First Congregational United of Christ – Eugene, Oregon

WHO WAS THAT GUY? A Youth/Adult Study Based on the Book “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” by Marcus J. Borg

8 “Jesus as Movement Founder”

People commonly think of Jesus as the founder of , but that is not historically true. Jesus’s concern was the renewal of Israel. Toward that end, he created a renewal movement within Israel whose purpose was the transformation of the Jewish social world. The fact that he did not intend to create a new religion does not mean that Christianity is a mistake. Rather, Christianity as a religion separate from Judaism came into being partly as a result of the failure of the Jesus movement to transform the Jewish social world and largely because of its own eventual success as a movement within the Gentile world beyond Palestine. There it quickly became a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, and the more Gentiles it attracted, the more distinct from Judaism it became. Thus, before the end of the first century, Christianity had in effect become a “new” religion separate from Judaism. Jesus’s concern with Israel is indicated by his choice of twelve followers to be his disciples. “Twelve” is the number of tribes of Israel, descended from the twelve sons of Jacob, and represents the “new” or “true” Israel. Moreover, the twelve chosen by Jesus were given a mission, and their mission was exclusively to Israel: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:5-6). The mission to the Gentiles only began after Easter when the risen Christ commissioned them to “go into all the world.” Within Judaism, the focus was on holiness. Within the Jesus movement, it was on compassion. Just as the ethos of holiness had led to a politics of holiness with rigid social boundaries of exclusion within Judaism, so the ethos of compassion was meant to lead to a politics of compassion and inclusion within the Jesus movement and, ideally, in all of Israel. The movement was centered on Jesus so that wherever Jesus was, there was the movement. When Jesus moved, so did the movement. The majority of those who sympathized with his cause probably remained in their home communities while those who accompanied him on the road included the rich and the poor, the righteous and the outcasts, both men and women. It was a spirit-driven movement that came into existence in part because of the crisis facing Judaism, but also because of the Spirit-filled experience of its founder. After Jesus’ death, the early Christian communities continued to be Spirit- filled and Spirit-led. The Book of Acts reports numerous paranormal experiences, including the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost and healings and visions throughout. Paul’s letters indicate that the “gifts of the Spirit” were known in his churches as well. Throughout the centuries, since the time of Jesus, a meal has stood at the center of the church’s worship life, variously known as the Lord’s Supper, communion, the eucharist, or the mass. As a sacrament of the church which presuppose the death and , it is clearly a post-Easter development. Yet it has its roots in the . First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon

Eating together, or “table fellowship,” was one of the central characteristics of his ministry. It was also one of the activities that provoked regular and strong criticism, consistently the same: “So—he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners”; “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner”; “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”; “Look at him! A glutton and a drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Since the term “sinner” had not yet been universalized and theologized, it referred instead to a specific social group known as “outcasts.” It identified the chronically non-observant, and included many of the poor, thus the numerous references to “sinners.” The table fellowship of Jesus was not only about eating together; it called into question the politics of holiness as the cultural dynamic of the society. What was at stake, from the standpoint of Jesus’ critics, was the survival of the people of God. “Sinners” were those whose nonobservance threatened the survival of the group, tax collectors were even worse, for they were collaborators with the Gentile oppressors. Thus the simple act of sharing a meal had exceptional religious and social significance in the social world of Jesus. It became a vehicle of social and cultural protest, challenging the ethos and politics of holiness, even as it also painted a different picture of what Israel was to be, an inclusive community reflecting the compassion of God. Another remarkable feature of Jesus’ ministry was his relationship to women. These boundaries reflected a perennial characteristic of paternalistic cultures. Conventional wisdom is typically male-dominated. Except among the poorer classes, men and women were rigidly separated in public life. Women were not to talk to men outside of their families. Similarly, a respectable Jewish man (and especially a religious teacher) was not to talk much with women. Against this background, Jesus’ behavior was extraordinary. The sight of a sexually mixed group traveling with a Jewish holy man must have been provocative. This radically transformed attitude toward women continued in the early church for the first several decades, according to both Acts and the letters of Paul, the latter’s own position being consistent with the radicalism of the Jesus movement as reflected in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Another way that Jesus’ social world was addressed by his politics of compassion was in reference to the poor. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry was announced with the words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” According to Luke, “the poor” were those who were economically poor, and Jesus’ attitude toward them challenged the conventional wisdom that said they had not lived right and thus were “unworthy” children of Abraham. By accepting the poor, Jesus as one in touch with the Spirit of God would have enabled the poor to see themselves differently. It is the same dynamic operative in his banqueting with outcasts. In such ways did the Jesus movement shatter the norms of the Jewish social world. The imitation dei (imitation of God) as compassion transcended the cultural distinction between Jew and Roman, righteous and outcast, men and women, rich and poor. Because Jesus saw God as compassionate, the “children of God” could and did embrace those whom the politics of holiness excluded, and a new way of seeing and being emerged which has sought to guide the lives of Christians ever since—with varying degrees of success.

Next Week A New Series on “The Last Week of Jesus’ Life”: