Jesus and his stories

As I’m trying to make my series on the historical Jesus a reality, it might be a good idea to say something of why I became to intrigued with the human Jesus and historical studies on this person. I illustrate this with some references to Jesus’s parables, since that’s what I’m currently preaching from.

It all started way back in 2005. I was buying about 60 books from a pastor who went out of ministry. Now, I must admit, most of the books was a waste, I’ve never used them, and for a lot of them I am becoming more and more convinced that i never will (so if you are interested in Dutch Reformed theology, let me know, I have a lot of Berkhouwer and Bavinck), but one little book changed my life. It was called Jesus and the Revolutionaries by Oscar Cullman. This is the same Oscar Cullman that David Bosch later studied under, and the argument in the little book was used extensively by Bosch. What Cullman argued for was that there was a lot of correlation between Jesus and the zealots, but that, although some might have thought so, Jesus was definitely not a zealot. He opened up a world for me! In this world, understanding the world of Jesus, a world which the authors of the gospels took for granted, brought Jesus to life!

Suddenly I felt completely different about historical criticism, because I found Jesus in a new and very real way through the help of this tool. It took another 2 years before I got introduced to the Quest for the Historical Jesus, started thinking about the possibilities of a low Christology, and another to coem round to the work of Bosch and making Jesus’s alternative way part of my everyday thinking as well as professional theology.

So, when I start preaching about the parables of Jesus, it’s to the historical Jesus researchers that I turn, and I discover Jesus anew time and again. Last week I was preaching about the parable of the sower who sowed in all the different places. Have you ever thought that the guy must have been stupid? I mean, why throw seed on the road? As a child I thought that must have been the way they sowed in those days, and I think some preachers helped that view along. But understanding the world in which Jesus lived yourealize this can’t be, since seed was a scarcity! Read this together with some of the other parables about seed, and you realize that Jesus consider himself to be the sower, and sowing means preaching. But  he is not the stupid sower that randomly throws around seed and most of it goes to waste, Jesus is the sower who, contrary to farmers of his time, sows everywhere! Everywhere, not just on the fertile ground, and it must have been intentional! We had a large paper where the youth could write and paint interpretations of the passage before the sermon started, in a time of worship, and one of the people wrote this questions about why the guy didn’t just prepare a field. So I’m not the only one asking questions.

Another one: I’ve always been bothered about the fact that Jesus use these dishonest people in his stories? The kingdom is like a treasure buried in the field, and this guy finds it, and in stead of doing the Christian thing and telling the owner about the fact that he actually has a treasure, he then hides it and buys the land. But how could Jesus compare the kingdom to being dishonest? But reading Buttrick it opens up, because the laws of land said that should it come out that he found treasure in the land he bought, the treasure must go to the original owner.

Somethings was always wrong. If the guy had bought the land after selling everything, and had the treasure, what would he have done with it? He couldn’t quite tell anyone about it, or they would have known. So, he would have lost everything!!! The message? We always had it as: Do everything to get the kingdom. But now I would say: The kingdom can’t be bought, if you try it, you’ll gain nothing, no, rather the kingdom is sown into your life, the kingdom must be lived, it is a treasure, but not a treasure that you can gain for yourself!

Jesus is still talking about dishonest rascals, but it makes sense now. That’s largely why I enjoy historical Jesus literature: Because it brings Jesus to life in a way that makes much more sense to me…

The intenet monk prophesy

Reading internetmonk’s prediction on the evangelical collapse. The analysis (part 1) I think has some very important points, like evangelicalisms mistake to identify themselves with political conservatism, but I always doubt predictions (part 2) about the future of the church, they have a way of being wrong (remember Bonhoeffers prediction about the end of religion?). Also, he didn’t mention anything conserning Islam, which many futurologists believe will have an important role to play in the future, or what about Eastern religions?

Anyhow, he’s thoughts on the emerging church:

I believe the emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision. I expect to continue hearing emerging leaders, seeing emerging conferences and receiving emerging books. I don’t believe this movement, however, is going to have much influence at all within future evangelicalism. What we’ve seen this year with Tony Jones seems to me to be indicative of the direction of the emerging church.

Bill Kinnon thinks he’s correct, and I think I agree. Yet still I choose to identify with this conversation, for now at least. Why? Well, for one, I believe it was Tom Sine who wrote in The New Conspirators that monastic movements has always existed in history, always been a minority, but always had an exceptionally large influence on the world. In the South African conversation I believe that neo-monasticism is part of what we call emerging, and whether it is or isn’t, the hope is always there that you will have minority groups within Christianity that plays an exceptionally large role in history. The emerging conversation has proven to be this over the last 10 years, with really just a few people truly identifying with the conversation, and even less congregations selling out to the conversation, but the conversation has had a truly exceptional influence, has captured the imagination of Christians worldwide, and given hope to many who have lost hope, many who won’t identify themselves as emerging.

Me… well, I’ve never found myself so comfortable in any conversation than in the emerging conversation, especially those parts that talked above average about a way of life, that talked more theology than many would consider to be healthy, that liked the mystics, and practiced a way of life which brought hope to a world, so why leave?

the mugging

Just found a twitter message from Jake Belder sent 12 days ago which reminded me about “the mugging”. So, here’s the official eye-witness release, but first, some background:

A mugging: Similar to being pick-pocketed in that you also loose the contents of your pockets, especially cellphone and money, with the exception that it’s not very good pickpocketers, so they need to ask you for the contents. Since the owner of the content is usually not very keen on handing it over, some form of persuasion is usually used, in most cases this being a knife, although instances of other weapons have also been documented.

South Africa: Well, let’s just say that police are swamped, and we have a lot of muggings, and to get hold of the muggers (similar to a bugger) is quite difficult.

theology: the question I’m wrestling with: How do I think theologically about the mugging?

Now, the story:

Was fixing my info at the department water and electricity in the inner city of Pretoria, stopped in Du Toit street. I had this two car guards who offered to watch my car, and to put money into the parking meter should the traffic cop come around (I didn’t have any coins with me, forgot about the fact that the inner city has parking meters). I told them to leave it, and went my way. 15 Minutes later I was back, and was told that they had to put in R2 for parking, because the traffic officer was coming to check the cars. Knowing hoe this works I went to the meter, and told him that it wasn’t true, since the meter didn’t show anything. I got into the car, and on closing my door, realised that I was in trouble…

The door wouldn’t close, the two guys was keeping it open, and putting a knife against me, asking for wallet and cellphone. I’ve decided long ago that if ever I get into this situation, I’ll simply hand it over, it’s not worth playing with your life and health. They took my phone and cash, threw back the wallet and ID, and told me to drive. All this happened in broad daylight, in a busy street, but this simply stood over the car door, and nobody noticed, or did anything. So I drove.

The story could continue with my experience of the South African Police Service, which was both positive and negative, but I’d rather stop the story here to do something else. How do we reflect theologically on this? How do we react as Christians to this? This is a few of my thoughts.

• Violence can never acceptable. I find myself comfortable with the theology of David Bosch, talking about the church as an alternative community, standing in the tradition of third way theologies. What these kids did was wrong, and should be fought, but in an alternative community kind of way.
• But that’s just it, this was kids. About 17 years of age. Obviously scared of what they were doing. They grew up in a world condoning violence, in our movies, where the violent is many times the hero, in our societies, where violence is acceptable, in South Africa, where we have become quite desensitized to violent crimes.
• They are part of an oppressed system, which is popping out in ways where the oppressed (read, the poor) are oppressing (trough violent behavior) the oppressor (read, those who keep the system which keep the poor poor in place). Did I deserve what happened? Maybe, maybe not. But I gain from the system which keep the poor poor, even though I try to fight it. I can’t help but also symbolize this.
• Still violence is wrong, and should be fought. Still other grew up in similar circumstances and chose a different path.
• So what do we do? We change the world for kids who grow up, we make it a place that doesn’t cultivate kids like these.

Oh, and we remember that it’s not a race issue! No matter what they thought when mugging a white man, I can’t blame it on blame it on black people as a group.

That is some random thoughts. I realised that we still have a lot of thinking to do regarding violence.

I’ve been on blogging holiday

I’t been more than two months since my last post. I’ve been on blogging holiday. First down to Cape Town, then moving house, then getting married, then honeymoon, setting up the house again, and finally getting my new Internet connection today! So now I’m back! I plan on finishing the series on the historical Jesus started here. I now live in community with 6 other people and in this practical way try to find a more sustainable lifestyle, I might write about this. Who knows where the year will lead us. But more again from tomorrow.