posted
I hesitate to start a religious thread, yet who better to ask than you guys?
Here is the background for this, which piggybacks the whole forgiveness idea:
I think that people who want Jesus to be sort of a Santa figure, giving gifts and taking nothing away, tend to interpret his words as being all inclusive, loving everyone, healing everyone no matter what.
What I have always seen him as, though, is that tough teacher you had in eighth grade, who made you cry and feel guilty when you missed a homework assignment, who gave you a C- when you felt you deserved an A, but whom you have always remembered as the person you learned the most from.
I have absolutely no scripture to back myself up here, but I am curious about this topic.
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posted
I think the story of the good samaratin pretty convencing for the "Inclusion" theme.
But Jesus was known to pitch a hissy when he felt it was deserved. (Temple money lenders spring to mind.) and he DID say that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is a good question.
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posted
I wouldn't say he was a "Santa figure." Devotion certainly requires sacrifice. But its a good kind of sacrifice because the result is often a good deed.
Jesus to me is more like this radical English teacher I had in 7th grade who never told us our grades for papers. There were critiques and praise but it was very personal. I never felt like I was being weighted on this huge universal scale of success. There were things that I wrote which she thought were wonderful and there were things that could be wonderful, and then she'd list where I could improve. We stressed out our grades nonetheless and we could always get our actual letter if we asked her directly, but she was more about what made our good or in need of improvement.
I don't really have a religion. I was raised Christian and I stick with that because I really do admire Jesus as a mentor, a philosopher, and a model to all human beings. God, himself, I have less positive things to say about.
I don't think Jesus' main theme was "inclusion." Inclusion is simply a way of reaching the heart of his teachings. From inclusion we find relation with our fellow man and thus we are more likely to sacrifice and aid him in times of need.
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posted
I think his main theme was wholesale invitation.
I liken it to the person who is having the party of the season. Anyone who is anyone will be there. But to get in, you have to give up everything. A very high price, but open to anyone. And the real question for those outside is "Is it worth it?"
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quote:Originally posted by jeniwren: I liken it to the person who is having the party of the season. Anyone who is anyone will be there. But to get in, you have to give up everything. A very high price, but open to anyone. And the real question for those outside is "Is it worth it?"
That sounds more like the traditional view of the Devil and Hell than anything else to me.
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posted
The price only seems high if you think you are going to get out of paying it to someone, one way or another.
There was actually a talk by one of the Latter Day Saint Apostles last week in which he spoke of the Lord being disappointed in Peter. How could he really be disappointed if he were omniscient? I think when he said "oh ye of little faith" he spoke of it the way a parent speaks of their little ones' toes.
I don't see him as Santa, but I don't think he'd ever give me a grade I didn't really deserve if I were honest with myself.
I do believe in seeing all people as kin. But if my brother did something really wrong, I wouldn't whitewash it just because he was my brother.
I've been thinking about this a lot ever since in passing through Chicago I heard a PSA on the radio about a youth gang that drove through a neighborhood randomly shooting. One of their bullets struck and killed a 10 year old who was in the middle of her birthday party.
The stain of this crime passes back into their pasts, likely into being marginalized throughout their lives and probably fatherless. The availability and marketing of the tools of death also hold some blame. But countless youth also have these circumstances and don't make the choice to endanger others. People do have a choice. Anyway, I was thinking I could love the shooter like a brother but if my brother did that, I would want him imprisoned, where I would visit him.
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quote:Originally posted by jeniwren: I liken it to the person who is having the party of the season. Anyone who is anyone will be there. But to get in, you have to give up everything. A very high price, but open to anyone. And the real question for those outside is "Is it worth it?"
That sounds more like the traditional view of the Devil and Hell than anything else to me.
Calaeno, I'd liken the view of the Devil and Hell to the buddy you have who is constantly talking you into things that sound good at the time but always end up badly somehow. You can't quite figure out how that works, but somehow it always does, and in retrospect you can't see how you did anything wrong. Until you've done it over and over again and you realize that this choice to be a little bit selfish or that decision to cut a corner here was the domino that started the fall. Or perhaps you never realize it at all and spend your whole life wondering why things never go your way.
And then hell is realizing that the party invitation you turned down, where you had to give up everything, once you got in the door, it was all handed back to you with more than you had to start with. And now it's too late to change your mind.
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posted
For all this idea of "inclusion" what do you make of his snide and dismissive remarks about the Gentiles? He didn't even want his Apostles to talk with them, although he sometimes found one or two he praised just because he thought they weren't "like the others."
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posted
I always saw him as kind of both. That is, Jesus knew, loved, and accepted everybody, not matter what. To paraphrase our host, you can't fully understand someone without loving them, and I believed that Jesus understood everyone.
But on the other hand, he laid out some pretty tough rules for people to live up to. When he said "Do you understand what I have done? I have made you an example. What I have done, so you also should do.", I believed he was talking about more than just feet washing. Jesus loved and accepted everyone, but he also called people to do the same, and that's really freakin' hard. But, on the other hand, the rewards for doing so (and I'm not talking about externally granted rewards, like "Okay, you get into heaven.") are immense.
So, it's a bit of a paradox. Jesus/God is love and will always love no matter what, but on the other hand, Jesus set and is really pushing for people to live up to a very high standard.
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posted
Yes, I meant toes. I think Jesus sees us a little children. He commanded us to become as a little child to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is not a price, it is an acceptance of the truth that I my intelligence is not the greatest power in the universe. I am in the care and stewardship of another.
Acknowledging that other as God is to see the truth. Thinking it to be myself is to create an anomaly, like the cell that will not stop reproducing or the star whose energy collapses upon itself. And ultimately such an anomaly will be mastered by something less than itself, or the devil.
What of the miracles of Jesus can I do? Not turning water to wine, not raising the dead, not healing the sick. But his greatest miracle of proclaiming "not my will but Thine" I can do.
If theology is about truth, why is life so puzzling? I think of the story of Joseph when he concealed the cup in Benjamin's sack. It was a gift, but one that he knew would be interpreted as a crime. He laid a trap in order to bring out the love of his brothers. They had lived with the lie of calling him dead. I was really touched this last time I read of Judah pleading to be punished in Benjamin's place. I think that is how we will feel at the bar of God, when we understand our place. That is what Jesus gives us, not presents to a greedy child, but deliverance from our heaviest mistakes. And there is no price to receive it other than to admit that we need him.
(Sorry this is getting so long). The price only comes after that salvation. Having accepted him as our master, there are a variety of things we will do in his name. But these are also not a price, because they are done for him.
Though the word "price" is interesting in the context of the Book of Mormon scripture "I would give away all my sins to know Thee". Jesus offers us sustenance without price.
quote:I think that people who want Jesus to be sort of a Santa figure, giving gifts and taking nothing away, tend to interpret his words as being all inclusive, loving everyone, healing everyone no matter what.
What I have always seen him as, though, is that tough teacher you had in eighth grade, who made you cry and feel guilty when you missed a homework assignment, who gave you a C- when you felt you deserved an A, but whom you have always remembered as the person you learned the most from.
I see both of these figures as being the same. Part of being inclusive and loving everyone is also expecting a lot from everyone. I think the former entails the latter.
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quote: For all this idea of "inclusion" what do you make of his snide and dismissive remarks about the Gentiles?
Things like this being precisely the reason it's so difficult to make this kind of call about "what Jesus was about". We only have the record of what he said through the gospel-writers, and they had their own agendas. Plus the priestly editors may well have made changes that suited their own agendas.
What it comes down to--or so I've always thought--is what Jesus you choose to believe in, and it tends to be whatever you want to believe. Myself, I like the Jesus who is good and inclusive and capable of changing his mind when he is wrong. My favorite story in the New Testament is the one with the Syrophoenician woman who is a teacher to Jesus (Mark 8:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28).
There's this group of fundamentalist Christians that comes to preach at my school sometimes (called, I swear to God, the Consuming Fire Fellowship), and when I asked the associate pastor why he would want to believe in a God like that, he said, "Ma'am, I go by the Bible. I just believe what God says." And he won't listen to anything that might hint at a contradiction in what he believes. The lesson he takes from the Bible is exclusion and hatred, and it's there when he looks for it; but that's certainly not what I take from it.
People choose their gods. Sometimes unwisely.
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posted
Wow, that's a tough one. Jesus spoke on so many different topics I don't know if could say he had one main theme. On the one hand Christ was very inclusive, inviting all to be forgiven and have salvation. Many of his lessons are about helping others, especially the ones often overlooked by the world, widows, the poor, sinners. But on the other hand Christ also taught narrow was the gate and few who will enter the path that leads to salavation. He also said he did not come to unite but to divide, the gospel would turn brother against brother and son against father.
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