They were now on the road going to Jerusalem. Yeshua was telling them what was going to happen, and the students were overwhelmed with concern.
James and John asked if they could be sit at the right and left of Yeshua when he achieved his glory.
He said to them, You don’t know what you ask. Can you drink from my cup?
They said, We can.
The others were outraged.
Yeshua gathered them together and said, Perhaps you are able to drink from my cup, but as to the proximity of anyone’s seat to mine, that is not up to me to decide.
Look, you know how rulers lord it over their subjects and how strongmen abuse their power. It will not be like that among you. Whoever wants to be great is going to be a servant; everybody who wants to be number one will be everyone’s slave. I did not come to be served, but to serve.
If any of you are confident enough to feel moral superiority to others, hear this: Two men went to the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a toll collector. The Pharisee prayed: ‘I thank you, holy one, that I am not like everyone else, that I am not thieving, unjust or adulterous, like that toll collector. I fast and give tithes.’ The toll collector stood off where he could not be seen. Looking down at the ground, he beat his breast and prayed: ‘O holy one, forgive me, sinner that I am.’
I tell you the second man was forgiven, not the first.
Those who promote themselves as better than others will be demoted; those who demote themselves will be elevated.
One among those gathered asked when and where the realm of the holy one would appear.
Yeshua said, The holy one does not approach with visible signs. People might say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘Look, there it is.’ But do not believe them. There is no map to the holy realm. The truth of the matter is that the realm of the holy one is all around you and within you. This is it!
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:
Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015
Erdman, Bart, various titles
Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991
Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991
Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019
Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html
Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011
Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011
Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings
I do this writing with a goal in mind. I want to reclaim, for myself, the personof Jesus, a human exemplar. Jesus is one among a pantheon of what Joseph Campbell called “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” So many people call themselves Christian without embracing the actual moral code Jesus taught, a moral code taught in the Torah and brought forth in new context to a new generation through the parables and ministry of Jesus. Once Jesus died, a political and religious martyr, he was translated into a God-figure. Since that time, much of lived Christian theology puts the work of creating a just world on the Godhead, rather than on the people. This misreading turns the Bible on its head. What is the point of the Bible, if not to encourage and insist that people do God’s work, not make God do all the work and then also forgive people for continuing to sin! “Thought, word and deed” is not and can never be replaced by the “thoughts and prayers” that abdicate from the active service of justice—we were made to serve.
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