I really, really do. In an earlier blog I mentioned Marcus Borg's book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. It is a short book but I'm working through it slowly...
Anyway, chapter 3 really got me thinking. In it, Borg places Jesus in the context of a culture that was shaped by its understandings of purity - what is clean and what is not. He portrays Jesus as a subversive who replaces a system of purity with one of compassion. Key to his argument is a quote from Jesus in Luke 6:36 - "Be compassionate as God is compassionate." Borg sees this quote as a deliberate subversion of the Old Testament text - "Be holy as God is holy," Leviticus 11:44. In both his words and his actions, Jesus throws out all of the purity requirements. In Jesus' view, the primary characteristic of God is not holiness... it is compassion.
The implications for us are amazing. Following Jesus means always openning our hearts to the other. It means always standing in solidarity with those who are at the margins. It means discarding any silly ideas regarding holiness and realizing that not only is it not a central requirement for the Christian, it isn't a requirement at all.
Borg touches homosexuality and says that "the shattering of purity boundaries by both Jesus and Paul should also apply to the purity code's perception of homosexuality" and that "In Christ, there is neither straight nor gay." (p59)
Yeah... I really like Jesus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I don't think that Jesus threw out all of the purity requirements. Jesus usally increased the requirement. For instance, he said, "It is said that not to commit adultery, but I tell you that if you look at a woman lustfully, you have commited adultery with her in your heart." He told the pharisees on occassion that they cleaned the outisde, but they needed to clean the inside. Sounds like purity to me. But Jesus did throw out all of the legalism of the day. We have much of that these days as well, unfortunatelty.
Hey Stacy,
"purity" in this instance is a technical term rather than a term that refers to one's true spiritual state. I would recommend Borg's book for a clearer explanation.
Post a Comment