My God! My God! Why have they Domesticated me!
August 15, 2006 · Print This Article
Below is my Bible rant from the August Upper Room. It was simply left on tabes to spark conversations in the space with the video loops running.
Age’s Bible Rant – My God! My God! Why have they domesticated me!
Sometimes you need to escalate conflict to bring about justice:
The domestication and the subtle cultural captivity of the teachings of Jesus often annoys me (especially when I discover that I have been part of that process)
One of my favourites is how we use the saying ‘go the extra mile and turn the other cheek. Just the other day I saw an add in a health food shop window - A woman jogging with the words “Go the extra mile!” As if Jesus was talking about jogging. And I’m sure we all have heard Christians and conservative politicians time and time again say, “We should turn the other cheek!” Of course what they mean is “don’t rock the boat, just be nice and let the important people do and decide what is right.” And so in the spirit of Jesus I would like to say “F*** off! And use someone else’s teachings to support the status co and suppress civil disturbances”
The turn the other cheek passage and go the extra mile do not tell us to sit back passively in the face of violence or to up hold a good work ethic to impress the boss for that raise or even to jog to get fit.
Look it up :Mt 5:38-45
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Firstly in this passage the followers are not doing the striking, compelling the mile or suing the clothes of others. It is written in solidarity with those at the receiving end.
When someone strikes you on the right cheek turn the left – Turn the left also. To be struck on the right cheek you either have to be backhanded or hit with the Middle Eastern “poo” hand – the left. The call to turn the left cheek is a resistance that escalated the conflict to regain humanity. The challenge of the left cheek, the second blow, reveals the less than equal status that the striker holds them in. It says treat me as your equal or at least as a human being. What’s the worst that could happen? You get bashed but show up the oppressor’s attitudes and take back your human dignity non-violently.
The Roman Soldiers could ‘compel’ those under its power to carry their gear for one mile no more. The idea being that the soldiers could go further and those under its power had to live with being their donkeys. A Jesus teaching takes the donkey status of people and forces the Roman to see them as people even a threat. What happens when the peasant says, “no I will keep carrying the weapons and gear beyond this marker” “It’s too heavy for you”??? The Soldier has to assess if this is a trap and will he get into trouble. Thoughts like: ‘Is that peasant is running off with my weapons – who is around the corner waiting – what if my commander hears I have broken the law by compelling a second mile?’ The soldier would chase after his gear and take it back . If everyone took Jesus advice they would think twice about compelling the first mile.
The idea that you should give your undies also to one suing you shames the one taking all you had. In Hebrew culture the one looking on the naked person is shamed. Remember Noah after he got drunk and passed out nude? The son that looked and laughed was punished and the others walked backwards to cover his nakedness. A nude person walking through Jerusalem because the rich guy took all he had – shames the rich man and show his practises to the world. The only way to regain his honour would be to chase and restore the naked man.
Questions to ponder
Where do you see people being treated less than human and in need of their honour/dignity/humanity returned to them?
Who is perceiving them and keeping them as less than image bearers of God / people?
Which non-violent Jesus strategy may give us a way to regain our humanity?
When did we last domesticate Jesus to fit our image of what he should be?
Jim Wallis said that ‘we human beings have the tendency to reduce the gospel to whatever we are most into at the time’. Be it community development, salvation by grace, justice, evangelism, whatever. We cut off the arms and legs of Christ and debilitate the beauty of the whole.
In ‘domestication’ (if I am understanding you correctly Age) it seems that we go further and aside from cutting off the bits we aren’t into, prune and contort the bits we like best to fit out cultural position.
I am guilty of domesticating Christ so that he fits very effectively in my Brunswick-vegetarian-share-house and conforms nicely to the left wing agenda as manifest in the stickers on the fridge.
A Christ who despairs in solidarity with the suffering (mostly outside the perimeters of the church) but offers little in the way of a miracle or a prayer or grace or hope.
The Christ I house trained for so many years I fear is created in the image of someone who is scared of being viewed as a ‘Pentecostal,’ ‘right wing evangelical,’ ‘bible belt’ or even ‘Christian.’ Scared too of being perceived as an unapologetic offered of good news……
Funny to think (in naivety and prehaps blatant narrow-mindedness) that the counter cultural can’t also ‘hold in cultural captivity’ the message of Christ.
But thankfully while Christ’s message can be distorted and misrepresented, the living Christ can and will always break through to reveal the bigger picture. I think in the unfolding of the gospel, the fullness of the message is, for me, most exquisite and at the same time most terrifying.
I don’t know Age, that’s what I’m thinking today anyway. Cars
I guess personally I am amazed that Jesus has walked patiently with me in all my distorted understandings of Him. (even my current distortion)
Or maybe I was too culturally captive or hard of heart to hear him scream as I made his words affirm my culture of security and consumer idols. I suspect at times he is not so much walking ‘with me’ as ’slightly associated with me’. Like an embarrassed teen shopping with mum in the mall. My goal and challenge has been to ‘follow him’ where he goes and to try to not drag him ‘with me’ as I go on my agenda.
Whatever the truth I feel glad to have Jesus as my guide/guru even when communication is stuffed up and we speak different languages. The reality of my spirituality is that I have and do feel close to God in my distorted understanding of God.
I reduced the gospel into something that I could honestly say I could understand - which was quite a reduction as it turns out. That is, the inspirational life of Jesus.
Nothing we do, say, or think, changes the truth about who Christ is (or was).
You’re not too culturally captive, or hard of heart Age… he doesn’t scream - at least, in my experience. He does serve as an example though, and this example will be with you regardless of anything else that’s going on, what you believe, what you think you believe, what other people think you believe - or stand for - or what earthly worries consume you.
Reduction is a wonderful thing. It’s true in cooking, and it’s true for us spiritually!
mmm cooking with Jesus - simmer and reduce until the truth appears.
Sounds tasty.
I like Cars thought about the real Jesus breaking through our misrepresentations.
The trick in reducing Jesus to the inspirational life is what informs us about this life? It is at this point that we begin creating Jesus in our image. Or in the image of the best we can hope for in our God or in an inspirational life. Of course we don’t really have any other way to start. We must start within our frame of understanding and experience.
Thankfully God breaks in. But we still understand him breaking in from our frame or some choose to submit their frame to the authority of the Bible. Of course this choice to grant that authority and how it is interpreted is a frame too. It is obvious from the ‘bible rant’ that I value the biblical text to help me see clearer and confront my cultural captivity I also see it as a medium for Jesus to reveal himself / break in. I recognise this as my frame of understanding - I privilege it to help me understand the heart/mind of God for humanity expressed best in the inspirational life of Jesus.
All these circles are making me dizzy.
So what are we left to ponder…. an inspirational life, a common humanity, good will, an ancient text and luckily one external influence a God that breaks in.
When you look at it that way, you’ll never get to the bottom of it! It’s no wonder you’re dizzy! The irony is, that everybody who insists that Jesus is somehow a singular or discrete truth, spend their time forever in search of it. If you spend too much time beating your egg whites, they dry out, lose their magic, and they make terrible meringue!
We’re informed by so many things, the most powerful of which is our experience, and our relationship with each other, and the interaction of our emotions and all our faculties with the world. I feel that it’s not so much about God breaking in, or about establishing the “truth” of Jesus. It’s about about context, a context of each other, and goodness, breaking out.
Then again, you know my views on slow cooking…
I guess it’s good that everybody has a hankering for different things. A nice hearty, slow cooked, meal.
;-D
(sorry … I’ll stop with the food analogies now …)
I guess what I am thinking about cultural captivity is that because our experience and the context of that experience is so ‘over spiced’ by principalities / powers and the evangelism of consumerism - we make our spirituality and practise taste like the ’strongest spice’.
When God/goodness to breaks in or out depending on your view - what is good/god is ‘garliced’ to death. In my opinion this happens inside and out of Christianity on the left and the right. So overwhelming is the spice of security and self.
In the words of a mildly popular 1st century cooking show host ‘beware the yeast of the Pharisees’ and “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
It is the reality of God not propositional “truths” about god that I seek to be informed by. This is why I find it important to know Jesus as ‘person of truth’ and have an awareness of the spices in the pot that seek to “flavour our saviour”. (Now I am going too far)
On the side: This week I was listening to the bible on CD and the intro to Mark that I have always skipped over played and I laughed. The reader said that it was written to affirm/ proclaim the faith and truth of Jesus life death and resurrection. I wondered if she realised that there is no real resurrection story in Mark. Sure the body is gone and that left the disciples… “affirmed” no “afraid”.
[...] This came via CPT. A cool example of what Jesus was talking about and I had a rant about in Matthew 5:38-45 AT-TUWANI: Airport anecdote by Rich Meyer [...]