PowerPoint Presentation Who and What was Jesus

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Who and what was Jesus? January 4, 2009
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Hymn 454 Open My Eyes, That I May See
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Welcome
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Announcements
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Kerygma LuncheonJanuary 11Spaghetti
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The Apostles Creed
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• I believe in God,
• the Father Almighty,
• Maker of heaven and earth,
• And in Jesus Christ,
• His only Son, our Lord
• Who was conceived
• by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
• suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
  dead, and buried.
• The third day
• He arose from the dead.

• He ascended into heavenand sits at the right
  hand
• of God the Father Almighty,
• from thence He shall come
• to judge the quick and the dead.
• I believe in the Holy Spirit,
• the holy catholic church,the communion of
  saints,the forgiveness of sins,the resurrection
  of the body,and life everlasting.
• Amen.

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Prayers of the CommunityResponse This is
our prayer, O Lord
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The Lords Prayer
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• Our Father
• Who art in heaven
• Hallowed be thy name
• Thy kingdom come
• Thy will be done
• On earth
• As it is in heaven
• Give us this day
• Our daily bread

• And forgive us
• our trespasses
• As we forgive those
• who trespass against us
• And lead us not
• into temptation,
• But deliver us from evil.
• For thine is the kingdom,
• and the power,
• and the glory forever.
• Amen

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• Who and what was Jesus?
• Marcus Borg

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Four Historical Options

• 1. Jesus thought he was the messiah, and he was
  right. Based on what the New Testament itself
  says, this has been the common Christian position
  throughout the ages. A considerable body of
  scholarship argues for this point.
• 2. Jesus thought he was the messiah, and he was
  wrong. Some who hold this position might still
  grant that he was an impressive historical
  figure others would say that he was seriously
  mistaken, even deluded.
• Jesus didnt think he was the messiah, and
  therefore he wasnt the messiah. This sounds
  like common sense but is actually fact
  fundamentalism or fact literalism, which
  exists in both secular and Christian forms if
  something isnt factually and literally true, it
  isnt true. Secular literalism and Christian
  literalism share this in common.
• 4. Whether or not Jesus thought he was the
  messiah, he is the messiah. That is, his
  messianic status and the truth of the exalted
  metaphors do not depend upon whether Jesus
  thought of himself in those terms. Whether any
  of them go back to Jesus or not, they are the
  communitys testimony to what Jesus had become in
  their life together.

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Marcus Borg

• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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What shaped Jesus?

• Religious Experience - as a Jewish mystic Jesus
  experience of God was the source of his abilities
  throughout the course of his ministry.
• Traditions of Judaism - Jesus was a deeply Jewish
  figure shaped by the traditions of Israel. He
  was a highly motivated Jewish peasant who was
  literate in the central stories of the Hebrew
  Bible and Jewish festivals.
• 3. Experience of Injustice - Such a passion
  typically arises from the observation or
  experience of injustice firsthand. Jesus was
  from a marginalized social class in a
  marginalized village in Galilee, an area
  undergoing rapid social change and social
  dislocation in his time.

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person - Jewish mystic means Jesus was
  one for whom God was an experiential reality. He
  was one of those people for whom the sacred was a
  firsthand religious experience rather than a
  second hand belief.
• This knowing was not just strong feelings of joy
  or awe or wonder. Mystics are strongly
  convinced that they know something they didnt
  know before and are therefore transformed by
  these experiences. God is therefore not out
  there but rather right here (panentheism vs.
  classical theism).
• 2. Healer
• 3. Wisdom Teacher
• 4. Social Prophet
• 5. Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer - Jesus was a paranormal healer meaning
  unusual, alongside the normal, or beyond the
  ordinary. The word names a phenomenon, but it
  implies nothing about an explanation. In
  particular, it enables me to affirm the
  phenomenon of Jesus as healer without accepting
  two common explanations healings as miracles
  from a God out there, or psychosomatic
  healings. I use the phrase paranormal healings.
  Interventions, no. Marvels, yes. Inexplicable
  and remarkable things do happen, involving
  processes that we do not understand.
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer -
• Healings and exorcisms of Jesus are associated
  with the coming of the Kingdom of God and a time
  of deliverance. If it is by the Spirit of God
  that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God
  has come upon you. (Q)
• Healings have had a programmatic significance
  for Jesus. Jesus healing activity flowed out of
  and affirmed the immediacy of access to God.
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher - Jesus was not a conventional
  wisdom teacher.
• New way of seeing - Jesus invited his hearers to
  see God, themselves, and life differently.
• New way of centering - Rather than centering
  their lives around family, wealth, honor and
  religious practice, Jesus invited his followers
  to center their lives in God himself.
• New way of living - Jesus invited his hearers to
  a new ethic and social vision at which compassion
  is at the center.
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher - I see Jesus as inviting his
  hearers to a way of being in relationship to God
  that was not dependent upon convention or
  institutions. Though we need not think he was
  intrinsically opposed to both, he was critical of
  the way they functioned in his day, especially
  among the peasant and marginalized classes.
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• 2. Healer
• 3. Wisdom Teacher
• 4. Social Prophet - Jesus was a God-intoxicated
  advocate of social justice against
• Politics of oppression. The societies were
  hierarchical and patriarchal. They were ruled by
  a king and a traditional aristocracyordinary
  people had no voice.
• Economic exploitation. The agricultural
  production of peasants was the primary source of
  wealth (2/3 of the wealth generated went to the
  wealthy).
• Religion of legitimation. The social order is
  structured in such a way that it will reflect the
  will of God.
• 5. Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• 2. Healer
• 3. Wisdom Teacher
• 4. Social Prophet - I am convinced that it was
  Jesus activity as a social prophet that
  accounted for his execution. According to the
  synoptic gospels, his prophetic act of
  overturning the tables of the moneychangers in
  the temple court was the trigger for his arrest.
  His prophetic vocation was that important to
  him.
• 5. Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder - Jesus was a movement
  initiator, to a large extent because of the
  combination of all of the above His healings
  attracted attention, his wisdom teaching spoke of
  another way that was attractive to the
  marginalized, his social prophecy indicted an
  oppressive and exploitative domination system
  One of the most striking features was Jesus
  inclusive meal practice. The meals of Jesus,
  ancestors of the Christian Eucharist, embodied
  his alternative social vision.

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• Jesus was a Jewish mystic
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder
• Who later became the Christian Messiah.

Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God. I
do not see the phrase kingdom of God as central
to Jesus. I see it as a metaphor or symbol with
a range of meanings rather than the concept with
a single meaning. In the message and activity of
Jesus, its meanings include the following
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• Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God
• Spirit Person
• Healer - In the context of Jesus activity as a
  healer and exorcist, it can refer to the power of
  God. The casting out of demons is the coming of
  the Kingdom of God.
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher - In the context of Jesus wisdom
  teaching, it can refer to the presence of God as
  well as to life under the lordship of God. The
  first is suggested by sayings like The Kingdom
  of God is among you and The Kingdom of God is
  spread out upon the earth, only people do not see
  it. I see these as reflecting the altered
  perception of a mystic and teacher of an
  enlightenment wisdom for those who have eyes to
  see, the kingdom (presence) of God is all around
  us. The second is suggested by the radical
  re-centering that is at the heart of the way of
  Jesus there is life in the world of conventional
  wisdom, and there is life under the lordship of
  God. The later is the path of liberation and
  entry into a new way of being.
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet - In the context of Jesus as a
  social prophet, the emphasis is upon kingdom of
  God as a social vision. Here it is a political
  metaphor, and the contrast is to other kingdoms
  the kingdom of Herod, the kingdom of Caesar, and
  so forth. It is what life would be like on earth
  if God were king, and Herod and Caesar were not.
  It would be a world of social justice, where the
  poor are fortunate and the hungry filled.
• Movement Founder

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• Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God
• Spirit Person
• Healer
• Wisdom Teacher
• Social Prophet
• Movement Founder

It can perhaps refer to the community of those
living under the kingship of God. That is a
likely meaning of those sayings that refer to
entering or being in or out of the kingdom
of God. Though it does not often or primarily
have this sense, it can refer to the final or
eternal kingdom in which people from east and
west banquet with long-dead figures from the past.
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Conclusion
As a Jewish mystic, what did Jesus know? He knew
hot to heal. He knew how to create memorable
sayings and stories he had a metaphoric mind.
He knew that God was accessible to the
marginalized because he was from the marginalized
himself. He knew that tradition and convention
were not sacred in themselves but, at best,
pointers to and mediators of the sacred and, at
worst, a snare. He knew an oppressive and
exploitative social order that legitimated itself
in the name of God, and he knew this was not
Gods will. And he knew all of this most
foundationally because he knew God.
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Next Week, January 11Jaime Clark-SolesThe John,
Jesus History ProjectFollowed by our
luncheonBeginning January 18Resume series on
historical JesusWith Jesus as Teacher
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Hymn 536 Precious Name
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