine what that must have been like for religious Jews, whose entire existence depended on their relationship to God...but which was controlled and determined by the Power Elite, who disdained and despised them; who had become sinfully proud, smug and self-righteous in their unique and critical role in Jewish society; who made it more and more difficult for regular people to be worthy, pure, undefiled enough to approach God?

Hmmm.

And the admonitions against assertiveness and aggressive self-defense; the insistence on peaceful behavior no matter what the provocation? Again, who was he talking to? 1st century Jewish Hotspurs, too blind and passionate to anticipate the response of Rome...and the desolation it would bring to their land.

So, a lot of what Jesus said was never meant to be universally applied to all people of all times, in all circumstances. Which makes a whole lot more sense to me.

But, the underlying philosophy is the Great Idea. The one I completely missed because I kept focusing on the specifics, the surface details.

He presented it in Jewish religious terms, but it was a Universal message, which was meant for all men in all times, places, circumstances. And nothing like it had ever been heard before. It was revolutionary.

So, now, when I listen, I hear Jesus saying this:

• Every person's soul is unique and his own. He is free to approach God on his own.
  
• Being free, every person is responsible for his own soul, virtue, relationship with God.
  
• God loves every person equally. He doesn't care about worldly status.
• The rules are the same for everyone, rich, poor, king, slave, man, woman.
• Justice is for all. But have some compassion, too.

And these principles organically evolved into the ideals of Freedom, Equality, Rule of Law, Justice, Compassion, and Personal Responsibility for Right Living (which includes promoting and defending these principles.)

Now we're talking!

These principles resulted in the most enlightened, most free, most prosperous, most advanced, most compassionate, most decent, most fair, most just civilization the world has ever known.

All from Jesus' Radical Wisdom.

He gave the world the principles I am willing to die for. I like him a lot more now. And I think I finally "get" him.

The Gunslinger