I realize it will seem strange that this preface is appearing after all the episodes have appeared in my blog, but there it is…
I embarked on this project during lent of 2020 with a specific personal goal in mind. I want to reclaim, for myself, the personof Jesus, a human exemplar. Jesus is but one among a pantheon of what Joseph Campbell called “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” heroes who were elevated to the level of divinity after their deaths.
I know some people will be offended when I suggest that many people call themselves Christian without embracing the actual moral code Jesus taught, a moral code with deep roots in the Torah,brought forth in perhaps a new context for new generations. In the time that he lived, the sect that Jesus taught was one among many, many sects, just as today we see many parallel and competing denominations of every extant religion. That being said, there is no single way to view the teachings of Jesus, any more than there is a single way to view the teachings of Buddha, Zarathustra, Mohammed or any other exemplar.
Humanity is tearing itself apart in the competition to define and impose a definitive construct, mainly in the name of controlling the masses, at the expense of freedom of personal expression. As I have read it, in scripture and commentary, Jesus himself decried the imposition of orthodoxy, in the main because people fall into habits and practices that are rote and formulaic, if not “magical”, and that these often lack spiritual intent and purpose, and fail to bear fruit.
The canonical and non-canonical writings that are available to us do not completely reveal what took place in the life story of Jesus, and when it gets right to brass tacks, we’ll never know.
I suspect, but experts will have a different opinion, that Jesus was a follower of John, who took up his own ministry, maybe providing a refuge for John’s followers after his murder, bringing forward his own observations and voice about godliness.
I suspect, but experts will have a different opinion, that all the gospel narratives we have were constructed with the use of one or more sayings collections, in the typical style of Greco-Roman biography of the time. It has always struck me that, for example, the canonical gospel of Matthew tries and fails to be a well-constructed work of literature because the author(s) tried to cram in too many parables; the ordering of them seems sometimes inconsistent within a somewhat forced storyline, and the transitions are awkward in many places. I used Matthew as a framework for my own version and tried to construct a consistent story by means of episodes.
Since the death and martyrdom and elevation Jesus as Messiah, the focus of the church universal tends to focus on Jesus as the lamb of God, sacrificed to be an offering for all the sins of humanity; as such, much of lived Christian theology puts the work of creating a just world on the Godhead, rather than on the people. This is a failing and, I think, a grave misreading, one that turns the gospels and really all of Judeo-Christian literature on its head. What is the point of the Bible, if not to encourage and insistthat people do God’s work of tending and caring for the world and everything in it. Too often, faithseems to mean that God does all the work of caring for the world while simultaneously forgiving people for a never-ending stream of sinfulness! The newspapers and the television are full of the sort of ungodly corruption that Jesus saw—much of it perpetrated by people at the top of government and religious hierarchy, who are seldom called to account or repair—against which we are seemingly powerless now, as then.
“Thought, word and deed” is not and can never be replaced by the “thoughts and prayers” that abdicate from the servant leadership that Jesus advocated and seem suggest that we all just sit around as willing victims—waiting for the next world to come without doing anything of substance to bring the world we have in the here and now to a better place. I struggle with the notion that faith is all we need in our toolbox—I don’t think that is what Jesus meant for us to understand. It is all work; there are no shortcuts.
For me, the teachings of Jesus are meant to place accountability on each individual for their choice of actions. If people miss the mark, they can repent and be forgiven—but forgiveness is not a given. The overarching call is for people to do the right thing for the benefit of others (and self) in any moment, even if that means going against the framework of temporal legal standards. I think that Jesus was empowering people to make the kinds of “greater good” choices everyday that we expect our governments to make. Sadly, the pandemic we are living through has shown that we all, each and everyone, must make “greater good” choices because government has been carved out and caved in to serve mammon rather than serve people.
I will probably tweak my gospel’s construct, as well as write commentary on it. Owing to the time I had available, there are bits I did not include, such as the Widow’s Mite and the Good Samaritan, which I would like to add.
I do not take my effort to be anything but a personal practice, meant to challenge my own perceptions of what it is to be a follower of Jesus.
Alameda, California
12 April 2020
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
