|
A charismatic movement: The early Jesus movement was grounded in the Spirit. It came into existence in part because of the crisis faced by Judaism due to the Roman occupation and partly because of the Spirit-filled experience of its founder. However, the power of the Spirit was present in some of its followers--both Peter and Paul being examples.
The ethos of the Jesus movement: This movement had a different vision for Israel than was present among practicing Jews such as the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the priests of Jesus' time. Jesus expressed this difference as an imitatio dei, or "imitation of God." But the content of Jesus' imitatio dei differed--whereas first-century Judaism spoke primarily of the holiness of God, Jesus spoke primarily of the compassion of God.
Jesus repeatedly emphasized the compassion of God. The father of the prodigal son "had compassion;" the good Samaritan was the one who "showed compassion;" the unmerciful servant did not act in accord with the compassion that had been shown to him by his master; the tax collector in the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee appealed to the compassion of God. Aspects of Jesus' healing ministry point to the same quality--consistently the motivation was compassion. Moreover, Jesus sometimes healed on the Sabbath, a practice that typically generated criticism. Within Judaism, the Sabbath was "holy" and permitted healing only when there was danger to life. But for Jesus, even when life-threatening conditions were not involved, healings--the work of the compassionate Spirit--took precedence over the demands for holiness. (TUB 148: 7.2; 164: 3)
The substitution of compassion for holiness is strikingly clear in a passage from Luke 6:36 in which Jesus says, "Be compassionate, even as your Father is compassionate," Just as God is compassionate so people who are faithful to God, who are children of God, are to be compassionate. Just as God is moved by and feels with "the least of these" so the Jesus movement was to participate in the pathos of God. Indeed the pathos of God as compassion was to be the ethos of the Jesus movement--and, ideally, of Israel.
The ethos of compassion profoundly affected the shape of the Jesus movement, both internally and its relationship to the world. The shape of the alternative community was visible in the constituency of its membership which stood in sharp contrast to the rigid social boundaries of the Jewish social world; boundaries between righteous and outcast, men and women, rich and poor, Jew and gentile. These boundaries, established by the politics of holiness and embodied in the culture as a whole, were negated by the Jesus movement. The negation pointed to a much more inclusive understanding of the community of Israel. (TUB 169:1)
Banqueting with Outcasts
At the center of the worship life of the Christian church stands a meal, known as the Lord's Supper, that is manifestly a post-Easter development. Yet it has its roots in the ministry of Jesus.
Many texts refer to meals which provoked strong criticism from Jesus' opponents. "Look--he eats with tax collectors and sinners;" or "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them;" and "look at him! a glutton and a drinker, a friend of tax gatherers and sinners."
As used by his opponents, the term "sinner" referred to a specific social group, the "outcasts," consisting of the chronically non-observant and including many of the poor. Eating with such outcasts would have shattered the social world which had pronounced them unacceptable.
For a charismatic person to say, with both his teaching and behavior, that the outcasts were accepted by God was to challenge the central ordering principle of the Jewish social world--the division between purity and impurity, holy and not-holy, righteous and wicked. The table fellowship of Jesus called into question the Jewish concept of holiness as the cultural dynamic of their society.
What was at stake, from the stand point of Jesus' opponents was the survival of the people of God. Indeed, some scholars have argued that Jesus' acceptance of outcasts was the primary source of the hostility which Jesus' ministry generated.
Thus, the simple act of sharing a meal had exceptional significance in the social world of Jesus. It was seen as a challenge to the whole Jewish concept of holiness as derived from the Law and the Torah that describes Israel as an exclusive community--rather than Jesus' vision of an Israel that that was all-inclusive and one which reflected the compassion of God. (TUB 147:5.10; 138:3; 147:5; 167:1; etc)
From The Urantia Book: "to you who stand about criticizing me in your hearts because I have come here to make merry with these friends, let me say that I have come to proclaim joy to the socially downtrodden and spiritual liberty to the moral captives. Need I remind you that they who are whole need not a physician, but rather those who are sick? I have come, not to call the righteous, but sinners."
|
|
