This is the 3rdweek of our Jesus series, looking at 5 different definitions of Jesus. The first week was a very traditional definition: “Jesus is God’s only son, born of the Virgin Mary. He is both human and God. Anyone who believes in Jesus and accepts him as saviour will have eternal life in heaven.” This definition takes the perspective that Jesus saves us on the cross by dying for our sins.
The second definition is more modern, it's very popular among United Church people. “Jesus was a gentle, kind man, who loved all people, no matter who they were. He taught the world about the power of love and how to get along with one another and with God. When people tried to keep children from bothering him, he insisted they be allowed to come to him.” This definition takes the perspective that Jesus saves us on the cross as the ultimate example of love, both divine love for us and love that we can imitate.
Today's definition is a little more radical, a little edgier. It's based on scholarship from the last 30 years or so. “Jesus was a Jewish peasant, possibly the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. He led a non-violent revolutionary movement, opposing the ruling classes that oppressed the poor, the disabled and women. Even though he knew he might be executed for political reasons, he continued to work for justice.”
Lots to unpack there! Just a reminder that this is a theory, I'm not telling you that you have to believe this this definition. On the other hand, as I've said before, it's always good to spend time with definitions that bother us the most.
So, let's start at the beginning, Jesus was a Jewish peasant. People don't always realize Jesus was Jewish, not Christian. Jesus didn't mean to start a new religion, he just wanted to revitalize, transform, his own Jewish faith.
In terms of class, Jesus was actually lower than a peasant. Peasants generally had their own land. Not much, often just enough for subsistence, but still, they owned land. Jesus and father Joseph are referred to as tekton,in the Bible, which is translated as “carpenter,” meaning one who works with wood, making furniture. They didn't own land, so they were seen as being further down the social ladder than peasants. They weren't dirt poor, but they weren't much above subsistence either.
That's really important for us to understand. Jesus was not comfortably middle class like many United Church people. He was lower class, poor, barely getting by.
Then the really controversial line, he was possibly the illegitimate son of Roman soldier. Some of you mt be thinking, what?! Where did that come from?
It's actually historically based. A philosopher in the 2ndcentury, so about 100 years after Jesus, wrote that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Roman soldier named Panthera. The philosopher was trying to discount Jesus as a legitimate religious figure. You call him son of God? Ha! He's the son of a Roman soldier.
Oddly enough though, there is evidence of a soldier by that name in Galilee around the time Jesus was born. Does that mean he was Jesus' father? Who knows. Does it matter? Not really, what matters isn't who Jesus' father was, but rather who Jesus became and how he influenced the world around him and continues to influence world today.
Then we move from who Jesus was to what he did: led a non-violent revolutionary movement, opposing ruling classes that oppressed the poor, the disabled and women. Just out of curiosity, how many people heard Jesus described that way when you were growing up?
This is definitely a more recent perspective, yet it's very scripturally based. We see that in the readings for today. Jesus cleared out the Temple as a way of making it clear to the Jewish leaders that he was standing up to their cozy relationship with the Roman oppressors and the ways they oppressed their own people.
And that bit with the coin about taxes? Brilliantly done. First off, Jews were not supposed to use Roman coins, but clearly that's what these elites have on them because that's what they give Jesus, a coin with Caesar's face on it. Jesus makes sure the crowd knows this by asking whose face is on the coin.
Then when Jesus says, well, give to Caesar what is Caesars, and to God what is God's, again, it's brilliant. Because according to Jewish belief, what belongs to God? Everything. So as faithful Jews what should they be giving to Romans? Nothing. Jesus' reply is very revolutionary and would have been heard that way, that's why the Jewish and Roman leaders start getting so nervous about him.
As for standing up for the poor, disabled and women, there are many examples. Every time Jesus healed a sick person, he was showing that person was not cursed by God, as the people of the time believed, but rather was worthy of full inclusion in society.
Jesus often spoke of how the poor were just as worthy of God's love and attention, if not more so, than the rich.
As for women, again there are many examples. Jesus taught women in the same manner he taught men, even though women weren't supposed to be educated. He ate with women, traveled with them, stood up for them.
Finally, the last line of the definition: Even though he knew he might be executed for political reasons, Jesus continued to work for justice.
Bit of different perspective, isn't it? No divine plan, no dying for our sins, he died because of politics.
Yet, you could also say there's a lot of divine influence, because Jesus' political activism, his revolutionary approach, is based completely on his faith, on his relationship with God and his understanding of God's love for the world and plan for world, a plan Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
As theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it: “In Jerusalem, Jesus' passion for the kingdom of God, the healing of the sick, the liberation of the humiliated, the forgiveness of sins, was bound to come up against its most implacable enemies – the collaborators among his own people and the Roman occupying power.”
That's why many theologians see this definition of Jesus as being an example of the third theory of atonement, third understanding of how Jesus saves us on cross. This theory says that Jesus' willingness to die in his fight against oppression and injustice frees us from bondage to oppression. Jesus saves us from oppression and shows us the path to liberation.
Doug Hall speaks of Jesus delivering us from corporate or systemic evil. This is salvation in same vein as the Exodus, when the Hebrew slaves were delivered from the oppression of Pharaoh in Egypt.It's a powerful image for people who are oppressed by economic systems, whether it's in Latin America and Africa or East Hastings in Vancouver or on a First Nations reserve in northern Ontario.
Moltmann takes also takes this theory in a more personal direction. He was imprisoned by the Nazis in World War II and said it was that experience that moved his faith from his head to his heart. It was then that he realized the full extent of Jesus' suffering on the cross. Jesus had suffered physically and emotionally just as the prisoners in concentration camp did.
Moltmann said, “through Jesus, God bears not just our suffering, but our history of human wrong and injustice too.”
Don Schweitzer, a professor of theology puts it this way: “In his suffering, Christ mediates hope that God's love is stronger than these forces of despair and evil, and he mediates or discloses the presence of God with the sufferer.”
You don't have to embrace or accept the image of us somehow being saved, brought closer to God, through Jesus' suffering, in order to find meaning in Jesus the revolutionary.
They don't have to go together. In fact, I had never really thought of them being connected until I started to do research for this sermon, and found so many theologians who did tie them together. Personally I find a great deal of meaning in seeing them together. I have always deeply appreciated idea that Jesus' suffering means he understands the suffering I and others go through.
Going a step further to acknowledge that Jesus suffered in this way because of his beliefs, that it was based on delivering people from the oppression that so often led to suffering, gives it whole new meaning. It takes our faith from personal only, to societal as well.
This understanding of Jesus helps us in the United Church to see the connection between our passion for social justice and a sense of personal connection with God.
Jesus the suffering revolutionary. What does it mean to you to think of Jesus sharing and understanding your suffering? What does it mean to us, that he gave his life in the struggle against oppression and injustice?
May this definition of Jesus challenge us and lead us to new understandings of our person relationship with God and of our calling and responsibility as the people of God.