The world through the eyes of Jesus

A man named Luke set out to tell the story of Jesus. He is the only one of the Jesus storytellers who wrote in his own name. He admits that he was an eye witness to nothing. He wrote about 40 to 50 years after the death of Jesus. He set out to collect the stories about Jesus and to organize them in a coherent narrative. He worked with fragments of earlier writings and collected oral traditions. If there were blanks in the story, he did not hesitate to fill them with creative writing. What Luke wrote is not history, but it is the best snap shot of Jesus that we have.

In the fourth chapter he sets the stage for the entire story. According to Luke, Jesus went to the regular synagogue meeting in his home village of Nazareth. He took his turn at reading. He read from the Isaiah scroll.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

After his short proclamation, a discussion arose about what he said. The leaders of the gathered faithful were so enraged that they ran him out of town. Luke thus sets the backdrop of the entire career of Jesus as a teacher/prophet.

In the search for an understanding of the Jesus of history, scholarship has taken a new turn in the last 30 years. Before that, the search for the Jesus of history has been rooted in ever more intense study of the Bible narratives. The most recent search for the Jesus of history has been interdisciplinary and has involved social scientists of every kind. A broad range of scholars have reconstructed life in small towns in Northern Palestine early in the first century C.E. Nazareth was such a town. The towns to which Jesus traveled and in which he taught were such towns.

Because of this new wave of scholarship, we have a much clearer understanding of the poor, the prisoners, the oppressed, and the blind of whom Jesus spoke. We now have an all too clear understanding of how they became who they were, how they fit into the social structure and the tragedy of their suffering. To summarize, they were the scum of the earth, and the way they got into their misery was seen as their own fault.

I do not know why Jesus became the champion of the underclasses of first century Palestine, but he did. The tools he used to communicate compassion were storytelling and an insightful reading of the Jewish scriptures. His teaching mission drew large crowds of enthusiastic poor people, who had lots of needs. He gave them encouragement and hope. Jesus taught that God’s kingdom was made up of such people. Community people, who were more respectable, did not like what they were hearing.

According to the Luke version of the Jesus story, Jesus made a fatal move when he took his mission to Jerusalem, about 70 miles south of Nazareth. He created a fuss by a clownish entry to the city riding a donkey. He then went to the temple and made a big scene. That was the last straw. Those in power killed him by hanging him on a cross. Usually those killed on a cross were left to be eaten by birds and stray dogs. A small group of poor women hung around to protect the body of Jesus until a man of integrity claimed the body and put it in a grave.

In our own day, churches and church people, all too often, are respected people of the community, far removed from the poor and disenfranchised. They are our reliable citizens who keep life orderly. Our communities have a full quota of the underclass, the homeless, the high school dropouts, and the drug users. We keep our jails full of poor people, and take pride in building more prisons. The people to whom Jesus pledged his life, are unknown strangers to the typical folk who fill our churches.

In recent years in America, the poor have become poorer, and the rich have become richer. In November, 2008, the American people elected a new president. Then candidate Obama made a lot of promises, especially to the poor and disenfranchised. He is now President Obama and faces the challenge of doing what he promised. I remember his promises of health care for all and education for all. Were we listening when he said in his inaugural address: “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside of you to make your farms flourish and to make clean waters flow: to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.” His stated vision goes beyond America; it goes to the whole world. For me it was reminiscent of the Jesus speech at synagogue in Nazareth.

Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, is one of my favorite people. He is a devout Evangelical Christian with a keen conscience. He has called and is organizing Mobilization to End Poverty, a large conference to help our nation face the challenge of poverty. The gathering will be held in Washington, D.C., April 26-29. The mission is very clear. Keep pressure on President Obama and the U.S. Congress to fulfill campaign promises.

I hope the gathering in Washington D.C., is very large and very effective. I hope even more, that there will be a revival of conscience among religious people, who will look not to their own interests but to the interests of the whole world.

And Jesus said, “I have come to bring good news to the poor.”

The Rev. Howard Bess is an American Baptist minister living in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.