I've titled my blog with the title of my doctoral thesis, Jesus Meets the Matrix. Over the years many people have asked me, what's with the title? It was a play on words, because my thesis used references to the movie "The Matrix" as a framework for the material. It referred to a Multimedia Matrix worksheet I developed to help pastors consider media elements and their appropriate use in sermons. But over the years, the matrix has expanded a lot in my thoughts. So many have said so much about Jesus and wide study of their comments begins to reveal that there is a clear difference between Jesus himself and what we say about him. My goal for this blog is to keep making a distinction between Jesus and our beliefs about him. My bias is believing that the four canonical gospels contain an accurate record of the words of Jesus. They have stood the test of time, have an ancient history, and several major events recorded in them are validated by secular sources from the time period. They also are more restrained and historical than the gnostic gospels IMO.
Over the years, Greek, Medieval, enlightenment, and modern constructs have been laid over the top of Jesus words. In this emerging post-modern time we have a fresh opportunity to discover where we have added our own worldview to the message of Jesus. Worldviews have been turned on their heads in recent years and the change is not over yet. Wherever we discover this extra material we have added to the message of Jesus, we are discovering the matrix. I believe Jesus has been presented to each age of history. Each age has had its own "matrix" of beliefs, yearnings, and values. This "container" always affects the message. To be fair, the post-modern container will ultimately limit and reduce the gospel in its final form. But here on the edge of change, we have a fresh opportunity, now that we are wise to the limits of modernity, to give the gospel a fresh hearing. We can allow the very words of Jesus to shape our beliefs in the coming era. We can be more self-aware as we seek to explain the gospel in a more comprehensive way. If we really do the hard thinking and praying, maybe we can end up with a container that is a little less limiting. At the very least, for us who will have lived in both ages, we can harvest the best of the age that is passing and be able to see with greater vision a fuller portion of Jesus' message in the age that is emerging. Lofty? Yes. But I believe it is essential if the message of Jesus is to be heard by future generations.
Jesus may return at any time. But when he comes, may he find us rightly dividing the word of truth, growing from glory to glory, even growing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God & humanity!
So let's get down to it! What are the most important things Jesus said? Where have we missed it? Where is the matrix of our age reducing it and watering it down? Where is the matrix of our tradition helping it to be heard in fullness? Where does our tradition need to listen better or hear again Jesus' words? I hope you enjoy this journey with me... Please join the conversation today! As Jesus meets the emerging post-modern matrix may he be heard with life-changing, world-saving, peace-making power!
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Jesus
For the last several years I have been doing an informal, but fairly in-depth study into the man they called Jesus of Nazareth. I have always been interested in his words. When I began answering a call to ministry, it started with attempting to gain the tools to read his words as they were recorded and preserved mostly in the Greek New Testament. The more I studied, the more I realized that people tended to find what they went looking for when studying Jesus. I can't fit anymore Jesus books on the huge shelves in my office! But each of them paints a slightly different picture: Religious Savior, Peasant Cynic, Great Teacher, Social Critic, Leader of a Movement, etc... Some versions are very traditional, others highly skeptical. But most of them seem to fall into the trap of developing some sort of schema or system that traps jesus inside. Mind you, I'm a Christian pastor so much of the time I'm pulling for the traditional Jesus when I read these writings. However, conservative scholars seem to have a tendency to define Jesus up-front just as much as wildly liberal scholars and skeptics.
It goes like this: we know the conservatives can't be right, so therefore Jesus wasn't God. He must instead fit right into our liberal world view. Bingo! It turns out Jesus was a liberal, too.
Or: we know the liberals can't be right, so therefore Jesus was not only God, he was the founder of the Christian religion as we know it today. Bingo! It turns out Jesus was a Religious Right Evangelical all along!
It would be funny if there weren't so much at stake.
I have had a few jewish friends over the years. Their perspective on the Bible has always fascinated me. For many, there seems to be a great love for the Scriptures and a constant wrestling with it "in community". Their interpretations must stand up to rigorous debate, often in each other's presence. The text is in charge and they are straining to hear it well, letting the chips fall where they may. Perhaps I am romanticising it a bit, but they seemed pretty honest in their pursuit. That worked on me for a number of years, but didn't really change my views or settle my burning questions. I just sort of left it back there on the burner, hoping something would come of it.
A couple of years back I rediscovered the writings of N.T. Wright, a british scholar and prolific writer. You name it, N.T. has 12 books and 26 articles on it! He's a real John Wesley in many ways.
His approach to Jesus is doing a good job of pulling these two worlds together for me. He insists that since Jesus was Jewish, we need to understand 2nd Temple (1st Century) Judaism as well as we possibly can. We should not dive into authoritative interpretation until we have allowed the nuances of that world to settle into our minds. You say, "surely that is what all scholars have been doing all along." I say, "Not necessarily so, and stop calling me Shirley."
It turns out a number of genres and key terms: The Kingdom of God, Apocalyptic literature, parables, have been highly stylized by well-meaning scholars of various stripes. Now it's difficult to say that one man's work overturns most of what came before him, but let's just say this one man's work has overturned a lot of things I thought I had nailed down 20 years ago. Let's just put it this way: the gospel as I have known it all of my life may be a greatly reduced version of what Jesus was pushing 2,000 years ago! That's difficult for me to type. I spent a lot of time in school discovering the great reductions of others and chiseling out a water-tight Jesus to preach to the world. Guess what? My Jesus sprang a few leaks in the last couple of years. But don't worry friends...it's all good. It just seems that there was too much Jesus to fit into my theology. It's not so much that what I've been preaching wasn't true. Try this: necessary, but not sufficient. It was a tough point to get past, but I have finally let go of trying to force things to fit. I have had to admit, it's time to blast open the walls of my gospel and let the real GOSPEL of Jesus shine as brightly as I can.
I love the children's story about a train bound for glory: The Polar Express. For the sake of a children's story that hints at a larger story, things have been greatly reduced. It's about a kid going to see Santa, but all through it you just keep seeing hints at something more, maybe it's about faith and God and Jesus. At the center is a TICKET PUNCHED that lets you get on board-go to heaven. This story is everything that is right and wrong with gospel most preachers preach today. In a nutshell, a truth greatly reduced. Walter Brueggemann has been a help to me as well, understanding Jesus' prophetic role and how much he placed himself in that great tradition, stretching all the way back to Moses.
Okay, its so late it's early now, so I've got to go. If anyone reads this, there is more to come. I hope someone might be interested in discussing this in more detail. I leave you with a big sigh of relief I am feeling these days. Jesus is so big, so cool, so challenging, so awesome that I don't have to try to contain him (I never knew I was). I can let him speak as clearly as possible through his Word. I can't avoid interpretation, but I don't have to carry the burden of making his words fit a predetermined package. All of his words that I am able to understand, can just be allowed to speak with a freshness and power. This quest has not taken me away from God or my core beliefs. However, it has transcended a few false ideas that were squeezed in-between my understandings of Jesus. I know I've danced around a lot and haven't said that much yet. But there is more to come...way more Jesus to come...and I'm blessed because of it. Thanks for reading, if anyone does!
It goes like this: we know the conservatives can't be right, so therefore Jesus wasn't God. He must instead fit right into our liberal world view. Bingo! It turns out Jesus was a liberal, too.
Or: we know the liberals can't be right, so therefore Jesus was not only God, he was the founder of the Christian religion as we know it today. Bingo! It turns out Jesus was a Religious Right Evangelical all along!
It would be funny if there weren't so much at stake.
I have had a few jewish friends over the years. Their perspective on the Bible has always fascinated me. For many, there seems to be a great love for the Scriptures and a constant wrestling with it "in community". Their interpretations must stand up to rigorous debate, often in each other's presence. The text is in charge and they are straining to hear it well, letting the chips fall where they may. Perhaps I am romanticising it a bit, but they seemed pretty honest in their pursuit. That worked on me for a number of years, but didn't really change my views or settle my burning questions. I just sort of left it back there on the burner, hoping something would come of it.
A couple of years back I rediscovered the writings of N.T. Wright, a british scholar and prolific writer. You name it, N.T. has 12 books and 26 articles on it! He's a real John Wesley in many ways.
His approach to Jesus is doing a good job of pulling these two worlds together for me. He insists that since Jesus was Jewish, we need to understand 2nd Temple (1st Century) Judaism as well as we possibly can. We should not dive into authoritative interpretation until we have allowed the nuances of that world to settle into our minds. You say, "surely that is what all scholars have been doing all along." I say, "Not necessarily so, and stop calling me Shirley."
It turns out a number of genres and key terms: The Kingdom of God, Apocalyptic literature, parables, have been highly stylized by well-meaning scholars of various stripes. Now it's difficult to say that one man's work overturns most of what came before him, but let's just say this one man's work has overturned a lot of things I thought I had nailed down 20 years ago. Let's just put it this way: the gospel as I have known it all of my life may be a greatly reduced version of what Jesus was pushing 2,000 years ago! That's difficult for me to type. I spent a lot of time in school discovering the great reductions of others and chiseling out a water-tight Jesus to preach to the world. Guess what? My Jesus sprang a few leaks in the last couple of years. But don't worry friends...it's all good. It just seems that there was too much Jesus to fit into my theology. It's not so much that what I've been preaching wasn't true. Try this: necessary, but not sufficient. It was a tough point to get past, but I have finally let go of trying to force things to fit. I have had to admit, it's time to blast open the walls of my gospel and let the real GOSPEL of Jesus shine as brightly as I can.
I love the children's story about a train bound for glory: The Polar Express. For the sake of a children's story that hints at a larger story, things have been greatly reduced. It's about a kid going to see Santa, but all through it you just keep seeing hints at something more, maybe it's about faith and God and Jesus. At the center is a TICKET PUNCHED that lets you get on board-go to heaven. This story is everything that is right and wrong with gospel most preachers preach today. In a nutshell, a truth greatly reduced. Walter Brueggemann has been a help to me as well, understanding Jesus' prophetic role and how much he placed himself in that great tradition, stretching all the way back to Moses.
Okay, its so late it's early now, so I've got to go. If anyone reads this, there is more to come. I hope someone might be interested in discussing this in more detail. I leave you with a big sigh of relief I am feeling these days. Jesus is so big, so cool, so challenging, so awesome that I don't have to try to contain him (I never knew I was). I can let him speak as clearly as possible through his Word. I can't avoid interpretation, but I don't have to carry the burden of making his words fit a predetermined package. All of his words that I am able to understand, can just be allowed to speak with a freshness and power. This quest has not taken me away from God or my core beliefs. However, it has transcended a few false ideas that were squeezed in-between my understandings of Jesus. I know I've danced around a lot and haven't said that much yet. But there is more to come...way more Jesus to come...and I'm blessed because of it. Thanks for reading, if anyone does!
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