Jesus was a Radical

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Ask a random group of people to talk about what they know about Jesus of Nazareth, and the subsequent forming of Christian based faiths, and you’re bound to get some interesting answers. One of the things apparent to most religious scholars and historians is that people, Christians in general, are for the most part ignorant of who the true Jesus was. On a grand scale, people are not aware of how Christianity developed after Christ’s death and many if not most, would probably argue that it was Jesus’ goal to establish Christianity as a religion, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

There are several books one can read that clearly illustrate the inception, birth and lifeline of the Church. I am neither scholar nor historian, but an avid student of theology and philosophy, and consider myself to be an unofficial master of metaphysics. I will not try to paint an expert’s historical depiction of Christianity. But I do want to offer some of the basic level 101 pieces of information any first year seminary student would be expected to know about Christ’s role in the forming of Christianity. First, Jesus was most likely illiterate, though he may have spoken many of the words accepted today as scripture, he never wrote them. In fact it is unlikely that any of his disciples were authors of the writings that formed the New Testament. Scholars aren’t sure who the actual authors of the scriptures actually were, but what we do know is that most were written some thirty and even fifty years plus, after the death of Christ.

The reason it took so long for followers to catalogue the teachings of Jesus was because they believed that his message was eschatological, or that the world was coming to an end, and that the message was for them. While they waited for the great cataclysm to befall them, early Christians had no need to write anything for the future since the future would not be coming. No churches were built, and Christians basically prepared for the world to end by performing rituals under ground and hidden from society. Because their practices and rituals were so secretive, they were viewed as heretics and members of a blood-drinking cult, and they were persecuted if authorities found out they were practicing Christians. As the years passed and believers saw that the world appeared to be seemingly unending, and many of the true witnesses to the teachings of Jesus were dying off, it became important to some Christians to preserve the teachings of this great prophet. They began to consider that it may not be within their lifetimes at all the that the world would come to an end, and felt it was their obligation to produce writings in order to preserve Christianity as a religion. It was then that Churches as structures began to be erected in the name of Christ, and thus the once underground religion soon emerged upon the earth as a powerful, political world leader.

It is important to emphasize that Christ was here to plant a seed of consciousness not a religion. His message was actually one that when truly examined would be seen to renounce any organization that attempted to control, bind or limit the common person, whether through rules of governance, organization, or religion. The main point of Jesus’ message was God/Love knows no boundaries. The institutions we are so willing offer our allegiance to in the eyes of Christ, are self-imposed prisons that the majority of people ignorantly don. And we do this typically based on the ideology that these are the ways things have always been done and always should be.

Jesus was not a pacifist in the way we think of the term today. In fact Jesus was a political and social radical, an anarchist of sorts. He came here to challenge authority and unravel the stitching of the governments, social order, and religions of the day. His message was, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” but “my Father’s kingdom is at hand,” and nothing Caesar nor any other political leader, nor religious leader can do will take that away from me.

The famous quotes we so often hear people refer to time and time again have lost their true meaning and impact over the distance of thousands of years of repetition. The behaviors of society have so drastically altered from Jesus’ day that we are left completely oblivious to the message of this often misinterpreted being from the past. For example:

When someone slaps you on the right cheek,

Give them the left as well.

 

When we hear these words we think it is a statement of complete acquiescence, but nothing could be further from the truth as shown by Robert W. Funk in Honest to Jesus.

 

“A blow to the right cheek would require a left-handed slap, which would be intended not to injure but to humiliate. The left hand was not used in Jesus’ society, since it was used for unclean tasks. At Qumran to gesture with the left hand was punishable by ten days of penance. So a backhanded slap to the right cheek was an insult delivered from a superior to an inferior…master to slave, husband to wife, parent to child, Roman to Jew. It’s message: Get back in your place. Don’t put on airs.

To turn the other cheek under the circumstances was an act of defiance. The left cheek invited a right hand blow that might injure. The humiliation of the initial blow was answered with a non-violent, very subtle but quite effective challenge. The act of defiance entailed risk; it was symbolic, to be sure, but for that reason appealed to those who were regarded as subservient inferiors in Jesus’ world.” (Funk, Honest to Jesus, pg 155)

 

If someone sues you for your coat,

Give him the shirt off your back to go with it.

 

This we see as an example of extreme humility. It is a statement of banishing one’s pride in this material world we live in. However, this is a misinterpretation as well. As we read below we come to realize that this is in actuality a blatant alternative to giving one the finger so to speak.

 

“A coat was often given as surety for a loan or debt. The poor could lose their coats under such circumstances, but only during the daylight hours; at night according to Deuteronomic law, the coat had to be returned since the truly destitute might have nothing else for warmth. Jesus’ injunction was to give up both coat and shirt. In a two-garment society, that meant going naked. Nakedness was frowned upon, to say the least. Again, according to the Manual of Discipline, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, accidentally exposing one’s nakedness when taking one’s hand out of one’s robe called for thirty days of penance. Exposing oneself to a companion needlessly drew a penalty of six months. Jesus combined humor with a call for a serious infraction of the social code.” (Funk, Honest to Jesus, pg 155)

When anyone asks you for one mile,

go along for two…

 

This statement is most likely to be viewed as a call to service for one’s fellow man. But once again, taking these teachings out of context has caused generations of people to miss the point completely.

 

“Roman soldiers were allowed to commandeer Judeans for a mile’s march to assist with gear. More than that was forbidden. To comply with a conscriptive order meant subservience; to refuse meant rebellion. Imagine the consternation of the Roman soldier when confronted with a Judean offer to carry the pack a second mile.

These examples all refer to real problems, real circumstances. The responses, however, are not prescriptive; they are suggestive of behavior that undermines the intent of the initial act. They prompted Jesus’ listeners to think of other circumstances, in which a comparable response went beyond and undercut the primary aggression…

They accurately reflect Jesus’ style: he was not a teacher of practical wisdom; he was not an expounder of the fine points of the law; he didn’t formulate commandments that governed behavior. He constantly pushed beyond the limits of legal prescriptions and proscriptions into virgin territory.” (Funk, Honest to Jesus, pg 155-6)

 

These kinds of words, thoughts and teachings obviously made Jesus very dangerous to people in places of power. Jesus was hunted down from cradle to grave by Herod and Pontius Pilate for execution because it was widely known that he not only had the keys to the kingdom, but came here to give them to the world’s prisoners so that they may free themselves.

Jesus taught his followers that their amazement and bewilderment of his feats was ironic since every human being has within the same power he demonstrated daily, and all it would take to achieve such mastery is to have faith the size of a mustard seed. But the main teaching that has been bastardized and hidden from the people by all institutions of power is the nuclear bomb to end all illusions of limitation. This was the teaching that said love thy neighbor and bless those who wish to do you harm, for when you realize there is no harm that can be done to you, you shall inherit the kingdom of God.

As Dr. Wayne Dyer once brilliantly said, it isn’t who we elect into political power, or more laws that will make the world a better, safer place. The world’s awakening to a brighter dawn is only going to happen through a shift in consciousness. In other words the power of humankind to heal the world is within, not without. The kingdom of Heaven is at hand; in our own hands quite literally.

By giving our power away to people in places of authority we will never achieve global healing. By seeing others as separate and opposing to ourselves, by seeing bombs, guns, laws and prisons as answers to our ills, we will eternally (and internally) know conflict. The kingdom of Heaven is at hand, right here and now. The power of humanity is evident as we look around us and see that what we have focused on, chaos, pain, isolation and struggle, is the very creation we have called forth for ourselves.

Clearly we collectively have no idea of who this person Jesus of Nazareth really was. For if we did, we would not be able to call ourselves followers of his teachings and support government imposed bombing of human beings half a globe away. We could not champion a government that wages war in the name of Christ, killing thousands of civilians whom we have never even met. We could not stand by a government that eradicates constitutional safeguards that once assured that all shall know freedom, and the blatant hypocrisy that states this is all done in the name of safety and security. All of these acts are in open defiance of what Christ actually stood for. He left his legacy of teaching to prevent such oppression upon the individual common people.

It is the mass misunderstanding of Jesus that causes me to be unable to call myself a Christian. But I will forever look to this great being for influence, advice and guidance concerning all matters of the heart, mind, body and soul. I am forever grateful to those who had the foresight and wisdom to write down, from an oral tradition, the teachings of this great master. And the jigsaw puzzle that remains for me is a joy to recreate. In fact it is through discoveries like the ones presented in this writing that have ignited my deep interest in who this person Jesus truly was; and the reason I will continue to consider the Bible as a worthy reference to keep by my side.

If only the Churches got wind of this revolutionary departure from business as usual. They might actually have to begin contemplating how they will house all of those extra people in their pews, rather than dreaming up contrived methods to boost attendance. As Jesus would say, the answer to all of our problems is love, and love is always the truth. And the truth is almost always radical.

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