Tagged: religion

Did Jesus of Nazareth Pass Notes?

“If you open your bulletin, you’ll find a communication card.  If you’re new to the church or have questions or would like to sign up for a class, just fill out the card and drop it in the offering plate when it’s passed around later in the service.”

He cringed.  He wanted to get more involved, he really did.  He wanted to be a part of the group.  He would love to spread the message that he knew to be valuable, yet he couldn’t complete this simple step.  He had been burned so many times in in his life.  He wondered, “Does the preacher actually think there is anyone in the congregation who hasn’t been bombarded-to-death with contact after they signaled interest to Gold’s Gym, or Subway, or a Time-share, or a Credit Card?”  The list goes on and on.  Yet, here he was in a place that offered…well, it offered hope; and he was being asked to formally display interest yet again.  How could he not feel once bitten, twice shy?  He knew he couldn’t be that different than others.

The contents of the offering plate seemed to prove he wasn’t.

The challenge then:  Jesus of Nazareth was different.  He was surely recruiting, but he was not starting a business.  And he was surely not starting an organization.  The picture painted by historical critical scholarship is that the man was intimate.  He didn’t pull punches.  He didn’t waste time.

“Being the more difficult course of action,” he thought, “this intimacy requirement only adds to the strength of his, Jesus’, argument.”

Standing in front of a crowd and asking them to perform the same ritual they’re asked to perform countless times throughout each day should be shameful.  He wondered, “Would Jesus of Nazareth have ever passed notes?”

Paul – Explained

“Yes…Yes…Yes…  That’s it exactly!” he pronounced to an empty room.  Again, Tolstoy came through.  Leo just finished explaining that the “chief cause” of the false interpretations of Christianity’s and Jesus of Nazareth’s message was Paul.  What caused Tolstoy to decide this?  The fact that Paul was the apostle who connected the Old Testament to the New Testament.  Tolstoy concludes, “…this doctrine of the tradition, this principle of the tradition, was the chief cause of the distortion of the Christian teaching and of its misunderstanding (xxii).”  Tolstoy’s premise?  Simply that Jesus’ words should rank higher than any other persons.

“This all makes so much sense,” he thought to himself.  Finally, someone said what he had been feeling.  But it was not that simple.  He still believed and needed some of Paul’s ideas.  In particular, Paul’s assertion, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,” for him, had singular merit.

So, what should be done with Paul?  For years, this question vexed him.  During a sermon one Sunday, in an instant the answer came:  end the special treatment.  Some of what Paul said was true and had value.  Some of what Paul said wasn’t true and didn’t have value.  His task was to treat Paul no different than any other thinker.  The issue wasn’t black and white.  He had to discern the value himself, idea by idea.  In other words, he finally remembered that Paul was just a man.

Despite the profound meaning and encouragement he gained from this statement, he felt it would be too radical for other believers.

Holding his breath, he hoped instead to discover that it resonated.

*****

Tolstoy, Leo, Leo Wiener, and Greg Oviatt. The Gospels in Brief. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004. Print.